Postures for an army and its corps

[Zardoz]

I've worked my way through the posts in this forum which have answered various questions from my first attempts at Austerlitz.

But one thing I'm definitely not clear on. If I concentrate Napoleon and the Grande Armée, plus the Guard, plus several corps in a location, and I want them all to assault something, do I set them all to the same posture, eg red/orange?

There are references in this forum to keeping the army stack on defensive and using the corps stacks to assault. So eg blue/orange for Napoleon and red/orange for everybody else?

And what about the Guard - I want them only used as a last resort. Will Napoleon 'commit the guard' even though he is in a different stack? What posture do I need for them to keep them as the last resort reserve? Blue/orange along with Napoleon?

thanks

Tony

[arsan]

I would advise putting the guard under Napoleón, on the army stack and use this army stack as a reserve for the nearby corps stacks. It works Ok in game and looks pretty historical IMHO.
The corps on offensive will engage the enemy and the army stack, if in the same or and adjacent region, can be commited to the sound of the guns and participate in the Battle on the second or later Battle rounds... In small or easy Battles things will usually be over before the army gets commited to fight.

For the assault question, It works the same: one or more corps need to be on red assault posture to start the assault, but if needed i think adjacent corps can march to the sound of the guns and fight even if they are not on red posture.

One important game mechanic related to this: an army stack will never initiate a Battle (even if in red posture) if It is in the same region of one or more frieendly stacks (corps or normal stacks and units). When in company of frieds It always function as a reserve. But It will defender normally.
If the army stack is alone on a region It will behave normally as any other stack, attacking or defending as ordered.

So for example, if you have and army and a corp stack on a region with a city and want to assault you have to use the corps. The army stack will not initiate the assault.


Regards!

[Zardoz]

Excellent, thanks. That makes it very clear. I've got a follow-up question but I'll start another topic on that.

cheers

Tony