War Game Rules for Conducting Eighteenth Century Battles

From Wikipedia
The rules in Grosstaktik govern weapon fire and melee. The results of weapon fire are decided by casting a six-sided die and adding modifiers to account for factors such as distance. The types of weapon fire, in increasing order of deadliness, are carbines, solid shot batteries, muskets, rifles, and grape shot batteries.

When enemy troops encounter each other, they cannot fire and must engage in melee. Each side rolls a six-sided die, multiplies the result by the number of units in action, and then adds modifiers to account for the quality and morale of the troops. The ratio of the higher and the lower number is then computed, and this ratio determines whether the side with the lower number stands fast, retires, is routed, or surrenders. Surrendering is the best result from the point of view of the victor, and occurs when the ratio is 2.5 to 1 or higher.

Grosstaktik is appropriate for re-enacting battles from the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of Spanish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the War of American Independence. The booklet includes short descriptions of each of these conflicts.

Note: Publisher not list. Game is listed on back page along with other games from Guidon Games. Red Cover.

The game uses very large infantry units (6 "trays" of 8 figures mounted 4 wide and 2 deep) and artillery is single guns (1 gun and 4 crew), cavalry is squadrons (4 "trays" of 3 figures each). I use separate 2-figure color stands as well.

This is a very tactical game. Fire is per tray or gun, you change formation by moving the trays individually (it will take 2 turns to go from a column to a 1 tray deep line facing in the same direction).

Melee is a bit of a pain to calculate, but it gives reasonable results.

It plays very well and my grandson learned tp play it at age 6. I bought the rules in 1974 and have played them ever since.