Republic to Empire
Looks as if Barry's new napoleonic rules are getting close now http://www.leagueofaugsburg.com/fightingtalk/viewtopic.php?t=1935 Simon

I will probably buy a copy for the eye candy factor, but i doubt that I will play them. I like to collect rules, I guess. :eh:

What with Foundry, these and Black powder there are lots of apparently similar rules coming out. I wonder if any will stick. I don't really know what the rationale behind any of these rules is other than they all seem to be glossy books. I'm saving my cash for something else that is due out pretty soon…

If Barry's other rules are anything to go by these should be good. There is a lot of interest on the LoA forum, I guess it all depends on the price!

Oh I'm sure they'll all have their followings. I'm just interested to see what new concepts they bring to the sphere of Napoleonic wargaming.

As you said, Timmo, the "concept" is the glossy book - it's no coincidence that the marketing of certain modern rulesets tends to concentrate on how pretty the pictures are rather than any explanation of the basic rules mechanics. That said, this coudl always be the one set that stands head and shoulders above all others....

I've been waiting for these for ages :beg: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Likewise, I have been following the chatter on LoA site. Certainly, this will be glossy. I hope not too expensive. There are some good concepts, but how the whole thing comes together is another matter. Revised General de Brigade is also due out (at some undisclosed time in the future) and Sam Mustafa's Laselle rules have just been released. Almost too much to choose from. For me, I'm still trying to figure out what Naps rules to use for my 6mm figs. I have just seen that Grande Armee has been bought (I think by Scale Creep) and may go back to print. Ants

'Republic to Empire' sounds like it will work wonderfully well for Star Wars - 'Come to the Dark Side, Napoleon' :blah:

Yup I forgot about Laselle as well. They all seem to be aimed about at about the same point, if I understand it correctly, sort of GdeB scope of game. One way an another its very encouraging for the hobby, do you feel this has happened because of the introduction of 28mm Plastic figures?

There is no doubt we are seing a resurgence in Napoleonic gaming. But we see this in most periods every 10 years or so. 10 years ago we had DBM resurect Ancients and Grand manner do the same with Napoleonics. The cycle has done a full turn and were again looking at a revival in both ancients with FoG and Napoleonics because of the 28mm plastics. I suspect in another 10 years we'll see another repeat of the cycle. Napoleonic rules are a minefield because everyone has their own idea on how to re-fight the battles. We will never see one rule book dominating this period. I like General De Brigade and will no doubt buy the new version when released, but use it for 15mm. I prefer rules that don't rely on pretty pictures to get sales. I'm very suspicious if a rule book needs to have pictures on every page to fill the space.

Bluecelticpagan You raise an issue that constantly plagues me. We currently aim to produce our rule sets with a black and white interior (colour cover, nice paper an all that) for £12 a copy and we certainly get good sales in that format. What's more as we sell lots of rules in pdf format the black and white presentation is very printer friendly for customers. That said, I am regularly told that we should abandon that policy and go for full colour, lots of pretty pictures and £25 to £30 a set as this would get us more coverage in the glossy hobby press. I am unsure which way to go. :hmm:

There's room for both camps Rich, I'm much more likely to buy your rules, planning to give them a try rather than shell out megabucks on a glossy in the hope it will be the "dangly bits just under the dogs arse" :D I've got several of your sets to date that I wouldn't have bought if they were expensive glossies. As far as the recent expensive glossies go I'm not buying the others like Foundry rules, black powder rules etc for example so am much more reluctant to part with my cash, but I've been waiting for RtoE. In short the glossies are more of a reluctant, reserved, save up & planned purchase another factor = reputation - with TFL rules your reputation is such that you don't need glossies - the reputation is good enough to make someone part with their money (neither does BH for that matter but it just happens to be a glossy - after seeing some of the LofA stuff on the net over the years I'd buy a set of his rules if they were written on used loo roll :)

I agree with Valleyboy. I think there's a lot of "emperor's new clothes" about glossy rulesets, and I think it may well prove to be a bubble that will burst in a couple of years when people realise that (a) £25/30 is actually quite of lot of money to spend on rules and (b) you can see lots of pretty pictures for free on the internet. I suspect people have looked at WAB and all its glossy supplements and thought "I want to be the Napoleonic WAB", without really thinking about whether their new sets add anything to the plethora of rules that already exist. Of course I wish every new venture well, I'm sure plenty of hard work has gone into the production of every set and expect the general goodwill that exists towards the authors will generate sales. Connected to the last point is a query whether we will get to a stage when you are not a "name" in the hobby unless and until you have published your own set of glossy rules... :hmm: