Flames of War Napoleonics

CHELTENHAM WARCHIEFS

Victory in the Ages

FOW Napoleonics

As you may know, a number of members have been busy putting together grand armies to begin the European struggle of arms between the great nations of Europe between 1800 and 1815.

So far we have -

Andy - British Army

Scott - Prussian Army

Graham French Army

Mike - French Army

John H - French Army

Richard - British Army

Doug- Austrian Army

The aim is for each player to create a 1500pt force subject to the 'official' lists (available from the Downloads Section).

Players can choose any European force

If you would like to join in the war to topple the 'Theif of Europe' or to give 'The boy with the Hookty nose' a good pasting please talk to Andy ,Scott or anyone else for help with which army or minatures to choose

Rules queries to Scott

Creating Napoleonic Flames of War

A while back I was in the middle of building up my Warhammer and Russian armies to larger sizes when my good friend and esteemed colleague Andy Culham sent me an interesting e-mail before Bovington on possibly looking into doing other branches of historical gaming and we discussed the first things that came to mind, warhammer historical and flames of war which had been the main talking point for the last few months. The e-mail contained the link to an online forum which was based on someone devising FOW variation for Napoleonic’s and I had a quick read and felt the rules although easy enough to understand were a bit like most historical games that I had known of to be very detailed and a bit too accurate.

When we reached Bovington eager for fun we began with playing a few games of the wild west game we decide to play but towards the end of the day interest in playing seemed to disappear as the nights entertainment dawned and their was more interest in what people could buy, over these hrs before the nights fun and the 2^nd day was taking up with small club meetings on this very point Andy had risen with me a few days ago. The majority of people agreed and were interested in doing other historical periods but the with most of our game developments in the past starship troopers to name one was shadowed by the fact people didn’t want to buy lots of new things or start another system that might fail. So it was left to Andy, Graham, Mike and I to discuss this further and we set about thinking of what armies we’d do and if it was going to be a successful game. Not much was done on the rules but interest was gathered and everyone bought a few models to start themselves of.

Many months after Bovington Andy and I decided to look into the rules as we wanted to buy more troops but make the game more into what sort of game we enjoy. Over the internet we talked about the fluency of the rules, army lists, adding rules and also making sure it wasn’t going to be a major hole in people’s pockets to be able to get an army. I set about trying to get some more information in the subject of doing rules and what would make the rules for us better while Andy set about painting toys, I went on the forum several times to look at the discussions and knew from just looking and reading some of the response I got that this game needed changed!. The typical stereotype of historical gamer was more than evident in some of the comments and I didn’t want that in my game.

We firstly set about changing some of the shooting rules and with Andy’s help we included some new rules that weren’t in the original copy i.e. howitzers and the buildings rule to allow the rule to be more like FOW in the way shooting was conducted at defended units and an extra layer for fighting with troops in buildings for battles like Waterloo which in the 1^st edition couldn’t of been done. With the selection of models available Andy wanted a greater variation in artillery and I made an effort to distinguish between light ,heavy, horse and howitzer artillery but made sure that none of them were unbalanced for example the heavy artillery was given can’t move and shoot rule, higher ROF and longer range but more points the opposite to light artillery which had low/medium ROF but could move and shoot and also had short range as well as a decent grape shot ability to show the infantry support image.

A lot of the rules involved with moving and special rules were scrapped because they were unnecessary and just created extra confusion and most of the time their would be no point in using them because you could get round it with another formation and with the unit sizes some unit couldn’t even get into these formation! And the commander and some of the hidden special rules which weren’t clear needed to be made clear and they now have their own special section. The old commander re-roll system was replaced by the FOW commander rules because it was an unnecessary inclusion and made the game less predictable. When I looked at the army lists I noticed the inclusion of attachments but their was no rule on how they could operate so I created them as well to allow for a flexible self sufficient force for every fully equipped infantry battalion who could deal with and problem. So now the battle could be more about lots of little armies combined with a few extra elite sections for specialist tasks.

