54mm Travel Battle Napoleonics

 

Last week tried out the Travel Battle rules from the Perries using my 54mm collection.  This was on a 6' x 4' table with 4" squares, so 12" deep and 18" wide - very slightly narrower than the travel battle board.

Just set up some terrain and played an encounter game with the victory conditions being to destroy two of the enemy brigades as per the original rules.

The game was fun, moves quickly and the rules are simple enough to remember - though I did get some of the cavalry rules wrong initially which affected my left flank cavalry brigade.

Eventually, the Prussians/British broke the French for a win.

We are thinking of trying out an historical scenario next time with the same rules.

Travel Battle try out

 Second outing for the 54mm Napoleonics in a week!

This time using the Travel Battle rules from the Perries playing against Anthony.

I set up an approximation of the Travel Battle boards using a 4" gridded mat which gave us 12 squares by 18.  The travel battle board is 20 x 10, so we ignored the back square on each side.

As you can have 2 infantry units in a square in the open, I settled on using a single base fo the infantry (though, in the game, neither of us doubled up any units) - I think I had forgotten this rule by the time it might have been useful.

The rules are simple but do present you with the type of decisions you would face in a Napoleonic battle - cavalry get an advantage against Infantry in the open, Infantry in Square or built up areas get an advantage, etc.

The game was frustrating initially as I rolled a series on 1s and lost a number of units.  But eventually the tide turned.  I wiped out the British Cavalry Brigade and then my decision to include both my Guard units in the same brigade (whereas Anthony had split his between brigades) paid off with a frontal attack on the British in a built up area and I finally destroyed a second British brigade for victory.

It is a fun game and I'd certainly play them again, perhaps in a scenario rather than pick up game.