Valour & Fortitude: Thoughts and Impressions on the Road to Moscow

 

This week's 'Sunday Solo' game was mainly to dive deeper into the Valour & Fortitude rules. We've played these a few times at the club now, but you know how it is with big club games - its too easy to let others do the heavy lifting on the rules detail...A solo game is the best way to reinforce learning as you can't be lazy!

So I spent a minimum time on army lists and scenario. I've always been fascinated with the early aspects of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 - the vast empty tracts of land, the heat and dust, sightings of mysterious Cossacks in the distance, the ongoing attempts to out march and encircle the retreating Russians, the occasional desperate rear-guard action...which is essentially what the scenario was - scads of French with ample arty and cav, coming across a Russian rear guard road block.

I shot a video of the game as I was going - see above - and hopefully you can gain some idea of how the game played from that - essentially the French gave the Russian grand battery a respectful zone of avoidance and came in hard on both flanks, which, after doughty resistance, inevitably crumbled so that the main position also had to retire. Despite my blathering's below about 'Epic' scale, this game was played in what I now refer to as '15/18mm' scale, largely using AB miniatures castings.

What I'd like to share here are my impressions of Valour & Fortitude rules  after a couple of club games and this slow time deep dive...(for Napoleonic's - the ACW army lists have only just come out and I really hope to get into those before too long)

First I should come clean with my intended use for them, which differs from what they were designed for! The Perry brothers of 28mm fame asked Jervis Johnson to come up with a set of rules evolved from Black Powder for large games of 28mm figures which would fit on 4 sides of paper to reduce time taken in looking things up at big convention games. 

Refreshingly, the rules and scads of supporting material are available online from the Perry Miniatures website https://www.perry-miniatures.com/valour-fortitude/ and there is a friendly and active Facebook group dedicated to these rules, often with help and advice from the author himself! Valour & Fortitude - Gamer's Group

Whilst I am familiar with Black Powder, and used to play in 28mm, I am an enthusiastic adopter of Warlord Games' Epic scale, and plan to use this '13.5mm?' scale to lay on games which are, well, epic in scale! Black Powder does allow this, but for the games of the magnitude I enjoy it requires local rules and short cuts that can lead to dissention and frustration. Certainly there are always unintended consequences to fiddling with one or other aspect of a ruleset.

So what I'm hoping for is to be able to leverage the speed and ease of use of Valour & Fortitude to play a unfeasibly huge game of Waterloo for the 210 anniversary in 2025. Featuring every unit present, Anglo Allies, French, and Prussians too! But in Epic scale. If V&F plays even faster than Black Powder, then we shouldn't need to change any aspect of the rules, thus satisfying rules purists.

So how exactly does V&F work faster than the already 'beer and pretzels' Black Powder? I think there are two distinct aspects to this: the rules mechanisms and the morale aspect.

To take the rules mechanisms first, to anyone acquainted with Black Powder, most of the process will seem familiar - after the initial, and unfamiliar 'fate card' phase, at least! So instead of a Command phase, we have brigade activation tests, then shooting, then move/assault/rally etc. But the tests for shooting and assaults are all unopposed! So that is a big saving in time, and looking up modifiers, right away. The activation test is also much quicker than BP Command tests, as there is only one result - pass or fail.

The other aspect of V&F that may make it a better tool for mega-games are the two levels of morale test. The Valour test is akin to the Break test in Black Powder, although again much streamlined - a unit either passes, or fails and is thus routed off table. But there is a second, higher level morale test, the Fortitude test, which applies to entire Brigades and is also quick and straightforward to administer. But as a result, your Brigades can 'Waver', and thus rapidly lose units. Before long half your army may be streaming to the rear - all good for getting a result in a big game!

My main niggle with Black Powder has always been what I call the 'flank attack from the front' aspect of the front and side zones the rules specify. These make it possible, and some players actively seek, a situation whereby a defender 'sees' an attacking unit to its front, but technically in its 'flank' zone, and can do absolutely nothing in response but await a flank attack. Once experienced never forgotten - and I now know that the hard cover version of BP makes a poor Frisby!

One aspect of these V&F rules I found at odds with Black Powder and initially disliked was that Artillery have to shoot at the nearest target at long range, which can reduce the impact of massed or 'grand' batteries. However with this game that seemed to come out in the wash and I got over myself!

My only remaining niggle is that some key aspects of the rules, such as for cannister ammo, square formations and skirmishing, are only found in the army lists rather than the main body of the rules. This can be confusing at first. A cynic might think this was a cunning way to meet the original design criteria of no more than 4 sheets of text, but actually it makes the core rules at least as flexible chronologically as Black Powder. ACW and Franco-Prussian War variant Army Lists are already on the website, and I'm sure a SYW List is not too far off...

An aspect I have not covered are the Fate Phase, where a fate card is drawn and can influence your play in a variety of ways. There are 13 of these, tailored to each Army list. About half reflect that army's historical characteristics, the remainder more general acts of fate that might impact any army. Ordinary playing cards may be used or bespoke ones downloaded. 

Not having access to a pack of cards during my deep dive, and leaving their use to more intellectual team members in our club games, I am not qualified to opine on these. Intriguingly, despite my opening aversion to rules tweaking, making up your own fate cards might be a way of adding even more battle or campaign specific spice to your game! (Grouchy disobeys orders and marches to the sound of the guns, anyone?) 

Now, can such a stripped down and fast playing set of rules really deliver a historically worthwhile 'authentic' outcome? Impossible to answer this objectively, all I can say is that all three large games I have played have delivered credible outcomes both overall and in resolving individual firefights and combats. I've long thought that authoritative rules need not be complex, just clear, logical and comprehensive. Valour & Fortitude deliver on all counts. Overall, I am a huge fan and look forward to using these rules for (relatively) quickly resolving unfeasibly large games in Epic scale.