New Player Advice: Play :: Both sides :: GO DEEP

I have found myself answering a number of inquiries about getting into the hobby of miniatures and Napoleonic miniatures specifically.

The best advice I ever got was about 30 years ago:

 

The short version:

PLAY (lots of others games) before you choose your own to collect.

build BOTH SIDES of a smaller battle (that way you never have to find a partner - for at least that one battle)

GO DEEP!

 

Play in other peoples games, as much as possible and sample all sorts of scales (minis and battles) and rules systems BEFORE settling on what you want to do.

  I had not had this advice when I started out with Warhammer Fantasy Battles in the late 1980s.  I have none of these left in my collection.  I drifted about in fantasy stuff and some Star Wars Miniatures Battles in the 1990s (I still have much of that collection and have used the rules most recently in an ECW setting: Stoke Lane) It was in the later 90s that I got the advice and applied it while doing some games with the Trumpeter game club in Burnaby, along with basements from North Vancouver to Coquitlam.  I discovered much more about the games and the history of the groups and players during this time. 
   Along with 'play' I would advise to pay attention to the other parts needed for so many game systems, the terrain, the storage space and related costs and needs that these have.  For some this is why 6mm scale is so popular, you can get so many variations of buildings and other parts, plus the storage needs are very small.
   For me, it was during the play (with others minis and systems) time that I discovered that I did not want to collect WWII, it was popular, it had much support, I also had Squad Leader series of games and played the Panzer Blitz and Leader from Avalon Hill.  So I already knew that I did not want to collect more of these models in any scale - the cardboard chits were already enough and I had difficulty finding players for it (only needed 20 mins to get into a game) and the minis take hours to get ready and I never finished a game - even with many players in the game they always came to a conclusion far faster than anticipated or would be a draw no matter what anyone did.  I have this past year sold my entire Squad Leader game collection (many with unpunched counters) because there's a number of cyberboard systems I can use to play if I wanted to.  Still not easy to find any players.

The whole Squad Leader collection as sold in 2021

   My Star Wars minis also started to spend more time in the box than out.

the Star Wars collection found new life as chess sets

  I had found historical minis.  At first it was 15mm Rise of Rome, for De Bellis Antiquitatis, then some 7 Years War and finally Napoleonic.  I was a grognard.

 

some of my early 15mm efforts

 

Put together BOTH SIDES of at least one small battle for your game system.

 

Okay so now you have chosen an era, be it WWII, 7 Years War, Star Wars or Napoleonic.  Next is to pick a scale.  There are loads of them, from tiny little 2mm and 6mm (which work very much like cardboard counters or wooden blocks from a Kriegspiel) to the more common 15mm, (there are plastics that have come out in a strange 13.4mm - which do not work with either the 10mm or the 15mm) and the very common 25/28mm - on to the 32mm or 38mm (heroic scale) and still larger ones in things like 42mm or 78mm (I have a few of the larger ones of characters like Bonaparte, Blucher, and Poinatowski). 
  Scale?!?  Yes, good idea to pick one to start with.  The choice could be influenced by factors such as your budget (for the minis and terrain and storage) or your preference (of what you want to command) or by the first rules-set you want to use for your games.  Just too many factors to list really, so I'll keep it to my own factors and when you are 'playing' in those games with the others minis, ask lots of questions, keep notes.

  My principle factor which settled me on the 25/28mm scale was 'could I get a mold of this'?  Yes I cast most of my own toy soldiers, so if I could get a mold of most of the troop types that I could cast in white metal (lead, tin & antimony alloys) then I had a winner.  I found Prince August Molds, then on eBay I found an entire set of molds, a melter and metal.  Boom, done.  I was hooked.  The 25/28mm scale is also filled with loads of options, meaning I could start cutting apart other models and make my own masters for making my own molds.
  The bonus of this scale is that it is also fairly popular with collectors, so I have been able to sell off some of my models, fully painted, to pay for the hobby.  Essentially - from a funds perspective - I have not spent anything I did not first earn from sales.  The time is still put in.  The raw materials I have to find (metal & RTV rubber).  The money to get them and the materials, have come from the hobby itself.  Indeed the rent has been paid on occasion during a rough patch.

Current collection Austrians - replaced in 2014
after the earlier collection sale in 2010

    For me the other factor was the rules set, SHAKO (1st edition), which had systems for 15mm or 25mm ready to go.  I also liked Napoleon's Battles, which was mainly for 15mm, yet that system needed so many more minis to get into a battle that it was just not likely a starting point for me.  Besides, I knew of many players with more-or-less complete collections (HA! so I thought at the time) where I could go an get in a game or two of Napoleon's Battles.

