I do use the Brunswick brigade support, to represent the Hanoverians. The lesser quality troops I use as the Landwehr, the elite regiment is representing the 5th KGL.

You are trying to guilt me into buying those lovely Perry Brunswickers aren't you? Perhaps once I get this lot done, I will so that I can run an Infantry army with Brunswick support, not just the Guards.

Or I will crack into painting French.

Where are the Brunswickers? Did you mean Hanoverians?

:-)

I have gotten most of my 28mm British Guards Napoleonic Army painted, the last few units will get painted in the next month or so.

The army is (at the moment) Guards with Brunswick support for the 100 days, representing the 2nd Guards Brigade, the 5th British Brigade and some of the 1st Hanoverian Brigade.

http://warpooch.blogspot.com/

Some nations used "Lieb" quite a lot. Whether they indeed were elite or not is the problem. The same is true for the French Imperial Guard or the British foot Guards too, at times they were beaten by regular line regiments.

Hey Scruff - they certainly look nice chaps - I wonder how they compare size wise with the WF Plastics - given the latter are a good match by the looks of things with the Front Rank range?

Via the League of Augsberg site, theres a thread on Ebor Miniature http://www.eborminiatures.com/

I must say there new figures look really nice and the price is low enough for me to serious consider their metals over plastic at 14.00 pounds for a 18 man regiment and 18.50 pounds for a 24 man unit.

cheers

Thanks - yes I've had several replies to the TMP Post.

Here is the (wargaming) story of my life. I read W Churchill's biography of J. Churchill (Marlborough) and got all hot and bothered by the WSS. So, over a period of roughly 15 years (!) I painted and organized a lot of 15mm figures, using some home brew rules. Then, when I actually 'finish' my armies, our friend Sam here releases LaSalle and I get a reaccurance of the Napoleonic bug. I drop everything and paint a lot of 6mm figures and happily play LaSalle. Now it seems with Maurice, the old pendulum will swing back to Lace Wars.

Answers (of a sort):

1) There a bunch of pamphlets authored by Sapherson, King (?) and others, published by Partizan Press available from On Military Matters that cover organization and uniforms. I've got about a dozen or so of them.

2) I'm not too sure on artillery. The guns seem large caliber (6 or 8lb) and are grouped together in what seems to be half batteries.

3) The French and English didn't seem to use converged grenadiers, while the Austrians and various German states did.

4) Can't help, I game with 15mm figures.

Hope this helps a little. You may get more and better at TMP.

Hi All,

I posted this to TMP but thought I’d toss it up here to see if anyone has any thoughts – with ‘Maurice’ announced as mentioned previously I am finally inspired to do my long hoped for WSS armies. John Churchill has always been a bit of a hero to me (and to a lesser extent Eugene of Savoy as well) – although my knowledge of the WSS and the battles is at a fairly general (or higher) level if you will. As such to help with designing and organising my new wargames armies (I have a large number of 28mm WF plastic figs, and plan on probably getting Front Rank personalities, guns, generals, etc, to round them out) I would appreciate any help, advice, pointers, for the following:

1. Orders of Battle
Is there a good source somewhere for fairly detailed OOBs from the main battles? I am planning to build both an Anglo-Austrian Army and a French (possibly with Bavarian allies) Army – I am not going to try and do an exact Historical OOB of a specific battle, but a kind of generic Quasi-Imagi-Nation (aka Old School style) representative force of historical units – so want to try and identify which Regiments and such for each nation were present at the main battles/campaigns so I can pick out which units I want to model. As the standard armies (in Maurice) will only be about 7-9 Foot Units and 3-5 Cavalry I want to be able to try and pick a good variety to get a representative feel of unit types and uniforms & nationalities for each side (I may of course eventually add extra units in future to expand them). So if there is an especially good source or ‘one-stop-shop’ for OOB info I’d be grateful for a heads up (I have ordered C. S. Grant’s 2 books on Wargaming WSS, and I do have the Ospreys on Blenheim & Marlborough’s Army plus 2-3 general works on Marlborough & his campaigns & WSS, and am planning to order specific books on the battles/campaigns of Marlborough, Ramillies, Malplaquet, et al – e.g. Neil Litten on Ramillies) but I assume there may be some other recommended good OOB sources).

2. Artillery
Could someone please give me a quick pointer on artillery – what was the typical common artillery present with British/Austrian and French armies during the WSS (ignoring early Battalion Guns – I’m talking the army level artillery). I want to order some Front Rank or similar Guns to do an artillery battery for each side and not sure what size ordnance would be the most common or usual for each army? I’m assuming probably 3pdr or 6pdr guns? Also were the army batteries all one calibre or a mix (e.g. could you model a battery of 4 model guns as, for example, 3 x 3pdr models and 1 x 6pdr or 12pdr and it’d be a roughly historical representation/ratio)? Also how were Howitzers used at this time – dispersed amongst the other guns or in a separate ‘battery’? As I understand the army level artillery tended to be just be grouped into a few 'ad-hoc' large 'batteries' for each battle usually...

