"Crossing the Panaro: a 10mm Napoleonic AAR" Topic

On the last Saturday in January, several of the local Gentlemen Wargamers gathered for another in our series of 10mm Napoleonic games. This is historical gaming done just the way I like it: tons of well-painted miniatures on nice terrain, a scenario with an intriguing narrative based on a historical situation and a challenging tactical problem to solve (I tired of the old "line-em-up-and-roll-dice-until-somebody-runs-away" stuff a loooong time ago.) Add some craft brews, a couple nice single malts, and a couple good cigars and I'm in Wargame Heaven.

(If you just want to see the pictures, skip to the link farther down).

The Scenario: Italy, Spring of 1815. Murat and his Neapolitans are on the move from their base at Rimini. The Austrian commanders are aware that he intends to cross the Panaro River, now swollen with snow melt from surrounding heights, but are unsure of exactly where. Accordingly, they have covered the two most likely crossing places with two brigades each, near the villages of Santa Maria Nova and Deigara. This means splitting their forces, but they are confident that the steadiness of their veteran infantry will be enough to hold Murat until the remainder of the army can come to their aid.

Murat has:

Rosetti's cavalry brigade (3 regiments of cheveau-legere)
Ambrosio and Lechi's infantry divisions
Prince Strongoli's Guard Infantry brigade and
Livron's 2 regiments of Guard cavalry

Awaiting his move at Santa Maria Nova is Staheremberg with an avant garde brigade and Senitzer's infantry brigade.

At Diegara Baron Ekhardt (yours truly) has deployed his infantry brigade, supported by Baron Taxis' 6 squadrons of Uhlans.

As it turns out, the blow will fall first upon Baron Ekhardt. The captions outline the action.
Many thanks to Elliott James, who provided the terrain, figures, and the scenario.

Enjoy.

link

Jeff

Still using your Napoleonic Command rules for these games?

Naturally.

Great set up & miniatures. Just a couple questions:

1. What kind of materials are your game surface, rivers, & road made from?

2. Are the Napoleonic Command rules still available somewhere?

1. What kind of materials are your game surface, rivers, & road made from?

They're latex caulk and flock over canvas.
Cloth technique here: link
Constructing the table here: link

2. Are the Napoleonic Command rules still available somewhere?

Unfortunately, no. The original hard copy edition is out of print, and the second edition is only being held up by the fact that I have too many things going on all at once. The rules are complete and thoroughly tested, but it's going to take considerable time and effort to get them formatted and properly illustrated . . . the effort I don't mind, but I simply don't have the time right now.

Jeff

Thanks. Look forward to seeing the rules when they come out.

Great looking cloth Artisan. Does the caulk cause the cloth to stiffen though?

Stanley,

Having followed the advice given and made one, no the fold up fine. They are heavier than normal canvas but still fold up easily.

Clovis

but still fold up easily.

Clovis is correct.

If the cloth stiffened, there would be no significant advantage over rigid terrain boards. They can be rolled or folded for storage or transport.

Jeff

Cool. I'm tempted to try this approach myself. It has t be cheaper than buying the pre made terrain mats.

I haven't made a mat for myself yet, but intend to. I have played on them often, and they are the best looking "realistic" terrain approach I know of.

Looks like a good battle. I am curious what is the manufacturer of your 10mm napoleonics?

The collection in use for this game (belonging to Elliott James) consists of Old Glory, Pendraken, and Magister Militum figures. My own collection is mostly AIM, with some Old Glory and a few Pendraken.

Quick question, as I'll be getting the stuff to make one of these when I get out of work today.

On the flock- do you use the finely ground rubberized stuff, or the wood flake sort of stuff? I tried the rubberized tuff last night for some rough terrain patches I'm making for my 4mm OB ACW stuff, but for the open fields I don't know if this would look correct. Yours looks pretty darn good, but I can't tell what flock you put down on it. Also, would ballast mess it up, or can I drop some sand and gravel on there too do you think?

thanks! I'll be sure to take pics as I work on my won this weekend!

Either flock should work fine.

I use the Woodland Scenics fine turf for most purposes, but I'll throw in patches of coarse turf, chunks of foliage, or even bits of ballast here and there (especially along stream banks).

Looking forward to the pics.

If ou look at my original tutorial, kindly reposted by Jeff you will notice that I maily used the Woodland Scenics fine flock with courser coverings for effect or to cover flaws.

Just sprinkle the flock on to the wet chaulk, leave to dry for a few hours, remove the excess flock and the move to the next section. Once comleted, go back and cover up areas of damage add effects and generally get the cloth to look they way you want. I found it best to do the construction is the garage on a table that can take the 8' x 5' canvass. I made one in the basement during the winter – you don't want to work in an uheated garage in Minnesota in December – and it took so long to clean up afterwards.

You will need probably about 10 tubes of chaulk for an 8'x5' cloth. I also got 7/8" spatual from a old fashioned hardware store since all Home Depot and the other bix box retailers seem to make are 40mm.

Woof- I did up my own 6 foot x 5 foot terrain map on Saturday. Starting with a trip to the hardware store for supplies at 10am the entire adventure took me about 14 hours to complete, on the floor of my apartment! I also, on account of fhe alleyway gravel I used as road ballast, suffered a massive, 48 hour long allergy attack. But I still managed to finish it up by 230 am.

Ill put up a complete report on how I did this later on. In short, its the best looking game mat I ever did, and it was a lot of fun to make. In some of the pics I took it almost looks real, although maybe a bit more Wyoming than Virginia… Or georgia for that matter- the mat is based on brock farm, sort of. Anyways, heres a few temporary pics until I get a proper blog posting up.

Edit- apologies, i need to use a non ipad to do this. When i get some pics ill post them!

Forwardmarchstudios,

I'm looking forward to the pictures.

Raising the standard of wargames terrain is not too hard and does make out games look so much better.

Well, this particular technique, as outlined above, is pretty killer when it comes to that- in fact, I don't think you could make a better looking terrain layout any other way, unless using styrofoam boards, and even then all you'd get is a little better effect on ravines and elevation- maybe.

One thing I did find is that in order to get a real good coverage you need to press the flock down into the caulk firmly, or else it won't hold. I ended up having to do this in a few spots after doing it once already. but re-doing sections is a cinch with the caulk. I also found that using watered down glue for detail work is required at times, like along creeks and roads. Anyways, I'll try to get pics up tonight…

Its been ahile, but heres a quick preview of my battle mat. Ill get a big step-by-step up shortly, and hopefully this weekend enough 4mm regiments to do an awesome battle report, or at least take some good pics.

Very nice work! Thanks for the pics.

Be sure to post your step-by-step to the Terrain and Scenics Board, where it will be more likely to be seen by people who would find it useful and inspiring.