A review of a set of wargaming scenarios, at least historical ones, should always be something of a celebration, for scenarios are the skeleton upon which our games are based. Regrettably, this is one review which cannot give acclaim where it is not due. I began writing this review prior to a review of the same subject in Miniature Wargames 105, but having seen the nature of this review I decided to completely scrap my original and instead counter this critique.

Mr B Gardiner, who wrote the review stated that the "book is truly useful to the Napoleonic enthusiast". Hmm... I think not. What you get for your £ 10.50 is 12 Corps-sized scenarios dating from 1799 to 1815. Some little known Items like Castricum and Heilsburg to old favourites Gross Beeren and Quatre Bras. Each battle is split into a Background to the Battle, The Opposing Armies, a narrative of the engagement followed by Games Masters (yes, It's American) Notes and a section on Victory Conditions for both Historical and 'Balanced' games. Sounds good so far, so what's wrong with it?

O.K. The Background section is fine, generally comprising had a page of A4 size print, but frankly for thirty quid you can buy Chandler and get the entire period so for that alone ft is not worth it; so, is the rest of the product enough to carry ft through?

The unfortunate answer is No. The MW review praises the army lists for their "precision and care". This, I regret to inform you is not the case. Let's take the best known battle in the book, Quatre Bras. The French divisions have a list of troops preceded by the names of any Brigade commanders (imprecisely ranked as Brigadiers) yet does not bother to determine which regiment is in which brigade. Surely a quick reference to Scotty Bowden's Armies At Waterloo would have been enough.

Even worse, there are no unit strengths whatsoever and this also applies to the British, who at least have their brigades differentiated. In fact there is no mention of army strengths in the Opposing Forces section at all. Indeed, you have to refer to the Course of the Battle for any clues, for instance: "Reille (20,000 soldiers) greatly outnumbered Perponcher (8,000)..." . What are we supposed to do, guess who goes where? To me, this is utterly infuriating.

When I read a scenario designed to be used with tabletop figures I expect unit strengths to be available, or at least suggested. In some of the Army Lists, both skies have approximate figures, but these generally are of the average battalion/squadron strength variety - again, not good enough.

The Course of the Battle narrative is fine, but nothing revelatory and nothing you probably haven't read before.

The second part of the scenario consists of the Games Master's notes (How I wish the term Umpire would cross the lake) which for Quatre Bras consist of an arrival timetable and advice regarding the thickness of Bossau Woods and 8 lines of suggestions on limiting Ney's ability to commit all his troops to the initial assault (the French apparently all starting on-table).

However, the worst is saved until last. The Historical and Balanced Game Victory Conditions. The French win if they take the crossroads by 2100 hours, and lose if they don't. Inspired, that. However where one expects the Balanced Game suggestions to be is in fact a desolation of unprinted white. This is all well and good to poke fun at, but to be completely serious I've just forked out a tenner for this and I can't even play the last scenario without reference to another book with unit strengths.

Did I already say the worst had been saved for last? I repent. The worst has been saved for the middle - none other than the maps, which are hard to describe without being able to reproduce one for your pleasure. There are  no suggestions of table size and no grid from which to lay out terrain. Simply a rectangle upon which some maniac has been let loose with three colours - red, blue and green. Some, like Gross Beeren are so basic as to be tedious except for the mysterious six-mile ditch running north to south in the middle of the table, whilst others like Ebersberg would require months of terrain making by Ian Weekley to create. Suffice to say the maps are not good.

The whole package is topped off by some of the worst photographs not to appear in back issues of Miniature Wargames, the prize one being an uncaptioned artillery crew under the table of contents who appear to be manning an unpainted gun.

So what conclusion can you draw from this piece of literary assassination? Firstly, this is not the best scenario book on the market. Secondly, you'd better have some back up material available I you want to relight one of the battles that got skimped on. It is so disappointing to have to write this because once more another fine opportunity has been missed. The authors picked several really interesting battles (including Baylen) which would have been great to refight, yet they did not even have the temerity to give army lists based on their own rules (Battles for Empire). I would much have preferred that. Anybody who owns Napoleon's Battles or it's scenario supplement has gotten much better value for money. Still, the picture on the well produced cover IS exquisite.

An alternative view...

Having read the above from Ian and checked out the review copy, my initial impression was that Ian was to harsh. Having studied it more closely my initial enthusiasm has waned a little.

I can imagine that when these books were returned from the printers, that the authors were greatly disappointed with the maps. The printers did them no favours here. They are, however, more than adequate. Personally, I feel that they should have kept the maps in black and white and tried to print some of the black and white photos in colour. This would have lent a lot to the 'buyability' of the work. Black and white photos of 15mm figures just do not work.

I applaud this work. Although in some parts it is lacking, generally it is excellent value. There is sufficient information to attempt a refight of any of the 12 battles listed. (I balked at the O.B. for Ebelsberg - to list a regimental strength as between 1,700 and 1,800 is acceptable, to list it as being between 700 and 2000 is not! To do this sort of approximation 10 times in an O.B. makes ft worthless)

The authors appear to be true wargamers and generally well intentioned. Not a tablet of stone, but well worth a tenner.

--Dave Watkins.

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