"It's truly amazing that the French ever won a battle in Spain, even against all Spanish forces. I've never seen them win a wargame in the Peninsula."
Funny you should say that because I would have thought quite the opposite. Reading game reports linked from this site, my impression is this (and I hasten to add, this is purely impressionistic, I haven't taken any notes):
French vs British – British usually win, Peninsula or not.
French vs Russians – Pretty evenly split
French vs Spanish – French usually win
French vs Austrians or Prussians (any time period) French usually win
(French here meant to include allies – Saxons, Poles etc
With the exception of the last one, that's pretty historically accurate, although it should be weighted more in France's favour earlier, not so much later.
As long as these are reenactments of actual battles, we should expect roughly similar outcomes. But when they're a pick up game or in a campaign, the balance should be much less stark. The Prussians/Spanish/Austrians should not feel like they're just there to lose/make up numbers.
Scenarios should be balanced to give interesting challenges/victory conditions that make the exercise fun for both sides.
Rules should give all players and their armies an equal chance of winning, even if that means point values or some other mechanism to create game balance in a 'pick up' game.
My sense is that some rules tend to err in favour of the outcomes I list above – British are tough and flexible enough to beat the French, Russians are tough enough to compensate for inflexibility, others are not – the rules to reflect inflexibility are insufficiently compensated in some other area. Obviously players can simply allocate more troops to one side but I think that should be built into the rules. For example, does the extra flexibility afforded to French and British troops in General d'Armee or other rules "cost enough" to keep the game balanced?
Cheers,
John
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
