British army help needed « Honour Forums

Honour Forums » Lasalle » Army Lists

British army help needed

(24 posts) (15 voices)

Started 1 year ago by Prinny
Latest reply from Prinny

Tags:

No tags yet.

Prinny
Member

Please help,

I have had a few games now with peninsular british with dragoon or light dragoon support and I am really struggling against my peninsular french opponent.

Now he is using the light cav support for his list he is just running over my infantry on the 6th turn or so. (he has his infantry in march column and changes to attack columns once he is about 6BW away, so his inf and cav all charge at the same time)

So since he is so close the table edge it is very hard for my cav to deploy when it arrives.

Does anyone have some tips to help me out?

Posted 1 year ago #
Nick the Lemming
Member

Don't stay on your side of the table - manouevre to meet him, giving you some room behind for your support when it arrives. Try and cut off one or two of his units if you can, and take them out first. Put him on the back foot and then bring up your reserve as soon as you can, while holding him further into the table than you currently are.

Posted 1 year ago #
Prinny
Member

Cheers Nick,

This leads to another question though, If you have an enemy Infantry battalion in line with a cav battalion how does the charge work since you cant charge Cav?

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

What are the 2 terrain choices you are taking as defender and where do you place them?

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
Grinner
Member

Theoretically you could use that 1 BW wheel you are allowed to charge the infantry unit while not making contact with the cavalry unit, but the enemy cavalry will just counter charge you during his reaction phase, so it's not the best of ideas.

Posted 1 year ago #
buttridi
Member

I'm not sure the British can afford to have the Cav as their first support choice. It's too much of an advantage for the french and means that you likely CAN'T be aggresive. Look at it as this 14 units to 6 if defending.......Not likely are you going to be able to hold out long enough for the Dragoons to come on. And I believe with the Cav and art disadvantage any kind of attack is very risky. Even if you are the attacker you are still outnumbered 12-8!!! Don't take Cav as your support choice if playing with only 1 support.

So, if only one support choice....the best option is clearly the Brunswickers. They come with one Cav and another Elite unit. At this point I think the option to be aggresive is viable, and your infantry is better. Even taking another infantry support choice is better (having 2 art on table helps) Or you can use the optional rule published here that let's the British cav come on earlier, but makes them act more impetuous. I would only consider taking dragoons or light cav as a second support choice.

Ps: I'm still building my British....Dragoons will be the last I get done heh

Posted 1 year ago #
Prinny
Member

The terrain I have tried is Woods, BUA and walls which I feel worked best, deployed all over the place.

Buttridi I think your right about Brunswicks I too think are the best option with only one support but they are lead :)

But I think im just going to have to suck it up and buy them.

Typical British cant do anything the easy way .

Posted 1 year ago #
Rupert of Hentzau
Member

After about 10 games my feeling is that the off table brigades work best when playing in 15mm with two support choices. I was wondering that if for games of 28mm with only one choice we could have a forced march option. Players who choose an off table option may choose to start with it on the table as though it had forced marched into action.
However it loses 1 unit at random from its order of battle.Or perhaps to even out the differences between 3 and 5 units choices you lose 1/3 of units rounded up?

This way a British oR Russian player could choose a cavalry support and be sure to have it on the table, at a cost!

Bryan

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

Playing with Austrians and reserve Cuirassiers, I finally found a really good solution for being cut to bits while I waited for my monotonously useless sub general to arrive. I switched to using 4 Valiant Hussars instead. OK, that advice does not help a British player...

If you are playing 50mm bases on 8x5 tables then the 28mm game has slighly more (relative) room than playing 40mm bases on a 6x4 with 15mm. So the number of support choices should not be an issue between 15mm and 28mm. If you are not using 50mm bases on an 8x5 ... then you should!

My own view is that reserve options in the AB lists are generally no more powerful than an organic option - it is just that some troops are only available as a reserve. I would certainly not recommend cutting back the number of reserve units you get to bring them on early - they are not that strong to start with.

No idea how to fix the Pen British list, but boosting the Dutch-Belgian cavalry ally to a reasonable force would fix the Hundred Days list. Pen British may just be an oddity - you have to take more infantry support, hope to attack, and then hole up somewhere and hope the other guy will impail himself.

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
LintMan
Member

I keep running the theory in my head for the British and its not looking good. Its the speed that the French can engage you without your cav.

Perhaps you can add disruption markers to your units to get them to show up early? So if you get them on board early they are disrupted? So the British get they cav early if need be but are less effective or they wait for fully rested cav to show up?

Posted 1 year ago #
eljeffe418
Member

Perhaps you could play it as the reserve force shows up earlier but they don't count towards the Army Morale?