   Okay, so BOTH SIDES, why?   I have always advocated this as the challenge of finding a game player willing to partner with you and 'do the other side' of a battle has always been a near impossible task.  Better to have a small(ish) battle and have all the parts needed to put it on the tabletop than to only have 1/2 of it and always be looking to find a new partner - wait 'new'?  Yes new.  Far too often a project would be started (I did Saxons for 7 Years War) and the minis got on the tabletop 3 times in a two year period.  Then the others moved on to WWII stuff and the 7YW project was dropped.  There I was was four battalions and a horse squadron, nothing else from the period or scale.  Nope. Never doing that again.  Either I do a full battle worth or not at all. 

   Now this little battle can be a sword duel (so you need two (2) minis!) or it could be a ship-to-ship encounter (so you need two ships (and crews like my pirates!)).  Any way to look at it - the main deal is keep it small to start with and build on what you have.

  So for SHAKO, to start with, this was a force of French (most of which I still have) of 4 battalions, a gun and crew and a squadron of horse.  Then I did some Russians.  Then I started playing.

   Then I was introduced to the blogging activity and most of the rest can be found in the pages here, starting back in 2006.

 

 

Dive deep! Go for whole campaigns, or set up scale of battles like 1:3 (where one mini = three men) and run something like the farmhouse at Waterloo (some guys did this 5 years ago) while I chose starting in 2003 to follow the 200th anniversary of the Napoleonic battles, with stand out performances in Eylau (2007) and Maloyaroslavets (2012); only missed 2009 in Essling and Wagram due to lack of players.

  Other 'dive deep' I have done, almost from the start, was the metal base stands and magnets I use for my miniatures.  I discovered, during my 'play days', that many gamers re-base their mini collections from time to time, depending on the rules systems that are popular or being used at the time.  It took months to re-do all that work, yet for these players it 'seemed' to be worth it.  They would complain (grognards and all) and still they would do the work.  I had no plans to ever have to do that.  Moreover I wanted my collection to work on game systems that I had not even encountered (nor had they been even written) yet!

   For now my dive deep is going to switch to details of the battlefield, new forests and hedgerows are planned and a new set of covers for my metal base stands (no more paper ones - only furry cloth).

   The blogging world also helped with some deep dives, in the Campaign of Nations, and recent Campaign of Hundred Days games. 

start map for Campaign of Nations from 2013

Okay all you grognards (you know who you are), what advice would you give someone newly starting out on this journey with the Grand ole Dame of Wargaming: Napoleonic Wargames?

June 2026 update:

A recent deep-dive with many other players inputs: LEIPZIG

Campaigning season nearing an opening?

recently reviewed titles

I have been away on a road trip with family, during the little down time I had (#1 driver on a 7800 km round trip over 14 days), I managed to get in a re-reading of the Grant and Bath titles.

While Tony Bath did have some interesting input for just the ACW period, sadly most of his work revolved around the details of a long-running Hyborean game that he had run in the 1970s and was very much an ancients and points system tour-de-force.  GDW must have been happy with any 'uptick' in sales after his product hit the shelves.

Grant was more of a generic approach and touched on loads of subjects in all time-periods and even some of the speculative fiction in high-tech and fantasy realms.

The Nanaimo group has been discussing a campaign in ACW for some time now and I have put in a few immediate observances from my 21+ years of running Napoleonic (100 Days and Campaign of Nations) and Sci-Fi (Battletech mostly) minis campaigns on written postal, email and electronic forum systems as well as playing in at least three 'local' campaigns with Jeff Hudelson (of BlueBear fame).

The responses prompted me to review these titles so as to come at the resolution from a text supported point of view.

As this is potentially a local based game with email as a control factor, two methods come to the forefront by Bath and Grant:

Mini Campaigns (p61. of "Setting up a Wargames Campaign")

For this a series of teams of twos or threes were used.

While Tony did it with ancients and Wars of the Roses, we could just as easily use this for ACW:

Each 'side' breaks their available forces into three parts, then decides on the strength of forces to engage on one of three battlefields (which could be blind random or known by both sides and thus make overall plans for), with retreating forces kept track as well as the surviving winning forces (with each side having some recovery of wounded and routed troops, as well as the winning force on a field getting better re-supply) for a 'final push' game where the winner of the best of three takes on the looser of the best of three with the surviving attacking forces against the surviving retreating forces.

