Trouble In Golpen Und Burpen: A Napoleonic Game Using Sam Mustafa's Blucher and Scharnhorst

Hello friends:

I've been dusting off my 6mm Napoleonics collection, which is predominantly French and Austrians, and decided to revist Sam Mustafa's Blucher rules.

Sam's rules include an elegant little mini-game called Scharnhorst, a campaign system to give tabletop battles some flavour and context.   It works best with two players, as there is some fog of war built into it, so I recruited two of my friends from the Anglo-Irish Napoleonic Brain Trust.

This is Sam's Scharnhorst map of a generic slice of Southern Germany, which has cunningly been renamed as the Electorate of Golpen und Burpen.   The Elector, Hans Joachim von Smolhausen, has somehow managed to stay neutral until 180X, when the Austrians cast covetous eyes on it and it's thriving burlap sacking industry.  General Konrad von Smettana and his Army of the Moldau are tasked with capturing the Electorate.  Warned of these intentions, Marshal Ferdinand le Gros, dubbed by Napoleon "the grossest of the gross", is alerted to assemble his Army of the Southwest Elbe.   

In Blucher terms, both armies are in the 200 point range.  One is slightly larger than the other.  Before the game begins, both sides secretly choose how many of their cavalry brigades they will commit to reconaissance.   The side with the most brigades doing recon gets to go first and gets to choose which edge of the map they will enter from.   The side with the lower number of committed brigades goes second, and must enter from the opposite map edge.

The Austrians choose to commit more of their cavalry brigades than the French and so choose to enter from the north side of the map, in four columns.  Each column can have one to eight brigades, and the opposing player may not learn how many or which type until one of his columns is adjacent, in which case a player can scout or can declare a battle.

At the end of turn 1, the Austrians have entered the map from the north.  On turn 1 both columns have a movement allowance of three MPs, so there won't be any contact.  The Austrians seize the town of Niederheim and the village of Wunsberg.   Seeing their advance, Marshal le Gros takes the unusual step to bring his force, in three columns, all onto the SE corner of the map.   Looks like he might be hoping to concentrate all of his force against part of the Austrian force!

Nice counters, aren't they?  They're plastic chits from Litko, very sharp.

In another day or so I should hear back from both players as to the second turn moves and we may have a battle!  Stay tuned.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls,

MP+

Wednesday Workbench

I was mightily distracted by the Brewers-Dodgers game (go Brewers!) but I did manage to get some horses (for cossacks and Napoleonic generals), some Foundry 28mm Pandours, and a 3d printed 6mm terrain piece into the basing depot.  Mrs P continues to mend nicely from her shoulder replacement surgery and has started physiotherapy.   Hope all's well with you.

MP+

Terrain Tuesday: Aspern Parsonage from 3D Print Terrain

 Hello friends:

Not much hobbying to report.  Mrs P went into hospital on Friday for a shoulder replacement (she is a poster child for arthritis and had an injury thanks to two adorable but demonic Border Terriers) so after many months of pain and immobility it was finally her turn to go under the knife.  It seems a sign of our age that she was besieged with advice by friends who have had joint replacements - take this supplement!  don't skimp the physio!  do this exercise!  The surgery was successful, she came home on Saturday with a sizeable (but not huge) incision, a sling for her arm (at least six weeks of not using her wing) and a cool machine that pumps ice water through a sleeve that fits over the shoulder.   I'm managing to get the minimal requisite of parish work done, while getting the odd half hour of paintbench therapy in and keeping an eye on post season baseball (I'm rooting for the Papal White Sox).  Mrs P is plucky and deterimed to put her new shoulder to use, so the extra effort as caregiver is worth it.

Well enough about me.   Some time ago when this blog was more of a thing, I decided on a feature called Terrain Tuesday.   So here's what I've been working on, and pretty much ready to call it done.

This is a print from one of the 28mm sets of STL files from 3D Print Terrain.  It's the parsonage that is part of the Aspern Essling church.   It printed in several sections, and there wasn't a clean fit between the roof and walls, so I had to use some caulking to fill in the gaps, which are still somewhat noticeable here.

