Napoleonic Wars, Over the Hills, 28mm

A few weeks ago I read that Caliver Books / Partizan Press were coming out with a new set of Napoleonic rules. they were billed as a more period-specific answer to Black Powder, but with slightly more to them. Now, Black Powder remain a stalwart of the Edinburgh club, but I feel games with them sometimes lack period flavour. So, I whistled up a copy of these new rules – Over the Hills – and decided to give them a go. This is the result.By the way, I was having camera problems, so all of these pictures were taken by Campbell. Naturally his new Wurttembergers take centre stage…The rules are pretty logical and straightforward. Each unit has a “Fatigue Level”, which goes down when it suffers casualties, or moves too far, too fast. The fatigue level can be “rallied” back up by generals, but the lower the factor, the harder it is to recover. All in all its a pretty slick system, with similar mechanisms for firing and close combat. The same fatigue level becomes the base of the calculation, and various modifiers are applied. You then roll (a D10), to  inflicts  fatigue level losses on their opponent. It works, but while the basic system is straightforward enough, it took us a while to get into the swing of things. When we did, the game ticked along quite nicely.The game had a few other “firsts” about it. Both sides provided the same number of troops – eight battalions (of 24 figs), and a brigade of two 12-fig. cavalry regiments), plus two batteries, each of two guns. Essentially it was a divisional-level game, with two infantry and one cavalry brigades on each side. Bill brought along his Prussians – a force which has expanded recently, thanks to a few second-hand purchases. Their opponents were Campbell’s Wurttembergers, bolstered by a brigade of my Badeners and Nassauers, a battery of Baden guns, and a regiment of Berg lancers.It was the first time the Wurttembergers had taken the field – and my Baden regiment (above) this was also their first outing. It was a straightforward clash, with a largely open 6×4 foot table, with just a few small hills and copses on it, and a road running across it. There was nothing fancy going on – as after all, this was all about trying out the rules.Inevitably, both sides began the game by advancing, albeit with a degree of caution on the part of Bill’s Prussian left, and my own Baden-Nassau right. The cavalry though, were at it from the start. the first clash came between the Wurttemberg chevaux-legers and the Prussian dragoons. We found that melees are fast, furious and deadly. the Wurttembergers were trashed, then restored to the tabletop after we found we’d been reading the rules incorrectly. The following turn they were comprehensively swept from the fields, with no ifs or buts. the second clash between the Berg lancers and the Prussian hussars went better for the German Allies, and the hussars were trounced, and forced to retire. the lancers pulled back too, to regroup, while the Wurttemberg guns pounded the Prussian dragoons, who decided not to launch a Balaclava-style charge against an uphill gun battery.In the centre the two sides advanced, but it was the Prussians who got the drop on their opponents, forcing a Wurttemberg line battalion back with heavy casualties (it was down to “1” fatigue point”, and making the ones behind it less than happy. It was clear though, that Bill was happy to let firepower achieve his ends, and the situation there hardly changed for the rest of the game, as Campbell lacked the enthusiasm to launch a frontal attack, and the Prussians just stood and fired.Over on the right it was much the same. The Prussian advance ground to a halt, and the two sides exchanged some long-range musketry, and artillery blazed away, but that was pretty much it. All in all the game worked pretty well, but we’re still feeling our way, and so Campbell and I plan to play another game next week, to get a better handle on the rules.

Tags: Over the Hills