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Now isn't that just the cutest little battlefield.


If I get up to SALUTE, it looks like the Perry's stand will be my first call again.

Last year it was the Afghan War British. This year it will be for this and their Zulu War Brits.

Hrrrmmm...

I think Neil Shuck has a point over on his blog. If you're going to buy this as a portable Napoleonics game, then Command & Colors: Napoleonics might be a better purchase.

 infinite_array wrote:
Hrrrmmm...

I think Neil Shuck has a point over on his blog. If you're going to buy this as a portable Napoleonics game, then Command & Colors: Napoleonics might be a better purchase.

That's not what he said. He stated at the beginning and again at the end that he's interested and he's awaiting the rules. He only speculated C&C:N might be better IF you don't care about miniatures.
He's also lacking in details which the Perry bros expanded upon on their Facebook about multiple games, scenarios, alternate units, etc.

Travelbattle + Classic Antiquity or Late Antiquity = Best Game ever

I'm in!

An attractive simple package - more akin to a boardgame than a miniatures wargame. I can see the attraction in this (particularly if more boards come out). It will have to "beat" a good board game somehow though. I also don't personally know how often I would "need" a travel-sized wargame.

Looks good. I find myself wondering about the viability of combining several sets to make a larger board and forces.

 filbert wrote:
Looks good. I find myself wondering about the viability of combining several sets to make a larger board and forces.

Perrys mentioned that specifically on their FB page and said tiles can be rotated cleanly to fit with other sets, so you can scale up as required.

This excites me greatly. Think of what else could come down the pipe. So much history. Such battles.

I think a travel game is a very bad idea. Who honestly thinks while on a holiday to break out a wargame? A small light card game that is more akin to a party game, sure why not.

That being said, I think this can have more life in it as a good way to do a mass scale Napoleonic engagement. Several of these will make for a grand spectacle, all the while being a reasonable price. If say 2 people buy 2 copies each, they can easily combine to produce a large encounter.

Now we just need to get some idea on what the rules are like, if they are any good. I hope they also do other time periods in this way. I would personally love for a battle of Hastings, or Hundred Year War version if the rules are good.

The Warstore has it on pre-order in the US for $70

 stonehorse wrote:
I think a travel game is a very bad idea. Who honestly thinks while on a holiday to break out a wargame? A small light card game that is more akin to a party game, sure why not.

I do! Took a copy of Song of Blades and Heroes and a small case full of assorted fantasy minis on a Norwegian cruise holiday with my family a few years back. My son and I played at least once a day. Books became hills, socks became woodland. Took me back to playing football with jumpers for goalposts.

 stonehorse wrote:
I think a travel game is a very bad idea. Who honestly thinks while on a holiday to break out a wargame? A small light card game that is more akin to a party game, sure why not.

That being said, I think this can have more life in it as a good way to do a mass scale Napoleonic engagement. Several of these will make for a grand spectacle, all the while being a reasonable price. If say 2 people buy 2 copies each, they can easily combine to produce a large encounter.

Now we just need to get some idea on what the rules are like, if they are any good. I hope they also do other time periods in this way. I would personally love for a battle of Hastings, or Hundred Year War version if the rules are good.

Regarding the first point, I think the idea is that you'll just have everything you need within a box, not necessarily just for holidays. Going round to a mates house, I can just throw it in the back of the car etc. It means I have everything there, no need for crates of terrain and miniatures and all of the other paraphernalia that you normally have to carry around with you.

Personally think there is a great appeal to that kind of format.

Completely agree though with the idea of Hastings, or HYW, think either of those would be fantastic!

I wonder if it would be easy to play black powder on this. Years since I played it so my memory is hazy.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
I think a travel game is a very bad idea. Who honestly thinks while on a holiday to break out a wargame? A small light card game that is more akin to a party game, sure why not.

I do! Took a copy of Song of Blades and Heroes and a small case full of assorted fantasy minis on a Norwegian cruise holiday with my family a few years back. My son and I played at least once a day. Books became hills, socks became woodland. Took me back to playing football with jumpers for goalposts.

Especially because this is based on the travel game the Perry bros have taken with them to reenactments for 25 years and play with all their reenactor buddies...
I have no doubt in my mind it will be a success. Every Perry release is. And I'm down for two copies...

A fine addition to a 130 year old wargaming tradition.


Illustrated London News, November 1888.

Those guys look pretty serious about their game. Such intensity. Looks like at least one player even dressed up in period costume to get in character.

Guy on the left is lamenting random charge distances.

