Age of Eagles
Brigade level rules, similar to Fire & Fury. You can finish a game with 3 or 4 corps per side in under four hours.

Empire
We used these for over a decade, and while we like the scale and mechanics, we need to finish the game in an evening.

NAPOLEONIC WARGAMING

Definitely one of the most argued about periods after Ancients, especially in the area of rules. Our group has several players who have been into this era for a long time, mainly playing Empire in all of it's various editions. When we had to use a gaming place where we could not leave a game set up for a few weeks our group began having problems and interest in the period hit rock bottom. Our current rules did not allow for the completion of a game in an evening and were almost impossible for newcomers to pick up and grasp.

We ran across a Fire and Fury variant called Age of Eagles professionally produced by Col. Bill Gray and available for free on the NF&F Yahoo group. This system uses the brigade and battery as the basic combat units with each stand representing 320 infantry, 160 cavalry, or 6-12 guns. It is fast playing, exciting, fun, and best of all, we were playing 10-14 turns in 4-5 hours. We are able to teach the basics to almost anyone in a few minutes and all that is needed after that is the two sided sheet with the combat and movement charts. After one playtest we were starting to rebase our figures for another try. Then, after two more successful games the entire group began to rebase their figures.

Currently we have forces for two Russian infantry corps and a Russian cavalry corps, three French infantry and two cav corps, and a large Prussian corps. Members of the group are still working on expanding our forces for the possibility of doing a series of campaigns. We are also planning on doing an Austrian army, French allies, and even doing the Peninsula someday. Since this is one of the ost popular periods in wargaming there are no shortage of figure manufacturers, so we are able to get almost anything we need quite easily. Our long range goals are to do a Leipzig campaign and maybe Borodino if we can paint that much!

We use 15mm figures from Old Glory, Essex, and Battle Honors.

Currently, we have about three and half corps of Russians for 1812-1814, a full Prussian corps for 1812-1815, and about three corps of French for 1809-1815.