There is nothing like a Neil Thomas rule set to get you in the mood for a quick table top war game. There is something about the way he writes that certainly has me itching to get figures on the table.
And his simple rules plus some magic essence seems to work every time. You have to accept he will give you a few pronouncements and strangley use some convoluted prose in the text that usually comes before his brief rules.
Get beyond that and he offers some gems.
It is also strange that I still like the complex rulesets he rails against.
On that score I have just acquired “Field of Battle” second edition Piquet rules by Brent Oman. Definitely marmite or niche at the least.
Published in 2011 they predate Neil Thomas’ Wargaming:19th Century Europe 1815-1878 which were published in 2012.
So they are contemporary.
With some 90 pages of rules and 2.4.2 style paragraph tabulations making Field of Battle look legal you would think Neil is on to a winner with me. Well that is all to play for as I have used neither set yet.
The read throughs have not deterred me from planning to try out both as soon as I can.
I like the look of Neils’ scenarios generators and I have the benefit of happily using them in his previous rulesets of Ancient and Medieval Wargaming (AMW) as well as One Hour Wargames (OHW).
I had expected to be looking at the Italy of the mid 19th century: erring towards Garibaldi amongst others. However I really have thought again about Renaissance Trolls two Faux Napoleonic Infantry he talked around.
And Neil Thomas neatly condenses his armies of the post Napoleonic era into “monarchists” and “revolutionaries”. All smoothbore as well. And you can still show off some fancy uniforms.
So I am drifting already…………. I am thinking I can have some Napoleonic cake and make it small enough to eat and without Napoleon, Wellington or Blucher looking over my shoulder.
Some nice obscurity history wise which will better feed my “Faux post Napoleonics” even before I get to the mid century period wars that started off this escapade!
The spiral into wargame madness continues.
The Wargaming Erratic 