Sharp Practice night fighting rules

These are my finalised Sharp Practice night fighting rules. They were were designed to encourage manoeuvre in my Siege of Puebla, 1863 game. They seemed to work OK without significantly slowing things down.

At the start of a unit's activation (whether under a Leader's command before Tiffin or on a command flag after Tiffin) roll a d6 to see if it is alert:

Unit spotting	Roll to be alert
Detached Leaders, Regulars, Artillery or Light Infantry	3+
Conscripts and Volunteers or Skirmishers	4+
Militia or Irregular Skirmishers	5+

If the unit is alert give it an "alert marker". Mine look like this:

The unit retains its "alert marker" until the start of its next activation. If it fails the die roll, remove any existing "alert marker".

At the end of a unit's activation, check whether it fired. If it did, place a "unit fired" marker next to it. If it did not, remove any "unit fired" marker it may have. My "unit fired" markers look like this:

Units are spotted at the following ranges:

Unit being spotted	Spotted at
Line unit in the open	12” / 24"
Skirmish unit in the open	9” / 18"
Unit in cover	6” / 12"
Has a “unit fired” marker (in cover or not)	24" / 48"

 

The range before the slash refers to units that are not alert. The number after the slash refers to units that are alert. Thus a group of Mexican skirmishers in the cover of the public gardens will be spotted by a French unit up to 48" away if the French unit has an alert marker and the Mexicans have a "unit fired" marker. If the Mexicans haven't fired, they'll be hidden from troops more than 12" away (or more than 6" away if the spotting unit isn't alert).

I didn't use any cavalry in my game. I'd suggest that maybe they should be spotted at 18"/36" in the open.