I've certainly noticed the tabletop / reality gap with Napoleonics.

It's almost as through the era is divided into two.
1. A world of plodding linear warfare where a few expert generals have cracked the code and manoeuvre swiftly for advantage.
2. Everybody gets it, and has raised massive armies - return to the meat-grinder.

Most of the interesting battles don't fit on a table of you adopt the Featherstone / Grant standard of Infantry battalions.
Some (often American authored) rules move the action to the Brigade - with some loss of "formations and county regiments".

I have developed an affinity for the recent (and free) Valour and Fortitude rules.
But when I put a historic battle on my table I bathtub it.
Smaller battles: For each real brigade deploy a battalion.
Big Battles: For each real division, deploy a battalion.

Bathtubbing isn't perfect, a lot of cavalry strength dissappears "down the cracks" unless you allow a bit of rounding up.
Likewise, the only guns you'll see are the corps and army assets, mainly in grand batteries.

Despite the imperfections, I've found that bathtubbing provides some interesting games.

Something not mentioned so far about BBB that drew me in - it's scenario based, so each battle has different objectives. In a battle that famously led to an orderly retreat, your objective will be to get X stands over the table edge while your opponent has to stop them; in another, you're battling over particular locations (towns, hills etc, and it may not be the same amount needed by each side either, the French might need 2 for a victory, the Prussians 5); in another it's supply trains that need to get across to the other side of the map. There are very few that are "kill off as many enemy units as you can and force a morale break."

It also neatly takes away the "so I have poorly trained French with bad morale, and you have twice the number of well-trained Prussians, with massed artillery, and high morale and a great starting position" problem of other games based on historical battles (which BBB does - hence the books and downloads of various battles) by having these victory conditions be the deciding factor. In the above case, yes, of course the French are going to lose; the question is how badly? Are they going to hang on the town on the left and keep the Prussians at bay on the right, while their centre collapses, or are they going to try to keep on for another two hours in the centre too so that an orderly withdrawal from the battlefield can take place? And what aspects are the Prussians going to concentrate on, when they effectively need to take out at least 3 of their 4 objectives in a short time period?

Finally, the last thing I really like is an in-built campaign structure - each battle suggests a slight edge for the winner of the previous battle (so for example, if you won at the previous battle, your fragile division is no longer fragile, or you gain an extra small cavalry unit, etc. There are also suggetss for what-ifs - at this battle, one of the generals was late in getting to the field, so none of his troops played a part, but if you wish to, have him arrive half way through, with this effect on the objectives, for example.   

Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 27 August 2025, 11:48:31 AMI've certainly noticed the tabletop / reality gap with Napoleonics.
It's almost as through the era is divided into two.
1. A world of plodding linear warfare where a few expert generals have cracked the code and manoeuvre swiftly for advantage.
2. Everybody gets it, and has raised massive armies - return to the meat-grinder.

But the meat-grinder does have an epic feel, provided the rule mechanisms aren't as attritional as the battles and the game moves on from decision point to decision point. Borodino is a good for-instance:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2023/01/borodino-majestic.html

Quote from: Nick the Lemming on 27 August 2025, 01:57:24 PMSomething not mentioned so far about BBB that drew me in - it's scenario based, so each battle has different objectives.

Finally, the last thing I really like is an in-built campaign structure - each battle suggests a slight edge for the winner of the previous battle.   

Nick, thanks very much for making these great points. I didn't mention them myself as they are features of the rules rather than of the FPW, but indeed the scenario structure and objectives was an important tool to help to make FPW games fun. So often a BBB game will come down to an exciting last turn, even the last couple of throws of the dice, with several objectives contested and win/lose/draw results all still possible. That's not just luck, it's a deliberate result of careful scenario design.

Quote from: henjed on 27 August 2025, 10:36:49 AMI love that formula! And I think I recall reading at least one of your more philosophical blog posts a few years back. I must take another peek.

Thanks, Mike. The "Reflections" essays can be found here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2021/10/reflections-on-wargaming.html

Quote from: henjed on 27 August 2025, 10:36:49 AMWhen I was mulling over Napoleonic gaming a few weeks back (I have a sadly butterfly mind at times), I was caught in the dilemma between that desire for granularity (to at least have one stand per named, designated, dearly-loved battalion) and the desire to fight larger battles than such granularity could easily/practically accommodate (and which would render some of those battalions visually anonymous). It reminds me of a criticism I read of the Blucher ruleset which said that with such abstraction you may as well use counters rather than figures (which I think at least in part misses the point - minis are pretty much always better than counters, however abstracted the troops they represent might be!).

Yes, the necessary abstraction to play big battles does lose some of the personality. But we don't have to throw all the babies out with the bathwater. BBB units may be divisions but they comprise multiple bases. That means (a) BBB still uses formations (Line, In Depth, Column of March, to reflect whether a unit is optimised for fire, assault, or movement); and (b) an individual base can represent a particular battalion or regiment so we can still cheer on Berdan's Sharpshooters or the Polish Legion, etc. For me and my kindred spirits, it hits the sweet spot where it achieves the grand battle goal but still has a tactical feel and some flavour and character. (Others' sweet spots may be elsewhere, of course.)

Thanks Chris, Nick and others - a lot of food for thought: I'll be at Colours in ten days or so and may pick up a BBB ruleset if there's one there and mull over the issue of scale of battle and granularity of unit detail a bit more.

Great thing about BBB is you only need a few Pendraken packs to make whole armies. 

Quote from: Duke Speedy of Leighton on 28 August 2025, 10:16:38 AMGreat thing about BBB is you only need a few Pendraken packs to make whole armies. 

That is a decided advantage. 10mm is my preferred scale for non-skirmish games, but I had been thinking about lurching possibly to 6mm (!).

Quote from: henjed on 28 August 2025, 09:41:09 AMThanks Chris, Nick and others - a lot of food for thought: I'll be at Colours in ten days or so and may pick up a BBB ruleset if there's one there and mull over the issue of scale of battle and granularity of unit detail a bit more.

Usually we lay on a BBB participation game at Colours but various work, family, conference, medical etc issues meant we can't do it this year. 

Quote from: henjed on 28 August 2025, 10:37:58 AMThat is a decided advantage. 10mm is my preferred scale for non-skirmish games, but I had been thinking about lurching possibly to 6mm (!).

All my armies are 6mm, but if I were to start again now I think I'd go 10mm so that it would be easier for some of my comrades to tell who's who and which way they're going ...

I've got the first two Bloody Big Battles FPW scenarios, Froeschwiller & Borny-Colombey, loaded on Tabletop Simulator (TTS).

If you own TTS then I would be more than happy to teach you how to play BBB online.

Froeschwiller is very good for demonstrating the differences between the Chassepot rifle and and the  Krupp cannon 

Alan

That's a kind offer, Alan, but I am really trying to keep my screen time down. Increasingly, my day job - which used to be all about talking to people and explaining things face-to-face - has turned into a Zoom or MS Teams dominated series of rather empty screen-staring interactions.