Thanks a lot jon1066!

Thank you everyone. I've a lot to think about, but I'll definitely be taking Jons advice of just painting up the little guys and buying a few different rulesets. I'd do already own BP, Blucher and Polemos.

(Ascarin - sorry you had to witness this unseemly spat hijacking your thread. As I said earlier, best of luck with finding the ruleset that suits you. There are plenty of good rules out there. You may want to stop reading this post now.)

On whether battalion formations matter and should feature in a game: surely the answer is, "it depends"? It depends what scale of battle you're fighting (if you have a division on the table, you probably do care - if a corps or more, quite possibly not); and it depends on what the game is trying to represent; and it depends on the player's personal taste.

I already said I have sympathy with the 'formations don't matter' view. My BBB ruleset is aimed at big battles where the basic unit is the brigade or division, and battalions simply don't figure. You won't find anyone going into square in BBB. However, BBB does consider that brigades' or divisions' posture matters. Some people like that, others don't.

The point I was really making was that if Glenn wants to traduce everyone else's rules by saying they are all less accurate than his, he ought to be prepared to substantiate that claim with specific examples, naming names and citing defects, rather than squirming to avoid a direct question. For instance, to pick just a few Napoleonics rulesets that spring to my mind as being currently popular: I believe General de Brigade uses battalion formations; Et Sans Resultat requires divisions to deploy from march formation to battle formation; Age of Eagles uses brigade formations. Are these all therefore less accurate than RdG? That's the clear implication of Glenn's claim. I'm sure their authors would be interested to know.

For the avoidance of doubt: I am not saying anything one way or the other about RdG myself - never played it, haven't read it, not qualified to comment. It may well be an excellent game.

Hello Ascarin - As a relative 6mm newbie myself, I sympathize with you. It certainly can be confusing finding a set of miniatures rules you like, with so many out there. Each offers their own take on warfare with a different emphasis on level of command, scale, game mechanics, degree of complexity, amount of playing time, etc. Obviously, one size can't fit all. 

My findings on miniatures so far (as an old boardgamer) have been this: 

- For maximum flexibility, a ¾” square base works for me, with 2 strips of 6mms on it, one behind another in two ranks. To hide the bottom metal part of the figure strips, I use mixed brown/green flocking.

The small base size allows use of the figs in a regimental/brigade scale  game like Sam Mustafa’s ‘Longstreet’ in which you remove stands for combat losses.  

At the same time, I can plop several stands atop a larger base to create a different effect for a different rules set.

If you are on a budget, you could use a single strip on a stand, maybe going with a rectangular base.  However, for me as an older gamer,  my experiment with single strip bases was unsuccessful.  They were just too fiddly and awkward to work with.

To help keep multiple stands atop a larger metal base.  I put sticky magnetic sheet (available at office supply stores) on the bottom of the bases. Other people use sabot bases.  (This is a larger base (also flocked) with a depressed area in the center of the base in which you drop your stands.  The lip around the edge keeps the stands from falling off).

A second advantage of magnetic sheeting  on bases is that you can use it in your miniatures storage/carrying case  to reduce the figs from shifting around and damaging the paint.   

-  I like the conciseness, simplicity and ease that a grid on the map table offers.  There's little fiddliness in movement and it makes the game move faster.  You avoid arguing and measuring if a target unit is in a field of fire or not. Some people like measuring and performing intricate maneuvers with units as a way to win.  My thought is that doing such stuff is silly and gamey. Local commanders would make that decision not the supreme commander, and its not appropriate to either my style of play or preferred scale or historical accuracy.

While I like grids for gameplay, I don’t care for the look of a grid on the table. So I do my best to minimize it.  I don’t use full gridlines (mostly marking just the corners) and use subtle ’natural colored brown /green gridlines.  Some people use lichen bits.

I like hexes, but they are hard to draw so I used a square brick pattern, which has the same effect.  I used markers on a yellowish-green felt cloth that I bought online. Very cheap, looks good and you can leave the backside plain or put a different size or type of grid on it,  perhaps squares. 

Since Im still searching for “perfect rules”, I use modular terrain.  A flat slightly smaller than grid sized clump of lichen works as woods (the unit goes atop the woods) and I use table felt wrapped around foamcore to represent hills.  Again flexibility for me is key.  Should I ever find some ideal set of rules or some must have individual battle like Waterloo or Gettysburg, maybe then Ill do a single use table.  My friend is also experimenting doing geomorphic map ‘modules’ out of shaped insulation board  as an experiment, so that’s another option.

