Napoleonic wargaming
An entry from my 1971 diary reads: ‘Played a Waterloo wargame which took a long time. I was Napoleon, my brother was Wellington, and my cousin was Blucher. I was beaten just like the real thing’. I still remember that first Napoleonic game. It was played on the living room carpet with an assortment of Airfix 20mm plastic figures – mostly unpainted. Even American civil war figures had to be drafted in to make up the numbers. We used Donald Featherstone’s rules and had seen the Dino De Laurentiis film Waterloo with Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as Wellington. That great movie started my fascination with Napoleonic Wargaming.
By 1976 I had moved to London and discovered the Rye Stamp & Hobby Shop in Peckham run by Bill Brewer. He sold stamps and Minifigs wargames figures and he told me of a wargames club called the South London Warlords of which he was treasurer. I have been a Warlord ever since.
At the Club only a few people played Napoleonics. We used Bruce Quarrie’s rules which nowadays would be regarded as unplayable. They did however offer a brilliant introduction to the period with lots of tables of national characteristics. I joined in games with Ian Spence’s French and Italians and Brendan Wheatley’s Spanish. I slowly acquired my own forces, mainly British Minifigs from Bill’s shop.
I participated in other periods, and I was introduced to an American called Brian Stokes. Brian had an innovative set of WW2 armoured warfare rules called Tank Charts, but he too was fascinated by Napoleonics. He had begun writing his own rules and gamed in California with 6mm figures. He was interested in how his rules would work with our larger figures and so the South London Warlords became a playtesting centre for his excellent Napoleonic rules called House Rules.
I had heard of a new place called the Wargames Holiday Centre in Thornton Le Dale in Yorkshire run by Peter Gilder. In 1980 I booked a full week’s holiday there and had a fantastic time gaming in the spectacular war room with that legendary collection of armies and terrain. In The Grand Manner was the rule set and this gaming experience filled me with the desire to have my own extensive Napoleonic collection.
One of the big changes in the 1980’s was the move to 15mm wargaming. Not a direction I wanted to take but I saw an opportunity as it meant 25mm figure collections would be sold off at Bring & Buys. Bring & Buys were very different back then as you could get some real bargains. I have a large collection, mainly bought in the 1980s and early 1990s. The cost was about 50p per painted figure, double for cavalry, which is equivalent to £2 today. As more and more exquisite 28mm figures ranges were produced many remaining 25mm gamers were enticed to invest in new 28mm armies and so more figures came my way. I also bought armies from friends. I am delighted to own Brendan’s beautifully painted Spanish (which I had long coveted), Ian’s Italians and Norman Thorpe’s Bavarians and Austrians, and I am grateful to Phil Portway for gifting me a unit of British cavalry. I have rebased them all to my basing style and I add the odd unit when I wish to.
The biggest manufacturer of 25mm Napoleonics was Minifigs, which have since been acquired by Caliver. These are the mainstay of my collection. Whenever I field them nowadays, they are called old-school, and they are, but they have a huge benefit. With figures having the same pose they can be realistically based very closely together so that they fit on what would be a 15mm base size. In other words, my armies have a 15mm footprint. I can set up a 12’ x 6’ table at home so using the 15mm ground scale my table is equivalent to about 18’ x 9’ if I was using 28mm figures. A significant piece of battlefield real estate.
Having chosen 25mm as my scale I was unable to buy any of the wonderful new 28mm figure ranges, but I was tempted by 54mm Napoleonic figures. I came across some metal Britains’ Collector Series at a medal fair, and I have collected various 54mm or 1/32nd plastic figures over the years. If you want to start out in Napoleonics I recommend Songs of Drums & Shakos. They give a great game for small skirmishes and work with any figure scale.
Back in the 1980s, a fellow Warlord Peter Edwards was into Napoleonics in a big way. He had chosen 15mm and he built up his armies on an industrial scale. His huge number of troops allowed us to play multi-player games. Peter was always keen to provide all the forces, and this made truly epic games a regular occurrence. Everyone who gamed with Peter was indebted to him for his contribution to our hobby.
