Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames
The Age of Bonaparte
Let's give Boney a damned good thrashing!
Jourdan at Fleurus, 1792
This is a strange story. My first ever wargame army was a French "Napoleonic" one, back when I was a spotty teenager in Orkney. My best pal had Russians (an army I secretly preferred), while another kid (now doing something in the BBC) had Prussians. We used those Airfix rules, and as I recall we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My army was all Hinchliffe figures, which seemed to vary in size from 20mm to 30mm - often in the same unit. When I left to join the Navy in 1978 I sold them, and I'm afraid I haven't revisited the period since.... until now!
I resisted the period for years, but then rediscovered it again after almost quarter of a century!
It began with a false start. Wargaming pals badgered me into trying the period, and in the end I opted for the British in the Peninsula. I painted up one 30-figure unit - the 3rd Foot ("The Buffs"), but then the project ran out of steam. However, I was encouraged to start again, and this time I built up a Division of around 350 figures. For the most part these figures are by Elite Miniatures - I really like the look of them, and en masse they look excellent.
The 3rd Foot ("The Buffs")
However, I've also embarked upon an entirely new branch of the period, and this time its an era which has always held my interest!
French Revolutionary Fervour
Unlike the Napoleonic proper, I've always been fascinated by the French Revolutionary Wars. Hell, I even went on a tour of the 1796-97 battlefields, including Castiglione, Arcola and Rivoli. Why have a Peninsular Army commanded by Massena when you can have a Revolutionary Division, with other future Marshals of France leading his brigades? take the scramble to lead the charge across the bridge at Lodi for example. Where else would you find Bonaparte, Massena, Lannes and Berthier all charging into action shoulder to shoulder?!
Well, I ordered a couple of Austrian units (2 x 24 figures) from Elite, along with some French I plan to use to lure others into the period. If truth be known I'd sooner do the French - after all, they're far more glamorous - but if I'm going to talk my buddies into this I need to let them have the fun troops. Let's hope I can sucker them into painting up a Demi-Brigade or two.
Of course, that's the other appeal of this period. The armies were small - Arcola was little more than a divisional-sized action. It's all easily gameable - unlike those enormous later "Napoleonic" scraps. By the way, the Arcola link takes you off-site to an excellent wargamer's resource on the Italian campaign, courtesy of a group of gamers in Toronto.
We actually plan to stage our first French Revolutionary game at Targe 2008, the small wargame show held in November at Kirriemuir in Scotland. It'll be a small but spectacular refight of the battle for the bridge at Arcola (1796).
I'll let you know how the project (or projects) pan out, but I've now posted pictures of my first unit - a 24-figure Austrian infantry battalion. . The castings are from the lovely new 1796 range from Elite Miniatures. The French in these pcitures are also from Elite Miniatures - the ones above being painted by the sculptor himself - Peter Morbey of Elite Miniatures. I hope Peter doesn't mind me using his images if I'm plugging his lead!
These ones were painted by my pal Chris Henry - the first battalion in his first Revolutionary Demi-Brigade.
Now I've got my first Austrian unit done - the 1st battalion of IR 4 (Hoch & Deutchmeister)
As for rules, there isn't really any contest. Most of the time I'll be using General de Brigade, written by my old club compadre Dave Brown. However, for really big games I use Barry Hilton's fast play set Republic to Empire, which I think he'll be publishing shortly. I used them during a recent refight of the Battle of Ligny (1815), and a big Peninsular War game, and I thought they worked really well.
General de Brigade
As written these rules use 30 or 40 man battalions (figure scale of 20:1), which gives everything a "Grand Manner" look. However, after playing with the Seven Years War variant I've been considering smaller units. the Seven Years War rules work at a 1:40 figure scale, and so I've got no problem messing around with Dave's figure ratios.
After looking at unit strengths in Bonaparte's Italian campaign (1796-97) I've found that units of both sides were woefully under-strength. Austrian battalions averaged around 600 men, while the French regularly fielded ones of around 400 men apiece. Those still make quite big units at 1:20 - 20 men for the French and 30 for the Austrians, but for the sake of neatness more than anything else I've sort of settled on a 1:25 ratio. that gives me 24 figure Austrian units and 16 man French ones. Yes, the 48-man Austrian regiment above looks really impressive, but let's face it - this will probably never be anything other than a secondary period for me, so let's keep it small and do-able!
The rules themselves are straightforward, and I already use variants of them for other main horse & musket periods. That means it was pretty much inevitable that I'd choose them for this period.
In case you haven't stumbled across them, here's a review of the rules. There's a General de Brigade blog, while the Angus Wargames Club have posted a useful set of 25mm GdB playsheets (n.b. The club is named after the Scottish county rather than after me)!
You can buy 'em from Caliver Books / Partizan Press (see links page for details).
My Anglo-Portuguese Peninsular Army My Austrian Army of the French Revolutionary War (under construction)
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