Critical reflections on our first 10mm set-up

Our first game is underway. This one is literally a "line 'em up & go" affair. My goal is to get a feel for this new scale to see if it works for me or not. I am relieved & pleased to say that so far it does. The General D'Armee rules are perfect for larger games & the extra space created looks much more pleasing than the crowded tables of our 28mm games.

However, this post is about me reflecting on what needs to change & what we need to do next. This is a work in progress & I am not entirely happy with the aesthetic of the table top yet.

I don't think we've sacrificed too much in detail & quality of paint work.  

Flank companies from a French line battalion. Rearmost stand of three per battalion.

All figures are Magister Militum & Old Glory and, unless otherwise stated, painted by Barry Hill's chaps - many thanks Barry, these look amazing.

This game is somewhat premature as the models aren't entirely finished. We need to get basing & sort out some flags to make these units really "pop" on the table top. We couldn't resist getting them out for a game though. 

We have elected to use the movement distances & ranges for 28mm models in General d'Armee but using centimeters instead of inches. Hence a battalion column moves 9cm not 9 inches. This worked very well as time & space just gets bigger. We have the time & space to watch these battles develop so there's no need for "snappy nappy" at Marauder HQ..   

The scene is set for game one of a new era for the Marauders. 

The armies deploy. For now we are only using the central table.

Our solitary building. This is a fruit farm surrounded by orchards.
We clearly need more buildings, a solution is in hand as I write this.   

Buildings

We elected to use 6mm buildings. We'll see how this pans out but initial feelings are that they work just fine. The farm above is from Battlescale Wargame Buildings, they sell on ebay & facebook. I have a few more of these to paint up plus a ruined church & a windmill. These will represent farmsteads or single buildings too small for large formations of troops to occupy. Basically they will look pretty, provide structure to the tabletop as well as obstacles to movement or anchors for flanks.

For towns & built up areas we have picked up some excellent pieces from Total Battle Miniatures. These are resin and come on attractive village bases complete with hedges, walls, etc cast onto them. I'll get some shots up soon. The 6mm buildings along side 10mm models look OK & means we can get a greater density of houses so towns look like towns where possible. They are also much cheaper than 10mm products!   

The French right moves up with heavy cavalry in close support.

Woods

We have bucket loads of trees for 28mm but they really don't transfer to this new scale of gaming. We ventured out to a show at Newark two years ago when this project was initiated & found some guys called Tree Fellas, they sell tiddly trees which seemed to fit the bill perfectly. In a surprising move we bought ALL the trees on the stand bar some palms! Feeling very pleased we went off the the bar for a lemonade. When we next passed his stand we found it fully restocked with some chap trying to buy a few - somewhat cross about this I barged in & bought ALL his trees again insisting that he reveal any others to me just in case. We now have plenty of trees!

The green bases we are using for woods just look like childish crap on reflection. So we'll revert to the brown flocked ones in use previously. We could flesh these out a bit with clumping flock or whatever that bushy foam stuff is called.
 

I like the trees a lot. I dislike the base of the wood and the hills - they are entirely functional but not pretty enough! 

Hills

My feeling was that these ancient TSS hills could do the job and to be fair they would. However, I think having looked at many blogs & demo games pics online, we can do better. Our scenery store room revealed a pile of better hills from The Scene which we picked up some years ago too. These will do as a start BUT I mean to "pimp" them! I spent an evening watching terrain tutorials on youtube and decided "if I can make a redoubt I can pimp a hill". To this end I spanked a few quid on various bags of sand & flock, found my tub of PVA & will begin tarting these up so they all look a bit more presentable & uniform in appearance. To be honest I'm a wee bit nervous about this but hey - what could possibly go wrong? 

An Austrian infantry brigade prepares to scale the unsightly hill!  

The models

For the most part these are from Magister Militum & Old Glory. Barry Hill is painting the vast majority. We have about 70 battalions painted with about 30 more planned. Cavalry is more numerous than our 28mm collection with about 30 regiments available. Batteries & skirmishers we have loads of plus generals. We have dispensed with basing by companies & squadrons; rather than explain have a look the system in the photos - it works a treat. Chris wants us to get movement trays & I suspect he is right, he is about to have some time on his hands so perhaps he can order some?

