Phew!

What a scorcher! And I don’t just mean the welcome sunny weather over the last couple of days. After a good night’s sleep I’m able to reflect on a hectic weekend of hobby-related activity that has seen me escort von Peter and ADC Simon to Calpe Towers and then onwards to Partizan and back with Peter F. It’s hard to know where to begin so I think it’ll be simplest to take things in chronological order.

That means we’ll start with an overnight stay at Calpe Towers enjoying the hospitality of Peter F. and family. There was a lot of discussion about the usual topics: painting, uniforms, the imminent Saxon range (and some exciting plans beyond that!) and the upcoming adjustments to the website. It doesn’t take psychic powers for me to deduce that many BfK regulars will want news of the Saxons above all else.

Well, the full set of production moulds for the march/attack musketeers is complete and I’ve got a set of castings sitting here on the desk beside me in Bfk HQ as I write this. The number of variants is astounding: more than enough to do a 32-figure battalion without a single figure repeat. And there’s plenty of little details to admire across the figures. The three foot officers and three mounted officers demonstrate this brilliantly with their range of headwear, jacket and legwear options. Just make sure you read the uniform notes with care to get the colours right before you wield your paintbrushes!

Peter’s going to write up the release notes this week and “magic dip” some figures for proper photographs for the new section of the Calpe website. With that in mind, I’m going to restrain myself from including any homebrew sub-standard pictures of unpainted figures here. I promise you’ll see the official shots on BfK first plus, of course, WIP on ones that I paint. The intention is to aim for a 1st June release date. Meanwhile, on the Saxon front, plans are in hand for a second set of musketeers in advancing pose, line grenadiers, artillery and two sets of light infantry (plus all the other troop types required for the 23rd and 24th divisions of Reynier’s corps). Peter is also in the middle of sculpting the new versions of the Prussian dragoons that will have the saddle furniture integral with the mounted figure rather than on the horse.

Peter F’s already painting his first Saxon battalion so we spent a lot of time inspecting the workbench and leafing through uniform plates discussing colours, accurate uniformology and reasonable conjectures for campaign kit. This set my mind racing about the possibilities and I’m going to have to adjust several of my painting palette choices.

Sunday saw us take the road North to Partizan at Kelham Hall. The only disappointment was that none of the traders had the supplies I was hoping to pick up but that’s easily resolved with a bit of online ordering and more than made up for by everything else at the show. It really is a day when you seem to bump into everybody and share a pleasant cup of coffee and/or chat. I enjoyed seeing a WW1 trench warfare game, a bijou 1066 game that would have fitted on my dining table and what looked like something inspired by Ice Station Zebra.

There was also a second chance to see two of my favourites from Salute. The Perry Twins ran their Quatre Bras game again but this time with added cotton wool smoke and flashing red LEDs to simulate musket and cannon fire. If I’d had my tripod with me I could have captured the effect on camera for you. The whole thing was a source of much mirth and Alan didn’t seem to averse to the suggestion of visiting to take proper pictures. The other news from the Quatre Bras game is that the Black Powder rules are almost ready for publication. We do seem to be on the cusp of the apeparance of glut of new Napoleonic big battalions rulesets and I feel a big comparison review coming on at some point.

The other Salute re-appearance was Barry Hilton’s Peninsular War game. This time with the added attraction of several of Barry’s friends from Scotland. I was especially delighted to see David Imrie again. Particularly because the game featured his massive 100-figure French legere unit (split into two 48-figure units for the occasion but we re-arranged them when Barry waan’t looking) that I mentioned the other week. It looks even better in reality that in the photos and David confirmed several things about how he’d put the unit together and based it that will certainly inform my future unit plans. David also had an only slightly smaller French line unit involved in the action. I’m hoping he’ll publish some pictures of this soon too. And there’s the prospect of a Napolenic game if we can hook up on my usual Summer trip to Scotland. My sister-in-law will have to manage without the pleasure of my company on one evening of the holiday!

Planning for Partizan

If all goes to plan, at precisely this moment in a week’s time, I’ll be enjoying the refreshments on offer at Kelham Hall as I attend Partizan in the company of Peter F, von Peter and his young ADC, Simon.

Kelham Hall is at Newark (that’s “somewhere up North”) and I live in the West Country, so it takes quite an effort to get there and, as a consequence, I don’t go every year. This year, the trip has taken on the proportions of a ruthlessly planned mission because I have to pick up two of the party on Saturday afternoon and head for basecamp at Calpe Towers. Then we have an overnight stay there prior to our assault on the summit via the A1.

All the planning should bring a worthwhile reward though because Partizan is one of my favourite shows. Partly that’s because the very fact that I don’t go every year means I don’t get the chance to fall into complacement familiarity with it. Also it’s because Partizan has a unique atmosphere of it’s own in the way it combines the qualities of a big national event with the cosy camerarderie of a local club show. But the main attraction of Partizan is that it usually boasts the highest quality demonstration games.

You can never be quite sure which games and traders will be there until the day itself (the website doesn’t seem to be entirely up-to-date) but I’m already licking my lips at a second chance to see the Perrys’ Quatre Bras demo and the League of Gentleman Gamers’ offering. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the latter will provide an opportunity to inspect David Imrie’s new large French units. Ever since I saw some photos on Steve Dean’s forum I’ve been wondering about adopting some of the ideas – in particular the 60×60mm square bases.

