Comments in Support of Albion Triumphant: by a French Follower

I received two lengthy written comments on my Albion Triumphant reviews which I thought too big to have in small font in the comments field and so I have posted them instead. Like my original posting, the comments below are the opinions of the author alone and do not necessarily concur with mine - and that's fine. I'm not sure about being called an "old Moustache" but I think I kinda like it. I hugely appreciate the commentator's thoughts and efforts. I don't know if it got lost in my own review but I am a big fan of Black Powder and I admire the efforts, knowledge and contribution Adrian McWalter has made to expanding it. Anyway, enough from me ...

 "The Commanders The choice being limited to three, it is necessarily limited. Concerning the British I cannot criticize him even if General Hill and Marshal Beresford could have appeared alongside Wellesley, Picton and Craufurd. Regarding the French, the choice of General Junot and Marshal Masséna was essential since they commanded two attempts to invade Portugal and were defeated by Wellesley in 1808 and 1810 respectively. On the other hand, the choice of Sébastiani seems less relevant for me. His main feat of arms was to have fortified the Dardanelles Strait when he was ambassador to the Sublime Porte and thus to have isolated the Russian fleet in the Black Sea from the British fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. I would have understood better that the choise is on Marshal Soult beaten in 1809 in Porto, or on General Perrin, nicknamed Victor, whom the British beat in 1809 at Talavera de la Reina and in 1811 at Chiclana Barossa, or even the marshal Marmont defeated in 1812 during the Battle of los Arapilles (Salamanca). I understand very well that General Suchet was not retained. Like Marshals Davout and Lannes, he losts no battle. In his youth he took General O'Hara prisoner at the siege of Toulon and twice defeated the English disembarked under the walls of Tarragona in 1811 and 1813. As you indicate yourself, the writing of this booklet is rather oriented "Great Britain first" but when a frog acquires an English work he knows in advance what to expect. However, I do not understand the absence of the Spanish generals Blake y Joyes, O'Donnel ( both irish origin) Reding (swiss origin), Garcia de La Cuesta or Zayas. Is this how you treat an former ally? Gentlemen, have you lost your legendary "fair play"? Filling. I can understand that the pictures of the gaming tables do not enjoy you. I understand it since you have acquired the PDF version of the booklet. For all those who bought the paper version these photos are very inspiring. They also make it possible to spot magnificent decorations and identify confidential brands. I am referring to Grandmanner.co.uk which is not distributed on the continent. A bit expensive but very pretty and already painted. Their buildings are also very inspiring for “home made” creations. Certainly the content of the booklet is thick but the summary on page 3 is very well done. On the other hand in the Waterloo box of Warlord game there is a booklet presenting the essentials of "Black Powder" rules. Nine page with some pretty photos. Finally, many summaries of the rules are circulating on the net. With these and the pages summarizing the characteristics of the British units on pages 99-100, French on page 106 and Spanish on page 110 you have the essentials to be able to play. If you want to see what the game "Black Powder" looks like, I suggest you take a look at the following sites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WWzxFmVkfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpYj7vq0pkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgI64QUqb1g The first takes up one of the scenarios from the booklet: the barn of plenty. If you want to see magnificent wargame tables although a overloaded barrle field, I urge you to browse the following site in particular the pages dealing with the Battle of Quatre Bras http://notjustoldschool.blogspot.com/search/label/Quatre%20Bras? or La Haye Sainte during the battle of Waterloo. http://notjustoldschool.blogspot.com/p/la-haye-sainte-at-13-scale.html If you prefer more sober tables, I invite you to see or review if you already know it http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com/2015/06/ After forty years of wargaming you are, like myself, certainly an "old mustache." » as confirmed your analysis of the 1st volume of Albion Triumphant. P.S. Regarding The battle of Waterloo, as many French people, I wonder. Perhaps you could explain to me why the First Duke of Wellington gave this commitment the name of a London station?"

And then the other comment:

"Essentially you are right, but I think you are a little harsh on the author. You should appreciate this booklet as what it is, ie a supplement to the Black Powder book and not as what you might expect from it, namely a collection of national characteristics, army lists and scenarios. The main "Black powder" rulebook is presented as a game, not always historical because certain "biases" are necessary for the fluidity of the game and the author explains it very well in the preamble. The Triumphant Albion libretto is a supplement that follows the same way. The historical context It may seem superfluous to everyone history buffs. It is essential for everyone else and helps to understand what follows. - Why the French invade the Iberian Peninsula in 1808? - Why the French overthrow the Bourbons of Spain to which they are nevertheless allies? - Why British armies almost always have a large infantry component and a lower proportion of artillery and cavalry? - Why the Portuguese army haven't more cavalry? Most of these questions are answered in the “overview of napoleonic warfare”. As such, it is an excellent introduction which explains and justifies the choices presented below. NATO-type exercise files include a “road to conflict” and a “country book” specific to each protagonist. The eleven pages of the “Triumphant Albion” booklet is an extremely concise summary compared to the hundreds of pages of the “country book” and the ten pages of the “road to conflict”. If you already have all this information from reading Pillip Haythornthwaite's books, this is not the case for everyone, starting with the youngest. In France, the Prussian “Kriegspiel”, the Anglo-Saxon wargame, is not called a wargame but an history game as we believe that this hobby is part of a precise historical framework. ORBAT Their precision is not useful to the game since it only considers three sizes of units: large, standard and small. It doesn't make sense to overload the text and scare off potential new players. On the other hand, the mode of reduction of large units described on pages 94 and 95 is very useful for understanding the spirit of the rules and the resulting ORBATs. The absence of the names of the battalion and regimental commanders is consistent with the level of command since it only begins at the brigade level. The units As you indicate the presentation of the components of each army is the most interesting. Besides their quick presentation and the exposition of their characteristics, I was particularly happy to learn the existence of General Cameron's "Battlion of detachment". In volume II “d'Albion triumphant” devoted to the Belgian campaign, you will discover on page 65 the characteristics of “Guard Marine Artillery”. I warn you in advance, this unity does not exist. In 1813 Napoleon raised infantry regiments for the Saxony campaign from marine artillery units from the harbours of Dunkirk, Cherbourg Brest, Rochefort and Toulon. These new infantry regiments wore their blue coat of artilleryman but in the French infantry only the regiments of old and medium guard wore blue coats.The remander of the infantry wore beige, gray, or ocher-beige coats. Perhaps this is the explanation for this confusion. More over in june 1815 the french Northern Army did not have a Marine artillery unit. I agree with your comment about the British Guard Infantry. I think you can extend to the Guard Cavalry, Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards although they are not part of the Household."