"Most replayable mid sized Napoleonic Battle?" Topic

If I'm going to put the effort into making one of those purpose build terrain setups, I'd like it to be for something that will be played regularly, not once for interest and then given up.

So what is your favourite Napoleonic battle that gives both sides a chance and you replay frequently, smaller than Leipzig or Borodino?

My standard Napoleonic playtest scenario is Bussaco. Even? replayable as a game? Dunno really. But it is small enough to manageable, big enough to be interesting and test out the sorts of things I'm interested in.

Salamanca, Aspern-Essling, Quatre Bras and Marengo can all be interesting from either side. For a spate of what-if scenarios I like Kulm, but on purely historical orbats I wouldn't go there.

Marengo is a good choice. In fact, a lot of the earlier battles in Italy are interesting and a manageable size.

Pultusk, Albuera, and Dennewitz are three more nominations.

QB imo

Waterloo of cource..

Dennewitz is excellent – a brilliant encounter battle with stacks of different nationalities.

Quatre Bras hands down.

French have Guard cavalry and cuirassiers. Many smaller battles never feature these extraordinary units.

Allies have Highlanders, Nassau troops, Brunswickers ect…

Lots of pageantry and uniform variations, an even victory chance with a clear objective(QB), a very popular campaign.

I could go on but, Quatre Bras is one of the best mid sized battles IMHO to wargame.

Sacile 1809. Both sides have nicely balanced and interesting mid-sized armies (even including small elite reserves), especially if you take into account all of the outlying forces that were marching to the battle, and the terrain is beautiful and challenging.

Talavera is quite good, though it is quite likely that the Spanish army doesn't have much to do. You get a town on the battlefield, which might add to visual appeal.

Albuera makes an excellent game. So does Quatre Bras (or should do if the rules are calibrated so that Allied reinforcements arrive in the nick of time, or not quite).

Marengo is another good one. Depending on the rules and scale you can fight it along the table with the French falling back up to the point that Dessaix joins.

I have had success with Vitoria, though it's a big battlefield and not an even contest. I imagine that Bussaco is similar from a one-sidedness point of view, but more manageable otherwise – with good looking terrain. I have played Fuentes de Onoro too – but hut this is less easy to turn into a satisfactory game.

I haven't tried Ligny yet, but plan to give that a go.

mid-sized? Say a corps or two per side? 20,000 to 40,000 per side?
Besides the ones mentioned? [Waterloo? midsized?]

Vimeiro
Talavera
Albuera
Saalfeld
Any of the 1796-8 Italian battles
A number of the 1814 battles

Maida.

Saalfeld. Funnily enough I think hindsight actually helps this one: no modern-day "Prince Louis" is going to be as over-confident as the real one, which helps to balance the scenario a bit.

Novi 1799 – Souvorov and St. Cyr

I'm with McLaddie on the 1814 battles. The French army is small enough, and of questionable enough quality, that the Guard comes into play often — and the Allies are tough enough that the battles are all near-run things.

The Marchfeld…aka the battlefield of Aspern-Essling and later Wagram in July was the Austrian army's maneuvering area that its troops practiced in and knew like the back of their hand.

The battlefield is relatively wide open plain except for the stream and the rising ground behind it means that it is an excellent battlefield with lots of possibilities. Aspern-Essling provides some of the most nail-biting village fighting you will ever encounter…

The armies of 1809 are very well matched as well.

A little on the large side (Aspern-Essling) and on the huge side (Wagram)…

but the nature of the battlefield and the close match, but differing strengths of the French and Austrian troops means that there are many possibilities open for BOTH sides.

IMHO.

Frank

I'm working towards doing the battle of Loubino (1812)

My favorite midsize is Albuerra. British, Spanish and Portugese, the French achieve tactical surprise, a rainstorm in the middle of the battle.

Vimiero

I'll second on Albuerra, followed by Talavera, the British flank (ignoring most of the Spanish at the battle who did very little). Graham at Barrossa can be a tense little battle, as can the Light division defending at the combat of the Coa (don't tell the players, Ney has a whole corps to play with)

I think there might be some good fights in Italy 1809.

Personally prefer games without the appearance of Imp Gd units. Get kind of sick of seeing them in every damn fictional battle I play.