Good 28mm and 15mm systems?

[lord marcus]

Hi all,

I recently broached the subject of getting into Napoleonic's with my local club. They were interested, but asked me to round up some info regarding systems.

Currently we are not decided on scale, so I thought i would ask for reccomended systems for 28 and 15mm.

thanks in advance,


LM

[Yermolov]

Most rules sets will work for either 15mm or 25/28mm scale. The real questions you and your group should decide on is what sort of game you want to play and how large you want your units of figures to be.

Do you want to play a tactical game where each player commands a brigade or division? Or are you more interested in commanding one or more corps per player?

Are you happy with a 12 or 16 figure unit or do you want something larger?

Answer those questions first and then take a look at the rules sets on the market. I'm partial to RtE but end up playing a number of different rules sets due to other folks' preferences too.

Bart

[lord marcus]

The problem is we don't know what is out there. the whole point is i'm trying to gather information on the systems.

[Yermolov]

In that case, here is one good link to start with:

http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/ ... eonic.html

Also, if you can stand the snark and pedantry that infests TMP, searching through the Napoleonic boards will often yield some good information as well. Use google to search their archives versus TMP's built-in search function, which is terrible.

Hope this helps...

[EvilGinger]

if you wander onto the miniatures page (TMP) remember to wear the shark suit as its not called PMT! for nothing & its best to search rather than ask as you may attract much mockery for not already knowing the answer to the question your asking.

Not much of a Napoleonic gamer myself, stoped in the 1980's but I have heard good things about Le Feu Sacre by TooFatLardies (TFL) which would work better I think for 15mm as its very much a big battle game, several divisions per side, for more details on that try asking on the Yahoo group LFS list or the TFL group.

I have also heard good things about Lassalle though I have not played it. I would also note I have heard good things about Republic to Empire (R2E), published by Barry of this parish but have not seen played it or studied it in detail. I am sure some one here will fill you in with more detail on

Finally there is Sharpe Practice by TFL which despite its apparent lightness of content, works well as a straight wargame for every thing between a company a side at one to one to several battalions a side at a figure to man ratio of 1:10 or 20 and looks splendid in 25/28mm. I mention it as I am adapting it to run actions in the late 1700's & early 1800's using mostly Warfare Miniatures for the forces.

I hope that helps

Ginger

[Gunfreak]

Well there are sevral ways of doing this.

I'm gonna give you a short review of the tactical games as thats what I do mostly.

Tactical games the manouvre is The battalion, the cavalry regiment and the artillery battery.

A tactical game is usualy 8-30+ battalions, sevral cav regiments and 1 or more batteries. Most tactical games use "big" battalions ranging from 24 to 50 figures.

A two player game, is usualy a division pr. side. So 8-12 battalions pr side. 1-3 regiments of horse and 1-3 bateries. That is the standard small battle, but most rules will let you fight much bigger battles, The only real limit to the size of the battle, is time you got, number of players and table size.

There are sevral levels og gameplay, you got the fast and easy, and the hardcore.

On the fast and easy scale you got rules like Black powder and Lasalle.

On the hardcore side you got Republic to empire and General de brigade.

I like the hardcore rules, they give you more options and I feel they give better realistic feel to the game, both RtE and GdB have good rules for skirmishes which is an very important part of napoleonics

[lord marcus]

Just got a confirm from my club lead that he would like it to be 28mm.

[Gunfreak]

All those rules i mentioned works well with 28mm.

Black powder is made for huge tables, a single 28mm unit can move like 18 inches in a turn, so you need BIG tables,

Republic to empire was also made with 28mm in mind.

Lasalle uses base widths, so the number of inches a unit can move is based on how big the bases are, so natuarly the bases for 28mm is bigger then that of 15mm.

General de brigade gives ranges in cm for 15mm, and inches for 28mm.

So movement in cm for a unit in line is 10cm, movement for the same unit in 28mm is 6inches.

[Yermolov]

Now that you've decided on 28mm, many of the more popular rules sets can work with the same basing schemes, so you have the luxury of trying out different sets of rules to see which ones resonate with your club. Black Powder, RtE, General de Brigade among others all use compatible basing schemes and unit sizes.

Good Luck!

[lord marcus]

hmm. General de brigade sounds good. We usually plat on a conference room table, or half of that in 1 0n 1 matches.

[Gunfreak]

If you base your 28mm Figures on 4.5x40mm bases, you can play almost ANY rule sett, BdB, RtE, BP ect.

Or 50x50 ect it realy dosn't mater, but if you base your figures 6 on a base in what ever size, you can play more or less any rule set

[lord marcus]

Can a game be done with only a few units per side as we build up our armies?

[Yermolov]

If you're looking at GdB or something similar like RtE or BP, sure. Having everyone start out with a few units is the easiest way to understand the basic mechanics of the game.

Most of these games put the player in the position of being a brigade or divisional commander, so while they probably work 'best' with 6-12 units per player, I'm sure you could get a good game in with less units as you build your forces up.