Fuentes De Honore.

[Gothicserpent]

I am re-basing my peninsular armies from "another rule set" which uses a single line of figure's as regiment/battalions and using the Orbats from "Fuentes De honor"

I was initially going to re-base both WHOLE armies. Then common sense slapped me.

Now I think i will just do a couple 3-4 divisions of the British (The guard, the light and I think 3rd and sixth, and two corp from the french:

Each french corp has two regiment in two brigades in two divisions. along with some Cav (lights and dragoons)
and reserve Corp of Heavy cav (Don't worry, no Curasiers)
it should still retain the FEEL of the army, along with making it fun to play.

GS

[grant]

Sounds plausible. I am basing my French build on Leipzig to start. I picked Souham III Corps, which has ~22 regiments. I ignored the battalions per regiment, so it scales at 1:25.
So far, I have ready:
Brigade - 3 line - fully painted
Brigade - 3 light, 1 line - working on

3 guns
Cavalry Brigade - Dragoons painted, Hussars on the bench to be built.

So I still have about 14 more regiments to do!

I could literally work only on Leipzig for the rest of my life! It's angood thing I have other interests. Like the Soudan. And WW2. And naval. And. And. And.

[Comte Michel]

Now THAT is why 6mm is so nice for Napoleonic I have 7 full Corps to call on plus various other partial formations. Though I only have maybe a third of it rebased for BP so far. My big problem is a lack of personnel these days to command it all. I'd love to try a multiple Corps per side battle using BP rules, should be a lot easier than back in the day when we used the WRG rules.

[Gothicserpent]

Play testing this tonight, these are the special rules I have come up with:

British
Line Infantry, Guard Smoothbore Muskets Elite 4+, First Fire, Steady
Line/light Infantry Smoothbore Muskets First Fire
Line Infantry, Highland Smoothbore Muskets Ferocious Charge, Steady
Rifles, Small Rifled Musket Sharpshooters, Skirmish
Oels/Chassuers britanique Smoothbore Muskets unreliable

if British infantry are charged and they stop the charge with fire, if they pass their command roll, they can make an immediate counterattack even though it's not their phase.

Dragoons Sabres Ferocious Charge, must take any and all sweeping advance moves
Light Dragoons Sabres Marauders


Portuguese
Line Smoothbore Muskets first fire
Lights Smoothbore Muskets sharpshooters


French
Line Infantry Smoothbore Muskets Reliable Attack Column
Light Infantry Smoothbore Muskets Sharpshooters
Dragoons, Line Sabres Heavy Cavalry +1
Hussars/lights Sabres Mauraders

Thoughts?

[Comte Michel]

Looks OK. Not sure I would give the French Light Infantry the Sharpshooters rule though. From what I recall in practice they weren't much different from the Line except in name. You could perhaps give them Skirmish instead.

[Greenjacket]

Hi GothicSerpent,

We did a refight of Fuentes d'Onoro last year, focussing on the fight for the village, the retreat of the 7th Division and the epic retreat of the Light Division.

We laid out a fairly large village, but the fight became rather boring as the two sides just slugged their way up and down the houses. I suggest spreading the village out so there are spaces between small clusters of houses, so units can manouevre and do stuff. (Its one of those compromises you have to make between creating a historical refight and making an enjoyable wargame.)

Remember that the Light Infantry and the Guards tended to have very large battalions. The 1st Division and the "fighting third" 3rd Division also contained some of the best battalions in the British army (though of course, the Light Division regarded themselves as the elite!). And you'd surely have to rate the Connaught Rangers and the "Old Stubborns" as "tough fighters" at the very least!! The 7th Division were nicknamed "the mongrels" for a reason!

The French will win every time because of their massive numerical superiority in cavalry unless you factor in that historically the British/KGL cavalry was significantly better mounted than the French cavalry (and so they were able to make successive charges to drive the more numerous French cavalry back and allow the infantry to retreat). Of course the 1st Royal Dragoons and 1st KGL Hussars were excellent units in their own right. The incredible feat of the 1st KGL Hussars at El Bodon that same year suggests that it was a crack unit indeed.

The quality of the Army of Portugal varied a lot - just as Wellington's army consisted of a variety of elite units and raw units, so did the French Army of Portugal consist of evrything from tough veterans of the Grand Armee who had survived their campaign in Portugal, and conscripts.

II Corps had once been under Soult, but had had a very rough time of it in Spain and Portugal. What had been Ney's VI Corps was composed of veterans of the Grand Armee, but they had suffered leavy losses in the disastrous 1810 campaign, and were resentful at the sacking of their beloved Marshal. Units in Junot's French VIII Corps had had an unhappy existence prior to Fuentes d'Onoro. The battalions in these three Corps tended to be understrength because of the terrible losses suffered in the Portugese campaign, so French battalions tended on average to be smaller than their British equivalents. d'Erlon's IX Corps was cobbled together with conscript 4th battalions.
In keeping with common French practice, the Grenadier companies formed special elite battalions - it was these elite battalions wearing their bearskins and red plumes that contemporary British believed were the Imperial Guard. Even better, from a wargamers perspective, is that it allows you to have units that are uniformed much the same as the French Old Guard!! Also, by this time there was practically little difference from Ligne and Legere regiments.

As a wargame, you'll no doubt want to consider "what if" Bessieres had been a little less pissed off at Massena and allowed the Imperial Guard cavalry to intervene (and who can resist fielding units of the mighty Grenadiers a'cheval of the Imperial Guard, Polish Lancers of the Imperial Guard, and Mamelukes!!)

Lastly, remember that Massena was hated by his (in)subordinates. You possibly want to take that into account in your Command ratings!

[Gothicserpent]

All good suggestions, we did a test last night, and we are happy so far, so further tweaks will be undertaken

the one thing we noticed is how lame the "Infantry square" rules are. We will be doing some fiddling with that.

we didn't
get a chance to see how good/bad the British Fire and charge rule would go, so we will be giving the game another crack this Monday