Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I have been debating the relative merits and play balance of several of the Leipzig scenarios with my French opponents. I would be very interested to hear from the membership as to your opinion of the HPS Leipzig scenarios you have played to date and your perception of the play balance of each. Let's have an open discussion involving officers from all armies. I am curious about the perceptions from all sides of the club.

Here, I will start you off with an easy one:

062.The Action at Gohrde - Decidedly balanced in favor of the Coalition Player. It is possible for the French Player to obtain a Draw, but a French victory is out of the question.

Tag, you're it!

I had a look at that scenario Mark. I wonder why anyone would play it. Rather bizarre scenario. 4000 French vs 13000 Allieds.
No aspersions intended Bill this game is fantastic and the work on it superb.

regards

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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"

Try the Alternate version.

Every Historical version has Alternate versions. Makes for more of a balanced game as far as forces go. With the extra French division they have a better chance of existing at the end of the scenario.

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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)

Even Bill realizes that the particular scenario I used as an example if not balanced. As Colin said, no aspersions intended. What I am seeking here are perspectives on the scenarios you fellows have actually played. We all know that historical scenarios can be unbalanced, principally because they are historical. The goal was for each side to maneuver for advantage before committing to an engagement. In almost every historical situation, one side actually did hold some advantage over the other.

The purpose of this post is definitely not meant to be any form of criticism of the Leipzig title. I personally love the game. The purpose of this post is to engage in an open, club wide conversation about the scenario experiences and perspectives of the membership. Rather than going to our respective corners in the Coalition Arms and Pierre’s Tavern and venting about this or that advantage or bogus disadvantage in a particular Leipzig scenario, I thought it would be nice if we can all discuss this together as a group of fellow gamers. I am sure the perspectives will be somewhat colored by the uniforms we each wear, but that just makes this more interesting to me. What I am seeking here is a mature, calm discussion of perspectives among fellow gamers.

OK, here is another for consideration:

055.Rearguard Action at Zahna – A decided French advantage due to numerical superiority, quality of troops, abundance of French artillery, and the potential for French VPs by exiting the map.

Hullo -
I am still slogging (or being slogged) my way thru several scenarios in the Leipzig game. What I typically look for in HPS scenarios is this: I'm only going to play a historical scenario if both sides have a reasonable chance of winning. If not the case, I look to play the alternate versions, which usually establish such a balance. I believe the game is really good in this regard, and seeing as it is the daunting 1813 Campaign (from French POV), I find I'm playing the alternate or campaign versions. Regarding individual unit types, etc, it is most unsettling to observe the seemingly endless tide of Allied artillery advancing upon one's forces, but such as it was. This, even more so than the greater potential of routing by infantry is the only factor I find most difficult to overcome.

Todd, if you want to really experience the greater potential of routing by infantry, try being a Coalition officer with E Morale troops, crappy leadership values and a command radius of 2. It tends to make a man out of you in a hurry.

I should add that I find the victory level conditions to be very reasonable in this game, nothing astronomically difficult to accomplish for both sides.
As for making one a man, you good sir (Col. Jones) are proving a most excellent teacher in one of the games I classified above as 'being slogged'.

Let's us not inflate the fine Colonel's head or else he will not be able to get into the tavern to return my swords and collect his Lieutenants!

Um, yes, Lieutenant Peccolo's sword. I would say that he dropped it, but I think it would be a more accurate description to say that you knocked it out of his hand, Capitaine Kling. Good show, wot!

And as to the further inflation of my ego, why that would be an almost impossible task. Marechal Jensen recently asked if Coalition officers were having any difficulty finding French opponents willing to engage in battle with them. I honestly informed the esteemed gentleman that I personally have no difficulty whatsoever finding a French opponent. Every French officer in the club avidly wants to kill me. Even the Peacock of France is seemingly hunting me again.

Lieutenant Schmidgall, I must say that I am glad you appreciate my handling of those fine Russian lads. Unless I miss my guess, there are a significant number of Saxons streaming to the rear at the moment. Of course, I could be wrong also.

A significant number of Saxons desperately trying to rally themselves before the relentless tide of Siberian Thunder. Before this thread is completely highjacked, we should look for new posts in the Saxony vs Russia thread. And I'm sure you will have much to say therein.
My compliments, sir (if not the compliments of GD, Count Reynier).

I may have lost my sword to Capitaine Kling, but I gave him quite the scare when I took my brave Russians/Prussians (8,000+) against his 15,000+ French, and I had to attack. I would not recommend anyone play the Allied side of Scenario 086 and there is no alternate. But, I did manage to take, if briefly, five different VP hexes and a number of French guns and supplies. Pity the Russian artillery ammo ran out, I might not have lost so badly, but I did.

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"The purpose of this post is definitely not meant to be any form of criticism of the Leipzig title. I personally love the game."

-Mark Jones-

I did not take any of the comments in a negative way. Folks are welcome to say as they like. Just remember that all of this is not being written down somewhere in my notes. If you think a scenario needs help send comments to the JTS Support email please.

And I will chime in with a couple myself.

I would like to play the Kulm scenario, put up a challenge some time back, but didn't get a French player to respond. The versions I want to play award the French with more troops ...

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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 am playing a Kulm scenario at the moment, the historic version of the battle. 29 turns in the Russians are reeling and reinforcements are slowly trickling in. As my opponent said, the first 50 turns are for the French andthe next 105 for the Allies. It is a tense scenario but if the French fail to destroy the Russians on day one I think I will have my way on day two. But I am not sure. David B is a worthy opponent for certain..

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Remember to send me feedback on this kind of thing (ammo running out). The update should be out soon and hey, help us all out by just dropping Rich Hamilton a note via the Support Email for JTS. He will pass it along to me. A game file with password is important too.

I updated the scenario. You can get it here but note that it has UPD (Update) in front of the filename. Look it over.

Changes:

1. French cavalry reinforcements arrived later and on the board edge. Protection hex range is now only 1.

2. French, Prussians, Russians have more ammo.

Again, help your fellow gamers out by sending me a note via the support email. It really helps ALL of us out in the end.

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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)

Glad to hear folks are playing this scenario. I decided later in production to enlarge this map. The big map is nice and helps the players get the "big picture" of where the other forces were coming from.

The Prussians arrive in a wretched state and truly will not be a dynamic force to deal with. Historically the French ripped right through them (cavalry) despite Kleist's men being directly in the retreat path of Vandamme's men. Guns were lost (and retaken). It was a mess.

I would have liked to link the Dresden-Pirna map to the large Kulm map but the contours only go to a total of 27 levels and Kulm is substantially higher than Dresden.

Keep me posted on this game!

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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)