3. Grenadiers
Could someone clarify if all Nations did the converged Grenadiers (into composite battalions) thing at this stage, or was that something that originated later in the WAS/SYW period?

4. Wargames Factory vs. Front Rank
Has anyone compared the WF Plastics with FR for size/compatibility? Are there any other alternative WSS manufacturers that might go well with WF other than FR that can be recommended?

Greatly appreciate any & all feedback,

John
Wargaming.info

Hussars Valiant Amateur
Uhlan Reliable Amateur
Avante Garde Reliable Amateur
Line Shaky Amateur

But what of the Leibgarde Max - are you suggesting they are just shaky line! And you'll have Cam up in arms with all these 'non-shaky' Brunswick units...!

Very interesting discussion John.
MHO
Hussars Valiant Amateur
Uhlan Reliable Amateur
Avante Garde Reliable Amateur
Line Shaky Amateur

Thanks Michael & Max.

One of the biggest challenges is how to rate the 1815 Brunswickers. In this game I made them:

Hussar Regiment: Valiant/Experienced
Uhlan Squadron: Reliable/Experienced

Leibgarde Battalion: Valiant/Amateur
Avante Garde Battalion: Reliable/Experienced
6 Line/Light Battalions: Unpredictable/Amateur

I also used similar ratings for the Hussars, Leibgarde, and 4 Line/Light Btns in our Crossroads Game back in May. I'm reasonably comfortable Unpredictable/Amateur is right for the Line & Light Battalions (Cam just thinks the whole force should be Shaky/Amateur) - this game I was fairly lucky and got 2 of 6 Btns as Valiant, 2 others were Shaky, 1 got destroyed while nominally still Reliable, and the last never got tested. In the Crossroads game I think I ended up with 1 Valiant, 2 Shaky, and 1 untested IIRC. While Valiant may seem a bit generous on random occasions Unpredictable does I think, combined with Amateur status, reflect the 1815 Brunswickers well - based on the accounts such as Cavalié Mercer's at Waterloo where they looked always shaky but never actually broke although they were probably not capable of much offensive action I'd argue that in some respects the units were at times worthy of Valiant status just be virtue of remaining intact when raw recruits surrounded by charging cav and being pounded by artillery...

Assuming the above supposition is correct then the Valiant/Amateur status for the Leibgarde (as Sam himself rated them) also seems reasonable, I previously rated them Reliable/Amateur in the Crossroads game, which may be more realistic, however as there is a small chance some of the Line & Light Battalions may get lucky and be Valiant it seems only fair to allow the Leibgarde to be Valiant from the start - it is not completely unhistorical IMO and coupled with Amateur status and only SK1 still leaves them at a disadvantage overall to the their typical French opponents. I can't see Unpredictable working as I'd have thought the high risk of being Shaky a bit unreasonable considering their (apparent) status compared to the Line & Light Battalions?

As mentioned Cam argues they should all be Shaky (scoffing at the notion of the occasional Valiant Brunswick unit) ;-) i.e. the Line & Light Battalions would be all Shaky and then arguably the Leibgarde might perhaps be Unpredictable to allow for the chance of them being exceptional on the day (or at least Reliable)...

The real question though is probably the Avante Garde and the Cavalry, whether Shaky or Unpredictable, I don't think it makes a huge difference for the 7 standard Infantry Battalions. For the Avante Garde I've assumed a certain level of competency - the training for the 2 Light Infantry Companies as Skirmishers, and the type of recruits for the 2 Jäger Companies (independent minded hunters/game keepers/etc) suggests more ability - hence I dabbled with Reliable/Experienced for this, their inaugural outing, but perhaps Unpredictable/Experienced might be a more suitable rating (or even Shaky/Experienced)? I have trouble seeing them as Amateur for the reasons above (when compared to the their fellow Brunswick Battalions) although there is some suggestion at Quatre Bras that although they fought for a prolonged period in and around the wood, they weren't especially effective or aggressive, so perhaps I am being too generous considering Experienced for this battalion?

For the Cavalry I've gone with Valiant/Experienced for the Hussars which again is as Sam rated them originally in the rulebook - and they do seem to have been the best regarded Brunswick unit in the Hundred Days - however perhaps again Valiant/Amateur might be a more appropriate rating (I'm loathe to go Reliable/Experienced as that just makes them seem so plain), but in some ways Amateur doesn't impact cavalry as much as it does infantry so it's more a semantic change? However the key thing is at Waterloo the Brunswick Hussars appear to have charged several times against the French Cavalry and performed well enough to be capable of reforming and charging again, etc, meaning perhaps Amateur would be unreasonable...

