League Of Augsburg - Fighting Talk

Yet another playtest under the belt this weekend. This time a Corps level game, 4 players

14 French Battalions
3 Cavalry Regiments (12 squadrons)
4 Batteries

17 Allied Battalions
5 Cavalry Regiments (14 squadrons)
4 Batteries

Game time 9 hours.. between 10-12 turns(we lost count!)

Pretty resounding French victory....
Most mechanisms working very sweetly now with minimal reference to main body of the rules.
This coincides with eh latest artwork from Clarence, so we are MOVING ON!!!!

You obviously need to play test these Frenchies against some more solid opposition like Russkies. How else will you play test your pike and irregular Cossack variations not to mention the routing French rules !

Peter

Hi Barry,

Good news about R2E, can you give us a idea of production date yet?

We want to have a number of larger playtest games to fine tune some of the rule systems then the large part of work will depend on Clarence and how quickly he can layout the rules.

I saw the illustrations that Clarence sent to Barry and they are looking great. Well done Clarence!

Cheers
Dave

Thanks for asking Ray
As Dave said, it is all going well and in some cases we are testing the mechanisms pretty much to destruction.
One thing is for sure.... there will be no need for a large PDF addenda!
The rules themselves are pretty straightforward.. a new player arrived after the game started yesterday and after about 3 hours had pretty much sussed most of the turn by turn mechanix. That was a very good sign.. he is not a Napoleonic player and in fact had never played the period before.
I think the rules will probably run well over 100 pages now. Most of the test is detailed explanations and examples to illustrate concepts. That text is now on its 18th revision. The additional notes generated by playtests are getting shorter and shorter now. We had cause to refer o the main body of text a few times yesterday but not too much. The ebb and flow of the game is very dramatic compared to a 'typical' rule set for the period.

My target is January or February but if you remember.... this is going in to the exact same cycle as BLB.. at this point on 06 I was planning for Jan/Feb 07. We released in April 07... that could be a good indicator!

Just uploaded a 20 shot narrative of the most recent playtest for those who may be interested.. it is in the gallery

Just looked through the gallery, quite impressive. My only niggle is the use of poker chips as they spoil the effect. Surely the collective can come up with some better markers.

(Yes I know it was a play test and I use tidly winks as markers when needed )

Will

I am sure Barry has something else in mind, remember the snazzie counters for btlb

Actually the Poker chips are not gaming markers.. I like them for the counting out of MPs (Manoeuvre Points).. not essential for the game but very good for indicating 'what you've spent'. As Martin says... there will be proper gaming markers too!

Barry, the pics have come out really well and the game looks really good for a knocked up Sunday afternoon game. Peter's figures have come out well in the pics and he should be really pleased how they look.

Cheers
Dave

Barry,

Have you playtested the Republic part of the rules yet? It seems like the Empire side of it is working fine.

18th Century Guy

Just a wee note to say I've taken part in 2 playtest games and love the way they feel if you know what I mean.
I'd not played Naps for years as we could not as a group agree on a set that felt right and played well.
What with the plastics and this set of rules I'm all enthused to spend, spend, spend.

Looks really good. Just out of interest how big were the battallions and squadrons?
John

A great report Barry. I guess the housework did not get done yesterday.

Peter

Indeed Peter Must go back and correct the typos
Marshal Ney.. battalion sizes for R2E are variable. One of my main drivers with the rules is not to compel interested gamers into organising their armies 'my way'.
In this battle we used battalions of 18,20,24,28,32 & 36 figures. I am currently finishing a 3 x 48 figure battalions of Nassauers (at Waterloo each of the 9 battalions was around 900 strong)

As I am currently looking at demoing next year with 100 figure + battalions I have actually begun writing a section of R2E dealing with figure to man ratio adaptions: Standard is 1:20 but now looking at how they could be modified to accommodate 1:15 (easy) and 1:10 or 1:5 (more challenging)