Andrew Fisher has created a set of free Napoleonic wargames rules called Throne of Bayonets. Andrew writes:
I like a set of rules to tell me what it is trying to do in the introduction. This lets me get a quick idea of whether I’m likely to enjoy the game, and therefore helps me to decide whether or not to buy. Most rules allow only 5 minutes action in a 15 minute turn in order to ensure that battles last more than 20 minutes; this set uses a realistic time and ground scale to allow very quick action — sometimes — but it also ensures that a lot of time is spent in waiting for orders or in indecisive firefights and half-hearted cavalry charges. To make this workable you have to be able to play a lot of turns, so I’ve made the rules very simple, with a minimum of tables and dice roll modifications. In playtest, players using up to a division each proved able to fight in close to real time, even in their first game.
Incidentally, the title comes from a Boris Yeltsin quote from 1991: You can make a throne out of bayonets, but you cannot sit on it for long.