My View of Campaign Bautzen

[Compass Rose]

December 2012 marked the newest chapter in the JTS Napoleonic Series with the release of Campaign Bautzen which followed the release of two other JTS Napoleonic titles, Campaign 1814 and Campaign Leipzig.

Campaign Bautzen covers the classic battles of Lutzen and Bautzen as well as the majority of the actions of the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-09.

As a owner of all eight previously released John Tiller Napoleonic Series games from HPS and JTS, I was really excited to add this title to my collection, as it is one of my favorite series to play. To add to my excitement was the knowledge a new feature of battling with ships had been introduced to this series.

If you are a follower of the HPS/JTS Napoleonic Series you may be familiar as to who Bill Peters is. Bill, who is the mastermind behind Campaign Bautzen, was the lead scenario designer in other popular HPS/JTS Napoleonic titles such as Eckmühl, Wagram, Jena, Austerlitz, Leipzig, and 1814.

Bill has a history of releasing good quality games that are laid out nicely. It is easy to see that at lot of time and effort goes into the games and in all of the extra information that comes standard with Bill's titles. It has become "normal" to find many extra "goodies" in these titles which have included pictorial displays of the uniforms and soldiers, Scenario Designer Guide, Terrain Chart, and a Weapons Chart.







An "extra" bonus was included with this game in that the Campaign 1813 can be linked to the Campaign found in the Campaign Leipzig game title. Needless to say, you sure get alot of "bang for your buck!"

As stated earlier, one of the new features introduced with Campaign Bautzen was the use of ships. Needless to say I was really looking forward to playing a few scenarios via PBEM that included these ships as it would make for an interesting change.

I started out playing the scenario RSW-036 Naval Action at Sandöström however, my excitement was short lived. While playing the game I found that wind had nothing to do with limiting my moves, and as the game progressed, it felt like a checkers game, in which you can easily maneuver you ship to almost any position in the water, making it very easy to surround your enemy or be surrounded yourself. The real "blow" was the realization that you could not gain points for sinking enemy ships. The only points you could acquire was if you destroyed the enemy shore batteries. I would not think that this was the intended idea of introducing ships into this series. As such, JTS was informed of our findings and hopefully this destroyed ship issue without awarding any points will be addressed in a future update.



So even if the naval battle ended in a disappointment, the land battle "028. Action at the Eichberg" more than made up for it. Right away the scenario had alot of action that I have come to enjoy from other NAP titles found in the series. I did not come out as the victor however, it was a fun an exciting game playing as the Allies.



Above: In turn 11 of 30, the Allies had the battlefield advantage early on however, the French have regrouped and are starting to re-advance in force. Of course the enemy decides to attack through the woods on my right flank which I was sure that I would not need to be worried about! Needless to say that my battle plan fell apart right then and there!

As I expected, Campaign Bautzen turned out to be another fun and enjoyable title coming from the JTS stable that makes a very nice and welcome addition to the Napoleonic Series.

For more information on Campaign Bautzen, you can find it here:

http://johntillersoftware.com/Napoleonic...utzen.html

See you on the battlefield!