Some Pros and Cons

What are the advantages and disadvantages of playing Napoleon's Battles (or any other set of miniatures rules) on computer instead of using miniatures on a tabletop? Let's take a look...

(Some of the features of gaming this way are double-edged, and so appear under Pros and Cons.)

Pros

• There is no painting involved
• Starting a new game is a simple as running the relevant scenario editor and opening the game file.
• You can save as frequently as you want, allowing you to look back at the course of the battle.
• You are not limited by numbers of figures, so the big battles like Leipzig are within reach.
• The JTNB battlefield maps are in many cases much larger than those that can be created on the standard NB 5' x 9' table giving much more room for maneouvre. For example, the screenshot at the bottom of those post shows (most of) the JTNBs Austerlitz map, and the red rectangle shows the portion covered by the map from the NBI Austerlitz scenario.
• You are no longer constrained by the space available to you, both in terms of space for a gaming table and space needed for storage of figures and terrain.
• Play does not need to be completed in a single session. This means that you can break for dinner, a holiday, whatever, and find everything exactly how it was when you come back so you can pick up where you left off.
• Portability - if you're a laptop user, you can take your terrain and figures with you wherever you go.

Cons

• You don't get the true 3D view that a real life tabletop gives.
• There is no painting involved
• Solo play only. This system works best and is really only practical for someone playing solo. I supposed it's possible for two people to play the same scenario simultaneously while exchanging information about moves etc over Skype, but I can't imagine that being anything other than slow and impractical. Perhaps one day there will be a VASSAL module for Napoleon's Battles.
• You have to play on the maps you get with the games. There is no map editor. However the John Tiller Napoleonic Battles series covers the vast majority of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic engagements.
• No sound effects. The scenario editor doesn't have sound effects for movement, firing, etc. You can however, run another minimised instance of the game - in play mode - and have the background battlefield sounds that it provides.
• Play does not need to be completed in a single session. This can mean the player is more prone to distraction, possibly stretching games out unnecessarily.

The JBNBs map of the Austerlitz battlefield. The area covered by the NB
 scenario map is shown by the red rectangle.

Some other (re)definitions

Translating Napoleon's Battles from tabletop to hex-based map required that some rules be bent, or adjusted...

Front Flank and Rear

Because of the hex-based interface. Front, side and rear are defined as follows:

A unit in square, of course, faces to the front in all directions.

Firing templates

The computer game interface, whether 2D or isometric, won't work with the standard firing and wheeling templates, so some adjustment is needed.

The unit's front facing also becomes its firing template - I'll call the computer version a fire zone to avoid confusion.  At least one of a target unit's bases must fall withing the firing unit's fire zone for it to be eligible as a target. Other rules regarding restrictions on target selection still apply.

The enemy unit falls partly within the firing template and so is a valid target.

If using the "Firing Infantry Template Placement" optional rule, I simply visualise the fire zone of a single base, and count the number of bases whose fire zones the target unit falls within. In the example above, this would mean that the firing unit could only count three bases (-1 modifier), since the target does not fall withing the fire zone of the rightmost front base.

Note that if the target unit was displaced to the left by one hex, the firing unit could still fire one base (-2 modifier), since the target unit would fall within the fire zone of the left rear base.

Wheeling:

The hex-grid means that optional wheeling rules (11.11) can't work, so the standard cost of 1" per unit width in bases applies. An alternative approach, an similar to the rules, is to count the moves of the outermost base, counting each pivot as an additional 1".  A unit, lacking sufficient movement factors, can wheel 60° or 120°.

Echelon Movement:

A base moving into either of the hexes directly to its front is considered to be moving straight ahead.

Movement of left- and right-most bases shown. The red, green and blue movement paths all count as straight ahead.

Range and distance:

Naturally, the movement allowance in inches translates directly into number of hexes moved. However, range works a bit differently.  Range, for firing and for determining command status, is the number of hexes between the firing unit/general and the target unit/subordinate unit.

The general's command range is 3". The unit is 3 hexes away and is in command.

The French unit has a firing range of 4". The Nassau unit is 4 hexes away and is in range.

Similarly, a unit is pinned if an enemy unit (or part of one) is exactly 1 hex away.

Attachments

Where a general is in a hex that is adjacent to a unit, he is considered attached only if  his 3D graphic is pointed directly at that unit. Artillery units attach in the usual way. If an artillery unit has both of its elements adjacent to friendly units, I just put the battery's Cadre Base general adjacent to the unit to which the attachment has been made.

The Allied general is attached to both units. The French general is not attached. The Allied and French artillery units are attached.