General de Brigade

[terry1956]

Hi all, can anyone please let me know why these rules use units that are so big, I mean to say is there a need for 36, 46 and in some cases 56 man units ????
I have used Empire napoleonic rules which give good game, and the units are a lot smaller, around 12 figures per battalion, 36 to a brigade and so on.
Why has it got to be 20:1. It looks to me the only winners here are the figures makers, It would take a life time to paint these units for any large size battle.
Answers please.terry

PS. still looking for gamers
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I am 49 going on 9 ;-)

[Swampster]

Because people like the look. You could easily use the same rules with single ranked bns and halve the number of figures that way, but folks like the appearance.
At our club we have a split between those who like 1:20 and those who prefer 1:50 etc.
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Swampster

[baztanz]

I would agree with swampster, with most people who enjoy these rules size does matter. It is not written in concrete however and the ratio's can be changed to suit, but if you want to truly fight Brigade type battles why would you want small Battalions.
For people starting I can understand the horrow of contemplating time and money, but it is in the end worth it. Stick with the big view and you will find the effort rewarding.

[AV_Suvoroff]

One of the reasons I quit my old game system (Napoleon's Battles) was that I was tired of the itsy-bitsy units.

Yours,
James D. Gray

[KenR]

Its quite straight forward to change the rules to fit any figure scale, the melee and morale are based on % so dont need changing, the musketry can be changed by changing the number of figures firing to your ratio ie for 1:50 multiply the number of figs firing by 20 and divide by 50 changing the table. The only real problem is artillery which just need a couple of play tests to tweek.

Ken

[Extra Crispy]

It is just about looks. Myself, I could never see 12 figuresa as a "unit." If you're only going to field a few regiments, 12 figure battalions makes it look like a skirmish game.

Now if you're going to field 100 battalions, 12 figure units is fine because there's a lot of figures onthe table. My group primarily likes 1:40 or 1:50 rules sets, but even then we only do grand tactical, so either way we have 1500-2000 figures on the table at a given time!

After all, you could just use cardboard counters with no figures.
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Mark "Extra Crispy" Severin
Owner, ScaleCreep.com
Author, DeepFriedHappyMice.com

[baxterj]

Some of the numbers that you quoted are probably full strength units that we wouldn’t use.

Many of those who use GdeB prefer the big unit look. If you are playing a battalion level game, 10-12 fig battalions in a single rank just doesn’t look any good. There are scenarios in the Valmy to Waterloo rules that allow for 2 or 4 fig cav regts – why bother?

I think that Sam Mustafa in his excellent Grande Armee rules recognised that the tactical rules such as Empire and VtoW that used the battalion as the core unit in the game were fundamentally flawed. IMHO they want the figure scale to be high, but then include all the tactical chrome. Sam M realised if you want to play larger games with a relatively small number of units, then the battalion is redundant.

If you think that building battalions a 1:20 is too hard (and I don’t argue that it isnt), then maybe a brigade level game is better, but if you had seen the game we played last week with 3 x 48 fig Austrian battalions with another 2 x 36 figure battalions behind them, you would see the beauty of the 1:20 scale – it really liked like an Austrian brigade, not a skirmish line.

John

[baxterj]

Some of the numbers that you quoted are probably full strength units that we wouldn’t use.

Many of those who use GdeB prefer the big unit look. If you are playing a battalion level game, 10-12 fig battalions in a single rank just doesn’t look any good. There are scenarios in the Valmy to Waterloo rules that allow for 2 or 4 fig cav regts – why bother?

I think that Sam Mustafa in his excellent Grande Armee rules recognised that the tactical rules such as Empire and VtoW that used the battalion as the core unit in the game were fundamentally flawed. IMHO they want the figure scale to be high, but then include all the tactical chrome. Sam M realised if you want to play larger games with a relatively small number of units, then the battalion is redundant.

If you think that building battalions a 1:20 is too hard (and I don’t argue that it isnt), then maybe a brigade level game is better, but if you had seen the game we played last week with 3 x 48 fig Austrian battalions with another 2 x 36 figure battalions behind them, you would see the beauty of the 1:20 scale – it really looked like an Austrian brigade, not a skirmish line.