Thus you could see the first two battles going to one side and the third battle simply conceded, with a sacrificial blocking force to allow the majority of the troops to retire to the 'final battle' to attempt to shore up the final defender forces.  Alternately the first two might split and make the third an all important tie-breaker and deciding battle for who will be having a chance to conquer and who will need to last-stand defend.

Okay, so much for something quick, as this will only take four table-top encounters to come to a conclusion, Bath writes about 'mini-campaigns' as something to fill in while a larger one is being organized or when a larger campaign has 'gone quiet' and isn't generating the expected field battles.

four battle mini-campaign

The Use of Board Games (Chapter 23, p134-136, "Wargames Campaigns")

Here Grant uses a full chapter to expound on the value of using already existing board-based war-games to conduct the 'strategic' or 'operational' level of movement on the board map system, then convert the 'encounter battles' to the appropriate tabletop system that you may already be using to run the miniature battles.

While Grant admits to not having used the system himself, he vouches, as do I, for the effectiveness of using such games.

Columbia Games has a pair of games to simulate the American Civil War from the grand strategic point of view in Virginia, with Bobby Lee and in the west with Sam Grant

Here I leave a copy of the map from Sam Grant, as the discussion has been revolving around using the war in the west as the basis for a series of connected battle actions, hence a campaign.

Sam Grant map from Columbia Games

What campaign effects and systems have you used?
What were the results?

Hundred Days, heating up ...

Having worked out the details a few more times, I am now able to put out this last call for prospective players in a Campaign of the Hundred Days or Waterloo Campaign.

Even if all you have to take part in the game is an email address and a computer capable of running the Cyberboard software, then please do contact me below.

If you have some French and 'other' opponent troops, best would be Anglo-Dutch and Prussian of course, yet even if all you have are Russians to take on the French and a table-top crew to game out the battle then please do contact me below.

I am planning to use similar systems and methods as I did with the Campaign of Nations game, run from 2013-2015.

To summarize, I am recruiting at least three 'Commanders' to take on the Napoleon, Wellington and Blucher roles, then I would also like to have a 'deputy' for each one also that could generate the kind of movements and 'alternate' history that makes for a more fun experience.  Yes this means I would like to have 6 players.  Even better would be 7 players, 3 for the French, 2 each for the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian Armies.

I know that I have been musing about doing this for many months now, and given that the big ceremonies of the 200th anniversary are over now, we could get on with a re-set of a different proportion.

If this interests you please do contact me or comment below.

SHAKO 2 Game from InCon Convention :: refight of Marienberg from Campaign of Nations

The local game event, called InCon, was held over the March 29-30-31 weekend (yes it is taking more time for me to get to posting these details)

At the event I hosted a large (for me, alone) game of SHAKO 2 using nearly all of the cavalry I have, most certainly all of the Austrians and Russians that I have available in my collection.

There was a coordinator for the games demo area and he took this photo just after I had the table set up

Within a half hour we had players and deployed the whole force

 

The French had two 'chevrons' for defense on the right flank

The Allied force massed Russians to assault the chevrons.

Austrians were in the center.

Austrians on the right flank of the Allied line, with Prussians backing them up.

The general plan was similar to the one used in the first play of this battlefield.

A difference in this case, the Austrians were going to commit to the assault of the town center and the bridge, in order to cover the moves of the Prussian column and keep the French stuck in the town so that they could not shift to stop the Russians attacking the chevrons.   Essentially a 'full court press'.

Turn 3 was the arrival of the Russian Hussar Division

Yes, there were different players that came along to command the Hussars

the first line of Hussars

Austrians forcing the river Main

French allied troops from German territories stand the river Main defenses

yes, those are Polish Lancers filling in as Russian Uhlans

the mass of Hussars in behind the Russian infantry lines

Austrian advance guard Grenzers rush off to the left flank

Austrian artillery pound away at the town while the cavalry of the advance guard move to the flank

Prussians now join the line forcing the river crossing on the north side of Marienberg

While Austrians storm over the bridge and deliver fire into the town

French batteries traded shots with Austrians, while the Germans massacred Austrian infantry with their artillery

Leading Russian cavalry drive towards the river line

further columns follow up the foot

Russian battalions ford the river Main

more of the fording ... seen from further to the flank

the Cossacks were sacrificed so as to permit the infantry to cross the river without facing constant artillery fire

Then we had a number of player changes, and there were dozens of folks asking questions about the game and a steady stream of action in the game ... forgot to take photos.

another quick shot of the table sometime near turn 3

The battle at the chevrons, dragged on; there were no clear ways to break into the area for the Russians.  While the Austrians in Marienberg were routed and fled the field, another Austrian Division opposite the Germans was also blasted off the field, so the score was going against the Allies by turn 5.

