blucher | 31 Jul 2008 2:08 a.m. PST |
By best looking I dont mean best looking terrain/painted minis. Im refering the the overall look and flow of the game. Did it look and feel like a napoleonic battle how you imagine it? Id also like to know what rules and scale of figures you used to achieve this. Personally, while I like 28mm I find the smaller scales give a better overall battle look. As for rules I havnt found a set that look quite right yet but still searching. I guess the question is somewhat subjective as we have no photos of what a napoleonic battle did look like. |
Crust Punk | 31 Jul 2008 2:31 a.m. PST |
Grand Armee by Mustafa in 6mm. 6mm fits the era better than any other; both epic and flowing. It is grand and prefect for the period. |
Zippee | 31 Jul 2008 2:45 a.m. PST |
Le Feu Sacre by Too Fat Laries in 6mm for a game with battalion sized units nothing else captures the flavour for larger games I'd second Grande Armee in 6mm but for I prefer LFS, brigade basing just loses a tad too much for me to entirely enjoy the spectacle |
Jeremy Sutcliffe | 31 Jul 2008 2:49 a.m. PST |
My 15mm Shako Games look OK. I've only tried a couple of small scenarios of Age of Eagles on my 6 x 4 table but from them and my knowledge of F & F, I reckon that on a large table they'd look and feel pretty good. |
nsolomon99 | 31 Jul 2008 3:36 a.m. PST |
Probably the best looking game thus far was back in the 90's when a group of friends and I put on a display game of Waterloo at the MOAB Con in Sydney, Australia. We used Valmy to Waterloo rules, our battalion level set at the time and 15mm AB figures. Scenery was specially prepared and accurate to scale, it was a huge table. Wonderful game and played well, Prussians arrived early but still the French won with a heavily supported d'Erlon attack after the allied reserves had been diverted to Hougoumont. These days my preferred rules are La Feu Sacre and I'm steadily working up in size of action, though these days I have to play with my kids – the northern flank at Austerlitz is next up I think and should look magnificent spread out in my Library. |
French Wargame Holidays | 31 Jul 2008 3:42 a.m. PST |
most memorable, a participation game at MOAB in about 1996, Using shako rules, I lead a glorious charge of the French cuirassier and heavy cavalry division, with the gaurd and a light division in reserve (36 regts in total)supported by a few horse batteries, crushed the jucture of the austro russian army it was beutiful, only a few photos exist of this grand day and I wish I had some, for the last ten years I have never had so much success with cavalry in such a way. In recent memory Last year Colin (british) and myself (french allied) have a corps sized game for GDB pictures here from last years Australian Napoleonic congress link cheers matt |
vojvoda | 31 Jul 2008 4:11 a.m. PST |
Almost any game put on by Bill Gray, 15mm Age of Eagles, Dave Bonk, 25mm Carnage and Glory (Won best of Show at Historicon), and Dave Waxtell 25mm Shako. I also like many of the Grande Armee games I have seen (Sam Mustafa) in 15mm & 25mm. What all three of these GM do is fantastic. VR James Mattes |
blucher | 31 Jul 2008 5:14 a.m. PST |
odd to see GA here so much. While I like the rules I find the square block moving around dont give the best looking of games. |
Defiant | 31 Jul 2008 5:21 a.m. PST |
I have to admit, 6mm with "BIG" battalions does look exactly as how I would imagine it to look. The number of figures per btln has to be large, no 8 figure btlns look good in any scale
Shane
|
Der Alte Fritz | 31 Jul 2008 5:45 a.m. PST |
How about a few of these games: picture picture picture These are all In The Grand Manner games in which the basic elements are infanry battalions, cavalry squadrons and artillery batteries. No wimpy 12 figure units here – they average 36 figures per battalion and 6 to 10 cavalry per squadron and 4 to 6 guns per battery. The title of the rules says it all, it is truly Napoleonic gaming "in the grand manner". |
Zippee | 31 Jul 2008 5:46 a.m. PST |
Blucher Whilst I agree (which is why I said I prefer LFS for the spectacle), GA does give a good feel for the flow of the really large battales like Wagram. Which is hard to accomplish otherwise – or at least requires a large investment in time and space. LFS can and does handle very large battles but it's not for week nights. GA allows just that at some cost in visual appeal. The OP asked specifically for feel and flow |
Jovian1 | 31 Jul 2008 6:14 a.m. PST |
Austerlitz commanding Austrians against the Swedish Bikini Team running the French. Wait, that hasn't happened yet. We did a huge battle in Spokane several years (more than a decade ago?!?) which was really nice. |
Cerdic | 31 Jul 2008 6:31 a.m. PST |
I thought Spokane was an invented place in Wacky Races!!! |
malcolmmccallum | 31 Jul 2008 7:51 a.m. PST |
I am very pleased with the look and feel that Napoleon's Battles puts on the table, especially for the larger scenarios. Borodino is particularly remarkable in my memory for being so daunting but still with ruch subtleties. I like that a spectator will go away from the table and come back a few hours later and nothing will have changed to his eyes. To the players though there have been massive shifts in fortune. Nothing sprints across the table. Everything has to be developed over several turns. Units don't up and vanish quickly but you have to keep an eye on the damage that they will be sustaining over time. I like the rerolls system that prevents (limits) wacky results. Like chess, you cannot play Napoleon's Battles successfully one turn at a time but must be looking ahead to how the battlefield will look three turns later. A recent Aspern-Essling game picture The climatic battle in a campaign we ran picture Napoleon's Battles, IMO, doesn't work at all for smaller battles. Marengo and Sacile are on the edge of being too small. Quatre Bras is right out. |
wrgmr1 | 31 Jul 2008 9:25 a.m. PST |
A couple of years back the two largest basement groups here got together and did Borodino in 25mm using Shako rules. There were 14 of us. Great looking game on an 18 foot table. Almost 4000 figs. We are planning on doing Wagram next year. That's why I've been painting up Austrians. |