Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who by David M. Ewalt Page B

fifteen-millimeter scale, an inch on our battlefield represented fifty yards of distance. To get my troops into place between the center and northernmost villages, I had to march halfway across the table and change formation into a defensive line. This turns out to be more difficult than it sounds.
    Under the Napoleon’s Battles rules, each military unit has a different movement rate, and the rate varies depending on the unit’s formation. In their starting configuration, a four-man-wide-by-four-man-deep column, my line infantry could move ten inches per turn. But change them into a long marching column—two men by eight—and they could move sixteen inches. Landwehr infantry move eight inches in column, a cannon nine inches, and so on.
    As such, the first few moves of our Napoleonic battle—the first hour of the game, really—consisted of little more than moving pieces around the board. On my turn, I’d lean over the table with a tape measure, mark ten inches’ distance from the front of my line, and then carefully move each mini to traverse the gap. At the same time, I’d have to measure the distance from my commander to each regiment, making sure nothing was too far away.
    By the time we could see the French they were half a mile distant. They had stopped their advance and formed lines; directly ahead of us, light infantry chasseurs made a wall of green coats a hundred yards wide.On either flank, they were protected by cavalry—four hundred horses pawing at the earth and flicking their tails, their riders leaning back in saddles, muskets at rest.
    At that distance, we had little to fear from the infantry, whose muskets barely had the power to hit a target a hundred yards away. But those horsemen could close the distance between us in half a minute and tear through our columns before we had time to defend ourselves. So the major had us stop our march and form a defensive square, twelve men to a row and twelve to a column, muskets bared on all sides. Facing a square, a cavalry charge is useless—all they can do is ride around it in circles. Come too close, and they’ll get a half dozen bayonets up the ass.
    The disadvantage of forming a square, at least from my position, is that you can’t see what the hell is happening. Standing two men back on the left flank, I had a good view of our light artillerymen, who had unlimbered their cannon and were ready to fire. But I couldn’t see the Frenchmen and had to guess how they’d respond.
    We held position for long minutes before I couldn’t stand the tension and turned to my friend Leopold. “What’s happening? Why aren’t they attacking?” He opened his mouth to speak, then froze—we both heard the answer on the air, faint but coming closer, something like an approaching hailstorm: hundreds of boots beating a rhythm across the dry earth. An infantry charge.
    Behind us the major’s bugle sounded three times, and we scrambled back into line. As I fell into place, I could make out the French formation coming toward us—l’ordre mixte, a combination of line and column meant to break through enemy infantry. Through my regiment. I raised my musket and waited for orders.
    We didn’t fire until we could see the fringe of their woolly epaulettes. Two volleys in quick succession: our front rank, kneeling, then thesecond, standing behind them. Our muskets belched smoke, and the French line twitched and staggered. A dozen chasseurs pitched forward onto the grass, but the regiment held formation. They stopped, lifted their muskets, and returned fire.
    It takes me around twenty seconds to reload my musket, but when someone’s shooting at you, twenty seconds feels like an hour. I tried to concentrate on the routine and to tune out the sound of the French guns. Detach the firelock from the shoulder, open the priming pan, open the cartridge box. To my right, I heard a thud and felt my friend Johann stumble. Take a cartridge, bite off the top of the paper, fill the pan with