The Uhlans are perhaps the hardest to rate, and perhaps also the most deserving of Unpredictable - although once again Cam thinks they should just be outright Shaky! I certainly think that Reliable/Experienced is probably a bit generous (but it was their inaugural outing - not that it helped much in the end), and that in future I'll rate them Amateur for sure, and possibly Shaky, otherwise Unpredictable - but if the Hussars are for example Valiant/Amateurs, then perhaps the Uhlans should be Shaky/Amateurs - as they don't seem to have figured as prominently nor been rated as highly as the Hussars (although many accounts just treat the Uhlans as a squadron of the Hussar Regiment, so don't make much specific reference making it hard to say).

So some slightly revised ratings for their next outing might be:

Hussar Regiment: Valiant/Amateur or Reliable/Experienced
Uhlan Squadron: Unpredictable/Amateur

Leibgarde Battalion: Valiant/Amateur
Avante Garde Battalion: Unpredictable/Amateur or Reliable/Amateur
6 Line/Light Battalions: Shaky/Amateur* or Unpredictable/Amateur

* I'm not sure if they deserve to be rated no better then Poor or Inexperienced Landwehr - I think Unpredictable helps to give them that slight edge as inexperienced Regulars over inexperienced Landwehr.

Very enjoyable. Another AAR featuring the Brunswikers please!

Wonderful AAR.... and I love your figures. I am toying around with a quatre Bras scenario myself. Of course until I get more Brit allies painted my saxons will just have to do..

Thanks Paul & Gary - appreciate the comments...

...useful material on your blog

...Auckland seems to be a wargaming Mecca! :-)

Yes great looking game and Auckland seems to be a wargaming Mecca ! :-)

Excellent AAR John!.....nice to see the Brunswickers on the table ....keep up the good work.

Paul:)

thanks for all the useful material on your blog:)

My full Brunswick Corps got it's first official outing as a complete entity a few weeks ago against Cam's French - it was an all action nail biter for most of the game and you can read about it on my blog. I hope someone finds it interesting and/or enjoyable and/or inspiring...

P.S. Apologies in advance for any typos or grammar or similar errors - it turned into a bit of a novel and I haven't had time to do a second thorough end to end proof read yet!

John
Wargaming.info

For those who may not have previously seen it:
http://wargaming.info/2011/wonderful-28mm-chateau-hougoumont/

We have tried British as Val/Exp Linear Tactics as a Home Rule. I personally much prefer it, as it makes British distinctive. But also very challenging, as the Linear Tactics rule can be a real pain - it isn't so bad for Conquest Austrians, Prussians or Russians as they usually outnumber their opponents, but British are at best with parity in numbers. As John has commented, the historical relationship works better if the British are SK2 (SK1 linear units can get shot apart while slowly advancing...).

P.S. If you are interested you can find most of the original discussion here in our The Hundred Days Continues... AAR Thread. Further discussion followed after we (Cam & I in Auckland) play tested in the Picton Holds On The Chaussée de Charleroi (100-Days) AAR thread. Those two threads (in that order) will take you through just about all the logic & discussion behind the Valiant but Linear Tactics idea...

No they don't Rickson – it’s a optional house-rule thing used mostly here in NZ – where (in some games) all British & KGL get rated as Valiant/Experienced/Linear and SK2 or SK1* (and 95th, etc, SK3). In the rulebook they are Reliable/Experienced/SK2 with a few selected units (Guards/Highlanders/etc) being Valiant/Experienced/SK2 (with the 95th SK3) IIRC.

* The SK1 rating is a proposed variation we have tried (based on one way to interpret the historical first hand accounts) - Cam and I here in Auckland (NZ) didn't find it overly successful as it resulted in a game that didn't feel quite right (e.g. French preference became standing off trying to win musketry duels) so we've reverted to SK2 for British & KGL. However some of the guys down in Wellington (NZ) have also tried it I think so may have other thoughts...

I've read on some of the posts references to the Brits having to use linear tactics but I don't see anything in the rules. Do they, or do they not, have to use Linear Tactics? Thanks.

I think your right.
I tend to only use firing for skirmishers so the option is still there for me if I ever fall in amongst 28mm players.

Pity just one firing and one loading would have stretched a long way.

Exactly... I had thought of mixing the marching guys into all 3 battalions - but they just look a bit funny in amongst firing line guys, even if in the second rank at back...

I was wondering why only one battalion.
Pity just one firing and one loading would have stretched a long way.

Altogether that makes an attractive Brigade. Thanks for sharing. The Shako/Cap mix gives realistic look but the Jager are favourites.

And yes - the Jager are cooolll! ;-)

I don't have any 100 days troops but I'm now very tempted. (no no must be strong and finish Austrians...)

Altogether that makes an attractive Brigade. Thanks for sharing. The Shako/Cap mix gives realistic look but the Jager are favourites.
I don't have any 100 days troops but I'm now very tempted. (no no must be strong and finish Austrians...)

P.S. Have just posted up my pics of Bijlandt's 1st Netherlands Brigade Max FWIW.

Thats right, no troops that look that good should be regarded as only Landwehr!

My troops are based in 4's so I just add an extra two bases for the large units.

You were saying on your web page that you got some extra figuress painted so not to be bogged when increasing your battalion sizes.