"Best Ruleset for Waterloo?" Topic

Which ruleset do you prefer for fighting Waterloo?

Warfare in the Age of Napoleon. It is my prefered Napoleonic rule set for battalion level games.

Steve
"The Dial Dude"
dialdude.com

ELAN: handles multi-Corps games well.

For a 9 x 6 table in 15mm Napoleons Battles,

Tally Ho!

But if fighting Waterloo with Napoleon's Battles, (or any ruleset for that matter) be prepared to tweak the scenario to taste.

Use the old Columbia/AH block game "Napoleon" for the strategic moves and then use Napoleons Battles/Snappy Nappy or Empire for the battlefields.

Would all the above rules be useful for Quatre Bras and Ligny as well? It'd be nice to be use them for more than just one battle. Could they also be used for other Napoleonic battles?

Malcolmmccallum,

I agree, I have stopped playing the straight scenareo, we now dice for Bluchers arrival, place and time. The last time we also gave Grouchy an opportunity to turn up, but he did not make it on time to influence the game!

Bootie old boy,
yes, (we did Quatre Bras 3 times in one day probably one of the smallest battles to comfortably fight with NBs) but not so good for naked roll mat fighting!

Tally Ho!

Republique. Best set of Napoleonic rules for anything too small to play with V&B (1st ed).

We gave up on Napoleons Battles (and rebased the figures) after playing Republique a couple of times. Much cleaner and less fiddly set of rules. Never regretted the decision.

DBN. One base per brigade makes even Waterloo a practical exercise.

Whatever you like.

For that level of battle I would go with Age of Eagles or Volley and Bayonet.

Using ELAN,We "did" Leipzig last August:
link

We gamed QB a few months ago & will be doing Waterloo this August.

ELAN works well with a division a side, too.

And it's free.

The Polemos Marechal d'Empire rules link The Companion volume link has a nice scenario for it, fits on a 4'x3' table.

I haven't tried to for this battle yet, but Phi Barker's Horse, Foot and Guns would be on the list link or the Army-Level game from Paddy Griffith's Napoleonic Wargames book link

Regards

Prior to my introduction to Crusader's "March Attack" rules a couple of weeks ago, I would have been equivocal about this – there are of course many different rules sets that cater to many different perspectives on how the battle should be fought.

However, having now played both a small/simple and a large/complex game using March Attack, I wouldn't look anywhere else. The system uses individual battalions/regiments/batteries as units but is pitched at fighting large battles (the "Napoleonic Holy Grail") – doing this by wrapping up both combat and morale into a streamlined Combat Value rating for the units, which makes both ranged and melee combat fly by. The movement system is also generous, especially using "strategic" movement outside of engagement range, and the formation level morale mechanics make for dramatic moments, including the ability to rally back broken units while reconstituting formations. The game recreates the ebb and flow of the combined arms battlefield very elegantly – and quickly! Even with a reinforced corps on each side engaged on different fronts (city fight, cavalry melee, marching to contact and deploying), we were playing turns in less than the given 20 mns per turn time scale.

The rules are currently available as a reasonably priced pdf, with the print version coming soon. There's a lot of information (including sample chapters) on the rules at the Crusader web site:
link

I'll also be writing up an AAR of a hypothetical Battle of Pordenone 1809 (a development of the historical action the day before Sacile), with map captures of each turn … probably some time next week.

I realize I'm gushing a bit here, but what the heck. Despite my love for the period, it's been a while since I could honestly say I had fun playing a big battle! ;)

Cheers,

Christopher

The ones where you can do a mad cavlary charge and have a chance at winnning.

Something simple! We did do it once using WRG 16xx -18xx, took all weekend.

"The ones where you can do a mad cavlary charge and have a chance at winnning."

That would be Shako then:)

The very best game we had was running the paired battles of Waterloo & Wavre using Horse, Foot & Guns. The French contrived to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by marching TOWARDS Blucher. In fairness they were trying to turn Wellingtons left, they just pushed rather to far as the 'pinning' frontal attack had succeeded in pushing most of the Allied army off the ridge by then.

We've done Wagram twice and Auserlitz twice using Shako 2 rules. All games played in under 7 hours with breaks.
A good definitive result with all games.

I have pictures of all of them if anyone is interested.

I see no reason why we wouldn't continue with Waterloo.
It is our plan anyway as at the moment I am painting up Von Bulow's corp with Calpe miniatures.

In my madness, I'm trying to do it using Black Powder in 28mm. It will be A Boys Own Waterloo, looking a bit like a BBC TV production. Jerome, for example, will have only three battalions of light infantry.

So, at this point, I would not say that Black Powder is the best ruleset for Waterloo.

DBN FTW!

All the detail you want is in there, but it's all streamlined into very straightforward, unbreakable mechanics.

DBN Co-author Alex's purpose-built Waterloo terrain board is, IIRC, something like 6ft x 4ft.

Just got back from the Wargames Holiday Centre, did Waterloo, on a 27ft X 15 ft table, thousands of 25mm figures, and the classic dice-fest that is, 'In the grand manner'

Great stuff, top weekend!

John

Thanks for the plug Ochoin for Elan.

Indeed it works: we've done Waterloo at CANCON one year, and Quatre Bras (in about five hours- a French walk-over).

The tricky thing with Waterloo is the density of troops- it was a very crowded battlefield so you have to watch your ground scale else you end up with wall to wall figures.

Cheers

Phillip

Empire of course. For all intents and purposes all the moves were at the corps level. The "diversion" at Hougomont, d'Erlon's attack, Prussian attack with Lobou's small corps countering, massive cavalry charges, task force action to take la Haye Sainte, and the final Guard attack. It's like Empire is designed for battles like this. Um, wait… yeah.

Thanks for the heads-up, Phillip.

I'll post photos etc after our August Waterloo on The Site.

donald

I agree somewhat with 21eRegt… You need a large scale set for the overall battle but more detail for the smaller actions around the buildings. I think that large scale rules gloss over combat around buildings or villages and don't handle them well. You might as well roll dice for who gets the high roll ;-)

So, this doesn't answer your question, now does it? :-)

What do you mean rules?

You get you and 200 000 of your closest friends, dress them up in the uniforms, hand out muskets and sabers, some million rounds of ammo, and you refight the battle with real bullets and real swords.

It might only be possible to do this once, before the police stop you and charge you with 10 000 murders. but damn it will be the ultimate test of your tactical skills

Having played Empire III and Napoleons Battles, and Quatre Bras with both -- personally, I wouldn't use either for Waterloo.

The overall battle shouldn't be fiddly, but special detachment fighting rules are needed for buildings, sandpits etc.

Done it 3 times once with Sound of the Guns
but best with General de brigade at National Army museum a few years back

For a big battle, you want an army level set of rules if you aim to complete it in any reasonable time. So that rules out any battalion level set. You really want units to be brigades for a big battle; in fact, you want the one base to be a brigade otherwise you'll be there forever.

So – Grand Armee, Volley & Bayonet, Horse, Foot & Guns, DBN.