Best Napoleonic Rules

[Tordenkuglen]

Hi Guys

Im sure this question has been asked before, if so, Im sorry for doing it again, BUT!:

Wich Napoleonis rule set is the best, if you like me want them to be:

Fast play
Big battle feel
easy to read/play
good historical feeling
have army list for bring and battle

I have tried, and the issues I have with the rules:
Black powder,(3moves, static combats)
Napoleon at War, nearly unsupportet, strange base size, badly written
Waterloo, totally unsopportet, only period around Waterloo the 100 days

should be for 15/18/20 mm

[bong-67]

For rules dealing with big battles Blucher is excellent.  You can play a reasonably big battle in 3h, the rules have a good Napoleonic feel and encourage good deployment and use of reserves.

[Arthur]

General de brigade is good, although I don't know if it meets your fast play criterion.

[valleyboy]

General d'Armee will

[Tordenkuglen]

thanks alot guys, will try to look and read about them.

couold you give me some links as where to purchase the rules ??


when I googled General d´Armee half the links or so was for General de Brigade ?? seems alil confusing, so a direct link would be appreciated thanks ALOT once again!

For blucher I´ve heard about it, never tryed it, but will take a look at it.

A short run down on how its played somewhere would be awesome

with sincerely grattitude Tordenkuglen

[robh]

Cut/Paste from one of last weeks threads on this subject........

With Napoleonics it is important to decide what level of game you want to play before deciding on the rules.

If you want to fight Borodino, Waterloo or Wagram and such battles in their entirety Black Powder will not work. For that you need to look at  rules like Grande Armee, Blucher or (my favourite) Volley & Bayonet. These use bases as brigades and you game with multiple Corps per side. Things like formation changes and skirmishers are abstracted out to concentrate on massed units.

If you want smaller battles or to play only part of a major battle with game options for showing formation changes, skirmish screens etc but still have aspects of higher command then Black Powder is OK, but games like Republique or Lasalle have much better flavour.

Going down to a lower level again with only a Division per side you can have a lot more detail of the units, formations with rules like General de Brigade or Rank & File.

There is an excellent comparison of many different Napoleonic rules  here:
http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/rd_napoleonic.html
I have only mentioned above the ones I actually play.

Really comes down to how much time and how many figures you want to spend. To some extent most rules are scaleable (or so the authors always claim) but there are such good sets written specifically for the different scales of game that making something not designed "fit" is never going to be as good.

As an introduction the Republique rules are superb (as is the amount of information and research on Napoleonic Warfare on the supporting website).
http://www.wtj.com/games/republique/

Also helps that the rules and all army lists are free.

[SteveBurt]

Blucher is the best big battle set I've played. It uses a very nice 'momentum' system where your opponent rolls the dice, so you never know how much momentum you have left - he just tells you when your turn is over (and shows the dice total he rolled).
Volley & bayonet is also quite good, but has no command and control rules.

Both have each base being a brigade (there are no formations), so you really can play out the largest battles in an evening.
You'll find quite a lot of info on Blucher here:
http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/modules-games/blucher/

[dallascowboy43]

General D'Armee are the forthcoming rules by the same designer as General de Brigade and I believe are due March/April and incorporate similar mechanism to his new Pickett's Charge ACW rules
Clive

[wrgmr1]

We play Shako 2 and have a good game in 3 hours or less. Battalion level with 3 to 6 divisions a side. WE've also done Watleroo, Ligny, Eylau, Borodino and Wagram. in 6 to 8 hours.

[Mindenbrush]

Age of Eagles gives a great game for 15mm and there are optinal rules for Regimental F&F Naps

[Hitman]

For skirmish action, you can't beat Battlefield Games Designs' Green Jackets and Voltigeurs.  Here is a link to their website:

http://www.battlefieldgamedesigns.com/

Also, here is a great AAR as well:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=391889

Contact information: battlefield_designs@rogers.com

Regards,
Hitman
 

[Draccan]

Hej Tordenkugle

A few of my thoughts; from an armchair perspective, as I haven't tried them.

Waterloo; if that is Warhammer Waterloo, Russian and Austrian lists were made available by the author if you want to play other armies and other battles outside of Waterloo / 100 days.

Napoleon at War - while the base size is strange, I have found that the base sizes could be used (sometimes by adding two bases onto one base) for many other systems; black power and field of glory for example. The game is being rebooted later this year with new owners and new boxes and materials should be forthcoming in due time (probably not that soon).

Blucher - the commander aspect more than the invididual bases / regiments are important here; thus often played in 3-6mm. The models seems to be there just to show what division is what. You could add even larger models; but the grand strategy is at focus.

Lasalle - same maker as Blucher; but on a less abstract scale (still allows for large battles). Heard a lot of good about it. The rules can be bought as pdf and the maker of them considers (no promise) a print on demand rulebook later this year he told me.

Field of Glory. Not sure what to make of it. Heard both good and bad. Standard infantry is 40 to 60mm frontage I think. Could be played with two bases of NaW miniatures as one base.

Warmaster Napoleonics. I found a pdf with some army lists a while back. It is not supported in any way and I didn't try it. However Warmaster is an amazing game with great mechanics and I could see the attraction of that. Warmaster is for 10mm miniatures on 40x20mm bases. But I could see that being played with your Napoleon at War armies (perhaps with two bases on a tray counting as one base), as all that matters is that both players have the same stuff. Test it out for fun. Not many has done it but it might surprise you.
Here are some people who DID venture into it:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=253030
There are 2 rules variants at Rick's page:
http://www.ricks-warmaster.com/ricks_updates-variants.htm
and: http://www.ricks-warmaster.com/ricks_updates-variants03.htm
There is a third more in depth version in Wargames Illustrated 229-232. You can get access for 6£ to their entire back catalogue for a month and print a private version on pdf or paper!

Others I haven't read up on, but heard about; for example: grande armee.

You could also look at Et Sans Resultat. Not sure what to think of that either. It looks very abstract.

Now you are asking for the grand battles, but if you wanted skirmish I read about a napoleonic edition of Lion Rampant called Eagle Rampant. I have it in my april ed. of Wargames Illustrated 2016. It looks fun with 28mm minis. Sharp Practice looks great too.

Or since you are venturing into Swordpoint, perhaps you should write your own Napoleonic adaptation of it with muskets and cannons. The rules seem so basic a framework it shouldn't be too hard.

Again -- this is all in theory, as I have yet to play a single game!