Lasalle (Second Edition)

Lasalle is a tactical Napoleonics game suitable for beginners or veterans in which any army can fight any other or you can play historical scenarios. Players are a division or corps commander leading battalions of infantry, batteries of artillery and regiments of cavalry. A game is an affair for about three hours’ play on a modest table with about a dozen units on each side with no paperwork other than marking disruption against a unit's track.

The second edition has a new sequence of play, driven by momentum and interrupts, allows players to do virtually anything in any order, differently every turn. Completely new rules for the use of the general figure (i.e. “you”) permit you to choose the personality and effect of your intervention in the sequence. Skirmishing has been reinvented from the top-down. The two sides contribute skirmishers to their opposing “screens” and each turn they determine which side’s screen has the advantage. That, in turn, affects the momentum and sequence, not to mention possibly preventing worn units from rallying, obscuring targets from shooters, or even sniping at infantry units as they try to change formations. Movement has been radically simplified. Rather than worrying about evolutions of individual units, movement gets you from point A to B with a certain number of “complications” that accrue as you try to do difficult things like changing formation near the enemy, moving through difficult terrain, interpenetrating, or attacking. Combat has been redesigned so that it is a more decisive either/or experience. Troops either press an attack home, or they are discouraged and fall back with few casualties to either side.

Second Edition Lasalle is a much more holistic game where you are playing not just individual units but rather an entire military effort, and everything affects everything else. You control the sequence and pace of events while your opponent tries to wrest that control from you. What your soldiers can accomplish is not just the result of moving them and rolling dice, but part of the overall situation into which you’ve led your army.