Saturday, September 5, 2020

Napoleonic French: additions

My current Napoleonic collection has been created for playing Sharp Practice 2 and all my armies are far past the point of fielding reasonable SP2 forces with good selections of optional units. Vidal and I had a hankering to try Napoleonic games at a higher command level (not that we haven't done so before... but that was years ago with vastly larger collections and in a club setting). We decided to play a couple of games of Black Powder with the French and British (combining my collections with Vidal's) for some entertaining outings. But recently, Field of Battle 3 was published and having played my fair share of FoB2 back in the day with the old (i.e. not current) Napoleonic collection, we thought we would give the new version a spin. Our first outing was with Vidal's ECW collection and we were pleasantly surprised to find a good memory of the rules and, perhaps more importantly, the enjoyment of FoB. Thus, I believe we will continue on the FoB3 path for the foreseeable future (and SP2, of course).

My new approach, should I decide to build other SP2 forces, is to continue with single-based figures with sabots for the basic forces and associated supports. Once a decent variation in units is achieved, any additions will be multi-based for FoB3 games in order to minimize setup and pack-away time. Thus, some additions to my Napoleonic French...


Young Guard
(Wargames Foundry miniatures, GMB flags)
The SP2 portion is made up of two groups of  eight figures each and two groups of six skirmishers each. The rearmost unit is multi-based to match the dimensions of the single-based sabots (or at least roughly so). The eagle-eyed viewer will notice both formations are only 15 figures each. A miscalculation was made and more figures must be ordered... eventually.

Legere
(Warlord Games miniatures, GMB flags)
I originally built six groups of eight figures each for SP2 (+ two groups of skirmishers). I found a few extra sprues of the plastic Warlord figs and decided a fourth battalion would cleanly round out a FoB3 brigade (seen at front left above). 

These additions give the French force two brigades of infantry (with accompanying artillery) and two brigades of cavalry. Vidal's collection adds another brigade of infantry (+ artillery) ... so we have the makings of a small French corps for FoB3:

1er Brigade
Legere Infanterie
Legere Infanterie
Legere Infanterie
Legere Infanterie
Legere Infanterie (sk)
Artillerie a Pied

2e Brigade
Ligne Infanterie
Ligne Infanterie
Ligne Infanterie
Ligne Infanterie (sk)
Artillerie a Pied

3e Brigade (Jeune Garde)
Tirailleurs
Voltigeurs
Tirailleurs (sk)

4e Brigade
Chasseurs a Cheval
Chasseurs a Cheval
Artillerie a Cheval

5e Brigade
Grenadiers a Cheval
Dragons de l'Emperatrice

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