Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun

Published by Lulu.com

Pages 171 plus covers

Originally published in 1980 and written by Paddy Griffith’s, this book has now been re-printed back in 2008. It is just one of a series of books being published through History of Wargaming. I got quite excited when I brought this book at SELWG last year, although I did not get my hands on it till Christmas from my partner. But I was just a little disappointed with it when I finally sat down and started to read it. This book includes no less than seven sets of rules, which is great. All of the rules are designed by Paddy Griffiths a well-known military historian. The book contains a wide collection of wargames for the Napoleonic period for newcomers and for the experienced wargamer.The sets of rules are for

SKIRMISH GAME

DIVISIONAL GAME

BRIGADE GAME

ARMY LEVEL GAME

GENERALSHIP GAME

A MAP KRIEGSSPIEL

A TACTICAL EXERCISE WITHOUT TROOPS

For every game, in the book, there is a brief historical introduction with a complete set of rules for each. There is also a detailed explanation for playing the game with a play sheet at the back of the book. So the Skirmish game starts off the feel very well but then it starts to get a bit complicated with each set of rules from then on until the Generalship game where it could get you into a right old pickle trying to sort out orders to the whole army. I think that this book does need to be read again and to play each game as it comes, but at the end of the day, I think that I shall stick with my own set of rules.

Although the book has some updated contents, it is a shame that the picture are not. There are a total of 13 picture and diagrams in the book and they are all in black and white. That’s fair enough as it is a re-print of a book but surely with today’s technology the picture could be made to look better as most of them seem to be very black in print as you can not see what they are showing. The only colour picture is the front cover.