Impetus its actually fun!

We have started playing basic Impetus at the club. The basic version is free and for an ancients game its very fun and doesn't bog down in Geometry wars. While other rule sets focus on weapon matchups Impetus focus more on the fight power of each troop type.
For example my 100 year war English knights are pretty average when mounted compared to French as the French have a huge bonus when charging without causalities. However my Longbowmen are hugely superior to the French crossbowmen but not greatly so to render the French helpless in a missile duel with my forces. The games between the English and French become and frantic game of can I negate the Impetus bonus of the French Knights before they hit my lines. Very much how I expect it to go without becoming boring like when we tried to do the same with FOG.
The game flows well and I highly recommend it to anyone. We had a few games outside period and it worked well.
Here are a few of my 100YW English.

Skirmishing and you

Skirmish factor:

Lasalle represents each battalions ability to put up screen of  skirmishers by giving each infantry unit a SK value. This value ranges from 0 to 3 and is shown by placing marker in front of the unit.

Skirmishing is a strange topic in Napoleonic circles and there has been may discussion on it's historical benefits and how to represent it on the tabletop. I personally like how lasalle treats skirmishers as I hate having to keep track of how many men are assigned to the task. It also removes the how effective were each nations skirmishers? British light company vs French voltigeurs? What about the same number of Prussian rifle armed jaegers? Assigning an abstract value works well as it creates an effect and not rely on a mini battle to produce that effect.

Skirmish factor comes into play in two situations during the game.

Firstly it provides your infantry unit an extra dice if your SK value is higher than the opposing infantry unit. Also if you position yourself well and can get to the flank or rear of an infantry unit you get the full SK value in bonus dice. 
This may not seem like much but during the game and across multiple units this can jump you from 2-4 hits (1 disruption) to 5 hits (2 disruption).

Secondly the SK value is used to dilute the effects of canister fire. You take the SK value off the dice your opponent rolls for his canister fire. High SK value is important to reduce nasty canister shots from a 2 disruption shot to potentionally a single disruption shot.

There are situations where infantry lose their SK value. When charged or is charging or when in square formation you lose your SK value. 

Certain nations can increase their SK values of their troops. The Prussian and British lists have SK bases in most of their core lists which you can add to your infantry units. These represent the rifle equipped battalions which could be assigned as needed. You can also break up an experienced SK2 or better unit to SK bases equal to it's bases (normally 4). This is almost always a bad idea as that unit could do more than an increase in SK value would.

A final note you only get bonus dice against other infantry units. Cav and cannons have no value so you don't get bonus dice but your canister fire is not reduced either.

P is for Perry, is that good enough for me?

First post time! Welcome all, I am pretty boring so chose the defaults for most of the Blog. As you might of gathered this blog will cover my war-gaming projects. Currently I am about a 3rd of the way through a 28mm Prussian army for Lasalle.

Well time for some content. At Southcon this weekend I picked up a set of Perry Plastic Prussians. Here is a comparison and mini review of the set.

Overview: The set itself is a 40 figure set with 6 Jaegers. It comes with only 2 types of sprues, 6 basic sprues containing 6 poses of March attack infantry and a Jaeger running a trail arms. You only get 1 command sprue with a Drummer, Flag bearer, Officer and an Opera singer. The figures come in 3 parts; main body, head and backpack.

Poses: The figures are a cross between the Perry French and the British. They are simple march attack poses but you can mix it up my turning heads. I would of liked more active poses like the Perry British. You get 6 different march attack and 1 Jaeger per sprue. The Jaeger is running at trail arms but at least he has and arm you glue in to vary the figure.

Extras: You get the standard base sprue that comes with the Perry plastics which I don't use as I use 50mm square bases. You get a painting guide which has 3 flags to choose from, 7 Infantry Regiment 1st and 2nd Battalion (West Prussian) and 10 Infantry Regiment (Silesian). The flags look good but I prefer Mont Saint Jean for my uniform and facing colours.

Calpe: My other figures are all Calpe so quickly glued some together and took some snaps. You decide if they fit will together or will the Perry boys make fun of the Calpe lads for eating all the pies. Note the Calpe figure is base coated in blue.