"Getting into Chosen Men?" Topic

I've been looking at the Osprey game, Chosen Men, and I'm curious about it.

Is it as good as the other Osprey games? I've been pretty happy with what Osprey has put out so far.

How many figures should I get to start with? The little I've seen suggests 2+ units of 5+ men. Pretty vague. Would 10 be a decent start? I've been bitten by the Sharpe bug again and want to do some low level skirmishing but I want a flexible system that can cover small section level actions up to say company (50 or so men). Does Chosen Men stretch that far?

Thanks!

If you do a search here for "chosen men" you will find some opinions of it, including this one:
"I hosted my first game of Chosen Men today. My four players were all experienced wargamers with good knowledge of the Napoleonic wars. Unfortunately, the unanimous verdict was: Too clunky! Admittedly, I perhaps stretched the rules to their limit by fielding two 1000+ point forces in our first game, but the scenario could easily have been accommodated by other Napoleonic rules we play, such as Sharpe Practice and Field of Battle. Some of the aspects of the rules which were unpopular, included: taking three dice rolls to resolve small arms fire; four if you include saving throws for cover. A one in four chance of artillery making a "misfire" when firing ball. Clunky artillery rules requiring multiple dice rolls and both a D6 and a D3 to resolve ball fire. I assume that the author was attempting to model the effect of an old-school bounce stick, but we found the method confusing and time consuming. Unrealistic movement rates where skirmishing infantry "on the double" can move faster than cavalry in the open. Assuming that all infantry is by default in skirmish order when, historically, only a small percentage of regular infantry was so trained. Poorly organized text that required a lot of searching. No FAQ or Cheat Sheet or any kind of support from Osprey.
I was particularly disappointed because I was very impressed by the recently published: Men Who Would Be Kings, which made gaming the Colonial period streamlined and fun. By contrast, the Chosen Men rules have, at their core, Warhammer Historical mechanics overlaid with complexity, for no apparent purpose other than the goal of adding complexity for its own sake. Sorry Osprey, this one gets a FAIL from me".

Bought it. Read it. Not inspiring enough to try to play it. Keeping it just for the pretty pictures of all the Perry 40mm (ironically a scale which i don't even think gets mentioned in the rules).

Check out Green Jackets and Voltigeurs at:

battlefieldgamedesigns.com

Great skirmish game with lots of scenarios. Also the author is a good friend of Jason Salkey (aka Rifleman Harris in the Sharpe movie series).

Or try Sharp Practice. Fifty or so men seems optimum for them.

And for smaller stuff than SP, there's Song of Drums and Shakos, 8-15 guys per side.

For Napoleonic skirmish, I've tried Songs of Drums and Shakos and Fire & Steel and Sharpe Practice 2. Sharpe Practice was, for me at any rate, far and away the best. Fun, simple, loaded with colour and battlefield friction.

SDS was OK, but seemed a bit "odd" in spots. It seemed like Napoleonic warfare was being shoehorned into the "Songs" engine, rather than adapting the engine to the history.

F&S was just a bunch of individuals in colourful clothing and tubular hats shooting at each other. No formations, no command, no control. It might be a fun set for pirates, or western gunfights, but for organized and trained soldiers.

I've got Chosen Men, read it a few times, really wanted to like it, but it was so close to Warhammer Historical's "Waterloo" that it never really interested me enough to try it.

Although, to be honest, I find most of the Osprey blue series of rules to be "meh" at best. (For the record, the only one I actually have played more than once is Honours of War"). So, if you like those various rules, perhaps you should ignore me! :)