My answer to a reddit post on "Looking for a Napoleonics / Pike and Shoot game"

"Hey everyone, I've been looking for a game for quite some time now."

From this reddit thread asking:

Hey everyone, I've been looking for a game for quite some time now. I have some wargames already, but I wanted to get into a new period, pike and shoot, napoleonics and the american civil war. I had some games in mind, black powder, fire and fury, general d'armee, blucher, and many others, but I coundn't find much about them. First of all I wanted a game where you can create your army, so a point buy system, nor just fixed scenarios. Second, I wanted a game on a large scale, so a unit would represent something like a brigade or regiment (I think this can be adapted, so this is not a priority). Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

FOGN is built for tournament and club play, but it also does historical battles at the corps level very well. A 3-4 person a side game can do an army level game quite well in a day. Normal 1v1 is a corps level game- you command 1 corps and move brigades around.

 

As it's built for a club game or tournament vs a random person, the points system allows everyone to make pretty balanced armies. Games go for about 3 hours, though you can do a points result for tournaments too. The two army list books cover every single major time period and country.

 

The 2nd edition rules are well laid out, though if you're coming from another game like 40K it can feel strange (you do charge declare, firing, THEN movement then assault) and I found some of the rules didn't make sense...Until I understood that's how you get OUTCOMES that are Napoleonic in nature.

 

eg- British troops in the Peninsula don't get +1 for being behind a hill, but the game rule outcomes encourage them to deploy behind ridge-lines to avoid French Artillery. Austria armies tend to get more cavalry because their army list encourages it, though it has limits. The French Cavalry charge at Waterloo at infantry in square will tend go around or bounce and then get counter charged by fresh British Cavalry that will then tend to go overlong and be outstretched where a canny general will counter charge them with Lancers.

 

Luring the enemy off the Prazten Hights and then hitting his centre to break it can work, but as a function of how the rules work and not because of a character bonus to Napoleon. Your enemy will guard his Line of Communication and be forced to fall back if you threaten it...unless they can fight like Wellington and be supremely confident in ultimate victory.

'Corse, the best answer is - what does anyone else play near me? I'm,lucky in that there's a "large" community in my local area that do play it, which is how I ended up doing it. I know there's people who play Black Powder, but have yet to meet them :(

 

 

 Another question and answer after this break:

 Wow, thanks for the info, I really liked what you described of FOGN. The only problem is, there are no groups I'm aware of close to me, and considering I live in very populated area it is kinda sad. I'll try to lure my friends to the hobbie, but we see how that goes. I've never played any wargames, so I'm coming fresh into this hobbie, no mind setup, just a blank slate. I also got a few wargames from different periods. I got the Middle earth strategy battle game, for fantasy. I want to get Test of honour and Ronin for japanese skirmish games. Age of hannibal for my ancients, maybe will get into oathmark for fantasy as well and really liked Zona alfa and Pikeman's lament. For american civil war I decided on Land of the free. As I recon, all of them have points systems, wich is a must for me. Got any recommendations or maybe a game a should exclude from my list?

 

I haven't played/read the other games, but Oathmark really excites me for a Fantasy game. A game where YOU make the army list and can get collection of races and monsters you want to fit YOUR kingdom. I still need to put my army together for that. I want to use the new colour-shift paints you can get these days on the armour and scales of creatures.,

It uses a point system based on what area's you have in your kingdom. Then you fight battles in an campaign and can win or lose locations and the battles are somewhat based on where you are. Invade his elven city? That's where your tabletop battle is next!

FOGN is more popular in Australia and NZ where the 2nd edition authors live, they really started getting the club players into it and then it snowballed. It is scale neutral, in that you can play with 28-25/18-15/10-6mm, though most people here play 18mm on 6x4 foot tables.

I had to ask around on Facebook and other forums to find out where the local gaming clubs in my area were that player historical games (everyone else in my local area seems to play 40K or other SF games) and then ask what system they used. There are other players at the local clubs who have their own rules, but play in 28mm, and there's a lot of ancient and ww2 guys doing other systems I have not heard what they play.

Also I know there ARE people in Melbourne/Victoria who play Blucher, which I have not read but has a good campaign system and can play with cards to learn the rules and use for fog of war. I would like to play that one day.