Meanwhile in the napoleonic times..

Me and Simo played a game of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics yesterday. The scenario we played was the first in the scenario book, the battle of Rolica. The scenario pits an Anglo-Portuguese army against the french defending a long ridge. The allied army has two victory locations on both french flanks and superior numbers to throw against the defenders.

The match began with the portuguese marching forward on the french flank, only to have their cavalry wiped out by their french counterparts. The french started to chip away at the portuguese while the british advanced on the other flank and managed to drive away the french from the hill. Nothing significant happened at the center as any brits advancing to french musketry range suffered heavy casualties and were forced back. In the end, the french managed to wipe out all the portuguese units and expose the british right flank while having to refuse their own right flank because of casualties. The french won the game 5-2 but the defending units on the right flank were in very bad condition.

C&C: Napoleonics certainly is a worthy addition to the series. There's a lot more to think about than in Battlecry or Memoir, which I like. I can't remember enough of the one game of Ancients I've played to make comparisons. There's a benefit of keeping your infantry in long lines (they can ignore retreats when supported) and  form squares against cavalry. Attackers are at a disadvantage when advancing to enemy musketry range but charging infantry has the edge against defenders. There were a couple of weird things I noted though. The first is that light infantry is more effective at musketry than line infantry. They roll +1 die more than line infantry, so when going muzzle to muzzle with line infantry, the jägers are expected to win. The second oddity is that cavalry is more difficult to hit with musketry than infantry since the average hit die has one cavalry hit symbol and two infantry symbols. You'd think this was the other way around.

Anyways, the C&C series is the arcade section of wargaming so whining about realism is pointless. I CAN however whine about the choice to print the name of the game in the middle of the board again. Why do you keep doing that, mr. Borg? It's a real immersion killer.