Advanced Rules I
The most commonly used and best applied optional rules
Formations · Command · Movement · Artillery · Assaults & Morale · Other

« Formations

102 - Crack Troops

Some troops just happen to fall into the category between veteran and elite. For game player purposes these crack troops can operate as hybrids between the two levels. Some options for this include:

A) Secondary Elites: Crack assault modifier of +3, Rally level is as elite (Historical matches: French middle guard, British highlanders, Russian foot guards).

B) Crack Veterans: Crack assault modifier of +3, Rally level is as veteran (Historical matches: Austrian reserve grenadiers, British fusiliers and light regiments, some (very few) famous/senior line regiments).

105 - Cavalry in Line

In order to conveniently portray columns and "mixed" formations, Republique cavalry bases represent half-frontage deployments. This does however, cause some distortion when portraying a line formation. If fully deployed in line, each 550 man base in Republique should actually be double its mounted frontage.

Cavalry Lines allows a fully deployed line by placing cavalry bases one base-width apart in line abreast. The result is considered a solid formation despite the gaps between the bases.

« Command

201 - Alert Infantry

An infantry unit may be placed on alert, which gives it a reaction move during the enemy movement phase, much like cavalry can do. In order to place an infantry unit on alert, it may move no more than one-quarter of a normal move during its own movement phase. Once the unit is positioned, it receives a game marker showing that it is on alert. A standard wood marker cube with an exclamation point works well. Alert status is lost if the unit moves again (in any way) or if it suffers any morale or base hits. Units with morale hits may not become alert.

During the enemy's attacker maneuver phase, if any enemy unit moves into, through or across the alert unit's 3" assault zone, the alert unit may immediately conduct a pro-rated reaction move in order to counter-attack the enemy unit. This can be used to intercept enemy units before they reach a certain point on the field, or to move in support of a nearby friendly unit. For example, an alert unit may make a flank attack on an enemy unit attempting to flank another friendly formation. An alternative action for alert infantry is to change formation to square, it may not make any other moves (technically an emergency square).

« Movement

302 - Cavalry pass through

Napoleonic cavalry breaking through an enemy's lines always had to keep an escape route in mind. One doorway out of such a situation was to pass through enemy artillery batteries. They were not easily turned around (due to the presence of horse teams to their rear and enemies to their front) and did not offer the same resistance as other units.

Cavalry Pass Through allows cavalry to pass through enemy artillery batteries without initiating an assault. The enemy artillery must be approached from the rear or flank, and the moving cavalry does not pay a movement penalty for pass through. The enemy artillery may not conduct passing fire on the cavalry immediately upon its pass through. It must instead wait until its normal fire phase (after the cavalry has finished its retrograde move). Cavalry may not pass through packed batteries.

303 - Road Movement

The Republique rules focus on grand-tactical battlefields and as such, already deployed divisions have less use for roads than troops approaching the battlefield, especially given the poor quality of many roads. As a result, road movement is not addressed in the main rules.

In order to conduct road movement, the unit must be in a road column and must be lined up on a road. Movement while on the road in road-column is doubled. Note that in many scenarios, roads may not be in a usable condition due to rain, etc. and may even slow the unit down if other formations have passed down the road before it (think quagmire).

« Artillery

401 - Preliminary bombardment

After set-up is complete and before game play begins, all artillery may fire repeatedly and continuously until one or both players decides to start the regular turn sequence. Both sides must mutually agree to the bombardment. No saved fire steps may be executed during a bombardment and no other phases such as movement or assaults may be conducted during this preliminary bombardment.

403 - Attached Artillery

During battle it was common for some of a large formation's artillery to be broken up and attached to regiments for local support. This could be used to bolster defensive positions or support assaults.

To attach artillery, remove any one battery of choice from game play, and replace it with the number of Attached Artillery Markers per the table below. Each artillery type creates a certain number of markers as shown in the table, and each marker is worth a +2 assault bonus for defense, and a +1 assault bonus for attack. A maximum of two markers may be assigned to any one regiment.

Artillery Type	Attached Markers
Heavy	4
Medium	4
Light	3
Very Light	2

The breaking up and assignment of artillery can be done before game play begins, or at the start of a player's movement phase. The attached artillery no longer engages in artillery fire during the normal artillery phase, it becomes part of the regiment and only acts within the parent regiment's assault operations through contribution of its assault bonus. Attached artillery type must match the host troop type; foot artillery must be assigned to infantry units, horse artillery must be assigned to cavalry units. Cavalry with assigned artillery may assault squares with full cavalry bonus. Each base hit to the parent unit causes one attached artillery block to be lost. Each time the parent unit routs (due to panic hits, etc.), one attached artillery block is also lost.

The best way to create an Attached Artillery marker is to draw a tactical artillery "dot" symbol on a 3/8" natural wood block (same size as the morale marker blocks). Markers may be left unassigned and stacked next to the division command base, to be allotted to regiments as required during movement using normal movement speeds. Unaccompanied marker blocks will be automatically captured if physically interdicted by any enemy bases (including skirmish markers).

407 - Elite & Green Artillery

Just like other guard or militia forces within an army, artillery could be highly trained and experienced in relation to the average artillerists, or relatively inexperienced.

