"age of eagles vs. napoleon's battles 1" Topic

Hi,
I have a question for people that play these rules. What are the reasons that you play these games? I would like to hear about the positive reasons that you play rather than the negative ones.

I have both the rules and they both look good to play, which is why I'm asking about them.

Thanks in advance!

This will also help my reading as I'm laid up with a hip replacement.

Joe

It has been ages since I played NB, but I remember that the reason I jumped to AoE was simple: in AoE as a corps commander you get input into the positioning of divisional level artillery.

I think that is quite a reasonable thing to want to have a say in, but NB doesn't allow it, divisional artillery is factored into the fire factors of the brigades.

For me, it really was that simple. Napoleon had said that 'it is with artillery that war is made' but NB had made a game design decision to abstract all artillery up to division level. That frustrated me, and made it easy to embrace the AoE system.

I also rather enjoy the planning problems presented by the Reserve Movement sequence in AoE, but sadly can't remember how/if NB touched on that.

In passing, the rules support of the Yahoo group of AoE is superb. Again, no idea how NB would grade out there.

When the AoE beta started I abandoned NB. Fewer modifiers, stand not figure removal, Units closer to historical OOB to name a few reasons.

Two things drove me out of NB inmediately after reading:
1) Light-Medium artillery batteries are not represented.
2) It employs batalion formations for brigades: a brigade´s footprint is "shrinked" or extended as you change from line to column or square.

In its day NB was a great game. Bought it and played it for years…but it's difficult to digest the rules and it's complicated to play. I'll still play occasionally today because there are several already famlitar with the rules.

But AoE is much easier to read, understand, and play.

One thing to keep in mind regarding both sets is that they are designed with the brigade as a basic maneauver element and not the battalion. This means many things are abstracted, which makes those who prefer a more tactical game uncomfortable.

I have never played NB, but did acquire AoE and gave it one decent outing. I have to say I didn't like it. It's representation of command was a bit weak for my taste (not easy to represent the different command capabilities of different armies. Also it wasn't as space-efficient as my main alternative: Grande Armée, which is also based on brigades.

GA is very abstracted (no divisional battles), but you aren't bogged down with complex modifiers (too much in AoE for my taste) and gives a very entertaining game.

I am now moving to home-brew. GA is still available. It won't be to many tastes though. Volley & Bayonet is also quite popular; though I have the rule book I've never played it.

Either rule set is fine and I would play either one.

AOE Requires 25% more figures. If you play Fire and Fury it is easy to pick up.

Napoleon's Battles uses more charts and is similar to playing a boardgame.

If I had to choose, I would pick AOE because fewer charts make it easier to pick up. You can't go wrong with either though.

Napoleon's Battles was well supported by the Author, Bob Coggins there is an active Yahoo Group which is Now supported by the new Spanish Owners.

I like the fact that you can do Big Battles in a manageable time frame, The individual nations charts are extensive and also do not romanticise certain units like some other rules do.