Thanks for the kind comments by all. The rules have been developing over the past couple years, with each game highlighting the necessary tweeks or innovative new ways of approaching giving a simple yet fun and hopefully "accurate" battle. Always our thoughts they would have to withstand the pressures of the convention setting and all that entails --- new players, necessarily very simple mechanics required, but still giving a Napoleonic warfare feel.
We are now there. And now that all that development has been made, I have been listening to Sam Mustafa's podcasts and literature on his upcoming "Blucher" rules and I must suggest they are really close to what we have come up with! Now how did he know what we had come up with?? Link: sammustafa.com/honour
Like his ours are very much the one element/base = a brigade. The actual tactics of those units "within" are totally irrelevant. We have strove to keep to this level of command and not to stray into the tactical realm.
Of course all this came from a bottom up engineering model. Seth cut out the bases and said lets use these. From his DBA background, he merely made them x4 as large as the 15mm base for use by the 28mm we use. I put some troops on them and liked the look. We originally used larger stands for artillery but through a cutting error – too long a story there – we ended up with smaller stands which we simply liked the look of them and changed over. No science to our rules but as Tom ( "wrgmr1" above ) kindly suggests, they work.
However, writing them up, knowing we shall be there to help them along and actually publishing them if only in rough form but with all the necessary elaborate explanations and diagrams, is a very much different matter.
As an example of the rule's development, we played a game in which "discussion" about the artillery and firing arcs highlighted the problems associated with upper level game with lower level artillery tactics. It was suggested that the artillery be integrated into each brigade stand. i said no way; I painted up 15 guns and crews and will d**ned well be using them! :- )
So we use the guns as a central marker for use of distance and effect. Abstracted, we allow firing through friends, buildings etc as at least one of the many batteries of that corps would be in position to fire in what we be considered "the usual wargame manner"
In the upcoming "Blucher" ( pardon the lack of the umlaut ) Sam allows the same and with a concentrated battery of a separate element if so wanted. In our rules we simply allow concentrated fire but using our same firing technique.
So if this style of game is of interest, I would suggest looking at Sam Mustafa's upcoming rule set. [ Sam, if you are reading this, you can buy me a beer or two should we ever meet…. ]
The end result in any case is a very doable Napoleonic game, in 28mm, and on a small table, with not that many figures to have painted, yet I would like to think a very nice looking affair. The camera always seems to show vast areas of green of the table. In the 'flesh' the eye sees a more concentrated and bright game.
cheers,
…DougH
paints brigs for the British fleet.
