War breaks out in Wellington.

During Call to Arms 2024 last year, K walked up to our little vintage game to tell us that he'd been a wargamer for years, and that he even had some 20mm Napoleonic armies. He uses them to fight battles with his son, who he had with him.

Well, one chat led to another, and a couple of weekends ago we met at his place for a battle. K uses the delightfully simple, fast-play and very entertaining rules to be found in Neil Thomas's Napoleonic Wargaming, published in 2009:

The rules don't have a catchy title, so I'll just have to refer to them as Neil Thomas' Napoleonic Wargaming Rules (or NTNWR). These are not the same as NT's famous One Hour Wargame rules.

What attracted me to them is that they have a variety of quirky but really quite fun looking game mechanics, while also being entirely compatible with my 4-bases per unit organisation.

The scenario we played pitted most of Wallmoden's Corps, albeit beefed up a bit with Prussian dragoons and the Russian Leib Grenadiers, against the flower of the French Army in 1813, commanded by K. He had much better cavalry than me but also a lot of terrible infantry, so it was going to be an interesting match.

As luck would have it, I was able to seize the wooded road in the centre with two of my best infantry regiments, the 73rd and the Russo-German legion. This was to have very important effects.

British infantry are especially deadly in NTNWR as they fight two deep, which gives them devastating firepower. However, they're also very slow moving as they're not allowed to form assault columns.

Wallmoden's left flank was cunningly refused, forcing K to make a long march around the flank to get at it. The Feld Battalion Bremen were only classed as levies, but the Prussian 2nd Dragoons, I hoped, would scare off any attempt to assault them.

On the right were the Estorff Hussars and the Lutzowers. These were by far my worst troops, so I hid them behind the woods. The Lutzowers were so bad they couldn't even form line and therefore had greatly reduced firepower. Not too far off, however, were the crack Leib Grenadiers and my Russo-German battery.

What makes NTNWR different is that it's an I-Go-You-Go system and firing, charging, melee and morale have all been radically simplified, so it clips along at a great pace and there's real scope for tactical suprises.

The really radical bit though, which has a transformative effect on the gameplay, is that close-order infantry units may only assault other infantry if they have a numerical superiority in terms of the number of bases they've got left. This forces players to attrit their enemy before attempting an assault, producing a linear style of deployment that, to my eyes, is very similar to actual Napoleonic warfare. When the charges finally go in, however, they're devastating, and there's very little prospect of recovery from a poor morale result.

K's sent three battalions against my centre to keep it occupied while manoevring against my left. I had every confidence that my Dragoons would make short work of  his Chasseurs, however. The Guard Grenadiers looked a bit menacing though.

Supporting the attack in the centre was the Foot Artillery of the Guard, which had a much better chance of hitting than my Russo-German gunners. They were firing at long range at troops in cover, however, but K made up for this with some oustanding dice throws.

Sure enough, it was first blood to K, with the 73rd losing a base. I had them rated as only average troops, so they were quite lucky to survive the resulting morale test. This was not a good start, and my dice throwing was so dreadful that their much vaunted firepower was not having any effect.

If I'd been commanding the French, I probably would have assaulted the 73rd there and then, but K was worried about my dragoons and so decided to charge them with the 4th Chasseurs. This set off a running battle between the two that lasted for the rest of the game.

Meanwhile, on the left, K decided to have a pop at the Leib Grenadiers with the Empress' Dragoons. NTNWR seemed to suggest that three-deep infantry in line should have a fair chance against a frontal charge by cavalry, so I decided to give this a go.

And the ED's bounced right off! What was worse, they also got raked at short range by the RGL gunners and were then charged in flank by the Estorffs ...

.. who were victorious! I think K must have forgotten they were lurking behind the woods.

Things really started to go south for K from this point as the RGL and what was left of the 73rd finally started to find their marks, aided by the RGL artillery firing at short range. Within a couple of turns K's three centre battalions had sufferred catastrophic casualties, made worse by failed morale tests.

It wasn't all bad though. The 4th Chasseurs were also victorious, as it happens, but this still left K with only two viable battalions: the Guard and the 3rd Swiss. Neither had made much impact, however. Although the 4th Chasseurs had seen off the Dragoons, they were down to a single base, and the Guard was about to become rather isolated.

The Swiss, meanwhile, had spent the entire battle in the woods taking fairly ineffective pot shots at the Lutzowers. They were too far away to be of any assistance.

