The 125 to 1 troop scale and 100 yds per inch ground scale allows for the reason design of battle scenarios that represent the typical large size battles of the period. For example, the entire Franco-Prussian battle of. Worth could be fought out on an approximately 10 foot by 7 foot table with 1250 German figures and 465 French figures.

The representation of troops by fire class, morale quality, maneuver class, and weapon type allows for a detailed description of the combatants. Through these factors, the limitations and advantages of the respective armies are clearly showed. For example, the fact that the bulk of Austrian Infantry are rated as 2nd class for movement forces the Austrian player to make his plans knowing that the enemy will probably be able to out-march him.

The generalization of the small arms of the period into four basic types(smoothbore musket, rifle-musket, needle-gun, chassepot) and the artillery into four basic types (Mitrailleuse, Napoleon Artillery, Rifled Artillery, Smoothbore Artillery) provides detail enough to differentiate between weapons without being overly bogged down in charts.

The rules go into some depth about the various types of melees. There are different mechanisms for clashes between cavalry vs. cavalry, infantry vs. infantry' cavalry vs. infantry, anyone vs. artillery, etc.

These provide for interesting tactical decision and resolutions.

BNIII provides not only the basic line and column formations but deals with the various skirmishing techniques developed by the period's armies.

Unit Organization Information

The rules provide a wealth of information about the organization of the involved armies. Using order of battle charts, the corps level units are broken down to their infantry battalions, batteries, and cavalry regiments. Additionally, each army's battalion, battery and regiment type are rated in game terms.

Leader Information

Although the rule's command features are weak, the game provide fairly extensive list of army and corps level commanders. These lists rate each leader's morale effect, initiative, and other special features.

Negative Points:

As a product BNIII is flawed on two major points:

The organization and style of the rules can be vague and unorganized. Looking up what an unit can or cannot do usually involves scanning through several paragraphs or pages.

For example, the description of the Austrian skirmish screen formation explains about the movement characteristics of the parent formed body and its skirmishers but does not tell how the skirmish screen is formed or unformed. Is it a change of formation or an act of movement?

This gives rise to house rules or on-the-spot rules interpretation, neither of which is conducive to fast play or quick rules referencing.

The command rules provided by the game are limited. They consist of Brigade Integrity and Officer/Player representation. Brigade Integrity provides command limitations on the member battalions /regiments /batteries of a designated brigade. Officer/Player representation rules places the characteristics and limitations of a historical commander on the player.

There are no command rules regulating or creating Army, Corps or even Divisional command structure relationships. There are no rules preventing 1st brigade of 2nd division of lIl Corps from operating half way across the table from the rest of 2nd division/III Corp.

This lack of command structure does take away from the Grand Tactical/Operational aspect of the game. Although BNIII's figure scale allows a player to field a multi-corps force, his basic decisions are concerning matters such as whether 2nd battalion of the 34th Regiment is skirmishing or in line. The player begins to feel more like a major than a major-general.

Editor's Note: I am delighted to reveal that Mr. Cassidy and I are working on advanced command rules for BN3 that will hopefully address some of these perceived problems. They will be forthcoming in a future issue of Clash of Empires.

-Finis-