Berthier
Campaign Management Software for Miniature Wargames
Berthier is a software designed to manage miniature wargames campaigns. Berthier allows two campaigners, without the need for an umpire, to run simple strategic campaigns leading to tabletop battles. Berthier is suitable for historical, naval or fantasy wargaming in most periods of warfare, but was developed with the Horse and Musket period in mind. The campaign may be played by e-mail (PBEM) simply through sharing the Berthier campaign file via e-mail.
Issuing orders: Berthier accommodates up to 18 campaign units per side. Movement is alternate. Players issue orders for their own units to move, hold, embark, disembark, hide, or transfer supplies, and let Berthier resolve any enemy sightings and contacts which may result from the movement of troops. Berthier determines the best route and moves the units. The campaign can be saved at any time and re-commenced later.
Generating move orders: When a formation is ordered to move, the owning player enters the exact route of march, using a copy of his fully detailed campaign map for reference. The grid squares on the computer screen correspond to actual map squares, and Berthier knows how many movement points will be spent when troops are moving across them.
Intelligence reports: Historic or ficticious maps may be used with the Berthier campaign software by converting every map square to a computer grid square with the proper terrain properties. This screenshot shows the map of the fantastic Island of Marnon being used as a basis for a medieval miniatures campaign. The blue player has just received an intelligence report showing his own troop dispositions and the location of one identified enemy formation.
Enemy contacts: When opposing units enter the same square Berthier indicates that contact has been made. The engagement can then be played out on the wargames table or with Berthier’s combat resolution option. Units can scout nearby squares. When enemy forces are sighted and identified, as in the screenshot above, Berthier reports their location and composition.
Orders of Battle: When both players agree to offer battle at a certain contact location, Berthier generates an order of battle for each army so that players may set up their forces on the wargaming table.
Contents
- Title: Berthier
- Period: Ancients to Napoleonic
- Type: Campaign Management Software
- Time Scale:
- Ground Scale:
- Troop Scale:
- Author: Tony De Lyall
- Format: free MS DOS compatible Software
- Language: English
- Published: 2007
Features
- Optional management of supply and attrition for units.
- Courriers may be delayed by terrain, and potential capture by the enemy.
- Graphical representation of map grid and terrain with/without unit positions and enemy contacts.
- Map grid terrain colours are customisable.
- Units may hide from enemy scouts.
- Campaign notebook.
- Recruits/replacements added to existing units on nominated campaign moves.
- Customisable random event tables.
- Customisable look-up reference tables.
- Alarms which can be set to go off on nominated campaign moves.
- Automated dice of many sorts.
- Optional Auto Save after each move.
- Logging and visual playback of moves to provide a campaign history.
- A simple campaign economic model that calculates income from territory held.
- Ability to call up the image of the campaign map if it is computer based in BMP file format.
- The ability to attach annotations, and/or BMP images files, to any map square.
- Time-phased unit reinforcements.
- Support for solo campaigns.
- Play by e-mail (PBEM) capability through e-mailing the campaign files.
- The «GridMap» Utility loads topographical maps in BMP file format, and allows the player to mark them up with a Berthier terrain grid, which can be saved as a campaign file for Berthier. This makes moving from a topographical map to Berthier campaign very easy.
- Berthier campaigns can be run over a network in a Windows environment when used in conjunction with the Windows front-end for Berthier (called «Launcher»).
- Help and documentation.