La manoeuver sur les derrieres - active map

 

map from Dr D. Chandler

This strategy, implemented dozens of times by Napoleonic armies, forms the basis for many 'operational depth' attack plans.  From the WWI original German attack to the 'cauldron' that was the focus point of bewegungskrieg plans used in WWII and the Operation Desert Storm used in Iraq in 1991.

I have taken a bit of time to generate a little video exploring the basic aspects of this stratagem.

How have you incorporated such a strategy into your games?

Fire & Fury TURBO QRS

 Game day today!

We'll be using this hybrid system of F&F 15mm for the battle game today.

Basically we are taking some of the best & fast elements from the 1st version of F&F and blending it with Brigade F&F, to create what I have dubbed F&F TURBO.

Comments are welcome and I hope to have an After Action Report coming in the last week of July.

The Gettysburg Campaign army labels

 One of the things I have been doing since I started my magnetic miniatures system is having a 'tag' that identifies a unit and may include game details on the tag or other identity markings.

For this campaign I have designed up some tags for a Fire & Fury TURBO system that we are going to showcase on Saturday.

Here then are the tags for your enjoyment.

All of these are first printed on a full sheet sticky label, then the flags get cut out and the tags set is peeled and stuck to a full sheet magnet 'paper' then all are cut out for use on the sheet steel 'tag holders' on my base stands.

One more sleep till the game and I'll post a QRS for the F&F TURBO we are going to use.

Great Wargames Survey of 2022

 I have not taken part in the survey before as I had seen it as a marketing tool.

Since then I have decided that real decisions are coming from the data gathered, and so I have decided to enter my own data into the mix.

You can do you own (it takes about 10 mins) at the site link here:

Wargames Survey 2022

I ended up putting in longer comments at the end of the survey since the questions often did not directly apply in my situation and I am the first to admit that I do not fit the common commercial game buyer.

Let me know what your experience of looking into your own hobby action(s) was like?

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

Solo Game Play System - a proposal for 'any' time-frame/scale

 I have been experimenting with solo play rules and concepts since the isolation of the pandemic lockdowns began.

I have a few books about the subject of solo play from Grant and Featherstone, yet none of them have a simple yet easy to use system.

So here I am proposing my own, one that I have played out on the tabletop in ECW and Napoleonic games - and sampled using Squad Leader (WWII).

 

set of tools

In essence any solo system has to bypass the 'know it all' that the player operating it has.

This makes any real 'surprise' events difficult, so that is best to not expect from almost any solo play system.

Alright so that is out of the way here we go:

First, have some chips, or blocks, or beads that are different color, yet not different shape or texture, so that you can have them in a bag or cup.

I have used 2 for each 'command' and 3 for the overall commander and 3 extra as a start mix.
This means for a sample SHAKO game, with two foot and one horse division, you get 2+2+2+3+3=12 'markers' or 'chips' or 'beans'.  I used Orange ones for the Parliament and Purple ones for the Royalists in an ECW game.

'markers' or 'chips' or 'beans'

With this mix for each side I then add two 'other' color ones and one RED or TURN END marker.

These beans are going to be used to determine if or whether orders can be changed.  So if you want more order change possibility, then reduce the number of beans, or add in more of the RED ones; keep reading you will understand.

Each command then gets a card from the deck - you may do total random, or not as you please.

tools

Tools meanings:

Spades = attack to kill or cause maximum death (even if that means your own death)

Clubs = operations (attack or defense) in a planned way - using maximum combined arms

Diamonds = operations (attack or defense) using maximum expenses, ammunition, fuel or technology

Hearts = defensive mindset with preservation of your own forces as the primary consideration

the numbers on the cards can be included as 'how much effort' or 'relative energy' they will put into the operations, where a 2 is 'meh I'll follow it sort of' and 10 is 'this is the way...'

the face cards then become certain personalities (or simply 11, 12, & 13)

Jack: the opposing division or sub formation commander is the 'target' of operations.

Queen: the opposing 2IC (if possible) or 2nd most important (valuable) asset of opposition as overall target.

King: opposing command is target of operations (if not possible then most important (valuable) asset)

Aces are the 'purest' form of the tactical technique, so ace of spades will be to 'kill, kill, kill' (even your own men!) and ace of hearts will be to prepare for with drawl or move to a perfect defense taking no life-and-limb risks at all.

useful tools

no card deck?  print this

After drawing the cards (or assigning them), for the commands and setting your plan (or preparing for attack with spades!).  Set your table/troops according to plans and rules for the game you are using.

Draw three 'beans' before the game start - this sets 'initiative' unless there's a scenario demand for it.

Draw three 'beans' each side at the start of each turn (before normal rules) - this will then set-up your orders options.

