Yes, alright it's yet another new rabbit hole, I know I promised not too, but they were free. You know free, my favourite price point and all that. It's Napoleonic's that historical period that I don't do, except that now there is a distinct possibility that I'm going to be doing them. In my defence I'm doing it on the cheap and in 6mm (well you have to be able to see some of the uniforms) but I haven't become a button counter, honest.
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| The rules don't come as a book so there is no front cover to show you! |
You know how it is, the figures looked nice at Joy of Six, they were cheap, oh so cheap and just one purchase couldn't hurt, could it? Next thing you know I'm looking up Italian uniforms for the Peninsula War. Which are white, by the way, I mean which genius thought that one up? How did they ever think they could keep them white in the field, what with black powder weapons, and mud and blood and such like. Mind you it will make painting them easy when I get to them.
On a slightly less over-excited topic though: the rules. As you might know I have tried Napoleonic's a couple of times and simply couldn't find a rule set that clicked with me. So while I was wondering what to do with nearly 400 MDF figures I started searching. A couple of sets caught my eye but none of them were quite what I wanted. Then I hit on Valour and Fortitude (lets call it V&F going forward) they use battalions as the combat formations but can be played with brigades as the combat unit with very little change and others have done that with no problems. They have the right level of granularity for me and I could download them for free so if I find I don't like them all I have wasted is some printer paper and ink.
The rules are fairly simple, the core mechanisms are contained in four pages (three really as the first page is just the definitions), plus a page for a QRS and another two for optional rules, even then most of the optional rules cover changes for different scales. On top of which, each army has a separate two page list of unit types, unit sizes and special rules, plus a fate table. Game play is IGOUGO, with dice controlled brigade activations, the play sequence is Fate > Fire > Action > Melee.
The fate phase is where the fate table comes in. This is a set of thirteen events or traits that are triggered by drawing a playing card each turn. Some are used at once others can be held onto and used in a later turn. The effect of the cards is not huge and doesn’t look like it would have a huge impact on the game play. Next up is shooting and units which have now decide to shoot cannot take an action in the next phase. The action phase is where units may choose to move, reform, double, retreat, assault or rally. Any action requires the unit to pass an action test, although some fate cards can overrule this. Double is used to bring reserves forward and does what the name suggests, allows a longer move. Reforms allow changes of direction and or formation and can be combined with movement, while rallies can remove hits.
I keep reading that the rules feel like Black Powder light, but can’t comment to that having never played Black Powder. All fairly straight forward really. It's the Army sheets which add the granularity and flavour. These cover most of the popular Napoleonic armies and minor nations, plus ACW, AWI and British Civil Wars. The rules and all the other free stuff can be downloaded from here Valour & Fortitude - Perry Miniatures. These are currently (Late July 2026) the 2nd edition, version 3.1 but there is an update to Version 4 due any day now.
As soon as I have enough troops painted and based I will run a solo test game with my usual explanatory sub sections. That may be a while as so far I have painted four French battalions and only one British one, no cavalry or artillery. In fact I haven't even bought any artillery yet!
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