"Simple(ish) set of Napoleonics Rules for a new player?" Topic

Talked my GF into watching the Sharp's Rifles series over the last few weekends and she was enthralled. She's an old school 40K and D&D player and a very good figure painter, but now she's eager to try some Napoleonics. I've walked her through Sharpe Practice, to which she seems pretty receptive, but she's also eager to try some 15mm company/battalion-based games as well. The catch is that she's not that good with in-her-head math and the prospect of playing a game where she'd have to deal with multiple, multiple charts and/or juggle a lot of modifiers isn't really going to work for her.

Can anyone recommend a decent Napoleonics system that's light on the Mathage but still a fairly robust, non-kiddyish game? My primary experience with AH's Napoleon's Battles, which is probably just within her comfort range, but I hear that Lost Battalion's 3rd edition is even a fair bit simpler. Suggestions?

How many units were you intending per side?
At a guess, I'd suggest if it is a dozen or so you consider Black Powder or Lasalle.

She's a keeper! ;)

"Rank & File" by Crusader games is about the most straightforward set that I know, and still provides a game with good period flavor – it can also be adjusted through special rules to play anything from the early 18th to mid 19th century. Very inexpensive as a pdf as well.

link

Cheers,

Christopher

I kinda like the Fire and Fury adaptation for napoleonics, can't remember what it's called Eagle something?
One sheet of charts, easy to play, very streamlined my be a bit too streamlined for hard core Nap gamers.

A girl that games AND paints, I would close that deal as soon as possible.

It's a higher level of game but Volley and Bayonet will give you an excellent game as long as you can count to six. No other math required.

Consider Napoleon at War

It has army lists, points, unit boxes, etc. 40k players may find that comforting.

If she has a 40k background she'd probably enjoy Black Powder.
But what about Sharps Practice By TFL? link
Doesn't take many figures etc. Thats the one I'd pick if I was you. :o)

Why do people always state their favorite set of rules instead of responding to the poster's question?

The primary request was simple.

Black Powder is simple and easy. All the others suggested -LaSalle, Napoleon at War, V & B, Age of Eagles, have lots of rules, are more rigid in their mechanisms, and more complex to play even if their math isn't particularly complicated (I'd suggest to the poster that math is not usually the thing that makes rules complex).

Black Powder lets you play quickly with a minimum of fuss.

Note that I'm not saying that BP is better than the others or that the others aren't good. It's just easier to play due to the liberal movement rules and traditional turn sequencing.

The following, from Sergeants3, might be of interest:

Bring up the Guns – 19th century (ACW, Napoleonics, FP
war) These are 'fast play'

Before I was a Marshal, I was a Grenadier – Napoleonic,
somewhat more detail than the above

sergeants3.com/19.html#

"Napoleon at war" is considered by many an easy to play but quite subtle game that catches the flavour of that age.
Homepage: manatwar.es
Podcast: link
Review: link

The primary request was simple.

I saw that. The OP was looking for a simple 15mm Battalion level Napoleonic Ruleset for someone with a background in 40K.

So, given that 40K players would be familiar with: Army Lists, Points, IGOUGO, Move-Shoot-Assault.

So NaW and BP would work. I would recommend BP more for a Warmaster or Fantasy player. LaSalle is in the middle and V&B definitely does not fit the criteria. I can't comment of Age of Eagles…never played it.

Napoleons Battles. Best ruleset around!

Don't Too Fat Lardies also have a set of Napoleonic rules for larger games (Le Feu Sacre?)?. I'm assuming that in true Lardy style these rules would be easy to learn. I could be wrong though

Le Feu Sacre is not a simple set of rules.

And while NaW is suppose to be the FOW of Napoleonics, how does that make it simple?

There are a lot of different statuses to remember in NaW; units can be committed or engaged and this has an effect on how they can move and fight. Then there are support moves and reserve moves. It's all very clever, but it's not simple by any stretch of the imagination. It's actually fairly complicated

March Attack is both simple and flavorful. And it can be used for whole battles. The basic unit is a battalion.