However that's just a small grumble.  All of the files I've seen from this designer are top notch - I bought their 6mm Napoleonic line of buildings and now that I'm moving into a larger scale for black powder I wanted some buildings that would work for 18th and early 19th century Europe.  I'm sure it's immaculate on the inside, thanks to a brisk no-nonsense housekeeper who looks after the absent minded pastor.  I lived in a parsonage for a while, but the squirrels drove me out.

Now that the parsonage is finished, I can turn my attention to the church! 

Thanks for looking!  I see that my last post on lead figures got a lot of comment, so I need to go through and answer your comments.   Hope all's well with you all.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+

Napoleonics Thursday - The Slow Decline of Metal Figures

Recently the historical gaming community (including the author) were shocked and a little dismayed to learn that the people behind Gripping Beast were retiring and would soon be closing the business.  Fair enough, I'm thinking about (and sometimes longing to) retire myself.  Their announcement expressed the hope that someone would come along and buy GP and the various lines it's taken under its wing.  In the meantime, they encouraged gamers to get in their orders soon and that they would be announcing a cut off date in the near future when "we will have to turn sales off so that we can finish everything outstanding and get the last parcels out the door befor we turn off the lights". 

I have no idea if it would be profitable or even wise to take over such a business.  The price of metal alloy continues to increase, postage rates, heating, and power costs increase constantly, tarrifs and regulations make shipping more complicated, moulds wear out, and there are so many more options for gamers now in 3D printing or from all plastic outfits like Victrix.   God bless Foundry and the Perry Brothers, among those still committed to making metal figures, but I do wonder how long they'll be around.

I'm enough of a curmudgeon that I still have a soft spot for metal.  The very first Napoleonic figures I painted (badly) were old metal Minifigs from the mid 1970s.  I love the feel of them.  My collections include metal and plastic units (which would drive some folks nuts) but I always prefer the metal guys.   One of the reasons why the GP annoucement saddened me was that I'm especially fond of Front Rank, and wanted to ad some of their 28mm Napoleonic range to my collection while it's still available, so a purchase has been made.

Here are two figures from the FR Naps line.   They have a pleasing amount of detail, but are on the small side for 28s and perhaps they show their age a bit.

And here is a 28mm figure from MC Miniatures that I recently printed on a filament printer.   The detail isn't terrific (the white filament tends to hide the detail) but I think it will be okayish once painted.  Took about thirty minutes to print, the file cost about $4 US and I can print as many as I want.  One can see why the economics are stacked against anyone wanting to revisit the Front Rank Naps line.

And then there is the attractiveness of 6mm for mass gaming.  I know Baccus is still going strong and I have a pile of their metal figures, but I'm just finishing the basing on these 3D print figures and it didn't take me long to get a brigade (or division depending on the scale of the game on the table.  

These are strips from MC Miniatures done on my old and not missed resin printer, again about $4US for the file and you can print as many as you want.

Finally, next to the big lad are these wee voltiguers, also 6mm MC Miniatures, done on my Bambu filament printer, and surprisingly detailed.

So what do you think?  Are metal figures an endangered species?  Are they a relic of a bygone time, like rotary phones?  Would you miss them?  What do you see happening in the hobby?

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+

I 

Wednesday Workbench: Generals and Cossacks

 

Currently on the messy workbench:  three Foundry 18th century cossacks and two Napoleonic generals, French and Austrian, both Front Rank figures, and their respective horsies.

There are some 6mm 3D prints fresh off the machine that just snuck into the shot, but I'll save them for another day.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+

A Battle In Germania Using Three Ages Of Rome Rules

 Some time ago I finished painting another batch of 8 Foundry Early Imperial Romans, seen here.

With these new recruits to the legions mustered in to a collection that's either Foundry or Victrix, I decided that I had enough figures to try a battle revisiting Philip Garton's Three Ages of Rome (3AR) rules published by Helion.

These are fairly simple rules, mostly quite clear and self-explanatory, with army lists for the republican, early imperial and late imperial eras of Roman history.   The rules are written with 15mm figures in mind, but can be adapted easily for 28s by increasing movement and missile ranges by 50%.  There are simple command rules, loss of cohesion instead of removing figures as casualties, and no buckets of dice to throw.

