"Look, Sarge, No Charts: Napoleonic Wars" Topic

Some of you may be familiar with Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII and A Union So Tested: Look, Sarge, No Charts: American Civil War. We are working on a Napoleonic version of the rules. I've posted a recent battle report at bucksurdu.com/blog

There are no chart cards in this game to clutter your table. All you need to play the game is on small labels on the backs of the bases and special dice you make from wooden cubes from the craft store. Even people in our club who have decided that Napoleonic gaming is no fun have enjoyed our play tests of these rules.

Buck

Good luck Buck! Looking forward to seeing them. I've enjoyed your Wellington Rules innovations. Nice 10mm minis by the way.

Basic units are battalions/cavalry regiments/artillery batteries?

vtsaogames:

A "base" or "stand" represents infantry battalions, cavalry regiments, or artillery batteries. Players can easily command an infantry division of two or three brigades. With a little experience players can command more.

Rob:

Thanks for your kinds words on Wellington. Those rules were designed for small battles. LSNC: Napoleonics is designed for large battles. I think you'll find several innovations from the LSNC family of games, plus a couple of new ideas in these rules.

Buck

These look an interesting rule set though I must admit that I'd prefer to keep unit information 'off table' as I don't like the labels idea…. Just my opinion I hasten to add. I look forward to seeing the full rule set and wish you all the best with them.

The tradeoff we made was to put the little labels on the bases instead of big pink A4 or letter sized rectangles all over. :)

I am at the HMGS East Fall In convention in Lancaster, PA, this weekend. I'll be running a LSNC: Napoleonics game Sunday AM. Friday when we arrived, there were only a few games being run, so I put the Napoleonics on the table on an unused table. The intent was to just set up a three or four player game for two of my buddies and me, just to pass the time. As people came by looking for something to do, I kept adding Austrian and French divisions. At the end, I was running an eight-player pickup game. A couple of folks, said they would just play an hour until a game they had signed up for was ready to begin. They all stayed to the end and had a good time. We've had people in the club who are dyed in the wool Napoleonics haters really enjoy LSNC: Napoleonics games.

If you have a chance, I'd encourage you to give the rules a try. Many have an immediate, visceral reaction to the base labels, but we've had very few people dislike the game after they played it. If you take a look at bucksurdu.com and click on the link for Look, Sarge, No Charts. Take a look at the photos on this page. These are not cleaned up for the photos. This is what a table looks like with a game in progress. I ask you, which impacts the aesthetics of the game more, the large rectangle chart cards, templates, and other gaming aids scattered all over the table, or the small base labels, printed in a neutral color?

Buck

I posted a couple more pictures from yesterday's play test on bucksurdu.com. The rules are really taking shape.

Buck