Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Hi Chaps
I purchased the newest title this last week and have to say I am disappointed. The graphics were below par and the scenarios seem pretty limited.
Talavera in particular I found was not that good with the longer versions of both unfixed and fixed units seem to favour one side or the other rather to much.

Have I missed something are there some good scenarios in there? Who has played it much?
Guidance welcome.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

I have played several of the scenarios ... so far its very good for history .. but like a lot of scenarios in our series its hard to balance them. Trying to give fair coverage here to the BPC folks.

In particular I played Albuera .... I felt that the French had too easy of a time inflicting early losses and then just falling back to avoid a lot of losses of their own. The victory levels allowed them to not have to hold any of the objectives.

A good variant of that battle would be to add in a French division and raise the victory levels to where they would have to hold key ground. After all, they were looking to raise the siege. A retreat really means defeat.

Talavera - lots of variations of the battle. I suppose it is the more famous of the ones in the game. I have not played it so cannot comment on it. I noticed that the French had their work cut out for them.

For me the game is more for historical interest ... I would think that it would be hard to balance any scenario where one side has a lot of low morale units. I had the same problem with the 1813-14 games in Germany and France.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

I've played it a lot. Talavera 2 days battle is reasonably equal. That's my favourite scenario. The shorter scenarios tend to favour the French. Fuentes is reasonably balanced as well but I preferred the bigger scenario rather than the smaller ones. Almonacid again is pretty balanced - well I lost twice to Jim Hall during playtesting so therefore it must be balanced. Rolica Campaign is fun, plenty of options and not many units to move around.

There are indeed some one-sided affairs.

Balancing is difficult. It has more to do with the quality of the two opponents really.

I guess any constructive feedback is very welcome by the designers, only way to improve the scenarios is by letting the guys know what you think about their work.
So go ahead and post if you got something:
viewforum.php?f=55

To the matter of "balance", personally I don't care about balance as long as the scenario is historical correct, because even when you know that you loose it it can be fun to play. I still remeber a TOAW III scenario that depicted the last 6 months of the Third Reich with daily turns and while I knew I couldn't win the game I was still fun to make my opponnent pay for every kilometer he closed in on Berlin.

The topic of balance comes up very often in historical wargames, but any great commander in history tried to avoid such setups as much as he could and preferred to do battle when he thought he had the advantage, so unbalanced scenarios might not be as seldom as the players wish for of they are done historically correct.
So if you really need balance, you can compare the outcome to the historical result and see if one side did much better than the other, in that case this side would be the winner.

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Thanks chaps appreciate the comments.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

I agree, Christian, its why the Leipzig battle is so hard to balance. Anyway we tested it it came out hard to the left or right. It all depended on what the French did, which way they went, and if the Allies moved forward offensively or stayed put or even fell back a bit.

I favor the cautious Allied approach myself

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

Andy, you have done a lot of playtesting so you know what I mean when I say that its very hard to find a even set of players.

I will want to try out some of the other scenarios eventually in this title. I enjoyed the ones I played even if the outcome was a bit lopsided.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

It is difficult for the French most of the time, mostly low quality units and the burden of attack in most of the scenarios. Still if you like a challenge or there is an experience difference in the players it can be fun. Jose Faura and I have played several of the French vs Spanish scenarios and they were fairly well balanced.

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Field Marshal Sir Edward Blackburn, 1st Duke of Aberdeen K.G.
85th (Buck's Light Volunteers) Regiment of Foot
16th British Brigade
7th Division
III (Peninsular) Corps
2nd Battalion, Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards

I too am finding some of the French vs Spanish scenarios fun.

One thing that surprised me is that this game plays very different from the others. Part of it is the movement rates (I play mostly the games with the 10 minute turns) but also the fire values, terrain, morale, force composition, etc.
It is a different experience.

I enjoyed the Rolica Campaign, Almonacid, and the one Fuentes de Onoro scenario I played (I want to play more of those). I think some of the victory conditions need to be tweaked on some scenarios and some of the historical situations are difficult, but I have been enjoying it. But it does play very different from the big, off wide open battles on the plains of Germany and Saxony...

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In many ways the 1814 title is similar .... you will find scenarios where one side has a large advantage. Since history is rarely ever fair it is up to the players to make the most of it.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)