I am conscious that the units don't "pop" just yet but in my experience the addition of flags & a pretty base makes them look exponentially better. For future battle reports I may use the odd close-up of 28mm models mixed in, what do we think about that?

The forces are initially French & Austrian. The French are already reinforced by a Wurttemberg brigade painted by Tony plus he is working on a Westphalian brigade. A division of Poles is with Barry Hill for painting. No doubt we will add other French allies in time. Lastly for the French I am sat on 3 x 32 dragoons, 3 x 24 hussars, 3 x 24 chasseurs a cheval plus 32 Dutch Red lancers. The Austrians have another twelve battalions in the wings plus more cavalry. When this lot is done we'll take stock.          

 

French Old Guard cavalry in reserve. Grenadiers a Cheval & Chasseurs a Cheval complete with Mamluk squadron.` 

Roads & rivers

As of today I have no idea what to do about roads! We don't technically need them but they add a logical network between villages and farms & structure to the look of the thing.

Rivers we have plenty of & in two widths so for now we'll stick with these although some "pimping" might be in order here too! Not sure yet.

A Wurtemburg brigade complete with limbered artillery & flags, these just need basing & they're finished.
Brushwork by Tony.   

My hope is that this project will look amazing & provide some really interesting epic battle reports for you. This post has allowed me to solidify some thoughts on where we are & how to move this forward. I am usually very certain of my plans but this is new territory & a massive investment so any comments & pointers would be gratefully received.

Hopefully everything we have started will be finished this year - if we keep up the momentum it will be. In the meantime we'll keep playing & maybe even write up a few reports for you - who knows!

Best wishes,

Jeremy    

The first of the new Austrians - The cavalry brigades.

The new collection is rapidly developing. Here we have the first eleven Austrian cavalry regiments. The eagle eyed will note that the painters gave them all French flags, luckily this is easily rectified.

The cavalry wing will develop further, for instance there are another 2 regiments of hussars on the way with 8 more battalions of foot! Here is what we have so far, ready to be based up properly. 

Four regiments of cuirassiers, each 32 strong.

Those heavies again. These could be fielded as one big brigade or two smaller ones; nice to have the choice.
The idea of committing this lot to the line of battle from reserve appeals to me a lot!

An Austrian light cavalry brigade. Two 32 strong regiments of uhlan & 32 hussars.
We will employ a mix of larger and smaller light cavalry for the Austrians to mix things up a bit!  

Austrian light cavalry with French flags & French general!

Lastly we have four regiments of Chevau Legere, each 24 strong.
Here they are pictured riding up the left flank of the Austrian attack columes as a screen.  

The French are now at a similar stage of development (as of last night). However I am on holiday for ten days so our next big post in this series will be our first game. This will feature lots of hills, woods & possibly rivers & marshes plus as many buildings as we can muster by then. We are woefully short of buildings & those I ordered haven't turned up yet. 

I will do a full battle report series with orbats, objectives and fluffy background rationale for the encounter. Hopefully this will demonstrate the scale of game now available to us.

I hope these posts are proving of interest while we get the collection battle fit? All game play has been suspended to maximize time on getting these ready for action.

Best wishes as always,

Jeremy 

The first of the new Austrians - The infantry brigades, a WIP.

The core of any Napoleonic army is a lot of battalions of infantry, so that's where our new collection started. For the Austrians we have about twenty 48 strong line battalions, six 36 Grenadiers and about six or eight 32 strong Landwehr battalions. There are more on the way totalling about forty odd units. We have fifty stands of skirmishers, each with a pair of little fellas taking pot shots.     

Most of the Austrians (so far) deployed in depth. 

You will notice there is no scenery here so we must assume these boys are on exercise on the virtually featureless Marchfeld. Don't get lost fellas! 

Brigades will be four to five battalions strong, often of mixed types.   

A five battalion brigade. Three 48 strong line battalions up front, two 32 strong LDW in support.
Skirmishers not yet deployed.  

Two Austrian infantry brigades attack with part of a third pictured in support.
Light cavalry move up on the flank from the rear.   

