Planning My Napoleonic Wargames Army

Table at the start of a wargame

I am fortunate that I have had a permanent wargames table for many years.
Before we moved to Spain my garage was converted to a wargames club room.
I had a wargames group of 4 to 8 for many years, and a 12x6 foot wargames table
This was long enough for 4, or even 6 at a pinch, but not for 8.
I came to appreciate that a playing area of about 4x3 foot per player was about right
I came to this conclusion after many years of weekly wargames.

When we were planning to move to Spain we bought our house “off plan”
This meant we had some input about the size of rooms, within reason
Our major priority in choosing a house was having a wargames room.
We had a large room with enough space for a 6x6 foot table
This was the first building block in my planning the wargames room

During our last couple of years in the UK I replaced all of my 28mm armies.
So I was able to plan the number of infantry, cavalry and artillery required
This was in 2004, before the popularity of 8 figure infantry units.

I decided infantry units would have 20 figures, 4 of which would be skirmishers
Cavalry units would have 8 figures and artillery 1 gun and 4 figures.

Each allied army would have 8 infantry, 2 cavalry and 4 artillery units
This would give me 160 infantry figures, 16 cavalry and 4 artillery
This would give me a good balance of arms, and scope for different types of troops

The French would have four such armies, old guard, young guard and two line
There would be 6 Bavarian units, 1 each Baden, Polish, Vistula, Wurtemberg and Italian.

I had no firm idea about orders of battle, or indeed which rules I would use
For many years I had used “house rules” based on “In the Grand Manner”
So brigades, divisions and corps were very flexible.

I completed painting the new figures just before we moved to Spain in 2006.

My first year in Spain was spent making the wargames table and storeage shelves.
We also played a lot of wargames, getting used to the table and the armies.

By 2008 I was getting bored with “one off” wargames.
We fought a series of games based on Wellington in the Peninsular
These were a series of stand alone games, not a campaign
I then tried something similar with Napoleon in Italy, but it did not work so well
That is when I decided to create my own fictional wargame campaign.

I wanted a campaign which would provide an endless supply of battles to wargame
I also wanted to be able to use all of the figures in my collection
There was only one historical campaign which would fit the bill – namely 1813.
The historical campaign covered both Germany and Spain
It was also the first time that Napoleon did not have an advantage in troop quality.

Next time I will explain how I created armies and corps out of this collection.