So at the start of turn 1 there will be 6 beans for each side drawn.  These get compared, for example, if there's a majority of the side drawn: ie I am Parliament and I draw3 orange 2 purple and a green, then the orange is dominant and the Parliament may make 1 order change.  If all 6 are orange, then they may make 6 order changes.  For each order change one 'bean' is put back in the bag.

If the totals are equal or favor the opponent color, (orange and purple) then NO ORDERS may be given.  Alternately you could allow a 'tie' to permit one order - provided both sides want/need one order.

Any time a RED or turn end 'bean' is drawn (in the three) then, at the end of the turn, the whole group is 're-set'.

 A re-set consists of 1/2 (rounding to be explained) of ALL 'BEANS' to be put back into the draw bag.

this is where the two green (or other color) and RED (turn end) 'beans' become important.
1/2 eliminated is easy when the number is even and there's no 'other color' 'beans' in the mix

If the number is odd and no 'other colors' are involved then the side who is in control of that set of 'beans' gets to decide which 'extra' 'bean' is discarded back into the draw bag.

If there are 'other color' beans available (including the RED (turn end) 'bean') then the player who drew them may decide which 'color' (purple or orange in the example) those green or RED 'beans' will be used as in discard.

Example:

Parliament player drew the RED 'bean' and has a green 'bean' also 7 Orange and 8 Purple 'beans' -thus has not been able to give orders.
The Royalist player has 6 Orange and 6 Purple - also not able to give orders.
     at the end of the current turn, BOTH PLAYERS will discard 1/2 of their 'beans'

Royalist is easy, 3 of each.
Parliament must discard at least 3 Orange and 4 Purple 'beans', yet may substitute 2 of them as the green and RED ones that they have.  This means at the end of the discard the Parliament side could have 5 Orange and 4 Purple 'beans'; having discarded 1 Orange 1 green and 1 RED (as the 3 Orange ones required) and the 4 Purple 'beans'.

This 'turn end' discard action is what creates the imbalances at times, along with the two 'other' 'beans' along with the draw of 3 at a time.  The idea is to create an unknown ability to change orders, leaving the player to have to continue with orders 'as is' until the change comes about and the player in solo-play mode will not have knowledge of exactly when that will happen from turn to turn until the very start of the turn (or at least BEFORE clearly being able to do the orders change).

anything can be used as 'beans'

The intent here is to take advantage of the axiom "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

the colored blocks come in many colors

Tell me what you think gentlemen.

Fur trials and failures

 Last year I was exploring the potential for using fur throws as tabletop covering and new base stand covers.

I had come across a number of light green and various shades of brown furry throws at the local dollar store and thought I might be able to dye them a different shade for use as the new table-top covering.

It looked to be a bargain method since the throws were $3 each and the dyes were $8 each.

the light green

a collection of throws

Off to the washing machine went the lot.

wet from washing, now ready for dying

olive green dye

needed salt to activate in the hot water

All went into the bathtub.

many rounds of agitation

things did look a bit darker green ...

Then all went into the washing machine again after being 'wrung out' to a damp condition.

Result from the washer ... fail, no detectable color change.

Not to worry, I had an alternative that was supposed to be able to deal with synthetic fibers.

more cost (though still less than a blanket I could not find in the right color) was
going into the project now

Again, another trip through the tub and agitation, then into the washing machine.

FAIL #2.

Indeed no change in color could be found anywhere, except the tag.

only the washing tags were colored

The bulk of the throws were then gifted to the boys as warm little presents, my slightly green one and one decent brown one I kept.

They were then converted into the grass fur under the ECW minis which have seen action on the tabletop this year.

Long Live Magnetics!

Magnetic Miniatures System

 

 For some time now I have been sharing my older posts (2013 and 2007) about my magnetic miniatures system.

I have made changes in how I am using them in the past year and thought it was a good time to review and update.

Feedback is welcomed!

Live Broadcast Tabletop game - support of Lets Roll and KeyCon 2020

Another journey into the history of Austerlitz.

This time with some adjusted forces, to see what Bonaparte might have accomplished the storming of Pratzen with.

during deployment Dan-O captured this image

We had plans to record this session fully, yet something happened in the software (or operation of it) and the recording was lost.

I still managed to grab a few still shots and this wonderful one from one of the many players from the US east coast in support of Lets Roll 2020.  Including a key one of the Snappy Nappy operations team.

forces fully deployed at game start

view from the French lines towards the Austrians lining the ridge

Again I was using the dark cloth table covering, with the stones as before to delineate the hill top and bottom slopes.

We made use of the tech at hand and had the French team go into a break out 'room' (digital) to make their plan so that the Allied commanders were 'in the dark'.