Three batteries massed in the centre, cannons will be glued on after these are based in the usual Marauder way.
A strong brigade supports behind & Grenadier brigade behind that in reserve.

German line battalions round a farmstead.
Initially we're going to use 6mm buildings as they seem to fit just fine so far.  

Grenadiers support two infantry brigades each with a battery, skirmishers sent forward. 

The Austrian centre and Grand battery from behind as the left moves up .

The Austrian left flank attacks; three brigades in attack formation with light cavalry brigades covering the wing. 

So, tomorrow I'll introduce the first Regiments of Austrian cavalry. Tomorrow night we glue down twenty battalions of French infantry. Artillery, skirmishers & cavalry already done. We have a shit load of basing to do in the coming months... Also flags, limbers and all the extras; well, why not?  

I'll do a post on the basing of various units and how we plan to do line, square etc. We are seriously considering movement trays too - ye gads!

Catch up soon, very best wishes,

Jeremy 

A new beginning at Marauder Moments

Hi there,

long time followers will know that we have been working on a secret new project at Marauder HQ for about two years now. Yes it is Napoleonic and yes we will continue to write big battle reports, hopefully with a renewed vim & vigour. 

Those mystery multitudinous wraps - your questions answered.

Dresden at Marauder HQ.
Spectacular? Yes.
Crowded? Sadly also Yes.  

Firstly some background. Various factors have led us to seek a different way of playing our games. Our mighty collections of glorious 28mm toys have sky rocketed in number in recent years meaning our mighty 14'6" x 14" table is too often cramped. The physical limits of Marauder HQ mean we cannot get a bigger table top, it can't happen! Our three visits to the Wargames Holiday Centre have confirmed that we want to play very big games - we can't. You see our conundrum.

Our answer has been to drop the figure size to 10mm. Understand this though... we are not giving up on 28mm. The sheer emotional and financial investment in those is too great to part with - some may go though. We could have used smaller units but that just looks wrong to us - we are 1:20 "Big battalion" wargamers.

Our table just got four times bigger as graphically illustrated above. 

By dropping to 10mm many things happen.
The table becomes twice as wide and twice as deep relative to the foot print of the units involved. This means an increased table top equivalent of 29" x 28" in comparison.
The available battlefield space quaduples as each battalion, regiment, battery takes up a quarter of the footprint - magical mathematics!
We will switch to a metric measurement for movement, shooting ranges, command spheres etc. This means no "Nippy Nappies" - deployment and maneuver will be critical in time and space.
We have to amass a collection AT LEAST as numerous as the 28mm collection - we're nearly there. Our aim is to reach twice as many units thereby playing with twice the units effectively on four times the area creating vastly more maneuver space and realistic gaps between formations.
This all has to be painted - much is done, thanks Barry. Basing is underway.
A new collection of terrain is required. Woods have been purchased, buildings are being painted. Hills & rivers we have in bucket loads so our investment in scenery over 25 years has come to our rescue.

Lots of space to play with, we'll get some scenery photographed soon for you. 

Sure we could have gone to 6mm, but my old eyes can't always see what's what! The detail on modern 10mm's is amazing & Barry Hill's painters have done them no less justice than they did the 28's. More on this to follow. 

10mm Austrian Line - excellent detail, they are approx a quarter of this size in real life

More details.

Here's how they arrive. Note the details on the reverse of these Grenadiers bearskins.

A reserve brigade of three battalions of Austrian Grenadiers, note stripey flag poles.

We have chosen to start with French & Austrians to play the 1809 campaign in Germany & Italy. Next will be Russians opening up 1805, 1807, 1812 & 1813. Finally Prussians adding 1814 to the mix. The Peninsular suits our 28mm collection better.

The joys of the WHC. Stress & tension. We want to play with more toys on bigger spaces. The stress goes up, the decision making increases, the tension grows, the chance to make mistakes magnifies. All great ingredients for high stakes wargaming.

We can & will continue to play with the 28mm collection creating smaller one off games over a week or two leaving the BIG sweeping encounters to multi-week slugfests in 10mm! The occasional weekend games could certainly still be 28mm - they are just too pretty to forget about. 

Beautiful scenery at  WHC. We're working on villages. We have hills & woods. We might need lakes? 

