First Impressions of R2E

Questions, chat, feedback and developments relating to REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE... Wargaming the wars of Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Rod MacArthur
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Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:31 am

First Impressions of R2E

Post by Rod MacArthur » Sun Aug 26, 2012 7:32 pm

My first posting on this forum. I started wargaming as a teenager in Southampton (England) in about 1960, having seen an exhibition of model soldiers by Don Featherstone and Tony Bath in a local department store. I then became one of a group who met at Don's or Tony's houses. My main opponent in those early days was Neville Dickenson, who went on to found Minifigs.

I spent 30 years in the British Army and dropped in and out of wargaming over the years. I used WRG 1971 rules (the ones in the red cover with "flinch" points) in the 1970s and umpired Napoleonics at the Colours wargames show in Reading for about 6 years in the 1990s using Newbury Fastplay rules.

Apart from wargaming I also do quite a lot of pure military history research, write articles and give talks (PowerPoint presentations), mainly Napoleonic but some modern. I have a particular interest in Napoleonic tactics and own drill regulations of all the major participants (my British ones being expensive originals, the others reprints, photocopies or electronic versions).

A few years ago we moved to East Sussex and I have gone along to my local wargames club at Tunbridge Wells a few times. Most of the guys there use Black Powder or Fire & Fury for "Horse & Musket" era games, although there are some using Beneath the Lily Banners. However one of the guys in the club has suggested having a multi-player all day game in October using Republic to Empire, and I have "signed up" to this.

I am therefore reading up the rules in preparation for this. I really like the effort to make the tactics and formations truly Napoleonic, particularly such things as movement in columns of companies (not just column of attack), proper depth for columns of march, skirmish reserves and also the artillery deployed depth, realistically representing the mass of limbers etc.

As I read the rules there will undoubtedly be questions, so I hope you will pardon my inability to grasp what is probably obvious to others.

Rod
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quindia
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Re: First Impressions of R2E

Post by quindia » Sun Aug 26, 2012 9:26 pm

Welcome, Rod!

Ask away - there are lots of people well versed in the rules here who will be happy to help...
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