I have been reading with interest about a growing move towards playing games that involve whole armies fighting, rather than a couple of Brigades or a Division on the table. Inspiration has come from sites such as Bob Cordreys developing Napoleonic game, as well as Hexblitz and other sites, such as the Napoleonic Wargaming Blog;
Napoleonic Wargames
In most cases a grouping of units, which would be about a brigade on my table, represents a corps, with four or five 'corps' making up an army. I have tried this to some extent with Command and Colors by using figures, but even this does not give manoeuvre feel of a number Napoleonic corps widely dispersed.
With this in mind I have dug out my old 'big fat' 25mm Minifigs and based them along similar lines to those described in the blogs. I am just about able to field an Austrian army:
This army consists of five 'Corps'. Four are infantry consisting of four blocks of 12 troops, a gun, a cavalry unit and a command figure. The fifth corps is a cavalry corps of three units of heavy cavalry and a horse artillery gun.
I have organised the French in a similar way:
My plan is to devise a mechanism, whereby the battle will start with one or two Corps in contact and the remainder marching to the sound of the guns. The table will be divided into entry sectors and the marching Corps will arrive in one of those sectors, with a D10 time delay. This should make for an interesting game.
I first encountered the idea in 1997 when I met Frank Chadwick at a con. Our group ended up playing Volley & Bayonet for a while which is just that scale with Brigade sized units. We drifted off into Colonials and so on but I think about it now and then,
ReplyDeleteThere is a good web page which has a ton of free scenarios for the level of game that you mention if you want to adapt any. It also has Frank's design notes which are well worth a read regardless of what rules and periods one plays.
volleyandbayonet.wordpress.com
I took a look at the V&B site and ended up spending a couple of hours reading the reports. I am now a follower! Thanks.
DeleteYour organisayion looks very simila to mine, Bob, although my Divisions comprise 24 figures and my cavalry brigades 12 ... usually (there is some variation). My system has no formal organisation below Division or Brigade level, but my plan was to include Div and Bde level minor tactics. That particular project has been on hold for a while, but I have pretty much all I need to fight a whole war...
ReplyDeleteI have wrestled with unit sizes for decades. Some of my figures must have been based and rebased 4 or 5 times. Now I use strength points numbers matter less and a key driver is to ensure they fit in my hexes and the scenery. I have settled on 12 figures on 4 stands for infantry and 8 figures for cavalry.
ReplyDeleteYou need more Saxons, Bob...
ReplyDeleteI reached the point some years ago that playing an actual army sized battle was outside of my capabilities. It was also too abstract and I missed the column/line/square stuff that defined Napoleonics. I'm happy to bathtub now, using real battles as inspiration for scenarios, rather than accurate portrayals (not that I'm convinced toy soldiers are the right medium anyway). It doesn't matter to me that my little Napoleon only commands 20 units - to him it's a grand army!
Saxons? Mmmm there's an idea. I want to give this a try. I have struggled with high level games before - I abandoned OP Goodwood as I did not get the right 'feel' when I started to play. I do like idea of Corps marching to the sound of the guns though.
DeleteAs an aside, I followed your link above and surprised to see it was Paul & Jan Leniston. I used to take part in Paul's campaign when he lived in Salisbury (I lived in Amesbury, not far from a now famous - and sealed off - Baptist church...). He has been doing this for years and it's worth drawing from his experience.
ReplyDeleteSmall world, even smaller amongst wargamers! His blog is very interesting with lots of good ideas and insights. I like the battlefield tours.
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