Another vote for Black powder

Black Powder the only set of rules I've run at a convention 18' table hundreds of troops 12 players, 2 GMs and no hassle! link

It's actually fairly complicated

I would say NaW is about as complicated as Flames of War. I can look at the QRS

PDF link

You can to the same thing with Black Powder

PDF link

I don't think Black Powder has point based army construction

Black Powder does not contain army lists – not does it utilise points values – because we have never felt the need to include such things in our own games

They might have added some, I haven't looked at the rulebook in quite some time and the UK rules start to blend in my mind (like, I think the Foundry ACW rules have points, etc.)

"Why do people always state their favorite set of rules instead of responding to the poster's question?

The primary request was simple.

Black Powder is simple and easy. All the others suggested -LaSalle, Napoleon at War, V & B, Age of Eagles, have lots of rules, are more rigid in their mechanisms, and more complex to play even if their math isn't particularly complicated"

Well, not ALL the others suggested in any way…Rank and file is waaaay simpler than black powder…and faster….and has fewer modifiers.

March attack is another one….

One feels compelled to ask…Are black powder your favourites?

Thanks all! Lots of great suggestions here. I'll take a look at as many of these rules sets as possible.

Very much appreciate *all* your comments!

I'd suggest BP, but with a twist in my reasoning (which is nearly always twisted in some way). BP is probably simple enough to fit your initial criteria, but it can also serve as a gateway to gaming other genres. Once you get up and running with BP, if you get interested in ancients, there's Hail Caesar, which is very similar. Want to go back a century or two? Pike and Shotte just came out. WWII strike your fancy? Pick up a copy of Blitzkrieg Commander. And so on.

Oh, and as others have said – she does sound like a keeper! Grats!

Doug

For the record, BP is not my favorite.

Right now I like NaW. But it's a nuanced set with lots to keep track of to play.

I see your point.. I like NaW too, but when running some convention games I've used Lasalle because it is faster to pick up during a convention… NaW is not heavy in math but like you said it has a couple of quite sophisticated concepts, still you pick them up after a couple of games.

On the other hand notice that the OP also mentions that for his GF ( talk about being lucky :) ) Napoleon's Battles might be within her comfort zone ! That is a pretty reasonable comfort zone so with that in mind NaW could fit the bill… ( just like BP, Lasalle and many of the other recommendations.. )

There are really good options to get into napoleonics these days… which I think is great…

cheers
Francisco

Le Petit Empereur from Chipco runs about $8 USD and is pretty simple.

link

The simplest modern rules I have seen (and I've seen a lot of rules) are "Simplicity in Practice" or SIP by Neil Thomas. One unit per base and simple mechanisms. His Napoleonic rules are also very simple and can be used for more traditional looking games.
Also if your more of a traditionalist why not give Featherstones rules a whirl.

I introduced NaW to my employees the other evening as a "team building" exercise. This included one guy who plays minis, but not Napoleonics, my wife and the wife of another employee. They all had a blast.

After a brief discussion of how to move your troops, we jumped into it. I kept the armies pretty basic French versus Russians with no conscripts or anything to make it more confusing. We finished two turns in an hour and a half. Now everyone who works at the store and spouses are painting NaW minis.

Repeatedly they said that although I had been promoting it as pretty simple and fast, this demo really drove it home. It is pretty much chartless, once you have the mechanics down. We should soon have five more armies in the club!

I kinda like the Fire and Fury adaptation for Napleonics, can't remember what it's called Eagle something?

Age of Eagles. I would not recommend them for a novice player unless you can run the chart. I find them frustrating in that you have to roll every time you want to move and if you roll poorly, bad things can happen. There is a another way to simulate non-engage movement (or whatever he calls it) but that is for another thread.

