Sunday 12 April 2015

What's Volley and Bayonet?

What the heck is volley and Bayonet? V&B is a wargame for the 'blackpowder' period, so think horses and muskets. The best known conflict of the period is the Napoleonic Wars, roughly 1800-1815, starring Napoleon Bonaparte and his attempted conquest of Europe, but V&B can be used for most battles between 1700 and 1890.

The purpose of Volley and Bayonet is to reproduce large scale battles - the smallest force that you're likely to command is a corps, and an individual stand represents a brigade, around 1500 men. This means you can play all the big battles of the period - Waterloo, Gettysburg, Austerlitz, in a reasonable time frame with a manageable amount if miniatures.

Typically a game takes between 1 - 3 hours to play. You can use figures from any scale, although we're using 1/72 scale figures.

Compared to other popular wargames, V&B is much cheaper. For around NZ$50 you can easily get enough figures to put together a useable army. Even a large army would only set you back around $100 - $200 and most figures are available in plastic sets.

The rules are produced by Test of Battle games, and the rulebook can be purchased online at their website. The rulebook contains all the required army lists and material to play the game, there are no extra expansions or army books that you need to buy.

A range of companies make suitable figures for the period. The best resource for finding figures is to visit plasticsoldierreview.com and look up their Napoleonics section. I buy pretty much everything from Ebay or Trademe. There are also plenty of metal manufacturers making different figures.

If you're keen on having a go then get in touch. We play at Auckland City Guard club on Sundays. Our Facebook page is probably the best place to start, or you can contact me directly through the blog.



No comments:

Post a Comment