Allright chaps, i'm back with more questions:
Between napoleonic wargaming, one hour wargames and 19th century wargaming, what are the most notable differences?
One hour wargames does not have command/morale rules, do the others have them?
Is there much difference between the napoleonic and 19th century book? besides army lists and weapons?
How is hand to hand in the napoleonic and 19th century ones?
scenarios: i know 1 hour wargames and the 19th century one include scenarios, what about the napoleonic one?
what are the table sizes and playing times for the napoleonic and 19th century books?
Have my eye on the napoleonic one, but as they are not that widely available anymore, it has a premium price. (there is one on ebay for 45£, and that's just crazy..) i just want to be sure of what i'm getting.
Don't know anything about the Napoleonic one. In the one hour game a unit starts with 15 points and gets knocked down by 1s to zero - it's that simple. In the C19th one the game has 15 moves, and can last two to three hours. A unit can only charge if it outnumbers it's target. I found this made it almost impossible for the French to get in in the Mars la Tours scenario. One reason I change the moving formation from a single stand four deep column to a two by two stand block (same as the cavalry) was because it looks better. The firing line I use is a single rank of bases. H-to-H is simultaneous. A number of dice are rolled depending on the type of unit. More or fewer dice are used depending on factors. Kills on a 4-6 But some units in some situations and/or time periods have saving rolls. Loser must retreat. The loser must then take two morale tests, i.e. roll two dice, so the loser could lose up to two bases from a four base unit, which must have already been reduced, if you are the defender, for the attacker to have got in in the first place. This all sounds pretty simplistic but does in fact produce an exciting game with lots of decision points. The C19th set also has an option for command rules. There is one standard scenario map, but it can be played in a variety of ways. There are also ten historical scenarios, and each of these also have what if alternatives, military possibilities and the like.
Personally I really like this book as a good stand-by for an evening game when a game is called for unexpectedly or if I can't be bothered to spend ages sorting a game out. As I've said before, I've played a number of standard scenario and historical scenario games so far, and have enjoyed all of them. Incidentally most of the scenarios are designed for a 4'x3' table, although I've played some of them (Alma and Mars la tours) with 28mm figures on a 6'x4'.
Thanks for the explanation!
Its hard to find anything on these books. A lot of people make AAR's, but most have added rules of their own so it's not easy to see what is original.
One of the reasons i'm being pulled to this series of books is the table size. I'm finding it harder and harder to have the time to set up full battles.
I decided to order the napoleonic one an hour or so ago, and will probably get the other two as e-books. (for 5£ each, that's not really expensive). I'll probably try them out with all those airfix and esci 1/72 i have lying about to see if i like them (or just proxy acw units), but from what i have heard and read the past days, i think i'll like them!
Peter, here's a shot of a 10mm Alma game using the rules.
(http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g440/dourpuritan/Club%20Night/IMG_1449_zpszl3djtzy.jpg)
Looks great!
About the density of figures i like on a table. Putting the bases 2 by 2 gives a nice unit! crowded in a good way!
That does look good.
Cheers - Phil
A quick game tonight to try out Wargaming 19thC Europe and must say very impressed. All ran very smoothly and will scale up nicely to use with some of my generic scenario books.
Have had a couple of games wit the napoleonic one myself, and definately like them!
Moves along nicely and you don't have to refer to the rules a lot after you played them a time or two.
Looking forward to playing them with my new armies. (have used my 2mm or my acw troops when trying them out)
Takes a few tries to effectivaly use your cavalry, but after that the heavy cavalry are ace!