Black Powder is good and simple. We have been using GW's Waterloo. It is also good and simple. I also use Legends of the old west for my Sharpe's skirmish games, but I am thinking about trying Sharpe Practice.

For a newbie Black powder has far too many holes. Whether you consider these rules unfinished or ready for personalisation depends on your point of view. Either way I think the OP deserves something complete and with a support group (e.g.on Yahoo).

Volley and Bayonet is a pricey set just to try out, and last timme I saw them the production quality was poor. Grande Armee was better.

Age of Eagles is simple enough if you like a high level game.

But for starters why not try the free sets that are out there, some of which are very good. Just google free wargames rules.

Some hints to look out for are Command and Colors Napoleonics – originally a board game but used and works well with figures. The rules are free and downloadable:

link

Or try Impetus, also free from Dadi e Polombo website.

Or just an hour and browse this lot……

link

Best of luck,

Marry her!! You'll not find another like her!!

These are our simple house rules. We use them for 25mm but I am sure you can adapt them for 15mm.

PDF link

If you can wait a few months, we will be publishing, "Look, Sarge, No Charts: Napoleonics" later this summer:

link

Bear in mind that the request was for a company/battalion set, which may mean she is interested in the internal workings of companies, squadrons or battalions, not pushing a couple dozen battalions or larger around. Most of what was mentioned is set at a divisional command level or higher.

Some games play much better having a lot of units on the table, rather than a handful operated in detail. It may be that some simple homegrown rules will work best for now.

BTW Rallynow, that link comes up empty.

You're not going to find any simple company-based games.

Myself and a friend are taking the plunge with N@W…since I don't rebase, I'll have to paint more troops! My first French battalion is on the painting table….

well Sharpe's practice is pretty reasonable and I believe it works when the maneuvre element is the company…

I thought they were looking for battalion as units since they are already trying S.Practice
cheers
Francisco

Both Rank and File/March Attack and Black Powder could work.

Both are systems that can apply to several eras so you can us them to play different conflicts.

Rank & File (18th century, £6.00 GBP download, £18.00 GBP book) with March Attack (Napoleonic, £6.00 GBP download, £20.00 GBP book) and the R&F American Civil War supplement (£5.00 download, £15.00 GBP book) are cheaper than Black Powder (£30.00 book, its first supplement book runs at £18.00 GBP so the next will surely be the same).
Links:
The Rank & File and March Attack books
or the downloads

The Black Powder books

Clay,

So N@W is not flexible enough to allow different basing or are you just painting them up to the suggested basing in the rules? I have my rules on order and I am very anxious to get my hands on them.

Well my pdf link isn't working anymore I will try to post them later.

Rallynow, to a certain degree they are as long as the foot prints of the unit is similar ( roughly similar shapes and footptrints as Lasalle or FOG-N ) so if you have armies that observe that foot print and can represent march, attack column, line square then you should be ok.. you might have to use disrpution markers instead of base removal…

There is no base to base geometry like for example in FOG-A ( bases overlap, etc… )

However, if you are playing different people it is convenient to use the standard basing… we used whatever basing we had until we decided we liked the rules and only then started rebasing..

I never rebased my south american war of independence troops since the foot prints is similar and when those go on the table they face only my other troops :) no Chilean campaign pick up games :)

see page 3 of this thread

TMP link

Francisco

Try DBN – easy to play rules, lots of tactics, small or large games.

try going to the junior general web site, simple, easy to learn (designed for children) can be modified to 15mm. Best of all FREE.

Black Powder. She can progress from there. And it gives a nice spectacle.

I would argue for LaSalle. It has a movement phase, shooting phase, and assault phase (though not in that order), and it has relatively simple army-building that gives you pretty historical divisions.

(I assume that you want to be pushing battalions of troops around as the smallest unit, equivalent to a squad in 40k)

Black powder needs some research before you can put a force on the table. Nothing wrong with that, but for a complete noob to the period I was better served by LaSalle.