Back in Edition 21, Ian Barstow (or Barstool as my PC’s Spell checker would have it) asked for more involvement from Wargaming readers of First Empire. Having had the privilege of boring the pants of the readership on two previous occasions I thought I would rally to the call for a third time. The content I hope will inform new comers and divert old hands from the battle of the academics currently raging across the pages of this worthy publication as they vie to see who has the biggest readers ticket!

As articles on rules seem to be in vogue elsewhere at the moment I though I might look at those covering our period and examine where they have been, some of what you can get and where they are going.

Rules through the Ages (well, since 1965 anyway)

Not being a firm follower of Captain Nathan Brittles (aka John Wayne, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) I will start with an apology. Firstly to all those who feel their rules to have been over looked and secondly to all those never to have their works published in English, as I have never read them. Secondly, as rules are such a personal thing, much of follows will contain opinion as well as fact but if this provokes any of you to take up you pen so much the better.

Having said that let us go back to the dawn of time ( well not quite, as I am primarily concerned with figure gaming H.G. Wells is the dawn and as far as I know he didn’t play this period) to the days of Don Featherstone, Peter Young and Charles Grant, Peter Gilder and Jack Scruby. When men were men and figures were 30mm and quite often made by you.

At this time rules of any period, let alone ours, were simple just a few D6s and the odd plus one on the dice here and there and the world was your oyster. Very few people knew of wargames and even less had the slightest idea what Napoleonic warfare was all about. Games hinged around Divisional sized actions and I remember a series of articles in the Wargames News Letter or some other early publication lovingly describing a mythical campaign on the French invasion of England where both sides would have barely mustered a Corps each.

Yes it was crap. Or at least from our current level of complexity and information overload it was, but at the time, well I guess you had to be there, as they say.

Evolution

However, as in all good species evolution began to rear its ugly head and the demand for sophistication grew. For me this first came to light in the early Seventies (1970’s you fools, I’m not that old) with the publication of Bruce Quarrie’s - Napoleonic Wargaming and the introduction of the dreaded National Characteristics. My God, what rows that started! Looking back on it now it’s hard to believe that people called themselves historical gamers and were perfectly happy to play with rules where there was little or no difference between the opposing sides abilities to shoot, fight and manoeuvre. Let alone such issues as command and control factors, but they did and Quarrie was branded a heretic just as surely as if he had said the earth moved round the sun.

Soon the more established areas of the hierarchy were fighting back. Quarrie was followed by the WRG 1685 -1845 set, playable but essentially Divisional based rules spiced up with a dash of the now accepted National Characteristics, which are still on sale today. These were later joined by the first outing of the Newbury rules that have become the more or less exclusive domain of the competition wargamer in our period and owe more than a passing nod to WRG in the small scale, points based, actions they support.

Rules stuck at this level for quite awhile until the desire to fight larger actions began to force people to look beyond the Divisional level mechanics of the old style of game where regiments and battalions were the order of the day to one where the Brigade was the basic unit.

In many ways Peter Gilder was first in this field with the In the Grand Manner rules. Although these did not really see the light of day as a commercial set until after other large scale sets were already available. Early versions were being used at the Wargames Holiday Centre on huge tables with 25mm figures long before we in Britain saw the early versions of Empire, which were the first of the Big Battle sets to gain popular appeal in the USA.

One other set of large scale rules I should mention here, partly because they have cropped up in the letters page of First Empire in recent editions and partly because they are the nearest thing I have seen to the absolute root of wargames i.e. Kreigspeil. Are the now almost mythical Dennis, Knight and Jeffrey (Large Scale Wargames with Small Scale Figures) rules once published by Raider Games. These were/are for large battles with 6mm figures. They remain a strange and wonderful creation of almost pure tactics but with a number of playablity problems not least of which, in my view, being the almost absolute need for an umpire.

