Napoleonic Rules For 6mm?

[SJWi]

Cat, you may be waiting some time. First me and my mates have to agree on the period, decide who is doing which army, choose a ruleset and then buy the figures. Then comes the painting with everyone having their other pet projects. I'm betting on Easter next year for seeing armies on a table.

[vtsaogames]

As I often advise, test new rules using cardboard counters before purchasing/painting figures, or at least before basing them. Nothing worse than going to all that effort and finding the rules don't scratch that itch. Rebasing delenda est.

Start with a small game to see if the combat feels right. If so, then try a larger game to see how that plays.

[SJWi]

Thanks for the sage advice. Knowing us we'll buy the figures before we finally decide on the rules, but your basing comment is spot-on.  We 100% want to do "big battle" Napoleonics, it was just as matter of which small scale to complement our various 28mm Sharp Practice forces.  I've looked at several rules where reviewers say "you can use your existing basing" but the small print in the rules makes that less-than-optimal. Since I started this thread one of our group has tracked down and bought a hard copy of Sam Mustafa's "Grand Armee" . These seem quite "figure-heavy" with bases containing multiple units.  I've still to buy DBN having been side-tracked into buying the authors WW1 Middle-East rules. Another gaming project where we bought and painted a load of Pendraken 10mm without sorting the rules 1st!     

[Panzer21]

Volley and Bayonet - deceptively simple rules but designed to refight real battles.
No command and control / friction rules; Frank Chadwick thinks you get this by having multi - player games!
Good summary here:

https://volleyandbayonet.wordpress.com/about/

2nd edition on eBay now:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394896538361

Neil

[vtsaogames]

There is very rudimentary C&C: units must be within 6" of their HQ to be in command. If so, then they may do any maneuver (form human pyramids, etc.)  within move distance.

Each brigade stand has a listed strength, each strength point = 500 troops or 6 guns. The stand fights at full strength until wiped out, though it may become disordered and fight with penalty until rallied. There is temporary disorder and the permanent kind, acquired by routing. Larger units (division, small corps) have an exhaustion rating, usually half the strength points of the component units. When hits on the component units equal or exceed that number, the larger unit is penalized. I forget the details, been a number of years since I played V&B.

One feature unique to V&B: units that don't move can go stationary, earning more combat dice. This represents stockpiling ammo, building rude barricades, loop-holing houses, etc. Strange that more rules don't do this. It gives you a reason to counter-attack the enemy before they settle in on newly won turf. Or to fortify your defense line.

[SteveBurt]

One other feature of V&B. The move distances are huge.
Having played Napoleonics with V&B, Grand Armee, and Blucher, I can say that Blucher seemed the best of the three. V&B is fine but quite generic as it covers a very wide time period. Grand Armee is a bit fiddly and I don’t think we ever finished a game in a reasonable time.

[SJWi]

Steve, interesting advice. As a gaming group we own a few copies of Blucher and have used it for ACW. So we will try Blucher, Grand Armee and probably General D'Armee v2 when it is released. I'm also keen to give the Perry's free set a go.

[vtsaogames]

I'm also keen to give the Perry's free set a go.

The price is right.

[SJWi]

It is indeed. However cost isn't much of a consideration. As we spend maybe hundreds of ££s on figures and many hours on painting I don't begrudge paying a tidy sum for a good set of rules. However my shelf is full of bad rules purchases, hence this original query!