"DBN vs Absolute Emperor" Topic

Was wondering what people think of these two rules sets. Pros, cons, do you like one over the other and why? I have played DBN and have 15 mm armies for it. Have purchased 28m Perry figures for The Hundred Days and was going to use the same rules, but have found Absolute Emperor. Have not played yet, but they look promising. I have played V&B and other large scale rules, but am down to these two. Any thoughts on the two sets?

There are videos on YouTube for both sets. Absolute Emperor seems to have some traction and is at a scale up from DBN. I own both and have played DBN. AE has several supplements coming out next year too. Syw, American Rev and maybe WSS. There is already a Franco Prussian variant on the Facebook group. I'm doing AE.

Thanks

John

I know DBN rather well and I have created some videos on the rules here: youtu.be/n8gRH6ce0kU

In my option the rules give you a good game, very simpler to a game of DBA. If you use 12 point forces mixes per side you will not be disappointed. However when I tried to recreate historical conflicts I had issues. My current project is to use a card based system to create balanced ad-hoc games, which include reinforcements, flank attacks and what you would normally expect in a historical battle. But based on my observation you do need to ensure the players are well balanced in terms of points. The rules do have lots of critical rules scattered around them so they are hard to cross reference in a game, but I found it possible to learn the rules from them so I class the rules as reasonable.

As for Absolute emperor, they really excited me when I first saw them and I picked up a copy almost as soon as they were printed. Unfortunately I had a real struggle learning the rules. I found the rules format really difficult to get through. I think there is a good game in their somewhere, but something about the rules did not click with me. My gut feeling is if there is someone available to teach you the rules you will be ok and they should give you a fun game.

Final point, if you are looking for a set of rules to duplicate historical battles my advise would be to try Bloody Big battles. Absolute emperor's main focus seems to be a fun, but abstract game, which is DBN's strength as well.

Hi

Play them both. I have them both, not expensive in wargame terms. Our group has well tested Absolute Emperor and found it in need of some tweaking but if you follow the high level pitch of the game it give you a fast and accessible game. I have played DBN with the author and think they can give you a good game, from small 12 unit games to Leipzig!

cheers