Wanting to buy HPS Nap Campaign, but hesitating

[Liebchen]

I like them both. But they're definitely different. I was just commenting on this to someone. To me, anyway, it seems like this:

Panzer Campaigns cover a region or "area of operations," where there are entire armies and fronts facing off over a great variety of environments. There will be rivers and maybe coastlines, but with the help of engineers, the rivers can be crossed, and where there's a coastline the odds are decent that there will be an amphibious landing. The scale can be vast or modest, depending upon the scenario, but it'll usually be a few days of operations to a few weeks. What you see of the enemy depends upon where your units are, because you can't really see very far, only a few hexes away (if that).

In the Napoleonic campaigns, the action is more localized. Instead of covering a region, it covers a battlefield, one that you can often see straight across were it not for those hills, towns, etc. So cover is crucial if you want to use fog of war. The result is that the Nappy fights will generally be over a town or some villages, a river crossing or two, a hill/ridge or three, and it will last a day or two (maybe three, in the bigger ones). There may be a few patches of woods to mix things up. Rivers can only be crossed at bridges. You can't make bridges, although at times the bridges on the map may have been made (pre-scenario) by engineers (I'm looking at you, Wagram!).

In Panzer Campaigns, your formations will be able to roam around, likely with a perimeter of sorts, and generally prefer to stay within radio range of their HQ. In Nappy games, your formations will usually want to stick fairly close together, as in, form a line of battle, shoulder to shoulder (or so it seems on the Tiller maps).

(BTW, in the Nappy games, the operations allow you to have the "regional feel" played over several scenarios.)

So, having come from the WW2 genre, myself, I can only say that the Nappy games are a good and fun change of pace.