Posted 1 year ago #
chris6
Member

My advice is, no matter what army you use. If you are outnumbered you definetly need to concentrate your units on one side of the table. This is indeed easier if you set up second. The other side of the table you should place terrain that hinders the enemy in advancing. Forest oder Marsh if available. Then try to beat you enemy on your choosen side where you should have the better quality troops. So far the plan....:-)

Posted 1 year ago #
Prinny
Member

I think Chris that your system is the only way to do it,

I just don't have enough on the table to delay effectively till the cav turns up ( I feel )

Maybe I have just picked one of those armies that just ain't great on the table, looks good though :)

Tim

Posted 1 year ago #
Chevy
Member

I've played the Brit Gds list with Brunswickers vs the French in a number of games. The Brunswickers is the best first support option in my opinion. You only get one cav unit, but it prevents the outnumbering mentioned. The terrain placed has to split the table, allowing you to bunker in one corner as well as slow down the French advance. You also have to come out to meet them with at least some troops, if possible forcing them to hit you when in poor terrain (a river works best if placed about 1/3rd to 1/2 half of the table width from the Brit deployment area - run to the river and form up - forces the french to charge across the river and be in poor terrain on a few charges). Running out some troops also gives you room to maneuver. If you use the flee option as much as possible, and can maneuver secondary units into good shooting lanes, this prevents you taking disruptions, and prevents the French from shaking off theirs, and can allow you to whittle them down more with whatever shooting you can muster. Dragoons are best as a secondary support choice - yet even then you need to come out to meet them to slow them down - even if you lose some units it gives you room to bring the Dragoons on and maneuver them where you need them.

Posted 1 year ago #
Biggreenbugeyedmonster
Member

Sadly, you can't have Brunswickers in the Peninsula British army (apart from the solitary Brunswick Oels battalion in the 7th Division, who would presumably count as a British infantry unit).

Personally, I'd rate British line infantry as small Valiant/Experienced units with linear tactics... Games in which British infantry fight in attack column is just soooo wrong.

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

Sadly, you can't have Brunswickers in the Peninsula British army ...

Which will be a surprise to many, since Brunswick is listed as a Ally to Peninsula British on p103.

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
pgbldwn
Member

I raised the same issue with Sam last year and he advised as follows:

"I agree that I stretched to include it in the Peninsular... probably just because of my irrational love of the Brunswickers!

(I spent a lot of time in Braunschweig, lived and worked there for a little while, and got really immersed in the local history, and now I secretly dress all in black with a skull and crossbones on all my clothing.)

Seriously, though, just ignore it if you feel it's too much of a stretch for your Brit Peninsular list."

I intend, once I can get the painting done... to run a "Brunswick" Brigade with my Peninsular Brits that will contain the Oels with the remainder KGL - at least they will be all Germans

Posted 1 year ago #
drferling
Member

Or use the 1st brigade of the 7th division as a "stand in". The units' rating should not change from the Brunswick support choice. You will simply have more red uniforms!

The Brunswick support I am waiting to arrive in the mail consists of:
2 Infantry can be regular British Line. I'm using light troops to better represent the 1st Brigade. The victrix light heads are also wonderful!
1 Elite infantry are the Brunswickers; figures provided by Perry.
1 Light Cav can be British, KGL, or Brunswick. The perry figures are pretty nice, so Brunskwick for me!
1 Foot Battery are regular British. Supplied by Victrix.

Hope that helps.

Posted 1 year ago #
BattleVault
Member

I really like this idea for incorperating a "Brunswick" Brigade more properly into the British Pennisular List.

Posted 1 year ago #
rpardo
Member

Hi
Only the Brunswick Oels Jagers were in the Peninsual and were used as Light Infantry. Nine companies were with the 7th Division, one with the 4th Division and two with the 5th Division. They were used mainly as skirmishers so they can be used in a similar way to riflemen to increase the SK value of the British units.
So
NO BRUNSWICK BRITISH BRIGADE IN THE PENINSULA!

Wargaming with Napoleonic Miniatures
Project Leipzig
Alkaid Ediciones

Posted 1 year ago #
pgbldwn
Member

I agree that there was no "brunswick" Brigade in the Peninsula (although you are not entirely correct to say that only the Oels were there - the Brunswick Hussars served on the East Coast but not with Wellington's main army).

Nevertheless, I think an argument can be made for the organisation of the Brigade to be used in a British Peninsular list - cavalry, particularly the 1st KGL Hussars, were detached to outpost duty with the infantry (especially the Light Division). I have no particular problem rationalising the "Brunswick" Brigade as representing such a grouping.

Posted 1 year ago #
BattleVault
Member

"NO BRUNSWICK BRITISH BRIGADE IN THE PENINSULA!"

Most involved in this thread know that. The novel concept here is the suggestion to use the Bruniswick Brigade lists replacing many of the Brunswick units with British units, which have the same stats.

Brunswick Bde at Waterloo-------------> Lasalle "Brunswick" Bde for the Peninsula
Brunswick Elite Bn--------------------> Brunswick Oels (The nine companies)
Brunswick Line Bn 1-------------------> KGL Bn 1
Brunswick Line Bn 2-------------------> KGL Bn 2
Brunswick Artillery-------------------> Royal Artillery (Foot)
Brunswick Hussars---------------------> Brunswick Hussars or maybe KGL Hussars

What we are saying here is there is away to run a Brunswick "Brigade" as a support choice for the a Peninsula British Force and still be historically accurate so long as you swap out some units for thier British counterparts that have the same ratings.

As many pointed out this makes your "Brunswick" support choice in effect, a "1st Brigade, 7th Division" support choice.

Posted 1 year ago #
rpardo
Member

OK.... The Lasalle 'Brunswich Brigade' equals to a 'German Brigade'
I suppose that Le Grande Fromage will agree!

Wargaming with Napoleonic Miniatures
Project Leipzig
Alkaid Ediciones

Posted 1 year ago #
Prinny
Member

Thats brilliant......

It felt a bit "gamey" to use them with my Peninsula British,

But i that works for me in a game and historical option

Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.