Battle was not going well for the Austrians, who had been routed from the field

All the Russian Hussars were now prepared to shift to the center, as the chevrons were now tied down without room to maneuver

the view down the lines of the Russian Hussar Division (13 units)

Then even more folks were in the games demo room and at one point I was doing a discussion about Napoleonic tactics and painting the uniforms almost at the same time.  20 or so folks were in these talks around the table while troops continued to move.  Once again I was too busy to remember to take continuous pictures.

by turn 11 the score was 3 French losses and 15 Allied losses

the situation by the chevrons was loaded with bodies and disordered troops

the German division had lost 1/3 yet managed to rally and hold while huge cavalry formations clashed all around them

the Austrian Grenzers were across the river Main

Crenneville, the commander of the Advance guard had swept around into the flank and was threatening the French command as well as cutting off the French escape route.  They had killed off the French light cavalry division.

still though the French had managed to tear through nearly half of the Allied forces ...

No other pictures were taken of the field as the questions continued.

The final result was very close, as the French had lost 8/9 and the Allies ended up with 31/28 losses.

A brutal cost, yet the French held the crossing of the river Main at Marienberg, the opposite of our result in the Campaign of Nations game.

clean up from the coordinators perspective

The final commanders and the table covered in the casualties from the battle

Campaign of Nations - BATTLE OF LUBBEN

With a great clash of arms the Campaign of Nations has come to a crescendo moment.

Imperial Guard

Napoleon Bonaparte has appeared with the Imperial Guard in full force, combined with three other Corps d'Armee in a massive battle for control of the town of Lubben.  General Blücher, had only the day before gone north across the Spree river to drive back the French I Corps.  Now on the 12th of September, 1813 (fictional)  Blücher was going to have to race back with the remains of his cavalry and shore up the Lubben defenses in order to hold on long enough for the Russian reserves to arrive.

This could be the battle to end the campaign, were Blücher able to hold on and the reserves arrived quickly enough.

For the French, this was to be a hammer-blow against the Allied coalition.  Blücher was in Bonaparte's sights, there was a local superiority of nearly three to one and a flank force ought to be strong enough to delay any rescue efforts from the Allied formations in the south near Luckau.

For the 12th though, the Guard would not be risked, as the XIV Corps was still a days march away from the field, so the battle would open with III Corps providing a screen for the advancing Guard and supporting Corps, while the V bis Cavalry Corps would prevent any immediate re-enforcement, by dominating the fields south of Lubben.

For this battle we are using a modified version of Fast Play Grand Armee, fusing it with SCRUD and GURPS Mass Combat system.  Each 'stand' on the field is representing a Division scale of troops, anywhere from 8,000-15,000 men.  The separate artillery stands are for Corps support artillery and must have at least 4 batteries of guns, so each 'gunner' represents some 16-32 guns of the appropriate class, such as horse or foot guns.

Day opens early, with the Prussians in the south, from the west (left in the image) are III Corps and V bis Cavalry, Blucher has not yet returned and Langeron is in command of the forces in Lubben (top right)

von Roeder's light cavalry in the south with supporting guns

Attacking into the south were V bis Cavalry, mostly French Dragoons, classed as 'heavy'

in the south the battle became one of maneuver

von Roeder was taking no risks with the French Dragoons in force, he moved to Lubben

III Corps maintained a slow advance, so as to get into artillery range for the 'real battle' on the 13th

 The first few moves were limited as the armies were out of artillery range, then once it became clear to von Roeder that the French Dragoons were not so well trained nor lead (they were a 'bis' unit meant to re-enforce the real V Cavalry Corps and had only come from depot trainings), the real horse battle was on as the Russian Heavy Reserve cavalry under Gallitizin was dispatched to ensure the demise of the 'green' Dragoons.

