"The Holy Grail - The Best Napoleonic Rules, Part Two" Topic

Just how common were mercenary units during the thirty years war? It seems there were armies raised around recruits of common origin that weren't true mercenaries. I am thinking of the Saxon army that fought with Gustavus.

The Swedes had a national army but heavily supplemented by Germans. Did the Swedes hire pure mercenary units? And were the Germans typically separate units or integrated directly into pure Swedish units?

Were the Bohemian, Saxon, Lorraine or the Bavarian/Catholic League armies composed of mercenaries or primarily of national troops?

What about the HRE army? Primarily mercenaries?

Or was the core of each army a national/conscripted army supplemented by pure mercenary units?

It seems captured troops would often switch sides but was it because national/religious convictions were so weak or because they were simply pure mercenaries and would fight for anybody?

I have always assumed the Thirty Years War was the time of the mercenary but now I am wondering.

Here is the second installment of my search for the best Napoleonic rules, featuring Le Feu Sacre (3rd edition).

madmacsattic.blogspot.com

I felt that the rules, although really intended for corps-sized or larger games, were very solid and featured some nice mechanics and innovation. There was a bit more abstraction than I prefer in battalion-level rules, but that is due to the grand-tactical scope.

Again, all of this is my own personal and humble opinion and not intended to disparage anyone's favorite rules.

The infamous glitch has struck again !

I enjoy your reviews, please keep them coming.

Thanks for this review. I have read (but not played) these rules. I was also concerned at the way combat is streamlined. It is interesting to learn that you think the results come out fine, even if they way to the results have been abstracted. That is probably a good indicator for larger games.

Please keep the reviews coming!

A good review but I think it could be balanced by explaining the real reason why there is no separate musketry in LFS and why that makes it a well considered game design.

Many wargames rules present us with basic assumptions, for example: muskets fire 12" and I guess this is because they think this looks about right with the typical size of miniatures used. However that example is often a flawed concept because the designer hasn't considered the relationship between the ground scale and weapon ranges. They may even state their game has no ground scale but even in doing so they can't escape the simple fact that there is a direct relationship between the frontage of a battalion and the effective range of a smoothbore musket.

For me LFS was/is a breath of fresh air in that it is built around an understanding of the significance of historical unit frontages and realistic weapon ranges and effects.

In some ways I think it plays like a boardgame which I view as a good thing – I like that degree of precision both in the conceptual structure and the actual game play. One of the minor spin-off plus points of these rules is that if you base your armies to the rules then you'll be able to play other rule sets as well.

Nice point Timmo…..yeah I understand why the author didn't include a musketry phase and it makes total sense considering the grand-tactical scope of LFS…..im still not used to it….but I "get it".

Thanks for the comments…..great to hear from LFS players…

Any chance you may review Shako or Napoleon's Battles in the future?

Looking at Shako 2…..

Combat results are good in large part because they are based on Reisswitz Kriegspiel tables, and he was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. I never got "how the hell did that happen" results playing LFS. Oh, I might be unhappy "they could have put up a better fight" or "damn, why won't they move?", but never just plain gobsmacked. I've had that last response to many sets of rules.