The Age of Sail was the Age of Gun Powder. [I recommend the game Wooden Ships and Iron Men, circa 1979.] Gun powder weapons made the pure sailing ship into a floating battery that could defend against galleys in coastal waters. At the onset of the Age of Sail, Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella to part with three ships. The Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were crewed with criminals released from prisons. This was a military force. Most such military forces of the age were staffed with “pressed” men, conscripts, forced to serve. This continued through my childhood and the Vietnam War. The U.S. Army was staffed be some volunteers, but mostly by “conscripts.” These conscripts were mostly lower class men. Their officers, were either professionals or volunteers of the educated class. Across time their has been little variation in the practice of command and control:
-Upper class Officers command,
-Junior officers of the aspirational class, lead
-NCOs [Sergeants and corporals [1] who command,
-Soldiers.
It was axiomatic in the Age of Musketry, that the soldier must fear his sergeant more than the enemy and should admire the nearly insane bravery of the officer.
Throughout the era of muscle powered warfare, which in battle, overlaps the Gunpowder Era, those armies that had consistent success had higher proportions of volunteers. When such a low motivation army is stressed, it is likely to break. The ancients shaped the face of battle [2] most acutely when they named the servants of War [Ares] as Discord, Panic and Rout.
While numbers are important, quality of forces is paramount.
Each player arranges his force tokens and adds them up. The Fortunate Player might have 120 to the Unfortunate Player’s [hence referred to as the Initiating Player] force of 80.
The Initiating Player will chose first and make 4 selections from all or some of the four force pools according to the guidelines below. The initiating player chooses 4 units of any type. He must then assign one of these units as his Guard, his loyalists, fanatics, coconspirators. Thus he has more latitude in this phase, but, must choose for his #1 unit from only 4. The Fortunate Player may wait until he has made all of his selections, before assigning his guard, which is to place his quarter on or under the Unit Counter, which is the die or the domino.
Tokens go under the die or domino when the coin is larger than the unit counter.
In order to select a Unit Counter, one must have a token or coin available to serve as the social cohesion, the officers and the NCO cadre, in the case of a tribal unit, the chief or hetman and his clansmen.
…
The Bone Yard
The double blank domino is set aside as a movement gauge.
The bone yard is the unseen, face down mass of men and material.
These dominoes and dice are unit counters and are activated and brought into your army’s muster roll by assigning them a coin token.
The 6 remaining blank dominoes are placed faced down and washed as in the boneyard in dominoes. This is the battery yard, the force pool of available artillery. To select from the battery boneyard for artillery, one must have a nickle token available and assign it to the counter before it is flipped over and the counter revealed.
The remaining dominoes are placed in the battalion boneyard, face down and mixed up. Once the counter is revealed, the player assigns a token to it and places it in his muster roll [aside].
Round cornered die, represent units of horse and are not assigned values until they have been selected and a token assigned, like so:
The die is rolled according to the rank of the token…
-Quarter, [Guard, crusader orders]
1-4 = 5, 5-6 = 6
-Dime, [Elite/Volunteer, knights, Saphis]
1-3 = 5, 4-6 = 6
-Nickel, [Professional/Mercenary]
1-3 = 4, 4-5 = 5, 6 = 6
-Penny, [tribal, militia, irregular, cossacks]
the unit is valued at the number of the die roll.
…
Square dice represent companies of infantry. Values are assigned according to the same scheme for horse above.
-Quarter: guards, berserkers, fanatics
-Dime: grenadiers, volunteer, elite, Jannisaries
-Nickle: professional, veteran militia/conscript, tribal
-Penny: militia, conscript
…
Once the available dice and dominoes have been selected, excess counters may be set aside.
Unassigned Unit Counters
There are two options to make play more interesting.
Unassigned unit counters may be placed in locations on the map according to a card pull. One card is pulled for each of the four bone yards.
A Spade permits the Fortunate Player to select one unit [all dice units being rolled for a flat face value] from that pull for static duty.
Hearts go to the Unfortunate Player.
Diamonds go to the Fortunate Player.
Clubs go to the Unfortunate Player.
These units will placed on the map during the marshaling phase as garrisons, rebels or allies. Such units have no coin tokens and only defend and rout. Static units do not maneuver and attack.
…
Army Morale
Breaking the fighting spirit of the enemy force is the goal of pre-industrial warfare. Industrial and post-industrial warfare does share with primitive, stone age warfare, the goal of extermination, of simple killing, and combines this with attacking the Spirit and the Intelligence of the enemy. In ancient, medieval and early modern war, killing unto extermination was a goal, particularly in interfaith and interracial warfare. However, in the Age of Gunpowder, battles between same-race, same-faith forces, were mostly a matter of breaking the enemy fighting spirit. This was in part a legacy of medieval vassalage, the desire to enlist defeated combatants. [4]
A key aspect of classic musketry warfare, was that in most cases, the commanders and officers maintained closer class cohesion and empathy for each other, than they did for the men under their command. See the Journal of Ethan Allen’s Captivity for an explicit case.
The following will be repeated in Rout: Chapter 5., and is included here to inform the player as to the importance and nature of his Army Morale, or Breaking Point.
An army’s morale is determined by adding the nickles and dimes.
That value is the Breaking Point.
When the following results add up to that number, the army will break and play moves to the Rout Phase, where rout mechanics are explained.
Token eliminated +1 [3]
Company eliminated +2
Troop eliminated +3
Battery eliminated +4
Battalion eliminated +5
Guard counter eliminated + 10
Guard Token eliminated +15
The concept here is that morale is provided by the loyalists and professionals and most severely impacted by the loss of command confidence. [5]
Notes
-1. A corporal is a punisher, the whip hand man.
-2. Title of an excellent book by John Keegan, The Face of Battle.
-3. The shock of confidence to a mass of foot soldiers depends more on the numbers than the type of brother in arms deserting or slain, especially under the smoke shrouding the black powder battlefield. Squad level warfare is somewhat opposite. In terms of mass psychology, to see one’s social betters go down or flee, is no less shocking than to see one’s peers wiped out. The exception, of course, is the loss of the figure head, the flight of the leader [Darius at Issus and Arbela] or the breaking of the guard at [Waterloo.] The game squad leader provides an excellent study in the effect of leader loss on morale.
-4. Imperial militaries of most ages have employed vassal troops. Near the entire army of Xerxes were vassals, as was half of the Grande Arme of Napoleon, both vast forces marched to their doom and abandoned in enemy territory. In Ethen Allen’s Captivity journal, he discusses British officers enlisting his captive troops, as he had enlisted French troops serving the British in Canada. In WWII, there was one squad of Korean soldiers serving their Japanese masters. Captured by the Soviets, they were sent against the Germans, who captured and redeployed them to [Italy, I think] where they surrendered to Allied forces. Source, Black Nazis #2.
-5. The game Empires in Arms provides the best simulation of the dance of death and morale in the Age of Musketry.
