Weight of Fire

This is a set of rules for playing games representing small battles in the mid-Eighteenth Century period of European history, using 20-25mm size model soldiers. The rules cover the period from when all European nations adopted the three-man-deep platoon firing system up until the rise of the mass conscript armies of the Napoleonic era; very roughly A.D. 1740-1790, when musketry weight of fire ruled the battlefield. The rules do not try to recreate every aspect of 18th Century warfare; for example, the rules ignore most of the complexities of maneuver.

The rules are intended only to model the “classic” tactics of the period.

The rules are designed for games using 6-12 units per side. A game like this should take about four hours for a pair of opponents familiar with the rules to complete. Typical game setup involves two fairly equal forces facing one another across a game table laid out with terrain models representing hills, woods, streams, etc. Victory conditions to win the game may vary widely, but usually one player wins when a stated number of the enemy’s units have been destroyed or routed off the game table before a set number of turns have been played.