Wargaming: Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878 Hardcover – March 2, 2012

This is my third purchase of a Wargaming book by Neil Thomas (I also own "Wargaming: An Introduction" and "Ancient and Medieval Wargaming"). Personally, I like Thomas's rule books. The rules are simple, straightforward, and logical. They are good rules, IMO, for beginners, or for veterans who appreciate a very streamlined approach to rules writing. If you fall into one of these categories, there is a good chance you will appreciate these rules. If you prefer more complex rule systems, you will want to look elsewhere.In addition to the rules, Thomas offers a variety of scenarios – 5 that are "generic" ("Pitched Battle," "Meeting Engagement," "Rearguard Action," "Flank Attack," "The Minigame"), and about 10 that are historical. Thomas also discusses at length his take on the period's warfare and the rationale behind his rules, special scenario conditions, and so forth. Combined with the scenarios, this discussion may make the book a worthwhile resource if you are new to the period, even if you ultimately opt not to use Thomas' rules.NOTE REGARDING NUMBERS OF UNITS:Numbers of units ARE given in the kindle edition (which I own), and are NOT MISSING, as one earlier reviewer states. However, the numbers of units are provided in the SCENARIOS section of the book, not in the Army Lists. The Army Lists provide only the details on quality, equipment, etc. of the units in question (and in truth, this manner of organizing things is not entirely obvious on an initial perusal of the book).For example, if you are playing the "Pitched Battle" Scenario, you roll a die and consult a table to determine the composition of your force. Let's say you roll a "3," indicating that you get 5 infantry units, 1 skirmisher unit, 2 cavalry units and 2 artillery units, regardless of the specific army you are playing. You then consult the Army Lists, for your specific army to determine if your infantry consists of, say, Elite troops armed with rifled muskets, or Levy troops armed with smooth-bored muskets, or Average troops with breech-loading rifles, etc.In a nutshell – don't panic when you first glance at the army lists and don't see numbers of units given. Remember that the numbers you need are in the scenarios section.

Neil Thomas writes wargame books that respect the founders of the hobby, but understand the limitations of today's gamer. Thomas' rules are rather simple, and after reading his rationale, very straight-forward. Where he breaks from the founders is in the scale of his games. Instead of setting a figure/soldier ratio of 1/10, 1/20, 1/50, etc, he establishes 'units', usually of twelve figures. In some games they are companies, in other, battalions or regiments. The key is to capture the essense of the battle being gamed. There are rules covering formations, different qualities of rifle or gun, tactics, such as fire-oriented or bayonet-oriented.He gives several generic scenarios, usable for any armies of the period, along with some larger re-fights of historical encounters. His army lists are well presented. Most of the games here can be played on a dining room table. The largest number of figures in one army is 130. Most games last less than two hours.This book, and the author's "One Hour Wargames" have revitalized my interest in a hobby that has been part of my life for over fifty years. Any of his books are worth a long look.

Odd, but I found the book crammed with good ideas but poorly organized so they were hard to find. What good does it have if your wallet is full of money but in your other pants?

outstanding book on gaming 19th C. battles in Europe. Everything you need is here to get started. I think this may be the best overall book of his, and I have them all except the Napoleonic one. If you've any interest in this period, including even the American Civil War, definitely grab it before it goes out of print! The Napoleonic book is quite hard and expensive to get.

Book Review of Neil Thomas's Wargaming 19th Century Europe 1815-1878 published 2012 by Pen and Sword Books.As the editor of many of wargaming books (some mentioned in the bibliography), I was asked by the publisher to do a review of this new book.The book is set out in a fairly standard format for such wargaming books as first devised by Featherstone in his writings. A chapter outlining political and military developments, a chapter explaining the rationale of the rules, a set of simple rules, examples of types of battle (e.g. meeting engagement, flanking attack), some army lists and nine historical battles.For me, one of the most interesting chapters is the one of Nineteenth- Century Wargaming. This aims to outline the reasoning behind the rules in the next chapter. It does this well, but like all wargamers, I always contest the writings of others on wargaming. For example the idea that, `A more serious problem with a system of simultaneous turns, is its lack of realism', is clearly not defensible from the military perspective (otherwise there would be never be any `meeting engagements' in the history of warfare). There are however, very sensible reasons to design wargames with alternative movement systems, such as to prevent disputes. The writer's apparent views on leadership systems in wargaming as unnecessary could also be an area for discussion.The wargaming rules are at unit level, with infantry units having four bases, are straightforward and contained within just 8 pages. Morale is tested when a unit loses a base from firing, is a charging cavalry unit under fire or it has lost a melee. A D6 is rolled against the unit class or the unit loses a base e.g. an average unit needs 4, 5 or 6 on a D6 to avoid losing a base.The wargame scenario chapter has some interesting rules to add flavour to the type of battle. E.g. in the rearguard scenario, the attacker rolls 3-6 on a D6 per turn for the next attacker unit to arrive.The rest of the book consists of synopsis of various battles, with suggestions how to turn them into wargaming actions.The book is a good read for a wargamer. I enjoyed the sections on the design decisions for the rules and have used the chapters on the various battles. I tried out the rules in several solo games and found they were straightforward and produce a fun game suitable for an evening's entertainment. The book is worth getting.John Curry, Editor of the History of Wargaming Project.