Andy also pointed out to me the huge choice in models and armies involved during the period and with this in mind I created the other army lists from the 5 empires to add some variety but this being a period of empire made the armies again able to be a separate force on their own but like Warhammer made them also like dogs of war so the empires that were their allies or rulers could use them to reflect the period and the mutli national forces commonly seen in the period.

The motivation and assault rules were barely touched because they were very similar to the FOW ones and this was good enough so it didn’t need changing. With the exception of better description for the reasons for motivation and similar option in FOW for defensive fire and supporting fire and motivation had some more checks added for artillery and casualties because when the rules were play tested troops seemed to never run!

All the changes we have made make the game more akin to FOW so players can slip into each system easily and it allows the game to flow more and not take the usually week to play like some historical games that have too many rules and with the inclusion of more armies and interesting special rules I hope it will encourage variation and a bit more fun to the game and make it less predictable than its original copy which ultimately make it more fun.

NAPFOW can be downloaded from this site

If you have any further suggestions for rules please tell scottylaird@hotmail.com and remember this is your website so please use it

Future of Napoleonics

As you may be aware from the news section the rule set for Napoleonic Flames of War have been getting constantly updated and now has had all the errata, rule changes and loop holes covered. This does not mean their will not be anymore changes ,when they are needed or come about whilst playing games they will be included. But the basics of the game have now been finished and the smae goes for the army lists.

The army lists for the Empire are completed.

In the future I intend to add more specialist units maybe as a word doc rather than another copy of the army lists. I am alos looking at releasing new version of the other nations involved through my 'theaters of war' lists this will include the countries involved, new special rules and a few scenarios of that campaign. The first of these will focus on the Peninsular War and will inlcude Birtish,Spanish,Portuguese and French lists reflectig the armies used in that campaign rather than the genric army in the Empires list. These 'theaters of war' will not become availabe for a few months and Iexpect atleast one by the end of 2008 to be finalised.

Scotty

The New Version of Victory in the Ages

Victory in the Ages has come along way from the original version I obtained off http://forumnapofow.free.fr/index.php. The original rule set contained the army lists within the main rules, a lot of the rules weren’t explained or completely covered and their was plenty of room for holes within the system but as a basis to create it was great for this very reason.

The rules have had various changes in the last few months which have caused some problem with people not knowing new rules etc but have all proved to be good inclusions making the game play more interactive, realistic and fun. The current rules available for download are I hope the last of the core rules so people can get to grips with how the games plays rather than waiting for another version to come out. However their will still be an errata for any holes within the rules and changes to army lists as they are ongoing mostly with new units and new armies coming in the future.

I think I better explain the new changes now that I’ve got the future out of the way.

Turn Sequence

I introduced the LOTR rule of simultaneous turns with the exact same systems of a roll off each turn. Having this rule has made the game vastly different for the better, it no longer is a static game which benefits the army that has more shooting or the side that gets a good round of shooting off. It now makes you think of what you’ll do in the future turns to complete your objective as well as guessing what you’ll opponent do which interacts both players and creates a game with more enjoyment for the participants and allows the game to ebb and flow between each side so you’ll not know who’s won until the end.

Movement Phase

This phase didn’t need a lot of changes but more clarification to people on what exactly movement allowed and examples of what could be done. The table for movement was changed with Light Infantry now moving 6” in all formations so now not being hampered by being in Line to reflect their style of march and all N/A marked boxes were blacked out to make looking at the table easier for people to use.

The five types of formation were given a more clear description of how to form them, benefits, disadvantages and how to move from one to the other during the movement phase. This was helped with some diagrams and examples of movement to make clear what a correct move was.

Shooting Phase

This phase has some big changes, firstly the +1 to hit for being in line and not moving was removed as combined with extra shots was devastating when in reality musketry was poor even for trained soldiers. Secondly the rule for Fallback was altered; now you need 6 saved hits to cause a fall back test rather than 8 as before. Units that fail their motivation for fall back multiply times suffer from Disorientation this was done because the disorientation rule wasn’t used very often and their seemed to be no big benefit for driving units back.