This project will also introduce a new kind of post for you - "The WIP". I'm not given to these but they might keep the momentum going for us and provide extra Marauder Moments content for you fine people - I hope. These might include new units, an insight into basing, painting scenery, table building, maybe even more insight into scenario writing.

WHC - We want to retain the masse - just not so crowded.

WHC - Deploying massed cavalry columns appeals to me immensely - just maybe not so tightly packed.

Having reread a lot of our most popular battle reports it reminds me that I used to write far more narrative background for battles, some of it tongue in cheek, but that style tickled my fancy - long live the "fluff"! This might include the socio-economic goings on in the region, naming of all towns and mostly a reason for each battle to be fought and consequences if won or lost. These could be loosely linked into a narrative series of games. I want battles with context - ones you remember.

An Austrian Brigade of five battalions minus skirmish screen, gun battery & commander.

This speaks volumes - quite literally.

That's it for now. I hope you welcome this change, I suspect a few will baulk at the heresy of "tiddly toys" - so be it. For us it's an exciting new chapter and has got us all fired up like nothing else in ages. We'll still tart about with 40k and Titans but the blog will remain Big Battle Napoleonic.

We intend to retain the pretty elements of command vignettes wherever possible.

I look forward to reading your feedback - positive or negative...

Best wishes,

Jeremy                                                         "Vive le Marauders"                         

6mm land

Tony Laughton, my friend and brushman, asked us along to spy on a 6mm game he and his chum Andrew were playing. We Marauders have been contemplating this scale for some time, possibly flogging the 15mm stuff to take something truly vast in proportion if not height! No other bugger could come along so along I went on my own on a rainy Sunday morning. I had really no idea what to expect but was very pleased with what I came across, namely this Franco Prussian War encounter;-  

Prussian Corps artillery reserve comprising six batteries. Loved the limber and caisson teams, one per battery. 

Prussian infantry make their way to the front line through fields past hills and villages, Note the tiny dice on the command stand, smoke denotes firing in the bombardment phase I think.

Close up of Prussian battalions. That farmer needs to get those boulders out of his field.

The terrain is that Kalistra stuff I think. The plan seems to have been to have some kind of hex system in play but Polemos came along instead. Still looks good though, except some hills look pretty steep!

Looking down the line with French troops in the foreground.

Close up of the road and farm with an orchard by the battery which is obscured by smoke. The road is way too wide for me but then these things are always an issue in wargaming and really as long as it looks good I don't really care.

More French heading for the Prussians. Up on the hill are four regiments of French heavy cavalry ready to charge down against Prussian veterans behind a mile long stone wall, suicide?

My time machine takes me back to this Roman Legion complete with scorpions and Auxiliary foot and cavalry. Pretty awesome in 6mm, they had matching Gauls too including very many chariots. Might have been Celts actually - fancy trousered loons either way.

Time machine whips us forward to Napoleonic times; here we have French, 16 battalions with supporting artillery and coffee mug for scale.  

Sans coffee mug.

Davout - a tiny ting marshall.

Most of the battlefield. This was a 6x4 foot and has space for a corps level game plus more. Both sides with reserves on table and space to move, extraordinary really, especially for we 28mm nutters stuck with acres of scenery and nowhere to move about! 

Parting shot of a Prussian Division complete with artillery and organic cavalry. One of my 28mm battalions occupy more space than this and as for the cost! Food for thought...

Thanks to Tony and Andrew for allowing me a glimpse into their gaming world, this kind of thing is always a privilege and is much appreciated gents.

What did I make of it? Frankly it was inspiring. But then much in wargaming is inspiring and the temptation gene in we wargamers is weak and must be resisted. If we venture into 6mm it will be on a vast scale I am sure. Jerry Elliott's forthcoming rules for huge Napoleonic games might suit this scale and my megalomania - who knows? As I didn't play in this game and didn't really pay much attention to the gameplay I can't comment on the Polemos system although Tony an Andrew seemed to enjoy themselves and that's exactly where it's at really isn't it?

More details at their blog;-

memoirsofclaudeandfritz.blogspot.co.uk

Hope you enjoyed this little excursion, more to follow soon including some 15mm WW2 and plenty of 28mm Nappies of course too.