We called it a day at that point. It was such good fun that we've decided to do it again with armies twice the size at Call to Arms 2025, which is at the end of August.There'll be two generals on each side to manage the mayhem.

For those wondering about my French artillery, I'm hoping to have something to show in a few days.

Have a great weekend,

WM

Gunners on the Go

It was my birthday this weekend, so I celebrated by finally putting the varnish on to my new French line artillery gunners.

The figures are sufficient for two batteries. They are vintage Hinton Hunt French Artillery of the Line 1807-12, being:

FN 30: Officer, pointing, x1
FN 31: Gunner firing the gun, x2
FN 32: Gunner holding cannonball,x2
FN 33: Gunner ramming home, x2
FN 35: Gunner, ammunition carrier, running, x1

It's taken me a full ten years to get round to actually painting any of these. I think the officer is my new favourite figure.

There's the guns to finish and all the basing up to do, but a line up of the all the Phase 1 and 2 French artillery (6 batteries, no less) shouldn't be too far off now.

I hope you all had a good one too,

WM

All Buttoned Up

The 2nd Light Infantry Battalion, King's German Legion, are ready to make their debut.

They've been finished for a week now, in fact, but I was too busy chopping wood in the back garden to set them up for their photo shoot before now. It really was a massive tree that fell down.

They are to be the skirmish element for Wallmoden's Corps. In reality, only about half the 2nd KGL Light Infantry was sent to join the Anglo-Hanoverian forces in Germany in 1813, but I thought I ought to paint up a full battalion so they would also be ready to occupy a certain farmhouse in Belgium.

Major Georg Baring's men filter through the woods ...

... and form up in line

 Major General Wilhelm von Arentschildt takes temporary command.

The battalion faces to the rear, showing off their dinky little havresacs. I'm not 100% sure that this is what those weird little bulges on their left hips are supposed to be, but they look OK.

Wallmoden's Corps forms up.

The figures are:

Alberken:

BN 4: Rifleman Officer x 1 (converted);

BN 3: Rifleman on Guard:x 22; and

Hinton Hunt:

BN 20 British Rifles bugler x 1.

I cannot thank Aly Morrison and Mark Dudley enough for providing me with these charming figures. As soon as I saw them I knew they'd be exactly right for Wallmoden's forces.

One of the things that made them so appealing for me was that, unlike much of the rest of the Alberken range, they do not look like Hinton Hunts. The big question then was: what were they?

I was starting to think they might be Jacklex conversions. Rob G then sent me a picture of a Jacklex ACW gunner, which looks to me as if it may very well have been the base figure. 

Exhibit A:

Jacklex ACWs were certainly of the right vintage for this, but it's his legs, wee pinched face and oddly sloping upper arms that clinched it for me.

I've been given a few other delightful presents recently. Here are two of them below, with a KGL light infantryman for scale.

The cottages were given to me by the Armchair General, who thinks he bought them in the 80s but can't remember the manufacturer. They're really nicely sculpted and seem to be made of rubber, as they're a little bit squishy. If anyone knows what they are, please do say so in the comments. I'd love to find out what else was in the range.

The 2nd KGL Light Infantry are the last of the Phase 2 Coalition infantry. I think it'll be some artillery next.

Best wishes

WM

KGL Catch Up

 Just a wee post about where I've got to with these.

There's not all that much to add to them, apart from their haversacks. This is a bit of challenge as the sculpting for these, if that is indeed what the odd looking bulges on their left hips are supposed to represent, is a bit vague to say the least - they may or may not, for example, have canteens moulded on to them. It's very hard to tell and will take a bit of creative painting. Other than that it's just their muskets, greatcoat rolls and innumerable buttons. 

We'll see how we go. The enormous sycamore tree at the bottom of the garden fell down last week, so I now have rather a lot of wood splitting and stacking to do! Thank goodeness I had the good sense to produce a couple of strapping sons. I knew they'd be useful eventually.

Happy New Year!

WM

Edit: below is a recap of the test Rifleman I completed, next to an original, which gives an idea at least of the haversack/canteen area issue. I acually carved this area back and flattened it a bit for my test figures, but decided to leave as is for the rest of them in the hope that how to paint it would be resolved by experimentation. It's very hard indeed to see what Mr Gilder was intending here. The bayonet belt and scabbard amost look as if they're passing over the top of the haversack, which would look extremely awkward.