25mm Old School Napoleonics.

 Our small group of gamers enjoyed a game of 'Old School' Napoleonics using Nigel's figures and rules. His figures are a mix of Hinchliffe, Minifigs and Lamming, many of which were bought and painted over 40 years ago. 

These are the rules that Nigel used back then and we used them again today. 

Here is the British force, before deployment and led by Ian and myself. 

The French force, before deployment and led by Nigel and Charlie.

Ian took control of the British cavalry supported by the horse artillery. 

Nigel's lated recruits, some French lancers led by Charlie. They cam hurtling down the road and charging my British Allies line infantry broke right through them and with good morale throws were able to turn and charge back through them, causing that unit to withdraw. 

For our trial game of the rules the objective was kept simple, capture the crossroads. 

I sent my British Line unit forward towards the crossroads. You can also see Nigel's French infantry heading for the crossroads. 

Ian's dragoons chased off the French light cavalry then turned to try and get around the flank of the French infantry but also faced Nigels artillery. 

Ian declared his charge on the rear/flank of the French infantry (who had charged my British by then) assisted by Charlie's infantry). Nigel's artillery did enough damage on the French Hussars to prevent their charge so my poor British were left outnumbered in the centre. 

My British infantry took a bit of a beating and were also forced to withdraw. 

This left the French in command of the crossroads and the British force in tatters.  

A clear win for the French. 

The French Lancers were awarded 'unit of the game' and proved that the newly painted unit does not always do badly in their first game. 

So the game was fun and we enjoyed using the old school rules. However, there were a few areas of the rules that were perhaps not explained as clearly as they might have been. Another area of confusion was that each figure was worth a certain number of points in melee and missile fire. The confusing part was that a figure worth 1pt in melee might be worth 1.5pts in missile fire so we had to try and remember these varying factors. The rules are also a bit chart heavy. However with a bit of tweaking and refinement these would be an enjoyable set of rules.