Pub Battles is used by many military schools and academies around the world. We often hear back that it is their favorite system to game. It is used in classrooms for teaching and as exercises for training.
Now the military is very sensitive about endorsing products. It would be an ethical violation for them to publicly say anything about 1 particular product or company. It could look like government corruption / favoritism, right? So we can’t say who or where, but we get many glowing reviews from military instructors and schools from all over the US, France, UK, Ireland, Denmark and Scandinavia.
Here is one we got recently:
“The survey feedback for Pub Battles …
was that it was the best game out of the 10 we ran.”
The survey feedback for Pub Battles “Waterloo: into the abyss” with all of the expansion battles and the campaigns rules was that it was the best game out of the 10 we ran in my “history in action” elective. If there is a vassal mod of the full campaign in pub battles, you should consider using it with a special communication and orders rules.
Note, the students had played “Austerlitz: One Sharp Blow” 2 lessons prior to the final class where we played Waterloo, so they had already learned the Pub Battles system with a single battle before playing it with campaign rules.
I had 3 planning rooms for the Army Commanders (Blucher, Wellington, and Napoleon) and had maps for the two wings of the campaign separated (Ney [Quatre Bras] and Grouchy [Ligny]) with strict rules not to talk to anyone on the other map without sending a letter via a runner. I also have a house rule that you can only communicate with corps commanders that are in command range (I assign a student to each corps commander, as well as the army/wing commander).
I only allowed the Army Commanders to be at the battle table where they currently were located.
It wasn’t as rich as a full Kriegsspiel, but it was enough that the players got the idea, and loved it. Had a huge impact on how they saw the campaign, and the AAR was excellent.
Interesting stuff! I observe that they seem to be concentrating the blocks sometimes with three or more stacked one behind the other. Do the new rules allow this? Or are they just playing with their own modifications? Cheers.
One block can support another. Basically like stacking. Others further back are a reserve. You can use them later but not in any combats this turn. You don’t want to pile up your reserve, right behind the front line. If units retreat, they will flip and push back those reserve units.