Looks like a tournament game too with that turn timer.

It actually was a tournament. Hosted by the Royal United Services Institute (a military, intelligence and strategic planning group) founded by the Duke of Wellington in 1831 as the Naval and Military Museum.

The game was diceless though. My guess is that it used a resolution system similar to Kriegspiel where you figure out the range and the quality of the troops and then apply a number of casaulties to all units involved in the fight based on how long it goes. That was the popular resolution mechanic for wargaming for pretty much the entire 19th century from early Kreigspiel on.


I think it's awesome that before there was wide spread photography, there were illustrated newspapers.



This game uses dice though.

I wonder if these boards will be available separately. You could use them for many different games, plus I would prefer to 3mm Napoleonics instead of these models. They are nice enough but I prefer more men on the table.

 Samsonov wrote:
I wonder if these boards will be available separately. You could use them for many different games, plus I would prefer to 3mm Napoleonics instead of these models. They are nice enough but I prefer more men on the table.

3mm sounds great for these.

It would be cool if the boards and terrain end up being available separately. Either through Perry Miniatures or through Renedra who has been doing the tooling and plastic production for Perry Miniatures since they started with plastics.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Samsonov wrote:
I wonder if these boards will be available separately. You could use them for many different games, plus I would prefer to 3mm Napoleonics instead of these models. They are nice enough but I prefer more men on the table.

3mm sounds great for these.

It would be cool if the boards and terrain end up being available separately. Either through Perry Miniatures or through Renedra who has been doing the tooling and plastic production for Perry Miniatures since they started with plastics.

Even then you could definitely split the sets. I am sure there will be lots of people who will want a ton of the models to play on their 6x4 and 8x4 tables and have no interest in the modular boards.

 judgedoug wrote:
Even then you could definitely split the sets. I am sure there will be lots of people who will want a ton of the models to play on their 6x4 and 8x4 tables and have no interest in the modular boards.

It will be interesting to see if more people want the figures, leading to an excess of boards, or if more people want boards, leading to an excess of figures. I'll certainly be watching the market price as it were of these boards and may pounce if they become not excessive. They could be used for many different games.

I can't imagine the miniatures being popular on their own at all. They aren't that great, or at least I think the poses are pretty boring. Also, they are in their own (8mm) scale so you wouldn't be able to expand the army ever with stuff from another manufacturer (and what is in this set doesn't cover everything you'd want to have).

Albino Squirrel wrote:
I can't imagine the miniatures being popular on their own at all. They aren't that great, or at least I think the poses are pretty boring. Also, they are in their own (8mm) scale so you wouldn't be able to expand the army ever with stuff from another manufacturer (and what is in this set doesn't cover everything you'd want to have).

As someone who would be actively trying to get rid of his, you might be right there.

I suppose the miniatures are good if you just want it as a board game. Also, some people might like them even as wargaming pieces because they prefer plastic. But generally, I cannot see people buying whole armies of these unless they were selling for very cheap (and if that was the case then I would not be able to get the boards cheap).

I think the idea is just to buy a reasonably priced, easily portable historical game in a box. Nothing more than that.

I don't think you should criticise a pair of tap dancing shoes on the grounds that they make poor hiking boots

Replacing the provided miniatures with nicer genuine miniatures (possibly painted) is kind of flying in the face of the purpose of this kind of product - as Pacific stated. The idea is that you can scoop all the figures into a plastic baggy after a quick game at the local bar, or something similar.

I think it'd probably make an interesting board game, but I'd like to see actual pictures of the boards/materials.

I do not think it would be criticism if you took a pair of tap dancing shoes, thought they had enough flexibility to double as hiking boots, gave them ago, realised you actually could hike in them pretty well, but ultimately came to conclusion that they are not as good as real hiking boots.

Same here, no questioning how good the board game is or is not. Trying to establish whether this is just a board game or if it also has use as a wargame is praise rather than criticism, even if it does not ultimately turn out ideal as a wargame.

If you find yourself hiking in tap dancing shoes, it may be a sign that the metaphor is past usefulness.

 Pacific wrote:
I think the idea is just to buy a reasonably priced, easily portable historical game in a box. Nothing more than that.

I don't think you should criticise a pair of tap dancing shoes on the grounds that they make poor hiking boots

I think you're missing the point. Samsonov posed the question of whether the miniatures or boards would be more popular on their own. I suggested an answer with some reasoning. I understand the idea of this product. And since we're telling other people how to behave, I don't think you should criticize someone for trying to make a useful post in response to another person's post on a message board.