Wulf Stinkig had rallied the men of the Fritzi tribe and their allies, and after raiding and much annoying behaviour, had drawn out a substantial Roman force.  Wulf's force includes two veteran units of massed infantry, two trained mass infantry and one trained unit of skirmishers, a raw unit of mass infantry and a raw unit of javelin armed skirmishers.  His co-commander is his brother in law, Grull the Bald (the little axe markers are to remind me which are the veteran units).

Opposing Wulf is the veteran general Bulbus Nasus, who has spent the last five years in Germania after an unfortunate dalliance with Caesar's niece Vuluptua.   He is assisted by Crismus Bonus, a hard headed centurion. Bulbus has four veteran units of massed infantry legonaires, a unit of trained skirmishers with slings, and a unit of hastily raised auxiliary archers, rated raw.  He also has a unit of trained massed cavalry tucked away behind some woods, Maximus style, and commanded by a young and eager tribune,  Caius Insalubrius.

Wulf Stinkig gives a long oration, which can be summed up as variations on "Slit Their Gizzards".  3AR has a pre-battle rule for oracles and orations, which can help or hinder each side, but in my haste to get started I forgot about it until too late.  I guess there were no priests or soothsayers available.

The Romans take a cautious stance, opting for Hold orders.  Wulf and his warriors rush forward.  Movement in 3AR is generous, 20cm for massed troops in the open, and it recommends adding 50% to the movement rates for 28mm figures.   This brought the Germans almost to charge distance.  They take a round of sling stones and arrows, and the greenhorn archers do some damage to the one raw unit of warriors.  In the Roman move (order of movement depends on chit or card draw to activate various commanders and their troops), the missile troops pull back and two units of legionaires under Bulbus rush forward.

Both sides are locked in combat, but Grull the Bald's veterans are coming up to support their comrades, while Wulf sends his skirmishers through the woods.  They flank a unit of Roman auxiliaries, which hold their own, just barely, personally led by Crismus, while the raw archers come through again, keeping a unit of German javelin throwing maniacs at bay.

As Grull leads his men forward, the young firebrand Insalubrius leads his cavalry forward, making some speech about how if you find yourself in Elysium, then you've failed your saving throw.

Crunch!  They crash into the flank of some German veterans, who are pushed back in Disorder.  In 3AR being flanked or even attacked in the rear isn't necessarily fatal.   In either case, the defending unit takes a -1 on its saving throws if any hits are scored.  In the case of the auxiliaries above, they survived several rounds of combat with the skirmishers on their flank.  What 3AR does well, I think, is that once your units get into the fight, it's hard for them to recover their cohesion.  Adverse results can cause Disorder, which is bad, Disruption, which is worse, and Rout, which is worser.   Routing units can provoke Impetuous Pursuit in the victor.   While there is a rally phase, it's harder to recover cohesion, especially with enemy units nearby.

Wulf Stinkig has seen enough.  Most of his units have lost some level of cohesion, and he hasn't really scratched the Romans.  He orders a general withdrawal, so his brave Fritzii can live and fight another day.   The Germans stream off the field.

One German unit is caught front and rear and is destroyed, the only loss of the game.  3AR might seem a little bloodless to some, I found that most combats end with, at most, one level of cohesion lost (Sound to Disordered, Disordered to Disrupted).  However, as noted above, it gets progressively harder to rally troops in the thick of it, and so you can sense when a battle is lost or won fairly quickly.

So Bulbus Nasus is happy because he can claim a victory and he has some captives to sell to the slavers.   Caius Insalubrius will be mentioned in dispatches, burnishing his career.  Wulf and Grull will retire and try their luck another day.

All in all, I like 3AR, it's a fairly simple set of mechanics with army lists that cover a large swath of ancient history.   It doesn't require throwing buckets of dice, which I like.  Most melees are decided with each side throwing one or two d6 to hit, and then throwing saves, with a 4 on 1d6 always being the magic number after modifiers.  The rules for command and control are simple, with three basic postures for each wing or command of an army:  Hold, Attack, Withdraw.  Commanders have radii where they can influence their units, and any commander designated Heroic can add a +1 modifer to a unit in combat on the first round, with some risk of being killed or captured.   So no mechanics that couldn't be taught to someone in twenty minutes, and a conclusion within two or three hours, makes these rules suitable for club play.

