Reveiw Lasalle

I had a very small game of Lasalle yesterday(AAR and pics will be posted in a few days I think)
But I wanted to write a short review now, while it was fresh.


The Book
Most people will be familiar with this one now, a hardcover full color book.
It has the rules, advanced rules, 3 historical senarioes, terrain generator and army builder.

The books has lots of pictures of miniatures(not as much as Black Powder, but still alot) And for those of use the game in other scales then 28mm, it has lots of eye candy, especaly heavy on 15mm figures, of which almost all of them seem to be AB.

The Rules
The rules are slightly diffrent then standard Napoleonic tactical games, in that you shoot first, then do combat, before you move and charge the enemy. The rules also give lots of options for basing and shows the formations.
Also unlike most tactical /big battalion games you don't count figures but each unit is either small or large a small unit is 4 bases big, a large unit is 6 bases big.
The main diffrence is that 4 base unit disperses when it gets 4 distruption points while it takes 6 to take down the large units.

Skirmishes are dealth with very nicly in that a unit has a skirmish value of 0 to 3.
You can either make skirmish bases of just mark how many skirmish points the unit has.
This is often a lot simpler then General de brigade or Republic to empire, which I like, while I like both those rules, I never like fideling with skirmishes Skirmishes to me is just a pain in the ass.

The rules are a mix of Black powder and General de brigade/republic to empire
It has the ease, simplisity and lightness of Black Powder, while it feels destinctly Napoleonic, something Black powder dosn't do. I might use black powder for WSS, or ACW but not Napoleonics, ther are just to many good rules out there for this period to use BP which lack the true Napoleoinc feel.

Some people say the rules cater to much to turnaments and that we as Napoleoinc players are above such trivial things, we drink fine cognac dress in hussar uniforms and duel, we don't need tournaments. But really this isn't a tournamnet ruleset, but a pick up game ruleset.
I have no intrest in winning a compation againt 50 other players, but lets say you want to corrupt people to the dark side that is napoleonics. Well you got the Army builder, and you got the figures, you find a game hall, take out the figures and place them in army builder packs on the table.

Lets say you got the core force of Russians, with musketeers, jegers and grenadiers. then mabye you also place, a dragoon brigade and a light cav brigade ect. then you do the same with a french force, and up up sevral suport brigades. You then tell the prosecting newbie, that he is gonna use a core force, and he can choose 1 extra force, you let him look that the figures, study them, then he chooses one, and games with it. He dosn't have to be an expert in the period, he might have choosen the suport choices based on nice uniforms ect. but it dosn't mater, the game will be fun.

The most important thing this rulebook does is inspire, while I will probebly still play alot of GdB or RtE becasue I like the more hardcore "realistic" rules, no book inspires me more then this one. the Army builder is great fun, make a photo copy the army builder and tell him to build a force he wants, and he'll drool to death. I don't know what it is, but the army builder is so fun, while it can never take the place of real OOBs from history there is something inspiering to paint to the army builder lists.

Top 5 reasons to buy this rulebook
1. Fun yet Napoleoinc in style,
2. perfect for demo games and getting people into the period.
3. Army builder
4. Slightly diffrent from other rules, which is a refreshing thing.
5. Easy to learn.