"Quarrie child coming back to Napoleonics" Topic

Hi everyone. I am looking at resurrecting my Napoleonic gaming hobby after many years, likely starting with a pair of British and French Peninsular War armies in 18mm.

What I want to be able to do is:

- Fight fun battles involving 5-6 Brigades a side – say a dozen infantry battalions, 3-4 cavalry regiments and 3-4 artillery batteries each in 4-6 hours.

- Double the above army sizes over time to eventually be able to fight battles that offers more to-and-fro.

- Recreate basic period tactics with infantry in column, square or firing line as well as cavalry flank charges routing units, etcetera.

- Fight battles that account for the nuances of different units and nations – such as lancers, skirmishing companies, elite troops, and so on – without being overwhelmed by the ruleset.

- Base my miniatures in a way that allows them to be used in several different rulesets, if possible. Ideally average battalions would be ~24 figures so as not to blow my budget – though reading around the forum it sounds like 36-figure battalions may be unavoidable.

One of the many things I'm trying to wrap my head around is light infantry basing… should they be on 2x3 or 2x4-figure bases the same as other infantry, or 1x3 and 1x4 bases so they can be moved out in front to skirmish in a single row?

Anyway, this is long enough for a first post – I guess I'll see if anyone bites.

Most modern rules do not count individual castings.
You might need single based skirmishers, but other figures can be multibased.
Have a look at General d'Armee or Lasalle v2.
the former is quite detailed, the latter less so, but allows you to fight bigger battles in the available time.

Agree….General d'Armee (2nd edition is out now) from TooFatLardies.

There is a series of 4 videos introducing General d'Armee v2 includinga play through. You might want to watch to get an idea of figures per unit, skirmishers basing, etc.

YouTube link

I'm enjoying playing Emperor of the Battlefield in 15mm and in 28mm. Use what you have. The measurement unit is half the width of your normal sized unit in line.

I need to see those formation changes too so these rules work for me. In an evening we use a Corps each (20-30+ units). One all day game had five Corps per side!

Vive L'Emperor of the Battlefield.

Fighting in Spain does offer the chance to add forces from many countries such as Spain, Portugal, French Allie's. Very colorful.loved the pro-French Spanish nit that had every battalion in a different color.

I'll second Emperor of the Battlefield as a good game I've seen played at the club several times.

I did not know General de Armee 2 was out! I was going to recommend the same, except Version 1.

We do 10mm Peninsula- 5-6 brigades or about 24 units per side. Small corps on corps actions. Two players, takes us about 12- 15 hours to get a decision.

That's not quite game night doable, but for that we push no more than a dozen units, which we have done in 3.5 hours with decision and cleanup. About 3 small brigades apiece for General de Armee can be done on a game night.

Curious about Lasalle 2 as well. Play what you have and adjust the rules to make them work.

Hi

Suggest General de Armee II and/or Valour and Fortitude (advantage of being free from the Perry site)

Stick with your 24 figure units, most rules are flexible and you get more units on the table!

Enjoy

Thanks to everyone who pitched in with suggestions – I have bought a copy of GDA2 and it looks pretty close to what I was looking for. I have also downloaded V&F for a read as well.

Thinking about basing line infantry in 4-figure square stands, so that I can cannibalize some units if I want to play in a ruleset that requires bigger ones.

Still undecided about how to base skirmishers though. Some of the Voltiguer miniatures I want aren't available marching, so does that mean I end up with 5x 4-Figure stands in line and 2x 2-Figures skirmishing out in front? What does everyone else do?

There's a club in my general area (Manawatu Duelists), though it looks like they are more keen on FOW. Maybe the next step is to invite myself along and see what they are doing…

I use 40mm x 20mm bases with 6-8 figures for close order and extra baes of 3 or 4 figures for deployed skirmishers. An example (close order figures are Garde de Paris):

The above photo shows (1) how I do a line battalion – in this case for a 4-base unit of Garde de Paris I have 4 voltigeurs on the left of one base (and 4 grenadiers on the right of one base) and (2) I do up some extra bases of voltigeurs – in this case a couple for the 15th Legere.

The photo below shows a light infantry unit with a couple of bases in close order and 4 bases as skirmishers. For GdA2 I should probably have 4 bases of close order and 5 bases of skirmishers but I will more likely use the 2 close order and 2 skirmish bases together when the light battalion is not deployed in skirmish order (i.e., a standard size unit) and then have 4 skirmisher bases with 1 close order base for the 5 bases, for GdA2, when deployed in skirmish order.

Hope that helps.

Thanks shadoe01, I like your approach here – perhaps I could do typical line battalions as 3 close order bases and 1 skirmish base, plus an extra skirmish base to contribute to the Brigade screen. Militia units could be represented by 6 figures spread irregularly across a base to represent their poor training.

Great looking units too, by the way! I especially like the Spanish light infantry in tarletons.