First of, this is simply us being excited to finally have the ruleset to rule them all. If anyone here is familiar with the rulesets by Bruce Weigle it strikes us how many concept similarities there is compatible with ESR - even the basing suggestions.

The thing is, in the works of Bruce there are steps and modifiers - oh but there are modifiers. The rules work, but at a price in time. The battles take forever to play and we have yet to play a scenario from the rulebooks to any decent conclusion. Obviously that’s on us and our need for something to be setup, gamed, and cleaned up in one day.

Being VERY pleased with the combat system in ESR3 the idea is straight forward. The contact and ranged combat points would translate easily to threat values. Adding a range band of 900-1800y for long-range artillery at half-threat and allowing the Chassepot units to have ranged half-threat in the 450-900y range, seems to be the only things needed to game all the scenarios in the rulebooks using ESR - a rule system far superior for such major engagements in our opinion. The basic cohesion of 1 per stand for most units would seem appropriate. Cavalry are already nerfed bigtime in the rules as is, so shouldn’t be a problem.

Has anyone else had this idea? Are we overlooking potential problems or simulation issues that would make this unworkable? Maybe a rulechange to the attack directive allowing formations to simply “engage” the objective within the 450y span?

If this could work, it should also be possible to game ACW with brigade elements using ESR given we have scenarios that provide a balanced translation possibility of threat to cohesion values. Altar of Freedom scenarios perhaps?