Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Gentlemen,

Never one to worry about offending when talking history and warfare , I wonder if anyone else has been surprised by the resilience and effectiveness of the Spanish units in this new series?

They seem to have now been much better trained (combat effectiveness) and have much stronger moral (you actually have to fight them as you would a normal European army) in these battles than my readings of history and the Peninsular war would have us believe.

Has Mr Tiller succumbed to leveling the playing field so as not to offend or have the many books and histories been unbalanced/incorrect in their portrayals?

I find the Prussians easier to defeat than the nouveau Spanish, and that's just versus the AI!

I suspect in the hands of a real player they will be of even more sterner stuff

Feel free to reply with brutal honesty, as that's what's in question here.

The Spanish infantry units vary a lot in quality. Regular units tend to be C or D, but militia are mostly E. There are also a few high quality guard units of B or even A grade. But overall, the average quality is usually D and when poor quality units break the rest of the troops are either carried along in the rout or else become disrupted. Meanwhile the French will be able to exploit gaps in the line.

Spanish cavalry and leaders aren't very good quality either and artillery is often weak and/or in short supply, so it's not a very tough army.

On the other hand, there are quite a number of battles where the French have a fair amount of D quality foot.

Anyway, since Andrew did the oobs the units ratings are his rather than mine.

Richard White
Scenario Designer.

I wanted to add to Rich's post; there is a bit of a misconception about who does what at JTS - John Tiller Software (including when the titles were being published by HPS Simulations) delegated OOB creation (as well as scenario design) in their titles to, in a lot of cases, Lead Scenario Designers, or others. In BPW's case, OOB's were created by Andrew Bamford.

I imagine only he'd be able to provide specifics; anecdotally speaking though I had no trouble with Spaniards in the one title I managed to fit in -although I realize that is a pretty small sampling size at the same time.

Mike,
I have played two scenarios now with Spaniards in them-Albuera and the short Talavera one. In each case, the Spaniards are rated higher than I expected but, in each case, they proved to be fairly brittle. In my experience (and as Rich noted), units of ok quality but with poor leadership can fight well for a while, but then, once they start to disorder etc, do not recover well. So I think it would be best to reserve judgment until you have played against them or as them a bunch of times. You still have to outplay your opponent to beat the Spaniards and your opponents better not try and use them the same way he would use his Brits, or he will be in trouble..I would like to hear form others who have played a few scenarios now.

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Thanks for the feed back gents. Yes I've been playing these game for quite some time and still appreciate the vagaries and subtleties of the system which I do like very much, especially the command and control aspects of the leadership/command ratings.

I have played Almonacid, Albuera (twice), Talavera (twice), Tamames, Gebora and Ocana; as you say Jim they have a higher quality than I would have expected. In good defensive positions and with aggressive counter attacking they seem to be quite capable of withstanding French attentions. Add numbers to that (Almonacid/Talavera/Gebora) and the French do have to fight with more consideration and skill than they seem to have done historically .

Getting more experiences will confirm. I need to play an opponent I believe

Challenge request to be entered

Mike,
Did you play those head to head against yourself or against the AI? I have playtested a bunch of solo scenarios vs the AI and I find it is hard to keep good habits and that it actually causes me to do dumb things against the AI. The AI rarely punishes me for it but it slows me down...

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Hi Jim,

Played a couple against the AI and then head to head v myself. Yes the AI I use just as a starter to see how the battle works then go head to head with some thought to it.