John

[terry1956]

Hi, thanks for the reply.From what must of you are saying its the look of the think that counts, well yes I can buy into that. But when I used Empire rules, yes it did use battalions, but must of the work was done by brigade, or division. I remember that a british brigade was made up of 3 or more battalion,s so giving around 36 to 48 figures, with 10 brigades of infantry on the table, we are looking at between 360 to 480 figures, add cavalry, say 3 brigades at 36 figures each, and then artillery at say 6 batteries, that adds up to around 468 to 588 figures plus guns etc per side giving a total of around 936 to 1176 FIGURES on the table, Men thats not a small game for two players.And all sorted in under 4 to 5 hours depending on how one knew the rules.
I think a lot of people just did not understand the empire rule set and tryed to play them like orther rule sets around at the time, I watched a few games when players spend ages playing around at battalion level, tahts not the rules fault its the players for not reading them correct.
God I have gone on, sorry. terry
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I am 49 going on 9 ;-)

[Jacko27]

Terry
One of the most significant attractions of gaming the napoleonic period in my view, that sets it apart from other periods is the sheer visual spectacle of the huge variety of different colour uniforms that can be fielded.
Dozens of troop types/uniforms within lots of different nationalities stretching across a reasonably long period when the detail changes within individual nationalities and located across widely different global locations.
Given all that magnificent variety I cant see the point of then recreating it with a rule system that has a brigade of infantry represented by 12 men.
You just lose all of that visual element of wargaming that sets it apart from strategy board games or even chess.
Dont get me wrong, I am not saying that other rules systems dont give enjoyable and realistic (at least in some cases!) tactical napoleonic games but they dont show the true impact of a battle as do the higher figure scale games.
True enough there is a price to be paid-both literally and figuratively with increased cost of many many more figures and paints etc,more time required to paint and much more space and time needed to play the bigger battles-but in my view it is a price well worth paying to see and play in a really big recreation of Austerlitz or Waterloo or even the mother of them all Leipzig.
Its almost better than sex
ALMOST

[valleyboy]

Terry, don't despair
Buy a few packs of minifigs in greatcoats, throw in a smattering of a few figs in full uniform, the odd mounted colonel and you'll be surprised how quick and easy things can grow. In next to no time you''ll have 6x36 binfantry battalions.Same for cav, but for these put together a few 12 fig units and gradually build up and paint up as units of 12. Its not too expensive and you can always spend a bit more on the more impressive figure ranges for the odd battalion later. That's how I started as a poor student and now around 20 yrs later I've somehow amassed around 7,000 of them

[terry1956]

Hi there, I think you are all missing the point, I just don,t see the point in having so many figures, Are you going to use 7000 napoleonic figures ????
I think I will stick with 12 figure battalions,
terry
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I am 49 going on 9 ;-)

[benjaminw1]

[Jacko27]

Terry
Yes-there are people who post on here who have well in excess of 7000 figures who use them regularly.
Not all at once but they are likely to be from several different periods/nationalities which can be used in a variety of scenarios or battles.
Big set piece battles taking a long weekend do occur when 7000 per side will be fielded.
Granted these size games work as multi-player games best and considerably fewer troops are the norm probably no more than 1000 figures per side-
Its entirely up to you how you want to game of course but I would suggest that if you dont see the point of larger units then perhaps G de B isnt for you.
Richard

[terry1956]

Richard, I think you maybe right, I just don,t see the point, I remember years ago around 30 years ago people used large units, then it went down to smaller units but more on the table, and that allowed a player to bring to bar the use of reserve units, the old guard formed a part as the should,ie reserve or last hope. The use of heavy cavalry units was used in the correct way and palyers where allowed to take the part and think like CIC,s and not just colonels etc, but I just do not see why one needs a 1:20 scale set of rules to do this.
I think that I will stick with what I know works and build an army up on that scale, but hope that knowones minds me sticking around, after all we all have one think in common a love of Napoleonics.
terry
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I am 49 going on 9 ;-)