Lasalle: Second Edition
There has never been a "second edition" of any Honour game. I've always been proud that we test and edit every game ad nauseam, until we get it just right. But there has always been one title in the Honour catalog that I wanted to revisit.
It might seem quaint today, but Lasalle, released in 2009, caused quite a stir at the time. It sold out in five months, won three awards, and met with white-hot fury from more traditional Napoleonics gamers. It was the first tactical Napoleonics game intended to be used more like an Ancients game, in which any army can fight any other. It had an army-building system that used no points. It had an abstracted basing system that didnât correspond to historical companies or platoons. It did not specify how many ârealâ minutes were represented by a turn, nor a precise figure-to-man scale. It had a funky âreverseâ turn sequence in which movement happens last, so that there is no need for traditional Napoleonic conventions like âopportunity chargesâ or defensive fire at an approaching enemy, or emergency squares, and so on. It had no written orders or chits, nor in fact much of a command system of any sort.
And it had lots of pretty pictures. That made some guys really angry.
Most of the things that shocked people about Lasalle have since become ubiquitous and arenât considered strange anymore. But I always wanted to revisit this title and address some issues. This has evolved into a full-blown redesign, so I am pleased to announce that there will be a second edition of Lasalle, most likely finished before the end of 2020.
Some Highlights of the New Lasalle:
I will do a podcast about this in the near future, but here is a quick summary of the major changes:
- There is now a command/control system that drives a completely "open" sequence of play in which the number and type of phases that occur is driven by player decisions. No two turns are alike. As you do things that provoke or endanger your opponent, you trigger his ability to "interrupt" you by taking control of the sequence. Momentum passes back and forth unpredictably as the players act and react.
- Skirmishing has been completely reimagined and is unlike any other Napoleonic game. The skirmish screen operates separately from the formed units, without needing to move any figures, other than occasionally "feeding" more troops into it. If your skirmishers get the upper hand you have certain advantages that enable you to suppress enemy fire, baffle your opponent, or control the momentum of the game sequence.
- Movement and combat have been reconsidered to make the former more liberal and fast and the latter more restricted and decisive. We have re-thought the use of formations and relative numbers in combat. You can no longer squeeze both infantry and cavalry against a single defender, for example, nor overwhelm a line by packing columns shoulder-to-shoulder. It is harder to break a square, unless the defender is battered and exhausted.
- The army-building system has been completely reimagined. Each army has a set of "Historical Parameters" to inform you of what was available when, in what theatre, and doing what. But then you decide just how much History you want. Will you permit any army to fight any other, or will you restrict them to their historical opponents? Will you permit armies from different periods to fight one another? Will units appear in periods other than when they historically existed? For example: letâs say that a player in your group wants to create a British force based on Wellingtonâs army at Waterloo, but including Portuguese caçadores. Personally, I consider it an entirely plausible What If to imagine that Britain persuaded her Portuguese clients to send a couple of brigades to Belgium in 1815. But if your group finds such things to be intolerable violations of the historical record... then you can forbid them.
All of wargaming is a series of âWhat Ifsâ inspired by history. The new Lasalle will lay out the historical limitations but also permit you to improvise to whatever degree you are comfortable with.
It's still Lasalle
As with the original game, you still create a small force of a few brigades and fight a battle in real time, with games lasting 2-3 hours. The figures, bases, and units from first-edition Lasalle will be compatible with the new version.
Second Edition Lasalle is in development and playtesting. Look for more announcements in mid-2020.