One of my favourite Napoleonic battles is Quatre-Bras....big enough and small enough to not overwhelm. The Strategy and Tactics (SPI ) magazine game is a basic staple and held its own until the release of the La Bataille game. Both have their plus and negative points........mine has always been the scale and size of the battlefield. The SPI version funnily enough felt less constrictive than the La Bataille game which added color but you felt more hemmed in.
Naturally ; it was a wonderful experience to delve into the John Tiller company level treatment - hordes of units but you still get a constrictive feeling. There has been a Quatre Bras mod by HB which opens up the battalion level treatment with the map extended to include Frasnes and feeling less constrictive with more play time, which is good. Overall , a nice level of choice.......so it came as a surprise to me........to accidentally find....and I have no idea why this has not appeared on my radar until now, something new. That said , I have referred to this game system somewhere before with regards to the Battle of Austerlitz ........but it has completely slipped away from my mindset until reecently.
I am talking about Grognard Simulations - Quatre-Bras which is one of four games of the 1815 Campaign and they have also published about five games for the Austerlitz 1805 Campaign and one for 1809. What drew me in was that the battle was portrayed at company/squadron level and it had a large map area. Why not give it a go..........ordered it and got it promptly. Heavy box.........always a good sign..........a mass of countersheets........charts and tables and two rules/scenario booklets............
The battlefield is huge......and I mean huge and apart from that........the detail of the maps is above and beyond anything I have seen in a Napoleonic games....there is stuff there which does not exist in the SPI and La Bataille versions......hedges, tracks, long slopes ,streams, sunken roads, orchards, fields etc ......displayed to great effect by the coloration - the clear hexes have a just about visible, distinct green patchy patterning which is remarkable in it's design......this with hexes which are delineated by only 50% line marking is also innovative and after getting used to it , works well.
This is what Napoleonic battle-maps should look like and what you imagined and cried out for to have in the heyday of board-wargaming. Apart from La Bataille de Dresde, which is the pinnacle of La Bataille map art - this has knocked the La Bataille series out of contention with their limited slopes and for the most part ,fairly featureless terrain............things move on.
These games are designed for Napoleonic nuts by Napoleonic nut/s.....there is no equivocation about that. The maps signal this to great effect....you spread them out on your ( large table ) and you think that you are looking at a battle-map for Waterloo......No, this is the relatively small battle of Quatre-Bras.........keep your potatoes safe and snug.........there are 8 map-sheets of 11" by 17" equating to 4 of the normal 22" by 34" mapsheets used in big games...........there is a Battle of Ligny game available and it has 20, 11" by 17 " mapsheets or 10, 22" by 34 " big game map-sheets; so it is two and a half times as big as Quatre-Bras...........and, Oh Yes !, the map-sheets are designed to be joined together to create the Godzilla of Napoleonic board-gaming - a total play surface of 28, 11" by 17" or 14 , ( normal) big game map-sheets of 22" by 34".....or two and a half times the size of the original Wellington's Victory SPI map surface area, so you need two huge tables for this with all the charts,...........I do not use the word , NUT glibly...............Forget the Charles S Roberts Award for wargaming......The Marshal Lannes Nut Award.......has been awarded to Grognard Simulations for achieving excellence in the field of Wargame Nuttery ( First Class ).........They have also nuttified the battles of Wavre ( 12, 11" by 17 " map-sheets ) and Waterloo ( 8, 11" by 17" mapsheets)- I think they ran out of steam here - it should have been 12 mapsheets for Waterloo , ( very curious, that one, Wavre bigger than Waterloo ).
To appease the whiney - whingers in society....I present the following.
- The counters have the unit designations in small print lettering on the side which is really annoying and somewhat difficult to read. The formation symbology is also a bit small.... you have to get used to it.
- It does use a Level of Order reduction system which replaces step loss or number casualty loss indication - basically ; you define LOO loss as step/number loss; most companies have 5 of these and more elite units have 6 or even 7......so a company can take a lot of hits before elimination and even then they can be regenerated over time back into play.
- You can play at regimental or battalion level - there are counters for this , so you have the choice to upscale or downscale.
- There are a lot of leader/ minor leader counters which some may find irksome.
5)The usual 2 front , 2 flank and 2 rear hex-side facing a hex vertice is brought back into play.....rather than facing a hex-side.
Further to this -
- You are not overwhelmed by rules .......cavalry have offensive and defensive and reaction charge capacity and the feature of reacting to enemy cavalry who are reacting to your offensive charge against another unit is also recreated.....parameters and die-roll being favourable.
- Only the Quatre - Bras game is stand alone - you need it to play any of the other 3 games....and it is not cheap.
- Artillery is not annihilated totally in out of battery melee combat- there is an opportunity to escape with half the guns or maybe not, depending on die-roll.
- Uses a general order system........wherein orders can not arrive or be misintepreted....no more shoving in units gung ho until they are shattered.......if they have defensive orders - they stay like that until new orders are relayed/given , even if a juicy attack opportunity is available. Specificity of orders is encouraged, to enhance this.
- As mentioned, the map is big.... it includes Frasnes and all of the Bois de Bossu which stretches down to a gap and tails into the northern section of the Bois de Revettes which is never shown in any Quatre-Bras games or general situation maps...so you can, if desired, bypass the Bois de Bossu and hit the Allies further west.......possibly with D'Erlon 1st Corps flanker which would be game over for Wellington........in effect - the larger map is more conducive to D'Erlon's 1st Corps arrival and usage.
- There are situation maps for set-up purposes, so you do not have to read endless text hex co-ordinates to place units.
- You can use variable combat strengths orstick with formal- and as with any board-game , alter and use your own rules and parameters of play..........
- Because the map-sheets are about half size of normal ones , plexi - plastic would be a good idea or just be handy with the tacky gum stuff.
Warning: this is not La Bataille..........pretty colors and red lollipops are not provided....you have depth and size scaling specifically designed for Napoleonic NUTS......casual gamers....keep sucking La Bataille................OK !.
My overall impression is that it is a bit different from the usual , so if you are a dedicated La Batailler , it may not be to your taste......so very dependent on your level of Napoleonic nutdom........
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( Double- click to enlarge ).
Quatre - Bras battle-map - please note that one small section of the map is folded and you can see the entire extent of the Bois de Bossu and not the Bois de Revettes, which is hidden. So, it is in reality, slightly bigger..........
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