You mentioned being interested in the Peninsular War. There are several games out there that cover this.  Here’s one: https://sammustafa.com/war-to-the-death/ It uses the Blucher rules set – which Ive never played but has gotten good reviews.You might find (as I did) that fighting isolated battles ,while fun, are even more fun if they have a larger context.  So, one idea is to play a campaign game, and when forces come into contact, fight some of the battles out on the miniatures table using whatever rules you enjoy.  

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11265/wellington-peninsula-war-1812-1814

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28920/wellingtons-war-peninsular-campaign-1809-1814

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/308862/larmee-despagne-campaign-spain-part-i

In closing, my guess is you will eventually wind up knowing what it is you want to see in a game. And drumroll,... you will make up your own set .

 If so… welcome to the club!  In the meantime, read reviews online and try different existing sets of rules like Glenn's and Chris' and others, and if they dont scratch your itch then ‘borrow’ what you like best from each to create your own.

The important thing is to have fun.

Regards,

• Zeitsev

Hello Chris!

Well that's certainly an odd message. First you are sorry for hijacking Ascarins thread then you immediately continue to do it!

You then go on about "formations don't matter" when the only person that actually said that was Ascarin and he only made that statement when he was asking questions. Which were answered. You further state that in your rules "battalions simply don't figure"! What kind of defence is that!

If you can't accept or believe my opinions on my rule set, I'm okay with that. Move on.

I have absolutely no intention of following your suggestion to take on some kind of bizarre mission to publicly critize anybody's rules. I never have and never will. I'm actually shocked to know that you a fellow author has not once but twice strongly pushed for such dispicable behavior. It's not only disgusting, rude, inconsiderate and insensitive, it's also extremely disrespectful. Which is not allowed in this forum.

Glenn,

I do apologise for the words “squirming to avoid”. That was rude, unnecessary and unkind, and I’m sorry for using the phrase. The simple and objective “avoiding” would have been sufficient.

You say that you have no intention to publicly criticize anybody’s rules. Yet that is exactly what you did when you started this by saying your rules were more accurate than everybody else’s. When I politely invited you to substantiate that sweeping claim, that would have been the point when a reasonable person might have admitted they had overstepped the mark. But no – you added another sweeping claim, condemning a whole swathe of other people’s rulesets as ‘based on fantasy’ and telling us to 'throw them out'.

In the professional and commercial world, using such comparative claims to criticize competitors’ products without hard data to back them up is not just poor form, it is unethical and potentially illegal. Corporations can get sued and fined for such practice, and individual employees can be charged with gross misconduct. I’d encourage you to be more cautious about making such claims in future.

Incidentally, I note that you’ve only told us why we should throw out rulesets that do represent battalion formations. How do you back up your claim with respect to those that don’t?

Respectfully yours,

Chris

PS Here’s a reprise of the key points from our conversation, to show what I’m quoting from:

Glenn: [RdG is] “extremely accurate, more so than any other rule set on the market.”

Chris: “Please could you list all the other rule sets on the market and point out the ways in which they are less accurate?”

Glenn: “Throw out all the ones that encourage players to change battalion formations.”

Chris: “Could you give us at least one named example of a rule set that [represents battalion formations] and explain what makes it less accurate?”

Glenn: “it's a red flag that indicates the game is based on the fantasy that Napoleonic commanders played rock/paper/scissors on the battlefield.”

Can someone now close this thread, as I feel no one else will be interested in a spat between two members of the community.

If you want to argue please do it in private chat and not on any of my topics.

Hello Ascarin!

I sincerly appologise for Chris's behavour. I already told him that he was continuing to disrupt your thread. He was also encouranging people to be disrepectful. I also told him I didn't care what he thinks of my opinions and to move on. Clearly he has not only ignored all of my concerns, but also has now threatened me with legal action. This is completely unacceptable behaviour on this forum.

c.c. Chris

 Please walk away from this nonsence and spend some time evaluting how you want to participate in this forum in the future.

"Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference" - Mark Twain

Sorry, Ascarin. Please forgive me, but I felt this was an important point of principle. (And no, I wasn't threatening anyone, just trying to explain the gravity of the offence.) I will indeed shut up and walk away now.

Out.