Scourge of War Waterloo DLC Ligny
Ligny is lost in the shadow of Waterloo, which was fought two days later. This is upsetting for two reasons: 1) It was the last battle Napoleon won. 2) If events transpired the way Napoleon wanted them, he probably would have won at Waterloo. Ligny was fought by the Prussians under Blucher and the French under Napoleon. The battle was ripe with might haves. Count D'Erlon was ordered to bring his I corps and crush the Prussian right wing and turn a won battle into a Prussian rout. Marshal Ney, fighting at Quatre Bras, ordered D'Erlon to march to help him. D'Erlon's incredible blunder in not following Napoleon's order cost the emperor his throne. The Prussians survived to fight another day and their corps led by Von Bulow interceded on the field of Waterloo. Napoleon had "humbugged" both Blucher and Wellington by striking hard and fast between them. Napoleon's plan was for Ney to keep the English away, therefore being unable to help the Prussians while he gave battle to them at Ligny. Once the Prussians were defeated and seen off to the east, Napoleon could then turn on Wellington.
NorbsoftDev has continued their Waterloo game to now include a DLC of the battle of Ligny. They had already released another DLC covering the battle of Quatre Bras, fought on the same day as Ligny. The DLC has five different scenarios you can play:
2:30PM - Leading a Prussian Corps
8:00PM - Leading a French division
2:30PM - Leading the Prussian army
3:00PM - Leading a French corps
2:30PM - Leading the French army
The Scourge of War games also have a few modes in which a player can choose to use:
Waterloo Battles
Sandbox Campaign
Sandbox
User Scenarios
Tutorial
Thanks to NorbSoftDev, with the addition of the Ligny battle we are almost at the point where we can play out the entire battles of the Waterloo campaign. Each release of the the game engine brings refinement and tweaks and more fine tuning of an already excellent engine. The next release is going to be that of Wavre. Wavre is much like Ligny in that had things gone the French way it might have been Grouchy appearing on Wellington's left instead of the Prussians.
With the start of the series in the American Civil war battles to the Napoleonic, this is one of my favorite series of games. Command and control from a general's perspective is what drew me to computer wargames in the 1980s. The ability to form a plan in your head and then to be able to use competent, if not deadly, AI subordinates always draws me back to this series of games. The only possible knock on the series is the same that can be said of any Napoleonic battle game. Because of the small sales that would be seen in releasing some battles against others more well known ones, we are not likely to see an official release of Eylau or Friedland, to name just two.
For the multiplayer crowd, these games have always been a big draw. The sandbox mode can be used to represent pretty much any sort of engagement of the battlefields of the released games. There is also a large community of modders that are on the NorbSoftDev web site.
Please, take a look at my review of the base game 'Scourge of War Waterloo', also my other SOWW DLC 'Quatre Bras'.
Robert
Game: Scourge of War Waterloo DLC Ligny
Developer: NorbSoftDev
Publisher: Slitherine/Matrix
Date of Review: 10/29/2016
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