I'm a sucker for rules and I admire how Helion supports the hobby with a line of rules for various periods, though they are probably eclipsed somewhat by the Osprey blue series of rule books.   Philip Garton knows his onions, this is one of three sets of rules for ancients that he's written and published with Helion, which I respect.  3AR would be a good way to introduce folks to ancients gaming, though I suspect that if I wanted to find opponents, I'd be better off putting more time into learning Midgard, which seems to be as well suited to ancients as it is to fantasy.  Of course, there are also the TFL Infamy, Infamy! rules for the early imperial period, and my copy just arrived, so stay tuned for more struggles in Germania!

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

Napoleonic Frenchmen Of Varying Statures

Hello friends:

I've been terribly neglecful reading your blogs and updating my own.  September has flown by in a blur as work resumed.  The church is like school, it all kicks off in September and while I'm enjoying my work and the people I serve, this year I'm painfully aware that I no longer have youthful energy reserves to draw on.  Perhaps some of that has bled into my hobby time, though I have been working hard on some projects in my spare time.  I think often of retirement, it sounds more and more attractive.

I had a long conversation with my son this summer abour his experience with ADHD and how he's managed it successfully as a young adult.  He startled me when he looked at me and said "Dad, where do you think I got it from?"  I've never been diagnosed, but I now realize that I've had something akin to ADHD all my life.  My attention span can be short, I get distracted easily, and while I can be good at what I do (I have a few post graduate diplomas and a CV to prove it), to be successful I have to concentrate hard on one task and when it's done I'm exhausted.  Not to bore you with my personal life, but in hobby terms I find that I can overload myself with projects, ping ponging (SQUIRREL!) from one period and scale to another.  I've learned some coping skills - put one project in a box and keep it in one place, and don't let my workbench become chaotic.  Plan a unit and paint it.  Decide on one rules set that I want to learn and play.  It doesn't always work, but it helps.

So this September I decided to take a break from my SYW and WW2 naval projects and return to Napoleonics.  Because I've enjoyed Sharp Practice, I wanted a small force that I could play with, and because my mate James has a lot of Bavarians and kaiserlicks, I thought that I couldn't go wrong with French.   I started with a set of Victrix 28mm French infantry.  Not my first time with Victrix, but I won't lie, these fellows are tricky and you have to concentrate on getting the right arms with the right bodies.   Had to hunt for instructions online.   Not great.  Then I decided that I would paint a test batch with white undercoat, which is a change from my normal practice of using black.   After all, the base of an official French uniform is white, n'est ce pas?

It was a good idea, but the white undercoat exposed a lot of places where I'd missed a spot, whereas black undercoat covers a multitude of sins.  Also it's harder painting a dark colour like French blue on white.   So back to black with the next batch.

I'm not unhappy about how these lads turned out, but I realized that I really don't know a lot about what a French soldier of the period carried.  These figures have a lot of gear that I really couldn't identify - canteens?  map cases?  matchstick cases?  cheeseboxes?  Zut alors!  So I just guessed.  Anyway they're done and it was a good exercise.  When the mood strikes me, I'll assemble another dozen of these fellows.

Since I had my French palette out, I decided that I would revisit a pile of 6mm fellows that I printed some years back, when I still was doing 3D prints in resin (glad those days are over, lessons learned).  These strips are 6mm figures from MC Miniatures.   As you can see, the bayonets are fragile and a lot are missing, but en masse I think they'll look ok.

The method is simple, black undercoast, light grey drybrush, then blue and red for the coats, white for the crossbelts, and then flesh, gunmetal for the muskets, black for the shakos and copper for the shako plates.  The pom poms were the fun bit I allowed myself at the end and required a steady hand.

Now off to the basing depot with them.  For the 28s I think i'll base them four to my usual 2inch square MDF base and for the wee lads, I'll glue two strips to my standard rectangular bases for 6mm Naps.  I have a lot of 6mm French in metal already done, but I think I'll use these printed stands to represent multiple elements in a regiment - four to a regiment for Sam Mustafa's LaSalle, and two to a regiment for General D'Armee 2.   Of course, for larger games such as Blucher, it will just be one stand per regiment or brigade.   It will be fun to try once I get them based.

However, my games table is ready for Imperial Romans and Germans to kick off (SQUIRREL!) so more on that soon I hope.

As always, I'm grateful to you for reading this.  Be well and blessings to your brushes.

MP+

y.