18th Century Wars of Absolutism: Fortress & Siege Rules

The siege rules make use of the authors Decision Games system which enables a siege to be conducted in terms of Stages as outlined by the great French military engineer Sebastion de Vauban. The system uniquely and realistically enables the timing of the advancing stages of a siege to run sequentially with the land campaign and along the timetables set by Vauban and so make sense in the context of a campaign.

Within the campaign system, each fortress is classified as being either weak, medium, strong etc. and a Victory Points value (VPs) incorporated into the initial balance. Dependent upon the strength of the fortress it is allocated a garrison strength (APs) and a garrison morale value (GM) plus a proportionate amount of provisions (GPRs).

Similarly the besieger whose strength (APs) is dependent upon the situation in the campaign, monitors his own force’s morale (BM) which will vary as the siege progresses and with comparison with Vauban’s timetable. The presence and size of any siege train or the approach of a relieving force are also critical to success.

This siege system enables the besieger to choose from a variety of tactics which may vary at each stage. These include sapping, bombardment and stratagems. The defender similarly has a number of tactics to hand including stratagems and even the occasional sortie which can lead to a table top encounter. The progress of the siege is dependent upon a cross reference of each side’s tactical choices some of which result in either a Reaction Test by the Garrison or the Besieger. These can result in surrender, a lifting of the siege or a continuation.

 Siege Decision Game Mechanics.
 Garrison’s Morale (GM) and Besieger’s Morale (GM).
 Garrison’s Provisions (GPs).
 Log’s for Sieges of Fortresses including Reaction Tests.
 Truth Tables.
 Diagram of a typical Vauban fortress and the siege stages.
 Honours of War (HOW).