Thank you Mark for your suggestion.
Both Andres and myself share a common view regarding the Spanish militia. The militia units of the early years of the Peninsular War (1808-1809) were little more than a mob of armed peasants thrown into combat with almost no training at all. We believe the official standard rules for Spanish Militia reflect very well the combat effectiveness of these units during those early years. On the other hand, as the war progressed the peasant mob, supported by routed regular troops, started devoting its efforts to guerrilla warfare. As the tide of the war changed (1812-1814) and favoured the Allied effort, the guerrilla units had already become a feared menace for the French Army. The Spanish military kept increasing throughout the war the integration of guerrilla units into the regular Spanish Army. Most of the guerrilla fighters readily accepted their new status, and became quite efficient light infantry and light cavalry units. Those who did not accept integration into the Spanish Army, are the ones we consider militia in the upcoming "Late War" Spanish Army module. They can not be as efficient as their regular army counterparts, as they disdained orders and coordination with the regular forces, but we consider them as efficient as any other militia unit in any other national army.
As relates to the issue of the Guerrilla Counter, we consider this Counter as something quite different to other national counters. We will try to share our thoughts about its significance, and the way we use it in our scenarios.:
- When we place a guerrilla counter at the start of one of our scenarios, we always take into account wether the guerrilla was active or not at the time (e.g. in Alcolea and Medina de Rioseco the Spanish player has no guerrilla counters to start with, reflecting the fact that we are so early in the war).
- We assume the Guerrilla Counter translates the impact of the wider strategic situation into the tactical decissions in the battlefield (e.g. in Sagunto the Spanish player starts with 3 guerrilla counters, reflecting the fact that: the French Army of Aragon was overstreched in its attempt to conquer Valencia while having to defend continuosly its supply lines from guerrilla attacks; plus they had no intelligence whatsoever of the arrival of Spanish reinforcements; plus the Spanish command was well informed of every movement and strength of the opposing French force)
- We understand there is a chance of gaining during the game a Guerrilla Counter by playing a Scout Card, and that this fact is in contradiction with the two previous points. We believe that the new set of official rules for Guerrilla Counters, published with the last expansion of CCN, limits severely the "improper" use of the counter. Nevertheless, if gained through a Scout Card in a scenario where no guerrillas were availiable, we accept this conceptually "improper" use as reflecting the complexities of fighting a war in Spain in the Napoleonic period: Spain is the second most mountainous terrain in Europe after Switzerland, good roads were few at the time, living of the land was resisted by force by the peasantry, 3/4 of the French troops dead during the Peninsular War were due to disease/ epidemics induced by a poor diet, 3/4 French officers killed in action died fighting against Spanish forces etc.
In short, we believe that using the Guerrilla Counter with extra options, as with the Prussian Iron Will Counter, is not going to be helpful and might disturb the strategic significance that we perceive underlies the counter.
For the sake of ending in a more humorous tone, but also related to the present topic, I will end with a short story around Wellington`s 1813 campaign that led to the victory at Vitoria. I have to apologize in advance to those who are still reading these lines if you already know about it. Wellington, every morning after breakfast, had to read the intelligence concerning the latest dispatches from the French command to Napoleon, thanks to the Spanish guerrilla units intercepting them. At this point in the war three copies were sent to Paris by different routes, and escorted by a minimum of 400 dragoons, in order to guarantee that at least one would get through!!!. Small wonder Maucune`s 6000 men division was not able to reinforce the French troops at Vitoria on time.
Sorry for the long response, but Mark`s point is a relevant one