The extra real-estate on these bases is something that David has used to enviable effect. It’s provided room for impressive use of the Silflor grass tufts. One thing I quickly realised is that there’s no point in being stingy with these tufts – the mass effect of lots of them to create drifts of grass is definitely the way to go. David also placed other items like dead casualties in this extra space and I intend to emulate him as well as adding abandoned drums, broken artillery equipment and muddy varnish puddles. All of this will come into play as soon as I get started on my first Saxon battalion. I’m also considering a move over to the 3mm thick versions of the Litko plywood bases to avoid warping given the larger 60×60mm size.

In fact, I’m getting really itchy palms just typing this and I’m hopeful of having a full battalion’s worth of Calpe Saxon musketeers in my hot little hands RSN. Peter F. and I have been discussing the changes we will need to make to the Calpe website when the official release date arrives and I hope you’ll appreciate the specific improvements we’re hoping to make.

In the meantime, I’ll be the one at Partizan feverishly looking out for the Andrea Miniatures white paint set (thanks for the tip, Harry the Elder), Silflor 6mm Autumn grass tufts and that trader who had Litko bases at Salute. If any of you know where I should look, let me know!

More Republic to Empire clues

Just a quick post to say that Barry’s made a second teaser PDF available for free download. This one covers the thorny topic of scales: time, ground (horizontal) and vertical as well as figure ratios. Of course, the natural corollory of talking about scales is to talk about basing sizes and weapons ranges. And Barry doesn’t shirk from giving his fully thought out musings on these topics. There’s also some brief guidance on using the rules for figure scales other than 28mm.

I haven’t had time to do any more than skim through this document tonight but hopefully I’ll be able to read it in more detail and fully digest over the next few days. If I manage that, I’ll post a few more thoughtful observations here.

First clues about Republic to Empire

Barry Hilton and his co-conspiritors (who include the likes of Clarence Harrison and David Imrie) have been cooking up and playtesting a new Napoleonic ruleset for some considerable time. Various hints, discussions and photographs have appeared on Barry’s League of Augsburg site over recent months but now something we can actually get our teeth into has emerged.

Barry’s just released an extract from these Republic to Empire rules as a freely downloadable PDF file. It question covers the topic of “Creating your army” and provides an insight into unit types, sizes, grading and basing for the rules.

If you’re a stickler for detailed historical accuracy, then you’ll see some compromises and generalizatons but I suspect that these are pragmatic in the cause of creating an enjoyable and playable ruleset. We’ll only be able to judge that when the complete set is unveiled. The extract is divided into the following sub-sections:

• Historical organization of Napoleonic units: this provides a brief overview of infantry, cavalry and artillery with info about unit types and size. The emphasis is very much on battlefield reality rather than theoretical regulation strengths.
• Unit sizes in the game: without explicitly mentioning it, this section makes it clear that the nominal figure ratio of Republic to Empire is 1:20 and the tactical units are battalions, squadrons and batteries. There’s a lot of flexibility to unit sizes to reflect the reality of under-strength units. I particularly like the discussion of extremely under-strength units (say, battalions of 250 men) and their brittle nature if used as individual units. The rules provide the option of converging two weak battalions together as a regiment to operate as a single tactical unit. The pros and cons of this option are neatly summarized and, as an 1813/14 gamer, I like how this reflects the reality of the situation and how commanders faced with it made just these sorts of choices.
• Unit quality: the rules allow for four quality designations – Guards, Veteran, Drilled and Recruits and are strict about limiting the highest quality to only the very best. Some of you may be disappointed that your own favourites don’t make guard quality here. In addition, there’s an additional Elite rating that can be applied to the Veteran, Drilled and Recruits quality designations that offers a morale bonus but no other performance advantage. It’s designed to reflect when a unit has a high degree of self-confidence.
• Army sizes in the game: Gives an indication of the size of opposing forces that the rules are designed to cope with. It should come as no surprise that divisional actions come at the lower end while much larger encounters are possible and I know Barry and his friends have playtested the rules on scenarios for full-scale battles like Ligny.
• Basing your models: this section explains that the rules are designed to cope with a range of existing basing conventions but recommend 15mm per figure frontages for infantry and 20mm frontages for cavalry (for 28mm miniatures). Again, pragmatism reigns and slightly larger frontages are OK too. Detailed suggestions are covered for basing (formed) infantry, skirmishers, cavalry, artillery and field/general officers. The final version of the rules will include illustrative photographs of basing.

There is one potentially controversial area in which Barry has deviated from conventional wisdom. His basing scheme for artillery calls for more than just the guns of a battery to be taken into account for unit depth. In an attempt to reflect the reality of the train of each battery, the Republic to Empire rules designate an area behind each battery as a no-go area for other units. Now some may find this clutters up their tables but I think the idea has promise.

Overall, my initial impression is favourable, bordering on enthusiastic but I shall have to wait to see more of the game mechanics before reaching a conclusion. What this extract shows is that Republic to Empire is a big battalions ruleset after my own heart and that I’ll be able to use figures I base for General de Brigade for it too. The question that can’t be answered at this stage is what will Republic to Empire offer over General de Brigade?