Big Battles

However the Big Battle development became an American speciality. Empire running through five editions. Only III, IV & V were freely available outside the USA . Edition IV was disowned by the author after an ownership/publication dispute and was no where near as good as the current Edition V. All of these editions enjoyed the dubious reputation of being the most expensive hard copy rules ever presented for sale in this country until being joined by Avlon Hill’s Napoleon’s Battles, which I note from some recent adverts now holds the title. More recently Legacy of Glory, dealing in even bigger formations than the other two appeared and I gather is now available again. All three of these transatlantic sets represented significant changes in approach to what had gone before, by their approach to the representative size of the conflict they were supposed to portray.

Empire made flesh (or should that be paper) the “game v simulation” debate in which rule writers tried to force players to act like their historic counter parts by constrictions in the rules designed to stop gamesmanship and promote national tactics. Unfortunately this backfired somewhat as the cost and the culture shock of the requirement to actually learn something from ones recreation meant the Brits stayed away in droves.

Napoleons Battles took a more populist approach. The set was crafted from an avowed approach to influence board gamers to look beyond a sea of cardboard counters into the world of three dimensions. As such it included historical background, scenarios and painting tips by the book load and turned out to be very board game in its presentation but happily not in its playing.

Legacy of Glory was perhaps a rule set too far, in that coming on behind its fellow imports it reached a market that had already made up its mind about £20 rule sets and had either discounted them as pretentious American twaddle or purchased one or both of the others. In some ways this was a pity for it has several novel ideas to the grand tactics of the period although it does move closer to the board game in that units are even more like counters than in its American cousins.

Figure Scales and Game size

Along with the rule systems other associated areas of wargaming have developed over the years. Apart from the number of manufacturers currently producing figures in the Napoleon period, which in the past few years seems to have grown at a surprising rate, the difference in figure scales available (25, 20, 15, 6 & 2mm) is worth some attention.

We tend now to take this spread for granted but before the early 1970’s when Minifigs introduced the first widely available 15mm figures (with due respect to those who remember Peter Laing who might well have got there before them) the main stream was 25mm.

Today 15mm would be classed as the main arena with 6 and 25mm fighting it out for second place and 2mm being used by a small but increasing number, perhaps as an alternative to another period or for very large games with rules that allow for casualties to be shown by means other than figure removal.

My purpose for introducing this point is that I believe that figure size strongly influences the way you approach a game and the rules you use. It also can have an effect on the “feel” of a game for some not wholly quantifiable reason. For example, as I have mentioned in a previous article, I like using Napoleons Battles with 2mm blocks but find something lacking in them with 15mm figures.

I feel 25mm figures give a particular “chess” like quality to a game as the units project a sense of being large “pieces”. The table area needed for large scale actions also sets them apart and this “broad brush” approach has traditionally been reflected in the rules people use with them. As if to show that the size in some way is a rejection of the complexity that occurs in 15mm games played with more recent rule sets.

In appearance terms I find that the reverse is also true in that Divisional games (those where the battalion/regiment is the basic element) have a poor visual appeal in 15mm. This is most noticeable in the competition game although I appreciate what the table looks like is the last thing of concern these occasions. I have seen the WRG 1685 - 1845 rules played with figure scale halved (unit size doubled) and it seemed to transform the game as well as making it look more substantial.

Newer Scales

The “newer” 6 and 2mm scales are in some ways borrowers of other peoples clothes as with the possible exception of Anschluss Publishing’s Ebb & Flow and one or two other less well known 6mm sets their are few popular rules that assume the play uses small figures. A some people get round this lack of specific rules by putting an increased number of figures on the base sizes of larger scales, which visually is fair enough and a least if you take of a base that is supposed to represent 60 men looks at bit more like that number. For users of 2mm there is even less choice. The only practical solutions I have found are Dennis, Knight and Jeffries or Napoleon’s Battles although I assume you could use Legacy of Glory in a similar fashion.

