Ottoman Empire and
the Napoleonic Wars

booklet

review by Jim Arnold

By William Johnson. Available from Rudy Nelson, P.O. Box 668, Ashland, AL 36251. $6.00.

The Ottoman Empire offers the wargamer the opportunity to paint up an army that fought against many of the major continental powers - France, Austria, and Russia - and with and against England. The problem has been finding figures and uniform information. At this past fall's Frankfurt Book Fair I saw the newest release from the Carmigniani-Trainee team; a wonderful color illustrated book devoted to Bonaparte in Egypt. It's anothersuperb addition to their series, but it is in French and will costyou somewhere between $75 and $100.

Alternatively, one can buy William Johnson's very nice little staplebound booklet that goes a longway towards tellingyou what you need to know. Sixteen black and white illustrations and the accompanying text allow the reader to paint up the troops that comprised the Ottoman army. Charts and text especially devoted to gaming with a Napoleonic Ottoman Army provide invaluable organizational and historical details. The author tells you how to fit the army into Empire II rule system and gives a conversion table for non-Empire players. Thus we learn that Janissaries should be rated as Neopolitan Line Infantry (i.e., not very good), Arab cavalry equals Russian Cossacks (enough said!), and the Suvarileri Guard is as good as French Cuirassiers. The author has done a wonderful job and deserves high praise. I expect because of his work we will be seeing more Napoleonic Ottoman armies on the tabletop.

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