A very special mention must also be given to the late Jim Cutler. Jim had bought an Avalon Hill wargame called ‘Napoleon at Bay’ and he decided to use it as a basis for running a campaign. He wanted to use Peter’s 15mm figures and involve all the Club’s Napoleonic gamers. I felt very honoured when Jim asked me privately if I was interested in being involved because he wanted me to take the role of Napoleon. I had very heavy work commitments at the time but just could not let the opportunity pass, so I agreed on two conditions. Firstly, that I could choose who I wanted as my Marshalls and secondly, to avoid any paperwork I wanted to meet Jim once a week in a pub of
his choice in Crystal Palace to discuss the campaign and give my orders. Jim agreed and the next 18 months were some of the best Napoleonic wargaming you could imagine.
Campaigns are difficult to run but Jim did this brilliantly. His home-grown rules were simple enough to get a result on a Club night and everyone was enthusiastic throughout the campaign. Marshall Marmont (Ian Spence), and Marshall Mortier (Mike McNally) did me proud and no-one could stand in the way of my cavalry commander Marshall Victor (the late Colin Dickens). The campaign was the 1813/14 winter campaign when Napoleon was defending France against the combined armies of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Jim wrote up an account of the campaign in the Club magazine. We did do very well. We won many a glorious victory and some clever ones, but in the end the weight of numbers was too much, and the outcome was historical. It would have been off to Elba for me.
Around that time Dave Brown’s General De Brigade came on the scene. No more moving armies at the whim of the gamer but a proper command and control system. We used these rules for years and I participated in a couple of the weekend battles that Dave organised and met great people and had more truly memorable gaming experiences.
Paul Spence then joined the Warlords. He was and remains a fan of General de Brigade. He was building his huge collection of 28mm Napoleonics and like Peter Edwards before him Paul generously provided his armies for Monday night Club games. Paul always like to do things big and would often say “You can never have enough Voltigeurs” or whatever unit he had newly acquired. This acquisition policy enabled us once again to have huge multiplayer games. Paul doesn’t do plastic figures and the trestle tables groaned under the weight of his lead. We had great fun and as Paul would often say with a big smile on his face as he surveyed those games – “Splendid!”
However, there is a flaw with General De Brigade, certainly for big Club games, and that is the time it takes to reach a conclusion. Our Club nights start at 7pm and considering the setting up and clearing away, there are only 3 hours of gaming at most. Unfortunately, this was about the time when you were just beginning to get a result rather than achieving it, which was always frustrating. Dave Brown was aware of this and created the faster playing General D’Armee. Games flow more smoothly, and we have had some very good gaming with them. General D’Armee 2 will be out soon.
Black Powder was an interesting set of rules as it was designed for big social games that could get a result in a Club evening. Some of us thought that this may be what we had been looking for. We did have great fun but there are flaws in the basic rules. Everyone has their own house rules to make the core game work which means new gamers cannot buy a working set of rules. We had hoped that this would have been corrected in Black Powder 2, but the flaws remain.
I now must mention my good friend Alan Patrick. He and I have been searching for some time for the perfect set of rules. We want big multiplayer games that get a result in the allocated time. We want the rules to be easy to learn and unintimidating for first time gamers, but we also want that true Napoleonic feel, and rules that give real command challenges. Last year we were excited when Valour & Fortitude appeared, as Jervis Johnson and the Perry twins seem to have the same objective. We have been using V&F for over a year and really like how they play. Version 1 was brutal, with entire brigades being lifted off after failed Fortitude tests but that allowed for huge games. We played Eylau, Friedland and Borodino with around 20 brigades a side and every time we had historical results and could better understand the challenges facing the real-life commanders. Finally, my collection was being fully utilised. V&F version 2 is even better and is suitable for small games as well as large. As I write this, I am eagerly anticipating next weekend’s game when Alan, Warren, Tony, Bryn, Michael, Jim, and Ted will be coming round for another big battle.
So, my Napoleonic wargaming is better now than it has ever been. It has been such a wonderful journey and long may it continue. If you would like to say hello and share your journey in Napoleonic wargaming then come along to Salute. I will be at the big Valour & Fortitude game.