Turning to game size. For most people this is where rules come to grief or at least the way they are used brings them to such a point. The sad fact is most gamers expect a rule set to be all things to all people. It may, in theory, be possible to write a set that is equally as adept at time limited fun size games on a club night as it is creating the majestic sweep of the weekend mega bash but this child ain’t found it. Much as it breaks my heart, not to mention my wallet, you either have to limit your activity or buy more that one set of rules. The only rules I have used personally that come near being able to fit both criteria are Napoleons Battles and to be frank they have ‘Compromise’ written all they way trough them, like a stick of seaside rock (that’s candy to all of you living in that large land mass between 65 and 130 degrees longitude, the name of which escapes me for the moment).

In many ways this is the dilemma of the historical gamer. If you are not careful small games and their associated rules are like toy soldiers and large games are logistical feats that rival the real thing with rules that would tax the brain of the man the period is named after!

Add to this the dual debates of realism (a word to be careful with, no one has shot at me while wargaming, it’s a relative term) verses playablity and that wonderful game verses simulation (another risk laden word, I settle for it being applied to an approximation of the command problems) argument and it makes you wonder why we bother to do it all.

The future?

Ah! I hear you all thinking. This is it. This is where the pontificating really starts. My view of the world and my favourite rules by A Wargamer, aged 13 and a half. Sorry guys, no sale.

What I will say is a few words on the latest branch of the rules tree and their limitations and a few more on what I would like to see happen. Then it’s up to you to either go back to sleep (assuming I haven’t caused that already) or to dip you pens in the vitriol and let fly.

Firstly, Computers do they have a future ? (joke question) Well in rules terms I am not that sure, at least not until some really clever software comes along. No offence to those in the market at the moment but what you get now is essentially a book keeping, dice throwing, casualty table device. They have their place in the scheme of things and for playing solo I have got something back for my investment but they do have fundamental flaws. what you get now is essentially a book keeping, dice throwing, casualty table device. They have their place in the scheme of things and for playing solo I have got something back for my investment but they do have fundamental flaws.

I would love to see a major software company put some serious money into a table top rules program but I doubt even they could overcome the basic problem that wargames by their nature throw up random events that writers did not or could not allow for. This results in serious problems when you are confined by the program structure in finding a solution to a dispute that pleases both sides. Besides, serious software takes serious development money and I doubt that Bill Gates would figure the wargames market much of a return on his money.

Computers

I personally feel that computers for wargamers should be redirected more toward that which they do best i.e. data storage/retrieval and graphical representation. What I should like to see is a user definable Campaign system that was not tied to a computer based rule set but could freely handle data and results generated by your own favourite rules. The system would allow easy map generation and a wide range of logistical data to be entered as well as acting as umpire for map contacts and the usual determination of what forces were available for battle and when they arrived.

On the paper front I should like someone to come up with a Fire and Fury for Napoleonics. Something fast, with enough feel to make it worth playing and big game possibilities. One thing though, could anyone trying this please ensure that unlike the aforementioned rules it is not possible to mass fire and miss completely on the dice roll. They may be the best thing to hit ACW games in years but any rules that let you rack up half the points on the fire chart and still have a 1:10 chance that you won’t even disorder your opponent, try my patience to the limit.

Finally it would really interest me to see what the rest of you are playing with and to this end I wonder if the honourable editor would consider a readers poll, excluding computer based ones to avoid any accusations of course.

On my travels round the shows I don’t see that many games in our period to make a judgement, competitions apart, which tend to be based on To the Sound of the Guns. Recently I have seen computers being tried, the Editors fine work or Hard Pounding for the most part, other wise it often appears to be local club sets that people are using.

Where’s all the money going?

I would love to ask some questions on other peoples experiences at a show one day but I never seem to find using the same rules as me. Am I the only one who buys all this American stuff ?

Mad fool that I am I use three sets. Empire V for large 15mm games, Napoleons Battles for face to face 2mm games, finishable in an evening and the Bridgnorth Bashers, Brigade rules for 2mm solo, when I feel like running up my electricity bill. But rarely see any of these in use.

Are people so dissatisfied with commercial rules in this country that they all write their own or is Napoleonic wargaming in such decline that these die-hards are the only ones left who can be bothered to put on demo games?