These Waterloo Boxed Armies make no sense!

[John]

Ok.. I *have* to be missing something here..

Nevermind the rulebook (which is a mess of mis-spellings, missing rules, incorrect rules, the worst index in gaming history, and 260 pages of bloat that SHOULD have been condensed down to about 100-ish max..)
Nevermind there’s still no official errata or FAQ anywhere for BP2..  (anyone else feel abandoned yet?)

Its the boxed set that has me tearing my hair out.  The reason?

Lets go over the box’s contents shall we?  So we’re all on the same page.  (This is regarding the French specifically.)

• 10 Units of Line Infantry (80 men per Unit)
• 3 Units of Skirmishing Voltigeurs (13 Bases of 6 men each)
• 1 Unit of Cuirassiers
• 1 Unit of Dragoons
• 1 Unit of Carabiniers
• 1 Unit of Hussars
• 1 Unit of Chasseurs a Cheval
• 1 Unit of Lancers
• 16 Artillery Pieces
• 9 Brigade Commanders

  Now any old  hand at Black Powder probably sees the problem right away, but for those who are new (like myself)…At the back of the Waterloo book, there are army lists w/ points etc to build a force.  Which Im guessing is how this is supposed to be done.. as there (of course) is no getting started, or first games or even a “learning to play” leaflet included with the game.  (This is a MASSIVE blunder and one of the most irritating things they could have possibly done.  Thanks for chucking a 260 page poorly designed, error filled rulebook at the new people along with a giant foam middle finger the size of a football stadium Warlord.. )

  Anyways.. sorry, got off track there..

  So Im rolling along, building a list.. and I realize that the boxed set comes with 10 units of Line Infantry and “3” units of Skirmishers (… 13 bases.. I mean.. again.. giant foam finger.. the units are 4 ranks.. so 12 is the max I can run.. why 13?  That is just confusing and makes people think they’re doing something wrong.)

  A full Brigade requires a minimum of 3 full battalions.  It basically works itself out that you get 3 full Battalions that consists of 2 units of line infantry and 1 unit of skirmishers and 1 unit of cannons.. and then 1 Battalion of 3 units of line infantry.

  Simple enough.  Im following along.  Everything is working…..

  Cavalry Brigade – 1 for every TWO Line Infantry Brigades.
  *Screeching Brakes.. crashing sound.*

  According to the rules right here in front of me…  I cannot use a single cavalry model included (and they’re a mess too btw..  Ive got extra cavalry models laying everywhere..) nor the cavalry artillery… unless I purchase 3 more full boxes of Line Infantry Brigades..

  and even then.. I’ll only be able to use TWO UNITS worth of Cavalry (6 total stands.  3 each.)  of the SIX included in the box!!!!  To make matters even worse.. multiple units shown on the back of the box are at 4 ranks each… but in the rulebook.. their max rank size is 3 with no option to increase them to 4 at all!!!

  To make matters even MORE confusing… in the Cavalry box.. it says All Cavalry units in a brigade must be the same type (light or heavy).. and literally 2 lines later it says..  “at least HALF of the units must be light”

  Can SOMEONE over at Warlord take 5 minutes to proof read this and get back to me as to which rule to follow here???

  Now, to end this, I will say flat out.. I am VERY confused at this rulebook and how its designed, and I could be missing the simple answer right in front of my face… but seriously, this has several in our group scratching out heads and going “what the..??”

  Are we missing something obvious or is this something we’re missing in the rules that allows these units to be taken?

  None of us can figure or understand why they’d include all these cavalry with zero option to actually field them.  Me personally, I’d have rather the boxed sets come with 2 complete infantry Brigades…

• This topic was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by John.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by John.

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[Nat]

argh… take 2…
1) WarLord rules are frame-work not pickup tight rules…they are still written in the 1980s mindset of you play with mates and alter the rules to fit what you want, NOT that people play to RAW.  Yes it doesnt hold up that well to the world of modern communications and pickup games with strangers at an LGS or open to public gaming space /groups.  (See the ‘Chelmsford Bunker Napoleons Wars document or the Victory at Sea Wardroom cheat sheets and 101 guides )

2) Extra stands are due to allowing for breakages, as well as fitting the most possible models on a sprue to keep costs down (for us the gamers as well as warlord)

3) extra stands allow you to show skirmishers deployed while still keeping a large visual block of troops on the table

4) Yes WL have a history of needing pickup-gamers not involved in the design side to proof read their rulebooks before sending them to the printers…. lets not talk about cruel seas where you need to read the background section to get all the soviet rules, you need a history book to know which boats have dieseal engines or petrol (as rules are affected by this),  Or the fact that people sent in over 4 pages of questions about the Victory at Sea book less that 2 weeks after it was released…..

5) I DO like WarLord games rule systems, but yes you need to read the rulebook with a red pen then jump on a FB group to find out the common house rules to even out some of that red pen!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Nat.

[Charge The Guns]

Hi John,

Very sorry to hear you are having a struggle getting started.  I’ll take a pitch at trying to help with some suggestions.

I think part of the issue is that the rules aren’t very prescriptive about how you form units, brigades and armies as they wanted to be a flexible as possible.  This is great for people with existing forces but of course can be very confusing if you are just starting out.

I also suspect that what appears on one of the plastic frames was more about maximising the figures on a frame, and also trying to provide a range of unit types, rather than expecting to produce an ideal starting force.

It sounds like you have a gaming group that you are planning to play games with.  This is a massive help.  The key thing with BP is that you agree between you how big you expect units to be, and also what sort of forces you want to use in games. The “army lists” are really just trying to be some guidelines to help people put together what is a reasonable force to play a game, and it sounds like they are not helping which is a pity.

I expect you will find that people don’t actually use the lists much once they have started playing a few games, and hence the anomalies you point out aren’t discussed much. (The bit about the brigade make up for French cavalry has been pointed out on the forum before, and it certainly looks like a mistake in the wording.)

My suggestion is that you agree in your group how you want to form units and brigades to start with.  Perhaps just have three stands of infantry to a battalion to start with, and three stands of cavalry to regiment.  You can expand these as you get more painted.  I would leave the skirmishers off to start with – one less thing to worry about in the rules.

Then I would form three battalions of infantry in to a brigade, and perhaps aim to have two infantry brigades. To start with I would have two brigades of cavalry, each brigade with two regiments in.  I would not worry about which types of cavalry are in a brigade at this point.

Finally add a battery of artillery to one of the infantry brigades, and a commander to each brigade, with one overall commander.  Do the same for the British, and then have a couple of games.

As you start to get more familiar with the rules, and as you get more stuff painted,  you can then start to figure out how your group wants units to look and how to form brigades, and indeed whole forces, for games.

I think with all wargames rules, how ever experienced you are, it is much easier to learn them playing with someone else who knows the rules already.  Are you in the UK anywhere near Worcester?  The gaming group I belong to (The Friends of General Haig) play on Saturday afternoons near Worcester and we play a lot of BP Napoleonics.  You and your buddies would be very welcome to come and join in a game and I’m sure we could help iron out some wrinkles.

Hoping that this helps rather than making things more confusing 🙂

Cheers, Andy @ The Friends of General Haig.

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