The way Motivation works in the shooting phase was changed to fit in line with the new fallback rule, shooting was now worked out unit by unit for motivation purposes so one unit shot one unit and any fallback rolls were done and then shooting continued on that for the rest of the turn. However all units had to declare what they were shooting at prior to rolling dice. To be in line with the no pre-measuring rule. These rules combined made the shooting phase more disruptive than before without necessarily killing anything which was what I heard a lot about from big historical game fans so now shooting has an advantage to overall game plan rather than just killing stuff.

Combat Phase

The rules for close combat changed twice in the one re think. It had developed once to include pursuit, consolidation, break through; all the normal rules for FoW combat and it seemed to work fine. Until we had a few more games and discovered that unless you killed your opponent out right in the first assault there wasn’t much chance of killing your opponent in combat. Only driving them back for them next turn to shoot you. So with the playtesting we made combat work out like warmaster does with casualties determining the fallback and pursuit and only 2 rounds of combat being allowed so some units might actually get bogged down in combat making the battle a little more interesting.

The new rules for combat have made how to conduct combat a bit more clearer and the options available to people whilst in combat.

Special rules

A few special rules have been removed and other moved. Double Line is now in the army lists section as it was confusing to people which units got the rule and which didn’t. The Cavalry special rule for formation was kept but changed just to allow you to combine two units together for +1 Attack in combat and +1 to hit from shooting at them the armour rule was removed.

Light Cavalry were becoming to prominent as they were cheap and just as good as other cavalry at killing enemy units so I made them unable to attack squares unless armed with lances so they became on a par with medium cavalry as I felt light cavalry wouldn’t charge infantry unless they were in a vulnerable formation or retreating o reflect their hit and run almost opportunist nature of these cavalry units.

Oblique formation, Military Discipline and Cossacks were altered to be specific and less over powering especially Oblique formation now just Line infantry benefit and Military Discipline allowing re-rolls for all motivation tests except fall backs (most common ones)

Rocket battery rules were added under the Howitzers for ease of use.

Most special rules were moved to the army list section.

Army lists

There were some big changes here. Firstly 3 new special rules were created Stubborn and Toffs to give national characteristics to the relevant units and Voltegiers to make taking French light infantry an option and to reflect their strategy during the wars.

The inclusions to allow ratings within your Line troops allowed people to have a larger force of poorer troops to reflect their nation’s situation or a few more elite units for hardened veterans without having to buy Grenadiers. This rule works very well as raw troops are very poor at shooting but great for sending into combat to wear the enemy down and as a result they cost less

Light/Medium cavalry were included to armies to add a bit of variety to people’s armies and reflect their use during the period (which I discovered whilst looking for more information on cavalry to chose correctly how to reduce or increase their points cost)

Lancers were included to all Empires as an upgrade but the cost was reduced by 50% as 100 was too much and it allowed these units to be in decent numbers in people’s armies as they were in history but not too cheap that they were everywhere or expensive that they weren’t worth taking and this tied in with the new rule for light cavalry not being allowed to charge squares unless with lances designed for dealing with square.

The Points cost for Cavalry was a major undertaking as people were questioning if there should be 6 stands to 3 squadrons or the points reduced or even cavalry made harder. I decided to keep them as they were but reduce their cost to a suitable price with other nation’s costs. All light cavalry was reduced to 100pts with the French paying more for better training each time. Medium cavalry was reduced below 200 for most forces and heavy cavalry was reduced below 300 for most as well. This was mainly done to allow people to have the option to take these units without having to cost them a fortune yet not too cheap that they over power the game. This was the same for artillery as well.

The new rule set has I hoped created a much more interesting game that reflects the period whilst keeping the theme of a simple quick game like FoW. And with the changes to Armies I hope it allows people to have different combinations and real competitiveness between units.

By Scott

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