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I've been playing Battles for Empire (15mm Napoleonics) for years and am quite happy with them. However they are rather intimidating to new players. I've heard a few things about LaSalle
and was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with them.

Durzod wrote: I've been playing Battles for Empire (15mm Napoleonics) for years and am quite happy with them. However they are rather intimidating to new players. I've heard a few things about LaSalle
and was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with them.

I don't have any experience with LaSalle, but have played Sam Mustafa's Might and Reason. I found it to be a great game (we played in 10mm, I have Austrians). A friend has picked up LaSalle, and has played a couple of games and likes them as well.

For newbies, I don't think its that intimidating, as the mechanics tend to be pretty straightforward. The toughest part for me was the command and control. In most wargames, you have such absolute control over your forces. I tried to advance my line against the approaching Prussians when my entire left flank decided they had better things to do and didn't move, leaving a huge gap in the line. I was sweating it until I sent my leader closer and whipped them into line. It was close, and a blast.

There is a bit of record keeping, at least with Might and Reason, as units take hits, you don't remove bases until the whole unit is destroyed, meaning you need to have chits, dice of some other means of keeping track. I don't know if LaSalle shares this.

I find his website, and iirc, yahoo group to be very helpful (and the author is always there helping out).

Thanks for the info. The record keeping is no biggie, as we already keep track of casualties and other such things on a roster. We've always thought it ludicrous that you could choose which target to fire on because one more hit will put it to the next cutoff point while it'll take two for the unit next to it.

Im a bit old school. I love Napoleons Battles, fantastic set of rules.

I have played La Salle a few times and thought it was quite good especially the command and control rules. I don't think it is a particularly intimidating set of rules.

I'm a newbie to napolionics, with LaSalle being my first. Picked it right up with no problems. About the only difficulty I have with it is the "send in the guards" rule and its reliance less on Guards and more on Pursuit cav.

I think it creates a way to game the system, particularly in a tourney situation where the game was designed, as it basically says "as the defender, all I have to do is hide enough cav to not lose."

Shotgun--
I just got the rules today and am quite pleased after a quick perusal. I think it'll provide a welcome change of pace for the Flames of War players around here, as well as maybe luring a few of the fantasy and/or 40k players over to a "proper" wargame. Especially since between a friend and I we have more painted units than you'll see on a table
(unless you want to play Russians, Spanish, or Brits) so there'll be no big expenditure on minis necessary to play.
As to the Send in the Guards rule, I don't think it's gonna be a big factor: it only applies to Russian and French Guards Divisions. Aside from rabid power gamers, you just don't see them that often. I forget the last time my Prussian Guards made it to the table. I think it was during a campaign game a decade ago.

Oops, my rabid power gamer must be showing!

Actually I just tried them one game to see the difference between them and Russian Grenidiers. Guards is nice, put it doesn't offset the other issues.

Hardest part about figuring out how to play Russians effectivly is the 5 wide artilery. I swear, the first game I used them, I never got off a shot as i was always clipping my own formations!

Sorry if I offended. My rabid power gamer comment was directed at those who'd bring them to a tournament setting.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm encouraged by the fact that you've given the rules multiple tries and are still interested. Gives me hope.