"Grand Tactical Rules for Newbies" Topic

I'm still quite new to miniature wargaming. To give you an idea, I'm using Junior General paper cutouts as "miniatures", such are the consequences of a tiny budget. I'm interested in trying large battles (Austerlitz, Jena, Borodino, etc.) in the Napoleonic and ACW periods. Currently, these are the rulesets I am considering:
•Napoleon's Battles IV
•Age of Eagles II
•Grande Armée

I'm aware that there is no "perfect" set of rules, and that every set has its supporters and detractors. That said, I'm very interested in hearing what more experienced wargamers have to say.

On a budget? Grande Armee at half scale no doubt.

AOE 2 and Nappy Battles use quite a lot of figures. I own all 3 and am building a massive army for the other 2 sets, yet the Army rosters are not even close to being filled.

AoE 2 is my go to set, but in your case. GA at half scale, or even (30mm) pocket scale and use cm instead of inches.

If whole battles is what you want to play, Bloody Big Battles would work. Folks have used them successfully for Napoleonic battles. 12 pages of actual rules.

Nothing wrong with paper cutouts… I decided to do the entirety of my Star Trek gaming this way.

The two with which I am familiar are Grande Armee and AoE. If you want to do the largest battles, I would go with GA (we've done Leipzig!). GA is, however, pretty abstract. A base is a base. You don't have formations as such, but it works. We use a reduced scale (with 6mm figures). We also replaced the command and control rules.

AoE is more granular. You do have formations, but by brigade, rather than regiment or battalion, which will bother some. If you are going to do Borodino with AoE, then you will need a few players or lots of time.

Good luck.

Volley and Bayonet – dead simple – and you can even cut it down more and make it even simper!

Snappy Nappy: one infantry stand= 2,000 men.

Volley and Bayonet is the best introduction. I started my son on it when he was 8

Blucher is an excellent set of rules, and lets you fight the largest Napoleonic battles. Like V&B, each base is a brigade.
Unlike V&B, there are command & control rules
It has more Napoleonic flavour than V&B, which is a fine set of rules, but the lack of command and control rather lets it down.

All the rulesets you mentioned were reviewed comparatively in Battlegames 25: payhip.com/b/pWaq

Polemos Marechal d'Empire link and Horse, Foot & Guns link are the rules I use for this size of battle. They are both reasonably simple and give good games

Another recommendation for Blucher – cards make it simple to convert to miniatures Rules are definitely Grand tactical with a campaign system added

Napoleon's Wars free rules

link

We play Guard du Corps from 1981. Scale is 1:50

Bluecher is great!

A big thanks for the advice, just ordered NB IV, but will definitely keep all these suggestions in mind!

One question on Blücher though – from what I've heard, only notable commanders are represented. This is an interesting concept, especially for streamlining gameplay, but can it be modified to represent more than famous commanders?

In Blucher, a commander just serves as marker for where his force is.
So you can have a commander for each force, but only exceptional commanders have special abilities.

Thanks for the straightening that out Dexter Ward, much obliged.