Just before noon, the Russian heavies were moving to flank III Corps

Blucher had arrived in Lubben and had brought all the Cossacks with him

Russian Heavies pushed back French recruit Dragoons, then turned to threaten the flank of III Corps

Once Blucher arrived, the 'initiative' rolls tended to favor the Prussian experienced team of Blucher and Gneisnau, whereas up till then the French newly minted Maréchal Poniatowski had been winning the initiative contests against Major General Langeron.

the field had collapsed down to Lubbn by 14h00

The V bis Cavalry French Dragoons were not going to be able to make any further effect

Russian Cuirassier had crushed half of the Dragoons force

then Blucher decided on a bold stroke => ATTACK!

Sensing that III Corps was not going to take any further action that day, and knowing that more French would arrive before any Allied forces, so this would be his only chance to break up the French momentum

Cossacks CHARGE!

 The assault very nearly succeeded in forcing III Corps off the field ...

by 19h00 the field was quiet ... with the Russians back in Lubben and the battered French still tentatively holding a ragged line to the west.

13 September 1813 (fictional) dawned to show clearing skies and the points of the 40,000 bayonets of the Imperial Guard, standing behind a line of a further 40,000 troops of XIV Corps, now lining up with the remains of III Corps.  Further to the flank was the remains of two more Corps, that had been retreating away from the Army of Silesia for the past two weeks.  On the far flank was the I Cavalry Corps.

An epic struggle was now set.

Bonaparte vs. Blucher, with the winner likely taking the spoils of the campaign, for there were literally no more reserves for either side to fall back on.

on the next morning, the field was fully covered to the west

XIV Corps lined up with Guard and III Corps artillery

Immediately to the rear of III Corps was the Imperial Guard

spreading further south were another 40,000 French infantry and more artillery

from the vantage point of the V bis Cavalry, this day would see many more French actions

Bonaparte himself, present to oversee the destruction of Blucher and the latest coalition in Europe

This time the French were to take no chances and advanced at a steady pace until artillery could batter down some of the defenses in Lubben.

07h00 the French merely move up across a 6 mile front

Blucher is informed that the reserves could not arrive until nearly nightfall ...

now confident that the field was his for one day, Bonaparte moves his army in for the kill

great masses of troops converged on Lubben

Most of the day was spent in maneuver as artillery batteries fired, aiming for supremacy so that the assaults could progress with limited casualties, though XIV Corps was now the primary target of Langeron's Russian Position Batteries and many brigades - indeed three divisions were broken by this barrage.

at 14h00 the assaults were ready to take place ...

huge formations advanced into Lubben ... each 'stand' is a Division of some 10,000 men ...

this time nothing was left to chance as massive batteries of the Guard 20# guns were brought up to close range

one small foray of cavalry was sent out, only to break up the relentless French advance

squeezing ever tighter on the Lubben defenses, Blucher began to examine the escape orders ...

by 17h30 the massed horses of I Cavalry Corps were ready to repulse any Russian re-enforcement

the Cossacks had already been ordered north across the Spree as now the ragged lines of defenders in Lubben were breaking down

disappointed with the retreat of XIV Corps, Bonaparte now orders Guard Divisions into the line, the time has come to storm Lubben.

fragile shadows of Divisions remain in the shattered barns and mills of Lubben

while Imperial Guard divisions muster for the charge

the huge hole of where XIV Corps had been is now getting a short rest, while VII Corps is moved to assault

Blucher manages to get the Cossacks and Cuirassier and some Dragoons across the Spree river before the breach in the lines became indefensible.

the field at sunset on the second day, Lubben was taken by French storm

in the far south Russian Grenadiers and Guards pushed to reach Lubben to no avail

Maréchal Mouton used I Cav Corps to hammer at the Russian reserves

The escape of Blucher with the remains of his cavalry was a small price to pay for this victory

Imperial Guard Divisions stormed the battlements, facing a hail of shot and shell until they were over the barricades

Blucher and his Cossack escort were able to retreat over the Spree, though many of the Russian foot troops were unable to retreat in the chaos as night fell.

The commander of 9 Corps GM Aleusiev was left with 17th Division to cover the retreat, which they did until nearly midnight as the surrender was accepted

17th Division formed the final block in stopping any effective pursuit by French troops.

Most of the French Cavalry was engaged in the south, pushing back Russian Guard and Grenadiers until well past sunset.

The final result was a French Victory.

Though not without great casualties.

I suspect this may be an end to this campaign as the Allies will need a week or two of retreat in order to get any sort of line re-formed and this would likely not see a combined force either, as the Prussians were mostly decimated before the battle, now utterly without firepower at this stage of the campaign.