Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames
The Age of Bonaparte
Let's give Boney a damned good thrashing!
Armies for the Napoleonic Wars
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 made up of 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 didn't revisit the period until fairly recently. Now I consider Napoleonic to be one of my favourite periods.
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. I suppose it was all those fiddly facings, and white lacing.
After several months I was encouraged to start again, this time because of a forthcoming Peninsular game organised by the "League of Gentlemen Wargamers". This time I persevered and built up a small division of around 350 figures. For the most part these figures were from Elite Miniatures. I really like the look of them, and en masse they look excellent.
The force was bulked out by skirmishers and cavalry from Front Rank (one of my favourite manufacturers), and I have plans to expand my little army further, adding more Portuguese and possibly some Spanish guerillas.
The 3rd Foot ("The Buffs")
Since then I went out and bought a second "Napoleonic" army, this time a Russian one. A gentleman in South Africa was selling his Foundry figures on E-bay, and so I bought eight 32 man battalions. While the painting job wasn't the best, they gave me an instant army, or at least they would have if I hadn't wanted to tinker. You see, they were all in full dress uniform, and I preferred my Russians to look a little less pristine. Consequently I bought more figures in greatcoats and forage caps to make the units look a little scruffier. I suddenly found I had twelve battalions - almost 400 figures, not counting cavalry and guns.
I repainted and rebased them, and they're due an outing soon. I also added cavalry, artillery (you can never have too many Russian guns), and staff, and I'm gradually building it up into a large and well-balanced army. My love affair with Russian armies never seems to have gone away. I suppose its the doughty but ill-led infantry that do it for me, plus the heavy reliance on artillery, plus all those rapacious Cossacks...
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Wargaming the French Revolutionary War
Unlike the Napoleonic proper, I've always been fascinated by the French Revolutionary Wars. I've even toured several of the 1796 battlefields, including Castiglione, Arcola and Rivoli. The armies were also small - Arcola was little more than a divisional-sized action. It's all easily game-able - unlike those enormous later "Napoleonic" scraps. By the way, this Arcola link takes you off-site to an excellent wargamer's resource on the Italian campaign, courtesy of a group in Toronto.
Why settle for a French Peninsular Army commanded by Marshal Massena when you can have him as a divisional commander in 1796, with other future Marshals of France acting as his subordinates? Where else can you have Napoleon Bonaparte commanding a Corps? What other period lets you have Bonaparte, Massena, Lannes and Berthier all charging into action shoulder to shoulder, as they did on the bridge at Lodi?! You still get all the nationalities - French, British, Austrian, Russian, Prussian, Spanish etc. etc., and campaigns were fought in the Low Countries, the Franco-German border, Egypt and Italy, so there's plenty of variety. In other words - this is a subsidiary period with lots of flavour!
In order to sucker him in I left the glamorous Revolutionary French army to my old pal Chis Henry, as I knew he'd find the sample figures I sent him hard to resist. Instead I painted up a couple of 24-man Austrian infantry battalions, from Elite Miniatures . These figures have a wonderful straight-laced charm to them, and look like they're on parade - in complete contrast to the ragged-assed French!
Since then I bulked my first units into 32 man battalions, and added more of them, plus some guns and grenzers, and a colourful detachment of Frei Korps skirmishers. Before I knew it I had a small army - enough to play a game. We've now played a couple, and each one was great fun - and very colourful. I can now say I'm hooked on the period, although it'll always remain a subsidiary one, condemned to playing second fiddle to the Seven Years War.
We actually played our first French Revolutionary game at Targe 2008, the small wargame show held in Kirriemuir in Scotland. It was a small but spectacular refight of the battle for the bridge at Arcola (1796) (click on the link to read the display game flyer). While the terrain wasn't the best, the game attracted a lot of interest.
We're slowly building up our armies, assisted by a great range of newly-available figures, from Elite Miniatures, Eureka Miniatures and Trent Miniatures. Chris even uses some Dixon Miniatures and Foundry figures in his units. The only problem with Eureka is that the Australian exchange rate isn't favourable, and I can't really justify paying £1.65 ($2.50) a figure, however nice the sculpting might be. Worse, the British Eureka supplier (Fighting 15s) doesn't want to stock this period. Fortunately, Rob Walter of Eureka USA is a bit more adventurous, and he's offering some great transatlantic deals. He'll make you an offer you can't refuse...
Augereau at Lodi
The Arcola game
Rather worryingly, I just picked up some old figures - once part of the collection of Stuart Asquith and then Charles Grant, of British troops in the West Indies during this period. Before long I can see Chris' French fighting to defend Martinique, supported by liberated slaves, while the doughty Brits enjoy firepower support from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines! That's a sideshow with bags of potential... but I landed up sliding them over to Chris, while I concentrate on my Napoleonic Russians.
These ones were the first unit painted by my pal Chris Henry, while down below is my first unit, a battalion of Austrian IR4 (Hoch & Deutschmeister).
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Rules
Rules are a thorny issue. For a start, there are several options - all of them good. Until recently I would have used General de Brigade (GdeB) written by my pal Dave Brown. Another option was Republic to Empire (R2E) by Barry Hilton, which is based on the same figure ratio of 1:20. I've used prototype versions of Barry's rules at the big League of Gentleman Wargamers Napoleonic games - a refight of the Battle of Ligny (1815), and a big Peninsular game. I enjoyed using them on these occasions, but the rules have become a lot more complicated since then. They're now twice as long as General de Brigade, which already suffers from over-clunky mechanisms. I've tried them, and I'm afraid they're not for me - too many needless rules, producing a game that's too slow and complex for my tastes. Still, there are people out there who like that - the kind presumably that still play Empire (rules the size of a New York phonebook) - and this might be the set for them.
For our French Revolutionary War games we also tried the much simpler Napoleon set, produced by Foundry. While the rules themselves have some pretty obvious flaws and holes, the system was fairly slick, simple and fast-moving - more so than Barry or Dave's rules. I never tried Lasalle, by Sam Mustapha, although I did read them. Iin the end we settled on two rules sets - General de Brigade for slightly more complex games, and Black Powder for everything else.
I really like Black Powder. They're fun, they give a fast game, and while they aren't as detailed and as accurate as GdeB, they're flexible enough to do what we want, and give a reasonably historic result. If you haven't picked up a copy yet then I suggest to take a peek at them. Thanks to Barry's influence I'm sure we'll continue use R2E for our big League of Gentleman Wargamers Napoleonic games, as we have the rules-writer on hand to umpire for us, but for our normal club games, our big battles and our French Revolutionary War scraps, Black Powder and General de Brigade are the way to go.
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My Anglo-Portuguese Peninsular Army My Austrian Army of the French Revolutionary War (under construction)
There's also a map of Fleurus (1794) on my Belgian Battlefields page.
French Revolutionary Games: Journal 39 , Journal 41 & Journal 48
Napoleonic Games: Journal 20, Journal 23, Journal 26, Journal 29 & Journal 30
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