As anyone who has read my review of "One Hour Wargames" will know, I am a big fan of Mr Thomas's approach to the hobby of table-top wargaming. As I said in my review of that book, table-top wargaming can only ever be a game, and not a simulation, because there are so many factors that cannot adequately be reproduced. Nevertheless, it is still possible to create a game which embodies the spirit and feel of the period, and Neil Thomas is an expert at identifying the defining factors of any given period. The 19th Century was a period of enormous change in the military field, beginning with horse-and-musket equipment and tactics, and gradually (and sometimes grudgingly) adapting to technical advances such as rifled muskets and artillery, breech-loading rifles and artillery, and then second-generation breech-loading rifles. Tactics were often, but not invariably, modified, resulting in looser formations, greater use of skirmishers, and the decline of the cavalry arm. To create a set of wargaming rules to adequately cover all this is an enormous undertaking, but Mr Thomas does this with gratifying ease and produces a flexible rule set which can cater for just about every conflict from the Battle of Waterloo to the Russo-Turkish War. I would also dare to say that the rules are equally applicable to the American Civil War, and to earlier and later conflicts with some judicious tampering. The core rules are satisfyingly brief and easy to absorb. Much of the book is taken up in the preamble to justify the philosophy of the rules, and in the many scenarios and battle maps covering the period under discussion. In the absence of an opponent in these ridiculous days of social distancing, I played a solo game for the Battle of Froeschwiller-Woerth (1870) with numerous brigade-sized units on each side, and arrived at a realistic conclusion. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

Neil Thomas is the Marmite of warfare designers, people either like or dislike his rules there is no middle ground.I have been a wargamer for over fifty years now, starting with dog eared copies of Featherstone, through the complex rules played competitively - spending more times arguing over sentences than gaming to the modern trend reverting to simpler abstract rules, started by WRG's DBASimply put Neil's rules care simple and give a flavour of the period but still factor in a lot of depth not so apparent in first reading- which is why I suspect there is a section of wargamers are quite snobbish about them.Why do I like them? I can get a historical wargame onto my dining table, using a reasonable number of figures and play to a conclusion after a couple of hours. Essentially he has put the "gaming" back into wargaming

Neil Thomas has made a name for himself in the wargaming world for simple but entertaining and practical rule systems. In his previous books he has tackled ancient, medieval and Napoleonic warfare all using the same basic mechanisms. In this volume he gives the conflicts of 19th century Europe the same treatment. As well as providing an elegant set of rules he discusses the historical background in some detail and in a new departure he provides historical scenarios. Some of these are what you might expect ie Crimean or Franco-Prussian, but there are several comparitively unknown ones.Many wargamers dismiss Mr Thomas' approach as over simplistic and deride his rules as 'unrealistic'. He has dealt with these criticisms in his previous volumes and I find his arguments convincing. The aspect of his work that appeals to me most is its resemblance to the 'old school' wargaming books I read as a boy. This is not something produced by a team, with a carefully researched target audience. He is not trying to sell a range of figures or a set of rules, or even the book itself. He merely describes his own likes and dislikes and the rational behind them. Those who do not appreciate this approach will not like this book. Those who liked the earlier books or who like simple 'old school' rules will. I am happy to count myself as one of the latter.

I have been a wargamer since 1967, when I discovered a copy of Donald Featherstone`s book `Wargames` in my local library and found what to do with my Airfix soldiers, and models.Since then I have seen almost every development in war-gaming, where games have often fluctuated between simplistic knock`em downs, to complex mathematical equations where every game move seem to involve hours of reference to endless charts designed to simulate `real` command. The experience that I had seemed to suggest the measure of fun reduced directly in ratio to the increase in the complexity of the rules.Amongst many other things, I have seen volumes of print over `unit frontages`, when the most casual observer of military history will appreciate the fluctuations of military strengths. I remember reading how one regiment in the Crimea could parade 30 fit men for duty, how do you account for that?I have come across Neil Thomas` previous volumes, and have been impresssed on how his rules managed to cover a tremendous amount of complexities, but within a simple, and enjoyable rule system.Additionally, I was impressed with his `Army Lists` which must be a boon to any young war-gamer looking at the number of products available and wondering how he, or she, should organise their forces.When I found Mr. Thomas` latest book on nineteenth century Europe, I could not get my hands on it soon enough.I was not to be disappointed. Initial reading suggests that the rules are quite simple, and in using them, they are. However, further reading of the volume shows how deeply Mr. Thomas has considered his subject and just how successful he has been in creating a tremendous set of rules, scenarios, and suggestions, many of which are additionally suitable for the solo-wargamer.I believe that Mr Thomas carries on the traditions of war-gaming started by Don Featherstone, and carried on by the likes of Charles Grant, and Charlie Wesencraft.I heartily recommend this book to all, and can only hope that as Mr. Thomas has covered Ancient, Napoleonic, World War Two, and Nineteenth Century war-gaming, his next volume may be about Colonial war-gaming.Buy it, you won`t regret it.

After being disappointed by "One Hour War games" this came as a pleasant surprise . It does exactly what it says on the tin, it's s well written, simple, concise set of war games rules for gaming European conflicts in the 19th century with an introduction that nicely summarises my O level history course. Well done Neil 😊