Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames
Horse & Musket Periods
In his book Charge written in 1967, Brigadier Peter Young wrote that: "You may be tempted to build up wargame armies of several periods. This is enticing, but it's madness." Well, I sometimes wish I'd heeded the Brigadier's advice. Ah, to hell with it. Surely just a little "sample unit" or two can't hurt, can it....This is really my favourite era - the core of my wargames collection.
All of my "Horse & Musket" periods have their own charms - for instance the regimented pace of a Seven Years War game is pleasingly different from an American War of Independence one, which is enjoyable largely because it is so free-flowing. I've always been a sucker for a tricorne hat on a wargames figure, for Georgian or American Colonial architecture, and for the whole ethos of the "Age of Reason". The later two periods in this "Horse & Musket" era are appealing for different reasons. The American Civil War really caught my imagination when I lived in the United States, and toured many of the battlefields. For some reason I never got properly involved in the Napoleonic period until recently, although my very first army as a teenager was Napoleon's Grande Armee, c.1812. Various things conspired to keep me away from the period for the next few decades, but I'm now dipping my toe into the period again, albeit in a less than conventional way. Until recently I also had the French & Indian Wars on this list, as a rather unsatisfactory skirmish period. However, we rarely played any games, so I ended up rebasing the few skirmish figures I had for the American War of Independence, which is gamed a lot more frequently. You can still visit my dormant French & Indian War page by clicking on the link.
To be honest, two of these periods are still in their fledgling stages. While I've been playing American Civil War games for years, I've only started building up a 28mm army comparatively recently, and it still has a way to go before we can stage decent-sized games. The French Revolutionary War is at a similar stage, so getting these up to speed is a real priority for 2008.
The other thing linking these four periods together is the rules we use. Dave Brown's General de Brigade rules for the Napoleonic Wars are a good, reliable and slightly "old school" set, and can be relied upon to produce good games. For the French Revolutionary War we've modified his figure ratios a little, but otherwise we use them as they stand. We also use two published variants of the General de Brigade system for other periods - British Grenadier for the American War of Independence, and Guns of Gettysburg for the American Civil War. Both are similar to the original "Napoleonic" set, but are subtly different.
Finally we've been developing out own set of rules for the Seven Years War - Die Kriegskunst - based on the General de Brigade system, but with a different figure ratio, and adapted to suit the constraints of linear warfare. They're now due to be published by Partizan Press in late April 2008 - you can read more about them on the Seven Years War page.
Whichever of these period floats your boat, you'll have to agree that - of all wargaming eras, the "Horse & Musket period looks the most spectacular. My wargaming friend Phil Olley calls it "proper wargaming", and he has a point. Sure, you can use uninspiring and questionable rules systems like Napoleonic DBA or Warhammer ACW, or ones where a stand of four figures represents a Division, but then you'll miss out on some of the charm. Horse and Musket games should look good, feel good and be fun to play. If anyone tells you differently then they should probably stick with 15mm DBM...
The
Seven Years War
The
American War of Independence
The
Age of Bonaparte
The American Civil War