Then both sides did their orders maps as required by SHAKO II rules:

Allied map was dead simple - save for the Guard which was explained to my tech leader, Alex

The French map was more detailed and covered the situation really quite well

The missing Russian guard portion called for the Guard to arrive on turn 2 (same as the Russian foot division, to the north) and pass south of Pratzen and move past the point of the plateau into the hollow to the west of Pratzen.  With a turn 2 arrival and a slow march, this would put the division 'point' of the arrow on or about turn 5.

turn 3 overview

The French Guard columns were storming the plateau with Italian guard to the south side of the formation

Russians and Austrians were now becoming intermingled as they struggled to hold the ridge against D'Erlon's division in the north of Pratzen

D'Erlon's view

massive artillery formations were present from both sides, with the French having the Imperial Guard foot and Horse Batteries

the gap between d'Erlon's division and the Guard

Guard on advance with Pratzen town in the distance

French Guard Commander Bessier (represented on the white horse - my own sculpt of Eugene de Beauharnais)

not to be outdone the Russian Imperial Guard under Grand Duke Constantine was now assembling behind their own horse batteries supported by Austrian Horse batteries!

the supreme moment came in turn 5, 13h00 as the French Guard executed an excellent combined arms assault just south of Pratzen hitting the Russian Pavlov Grenadier Guards with both the French Grenadier Guard a Pied and the Grenadier Guard a Cheval at the same time, indeed a turn earlier the Guard Foot Artillery had injured this unit as it moved forward.

game ended after 5 very active turns

The French had a toe hold, and if you look to the top right of the flash photo with troops in it you can see the Allied Imperial Headquarters behind Pratzen (now on fire) and the French Grenadier foot and horse are BOTH in easy range of this vital target.  On turn 6 without doubt the Allied Grand Headquarters would have been over-run, leaving the Allied armies leaderless and at -1 to all rolls for continued survival.

It is hard to say if the French could have claimed to have achieved the same results as Bonaparte, who was reported to have been sighting artillery on the south slopes of the plateau at 14h00.

All in all a great game, had a wonderful time chatting with Dan-O and Thomas after the battle and have some new ideas on how to make our next tabletop broadcast even better.

We are certain to have at least two more opportunities over the next few months as the separation instructions and needs will keep us away from face-to-face for a while longer yet.  Watch here and on facebook for future game events.

ECW Formations, a question of scale

Finding that I had yet no one image of my Royalist forces, and that there were enough of them to do a force size comparison with 1:1 (where one man equals one miniature) I thought to lay them out today and get the images recorded for future discussion.

I drew my unit sized from Stuart Reid and his "All The Kings Armies" and went with a smaller size than the ordinances called for as this is closer to what would be actually fielded when battles took place.

First the Foote:

the force takes up a frontage of 36 inches with everyone packed in close order

 Normally these would comprise of 10 companies of pike and shot with 30 men in each, I used the 2:1 shot to pike ratio, so this works out to 100 pike and 200 shot.

As you can see from the image I have gone with a fairly tight formation and even so, with 6 ranks deep of shot (with 99 in each wing actually) you can see that the shot sections almost match up with the pike section for depth.

the Foote shown in oblique to give a better view of the depth and flags as this is 95% of the Royalist force that I have

 Such a force, taking up 36 inches or three feet on a wargames table would be impossible to continuously simulate (needing 300 minis just for the one unit!), while visually stunning, for tabletop game purposes its just not workable.

behind the foote at 1:1 is a more common Pike & Shot unit of three stands and only 6" wide

So we make the compromise, for instance swapping 5 pike for the 100 (20:1) and 6 shot for the 198 (33:1) we get the more commonly seen unit on the games table of three stands, one Pike and two Shot, with a total frontage of 6 inches.  Which from the 36 inches of the 1:1 unit translates into a 1/6 scale.

wargames table unit of only 11 minis and 6 inch frontage

Then the Horse

Again they are described as 6 troop units of about 30 men each.  The ordinances calling for 100 in each troop, on campaign with losses and desertions along with recruitment, they tended to be around 30 men in each troop, according to Stuart Reid.

The horse in six 'troop' formation with a couple of horse widths between troops

When laid out at 1:1 this gives us 180 horses and men, allowing for a spacing between troop units, this again comes out to a frontage of 36 inches.

Once again placing a three foot horse unit on a wargames table will take up almost all available space, though truly look impressive!

1:1 unit (180 minis)  in front and 1:15 unit (12 minis) in behind

So the compromise of a 1:15 scale is made, giving a 1/6 frontage difference from 36" down to 6" (the same frontage as the foot unit essentially).

the compromise unit of 12 horse in the same six troop pattern

Thus we have something of a scaling at between 1:15 to 1:33 (with an average sitting around 1:20) in men to miniatures ratio.

I'm hoping this little comparison will help folks in visualizing things that happen on the wargames table better.