Previewed in the last PA this game from Vae Victis 12 proved to be much as expected - intelligent and atmospheric Napoleon At Waterloo. Not perhaps as clever as the Cierpiecki Variations which PA published long ago but not bad and very much aided by excellent counter icons. However, it also suffered from all the problems of that genre - play was very gamey (the old alternate hex routine, the importance of the breakthrough etcetera etcetera). We thought it far too favourable to the French (and I write as the French player after knocking off 20 points as discussed in the last PA) and did not feel as if we were playing the Vitoria which we recognised from the history books. To detail: the map is blandly attractive, by which I mean it has quiet tones but clear detail. There is nothing lurid about this product, I imagine it seems a little quiet to American gamers used to more robust colour schemes. On this map are placed counters with some of the finest icons I have ever seen in terms of accuracy, animation, and atmosphere. Vae Victis have spared no effort with these illustrations and keen Napoleonic gamers will savour them while everyone else will just enjoy them. Very wisely the counters have a Limited Intelligence function in that they have a limited number of icons on the back which produce a uniform (if you'll pardon the pun) appearance before they are turned over when adjacent. Does this all matter? Yes, I think it does because where the game is weak in some fashions this may be sufficient to carry the gamer through these weaknesses. Weaknesses What weaknesses you ask? Well the game uses the old "mass-em and soak-em" techniques which Ed Wimble's challenging analysis in Iéna and L'Armee du Nord have shown is probably incorrect. [Ed argues that head to head most combats are going to result in rough equality, one needs to take the strategic flank to really get the mass, and that where equality subsists it is artillery that kills]. However, the "mass-em and soak-em" is also tried and tested and many of us (often to our chagrin) have absorbed the lessons of holding the line. The loss of the "Exchange" result is something I regret, but otherwise the game has one big improvement - it uses step-losses and a roster to remove the arbitrary violence necessary in a game without these. To this day I can remember losing the Old Guard at Borodino in an Ex - aaaaaargh! The extra detail has brought some complexity, you need to examine the stack to get the odds and then re-examine to get the dice modifiers. Generals go around broadcasting modifiers like billyo and certain units have attack or defence advantages (notably the French on attack and the British on defence). The interaction of cavalry is by far the weakest area (they often sit there and get pounded by infantry) and it needs more thought. I could not say that there was a great deal of Napoleonic warfare about this game, but there is enough of something and it has its moments. Style It may be helpful to review just where this style of game is weak. Firstly, the combat style of the three combat arms (infantry, artillery and cavalry) is more complex than the system permits. Cavalry fighting cavalry is a very different proposition from infantry vs infantry, and cavalry versus infantry in turn different. The level of decisiveness (and therefore possibility of elimination) rises pretty much in the order of the previous sentence. If cavalry are attacking infantry then one of them is going to be severely mauled by the end - possibly both. A cavalry melee may lead to retreats but its loss capacity is lower. While this style of game can represent the presence of all three arms assisting each other it cannot handle this difference. Confront cavalry with infantry and you will have a certain number of SPs fighting another lot, no more than that. Secondly, combat is not quite the cheek-by-jowl exercise this style of game assumes. Eagles was correct when it portrayed the open area between armies across which one advanced as a conscious act of aggression. Napoleonic warfare was not two trenchlines within grenade-lob of each other. However, when units did cross the No Man's Land it was to conquer or die in a more decisive fashion than the game (of course the game is less decisive because it imposes more combat on its units than is historically correct, this spreads the brief moments of aggression over a longer period, the average is right but only on a narrow arithmetic basis). Thirdly, if you consider most battle reports I guess they come down to an artillery bombardment, an element of manoeuvre and the key assaults. Units that fail in an assault (D'Erlon at Waterloo) are then pretty much out of things. This sort of game needs a "weight of bombardment" style of artillery fire (like Iéna) which kills SPs in preparation for the final assault. With this you may begin to achieve something closer to reality. So, to summarise, the differential style of combats and their infrequent (but violent) climaxes have been replaced by a more uniform system of combat type and frequency which replaces desperate gambler's throws with attrition. The market remains open for a simple game that does this (of course I think my Les Quatre-Bras does a lot of this but its historical detail level may be too great for the NaW aficionado. The strategic scenario of Vitoria is interesting, the Allies are pushing from the West with flanking forces from the North and North-west (and even some Spaniards in the South). The French must control their retreats while getting their baggage and gold off the map. The Allies need to hustle the French because (even once reduced by the Vasey 20 Amendment) they are a fierce force and you can lose hours in the mire of retreat and counter-attack. Once your line is ruptured the use of ZOCs can result in a terrible slaughter and in some ways the sudden collapse can be too violent a transition (and yet it can also work very well). The problem is that the real battle, in which both sides to a degree played the expected part, need not always happen here and disengagement is a very expensive in terms of SPs lost. I felt that what we had was not bad, but it was not really Vitoria anymore than Napoleon At Waterloo was Waterloo. Vitoria 1813 is, however, a much more appealing product for a pleasant few hours of old-fashioned gaming. At roughly brigade-level the wristage is controlled, the system is simple enough for any to grasp and all to enjoy and the spectacle pleases. Back to Perfidious Albion #95 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com