Angus Konstam

In 2008, Dave Ryan of Caliver Books in Britain published Die Kriegskunst, a set of wargame rules for the Seven Years War. They were jointly written by myself and Dougie Trail, and based on the popular General de Brigade (GdeB)rules system. In fact, the way it all came about was that a few years before we were hard-pressed to find a set of wargame rules for the Seven Years War that we liked, and that reflected the tactics and doctrines of the period. We decided to take the Napoleonic set General de Brigade as a starting point, as we really liked its slick, well-thought out rules mechanisms, as well as its emphasis on using battalions as the building block, rather than brigades or even divisions. In this period you really want your unit to be Prussian Infantry Regiment 16 (Dohna), not some generic blob of figures.

One of our aims was to keep the general flavour of GdeB, while adapting the rules to fit our idea of what battles in the Seven Years War were all about. After all, it represents a completely different period with its own set of tactics. Pretty early on we changed the figure ratio, and then altered many other elements of the rules, such as charge procedures, firing, melee and morale, to reflect the more sedate style of fighting of the Seven Years War. The result was something very similar to GdeB, but with its own distinctive style and flavour. We think you'll enjoy playing Die Kriegskunst, so please, give them a go.

"Die Kriegskunst is an informative and highly attractive set of rules

that combines a realistic tactical level treatment with well-developed command rules.

It should prove of great value to anyone interested in Seven Years Wargaming."

Brent Nosworthy, author of The Anatomy of Victory

One of the biggest differences between Die Kriegskunst (DKK) and General de Brigade (GdeB) is the figure scale (1=40 rather than 1=20). Then there's the way you move your units around. In GdeB the orders system means that you can't always do what you'd like and when you would like it. In Die Kriegskunst this is even more apparent, as we've made it a little harder to change orders. We've also introduced a new type - the "Approach" order - used to recreate those great Frederickean flank marches. Is "Frederickean a word? Well, it is now. Even more restricting is the way units manoeuvre. there are no columns (well, only in really limited situations like storming breaches), and in the age of linear warfare, moving a brigade from column of march into line was a complicated business.

We think we've found a way to simulate this fairly simply, but even so you really have to figure out where your troops are going and where they'll deploy well in advance. For example, a battalion in column of march (one stand behind the other) has to wheel to the right, then halt. the next turn it moves all the stands through 90 degrees, so that they no face the enemy - thereby forming a line. Now, if you imagine doing this for a whole brigade, then for a division-sized force with one or more brigades forming a second line, and you've got some idea of how tricky the whole thing is. Of course, you can start your games in line, facing the enemy and raring to go, but we needed to produce a system to get the guys there in the first place!

Other differences include modifications to the firing mechanics, a new system for firing at chargers (charging cavalry into formed infantry is rarely a smart move), and a downgrading of skirmishers. While these may sound like little more than little tweaks, they actually represent a lot of work and experimentation - trying to keep the basics of the existing system while adapting it to reflect the linear tactics of the period.

Basing is the same as for other General de Brigade sets (although we use slightly larger bases ourselves - four 28mm infantry figures on a 40x40mm base). A full strength Prussian battalion is 20 figures, an Austrian one is 24, and a Russian one is 16. Heavy cavalry ride around in 20 man units, although the Russians should really be smaller due to their chronic cavalry resupply problems - 12 man for Cuirassier units and 16 for others. I just have to have more Russians to make up for the small units - and of course there's my pretty but less than effective Cossack horde...

Almost everyone said it really caught the spirit of the period, and a reviewer even described the mechanisms as "simple and elegant". What more can you ask for?

They rules include four scenarios (Emsdorf, Paltzig, Hochkirch & Moys), a walk-through of a game, pretty colour order markers, and several Orders of Battle. they're reasonably priced. However, compared to more recent rules sets they're a little colourless. They contain period line drawings to provide flavour, and diagrams to explain what's going on, but there aren't any full colour pictures of tabletop battles or full-page plates showing uniforms. Fear not though. Plans are already afoot to produce a new edition, incorporating new scenarios, several rule changes, and a lot of colour pictures, taken from our own tabletop games. It'll probably come out in 2012, but in the meantime the current version of DKK remains the standard set.

What we'll do though, is to post any errata on this site, and on the DKK forum on the General de Brigade website, so that everyone knows what's going on, and you can keep up to date with the latest developments. The plan is to use this website to post new scenarios, some of which may well form part of later scenario books. Several people are working with us to make any changes improve the rules, rather than bog them down, and to help us playtest mechanisms or scenarios. If you'd like to help, then please, drop me a line.

As with most rules sets, there are a few typos in the text, and a few errors in either the text or the playsheet. The revised version of the playsheet is available down below, and trumps the one printed in the rules, which has a few wrong factors in it - the result of a design bungle, where the final set and the playtest version were amalgamated by accident, and nobody noticed before the rules went to the printers.

Like most authors authors Dougie and I would like to blame the designer at Partizan Press / Caliver Books, but the truth is I'm sure it was probably my fault, as I'm no good at copy editing. A whole host of distractions, like work, families and the pressures of modern life have meant that this errata sheet has been an abnormally long time in coming. - a delay not helped by a crashed computer devouring all our files. However, the plan is to produce an errata sheet on this site before the spring of 2011.

You can help speed the process up by sending in your own errata - things you've noticed need changing. We'll take a look, and hopefully incorporate them into the official list of changes.

We've been developing a bunch of new scenarios - enough to publish in a dedicated scenario book. This will include about a dozen more battles, amongst which will be Kolin, Prague, Breslau, Minden, Kunersdorf and the assault on Schweidnitz. There are also plans to add in amendments to reflect other conflicts such as The War of the Austrian Succession, The Jacobite Rising and the Seven Years War in non-European theatres, such as India or the Americas. This llast idea is causing the greatest problems, as the style of warfare in both these theatres wasn't a bit like the fighting in Europe. We'll keep tinkering, and from February 2011 on we'll be posting new scenarios here.

As we said before, Die Kriegskunst was based on the General de Brigade rules system, and gamers who've only played Napoleonic games using these rules should be able to pick up the basics of DKK very quickly indeed, armed with a playsheet and a bit of common sense. Now, in late 2010 Partizan Press / Caliver Books released a new and improved version of GdeB called General de Brigade (Deluxe edition). This wasn't just a glossy, well-illustrated hardback version of the original rules. The system was tightened up, simplified where necessary, and made faster, and so the new version provides a more enjoyable game than the original set. Inevitably, the idea was mooted to give DKK the same treatment. This means we have to pull the new GdeB version apart, see what we can use to improve DKK, and then weld it into something better. There are areas where we'd have liked to change things before, but we stuck as closely as possible to the original GdeB system. It looks like Dave Brown (the author of GdeB) has done a lot of this for us. Still, this transformation is a work in progress, and we'll keep you posted as things develop.