Using this rule, elite or green/militia artillery batteries are effected as follows: Elite batteries receive a +2 die roll modifier when firing. Green or militia artillery batteries receive a -2 die roll modifier when firing.

413 - Ammunition Shortage Die

A variation on the attrition die, it is applied to the artillery die roll as an ammunition supply limit. As with the attrition die, roll the 1D20 concurrently with all artillery die rolls. A result of 13 on the die results in the battery being unable to fire on the next player turn (this turn's fire is normal). Mark the battery as out of ammo after completion of the current artillery phase, and remove the marker after the next player turn's artillery phase is completed. A mass battery rolling a 13 experiences the effect on only one battery. Exception: A battery which began the turn with Saved Fire is immune to a 13 Ammo Shortage die roll, because the crew just spent the entire last turn making sure the battery was fully stocked from the reserve ammunition supply.

« Assaults & Morale

501 - Unopposed Overlap

Attacker adds two (+2) to the die roll if the assaulting infantry unit frontage is at least one base wider than their primary opponent and the opponent's flank on that side is unsupported - in this case unsupported is defined as no enemy units in opposition to any of the overlapping base(s). Opposition is defined as any enemy combat bases facing within 6". Attacking cavalry units qualify for the unopposed overlap bonus if their frontage overlaps the primary opponent's formation at all, even if the overlap distance is less than a millimeter. Note that the attacking formation must be entirely wider than the defender; having overlap on one flank and not being at least matching frontage on the other flank does not qualify. Unopposed overlap cannot be used by cavalry assaulting solo against infantry declared to be in square.

Modifier Type	Assaulting in/through Rough Terrain	Assaulting in Buildings	Solo versus Square	With Infantry versus Square
Unopposed Overlap	Yes	No	No	Yes

505 - Lancers

On first round of assault lancers roll with medium cavalry bonus. All following die roll rounds (if any) are rolled as light cavalry. The medium cavalry bonus renews for following turns unless the lancer unit is routed or goes demoralized, in which case it fights entirely as light cavalry for the remainder of the game.

506 - Firefights

Infantrymen of the Napoleonic Wars did not like assaults any more than people today. As a result, units had a tendency to become involved in long range firefights, which, after the heavy screen of smoke formed between the combatants, was more preferable.

The Firefights rule limits the number of infantry versus infantry assault rounds to one. If at the end of this point no decisive result has been achieved, the involved units are left until the next turn, even if they are still within assault range of each other. This suppresses the time saving feature of the Stalled Assaults rule and recreates the occurrence of protracted firefights. On the next player turn, the assault is pressed through to completion per the normal rules. This prevents an anomalously long firefight while still allowing a temporary stalling of the local situation.

507 - Cavalry Escorts

When both infantry and cavalry are combined into an attack, a numerically inferior attacking cavalry may adopt the final action result of numerically superior friendly infantry. For example; if one stand of cuirassiers and three stands of line infantry jointly attack and score a +7 result against an enemy unit, the cavalry may "adopt" the carry position result of its fellow infantry unit instead of the mandatory continuance of its movement against the enemy. This allows for the cavalry to remain as an escort to its accompanying infantry instead tearing deep into enemy lines by itself.

513 - The Attrition Die

Even when units consistently win assaults over the course of a battle, the steady grind can eventually start to take its toll - especially across an entire division or corps. To depict this (in an admittedly abstract fashion) each side in an assault adds a 20-sided "Attrition Die" to their existing 10 sided assault roll. If a natural 13 comes up on the 1D20, the rolling player summarily loses one base from a participating unit - no modifiers, no appeals, no saving rolls. Just... bang.

The die roll creates an underlying level of attrition across the field, applying to both winners and losers. Even if a formation tends to win, they can still suffer from the overall grind of the bigger fight purely by dint of having been involved in numerous assaults. The attrition roll is considered simultaneous to the main 1D10 assault roll, so the effect is best applied after the rest of the competitive roll results have been applied. Players can moderate the effects of the attrition by using dice with more sides, like 24 or 30 sided dice. Or, if it doesn't seem to be happening enough, 12 or 16 sided dice can be used.

515 - Vulnerable Units

Some actions may leave units more vulnerable than usual, while not really putting the formation out of control of their officers. This can range from river crossing to cavalry moving through heavy woods. The result is a certain level of added disadvantage in relation to enemy combat formations that might be nearby.

Refer to the list below. Units of the types shown conducting the corresponding actions are marked with a V marker to show they are temporarily vulnerable to enemy action. A vulnerable unit involved in an assault will be forced to use the assault column least in their favor. So for example, cavalry trying to assault infantry in woods must use the Defender Advantage assault column instead of the Attacker Advantage assault column. If cavalry in woods is assault by infantry, the attacking infantry gets to use the Attacker Advantage column, etc.

River & Stream Crossing – All troop types crossing rivers or streams are marked "V" if they finish their move still in the obstacle.
Cavalry – Cavalry in towns (buildings) or woods are marked "V" while any portion of the unit is within that terrain type. This is in addition to cavalry's loss of their other assault modifier(s) per the main assault rules.

Artillery – Limbered artillery is always considered disadvantaged when assaulted by any other combat units. No need to place a marker with them, just keep in mind for all assaults. If the limbered guns are a minority element in an assault, their "V" status does not count toward the assault setup and resolution.