Grand Battery: A Guide & Rules for Napoleonic Wargames

By Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell

How would you have fared as one Napoleon's marshals, or in command of a division of redoutable British redcoats under Wellington? Grand Battery offers you the chance to find out. This book includes all the rules you need to play miniature wargames set in the Napoleonic Wars, plus plenty of useful background information you need to get started.The book provides a concise historical overview of the events and battles of the period, and includes sections on the weapons and tactics of the various armies. The buyer's guide gives an up-to-date survey of the wealth of ranges of miniatures available and advice on which are compatible with which. Organizational tables give a breakdown of typical formations for all the major combatants and most of the minor ones (any one for a Wurttemburg infantry division?), allowing you to structure your collection and also to organize hypothetical games quickly with 'off the peg' orders of battle. Three historical scenarios are also included, each with their own specific orders of battle, maps, objectives and victory conditions.The rules themselves, which utilize an innovative card-driven turn sequence to simulate the unpredictable ebb and flow of battle, are designed for playability, while still giving 'realistic' results and rewarding sound tactics. Though designed primarily for division level games with 25 or 15mm figures, the command and control system takes account of corps or even the largest army level games and they are easily adaptable to any figure scale. Get ready to march to the sound of the guns!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781783461073

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the first of Pen & Sword’s series of wargaming guides and rules. The series is much more than a set of wargame rules or a description of the weapons and tactics of the period. In this title you will find a brief history of the period, a primer on the weapons and tactics used by the protagonists and information about the uniforms and transport used.

The series is aimed at the wargamer, the newcomer to the hobby and the old hand with years of experience of building up miniature forces and playing wargames. The rules are designed to be easy to pick up and play, novel in their approach and above all, as close a representation of the real fighting as possible. It is never likely that we can reproduce what happened on a real battlefield, but the rules are designed to give a true flavour of the type of warfare without overcomplicating things and making the game play ponderous to the point that they are unplayable.

Wargaming is a social activity in the main and the rules assume that the hours that the wargamer has spent alone organising, painting, basing and protecting the figures and vehicles will be rewarded by a game with fellow players. That said, it is perfectly possible to play against a programmed ‘dummy’ opponent who will try to react to your actions and will attempt to mimic the tactics and strategy used by a real enemy on the battlefield.

Grand Battery covers the broad sweep of the Napoleonic Wars, essentially a series of wars fought between France and other nations between 1799 and 1815. We arbitrarily choose this period as 1799 was the year in which France came under the domination of Napoleon Bonaparte. The guide covers a wide variety of different nations, from the Austrians to the Ottoman Turks and from the British to the innumerable German states. The scenarios in this book are designed to provide a taste of gaming the period with three battles from 1793-1815,

The guide also includes a unique buyer’s guide which details most of the manufacturers of figures and vehicles for the period; additional sections cover terrain and buildings. Each set of rules in the series will be supported by a series of scenario books. Each of these focuses on a theatre of the war or a particular aspect of the warfare, such as the Peninsular War or Napoleon’s campaigns in Egypt. Each scenario book will include at least twenty scaled scenarios with additional rules, new organisation charts and original photographs of the games in progress.

Pen and Sword also have online resources to support the series, at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk and there you will find additional scenarios, rules clarifications, battle reports, downloadable cards, templates and ready reference sheets and a host of other game support.

Have fun and good gaming!

Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell

CHAPTER 1:

Period History, Chronology and Major Battles

Chronology of Napoleonic Battles

The Napoleonic Wars, although they only spanned around sixteen years, involved nearly every European nation. The wars also spilled out into North and South America and into Egypt. The Napoleonic Wars were primarily fought between France and her allies and a shifting coalition of nations. A constant against the French were the British and at various times they were in alliances with Russia, Austria, Portugal and other countries.

The Napoleonic Wars represent perhaps the first total war; in the sense that the wars were being fought by primarily conscripted soldiers and whole nations found themselves embroiled in the conflict rather than their professional armies.

The French managed to fashion a huge number of victories, some of which would knock nations out of the conflict for some months or years before they could recover. There were periods of peace, but they were short-lived. Systematically the French under Napoleon attempted to dominate Europe and reshape the states as they saw fit.

The wars saw innumerable small skirmishes and engagements, but also vast battles with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of men involved. In Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 he took with him an army of half a million men. This chapter can only scratch the surface of the Napoleonic period. It begins with a chronology identifying the key events and battles. We then turn our attention to some of the key engagements of the Napoleonic Wars, leading up to the last throw of the dice by Napoleon and the French, which ultimately ended in the destruction of his army at Waterloo and his exile, which marked the end of the Napoleonic period.

In this part of the chapter we look at some of the key engagements. Some can be easily converted into wargames scenarios, whilst others are vast, sprawling battles that are best played as discrete sections, focusing on particular key episodes within the battles. The battles listed are in date order. The Peninsular War battles are detailed as distinct wargame scenarios in both Chapter 8 of this book (where three have been selected) and in the accompanying Wargames Scenarios: The Peninsular War 1808-1814.

The