"Scale for 'Blucher' rules?" Topic

I'd just like to bring together some half baked thoughts I've had from the recent threads on Sam Mustafa's announcement about the forthcoming Blucher rules, and at what scale minis become generic, and run them past the collective:

It seems that Blucher will be designed for large scale Napoleonic gaming – Grand Tactical or Operational level if you will. Speculation is that the base unit will be a Brigade. This has been posted on the Honour forum, and Sam has not corrected that impression – although neither has he confirmed it!

link

So in trying to order my thoughts:

1. Sam has said that the game will be playable using cards printed off as units, to allow the game to be played without minis (quelle horreur!) or for players to gradually build up their armies over time…

2. It follows then that in a club setting the unit bases sizes should be playing card sized – say 3.5 x 2.5 inches so that they can be used with the 'card armies'…

3. I like my units to at least approximate what they represent visually, and a Brigade should have at least 2 Battalion/Regt. sized units present. Since half a dozen 28mm or 15/18mm figures masquerading as a Brigade would look – to my eye in this most subjective of areas – silly, micro scales would seem to be the way to go…

4. I have tried and failed to paint 6mil figs. But I have succeeded in painting reasonable 10/12mm figs. And at the other end of the scale, does anyone notice or care if you muck up 2/3mil figures now emerging onto the market?

So my tentative thinking is that Blucher will lend itself to microscales… (either 10/12mm figs, or 2/3mm figs, at least for the artistically challenged of us, whilst those who think nothing of carving 'The Campaigns of Napoleon' on a grain of rice will probably be fine with the more widely available 6mm….)

Any thoughts? Has anyone completed any tiny brigades on this sort of base size and care to have them march past in review order?

10mm is a pretty good size for this sort of thin. ^mm is just a little too small for the aging. I have 10mm Marlbro types and the detail is most pleasing, though horses can be thought of as a little dog like.I don't have any based so far but have dummied them on 50 by 50 and a brigade can look most impressive.
With 28mm you can just imagine the figure ratio to represent whatever unit on the base to be what you want it to be though at 82mm x 64mm it can be a bit crowded with 28s. I may just stick with Impetvs style bases and mount 28s on 120 x 60.After all it is a consistant frontage that counts in Sam's rules and I am in the habit of providing both sides.
That said this is for me a project nominally way down the tracks…where are those Austrian OD 2nd edition?

Sam authored an interesting article in Issue 71 of Wargames: Soldiers and Strategy titled "Do We Need Miniatures To Play Miniature Wargames "

In it he brings out a number of points including the use of specialized miniature figures such as Officers and then they are used as "…game markers to represent the status of all the units under their command,while the nits themselves are on paper, wood blocks, cards etc."

I think I would use a slightly large base for 28mm, say 4" x 4". This could fit 8-10 cavalry and 12-18 foot. For French Infantry I might do a base something like this:
(O = officer, F = flag, D = drummer)

-OFD-
GFFFFF
GFFFFF

-V--V-

I like Sam's games, but yes you need miniatures to play miniatures games. You do not need them to play tabletop wargames. You can have terrain and use blocks etc for troops. It is a wargame, but not a miniature wargame. I a more inclined to call DBA played with flat terrain and miniatures a miniature game, vs. a game palyed with 3d terrain and counters.

Now it is my opinion that if you want to do large battles, operational level wargames, then you will have to dispense of miniatures. Miniatures for me are for Brigade level games (at most division), for elan, true grit etc. So I would not mind a operational or army level game in which the terrain was 3d and the units blocks or counters. Indeed I would say it would work well.You could use 3mm/6mm terrain to represent cities and villages, you could represent slopping hills. Pretty cool.

But it is not a miniature game. Ergo why I have been pestering people about Brigade level rules.

" 2/3mil figures now emerging onto the market?"

3mm is relatively new as a scale, for Napoleonics anyway, but 2mm figures have been around for at least 20 years – keep up Ralph :)

The Grande Armee game used 3" squares as brigades. You could replace those with flat pictures and still play the game. In fact you can replace the figures with pictures in any game if you want. Figures are, in essence, pretty counters is all. I know plenty of gamers who play with 8 figures on a 3" base and call it a brigade. They will say with 2mm or 3mm why bother why not just use a counter.

Horses for courses.

A standard playing card will fit 4 stands at 40mm x 30mm (with 6-8mm to spare in width, 1-2 in depth – at least of the card I just measured).

Which should be near enough for most purposes.

40mm x 30mm is one popular way of mounting 15mm troops, infantry in two ranks, cav in one, so many people need not rebase.

It will be interesting to see if Sam works up an 'open' army-building scheme like Maurice, where you can cook up an army to taste and pay for national advantages with loading up on elite troops coming at a marginal cost.

David B

I welcome the cards! I travel to my father's to play once in awhile, 2 hours by plane and 13 by car. I will not fly with miniatures and the drive is way too long, so we always ended up blowing off System 7 for our Nappy games, now I have a new set with Blucher.

I am very happy with Sam's decision to go with cards.

I wonder if the rules are intended to be very abstract in visual appearance and more intended for a cerebral audience? There was a clear element of this going on with Grande Armee but you were encouraged to use figures. A new set of grand tactical rules is a nice change, but from the details I'm hearing it is sounding a bit too lacking in visual stimuli for my tastes.

Maybe the upcoming winter flyer Sam speaks of will have more detailed information that will shed some light on these concerns. It would be difficult to believe long term interest could be retained over micro-sized units or even paper units.

I suggest the basing of anywhere from 2 to 6 typical 40mm x 30mm bases will make up a 'Blucher' brigade / Regiment in 18mm scale.

I'm not going to build up specific 'Blucher' armies. I'll use my LaSalle / FoG-N armies.

keep up Ralph :)

Sorry mate – I'll try to do better! :-)

"I'm not going to build up specific 'Blucher' armies. I'll use my LaSalle / FoG-N armies."

As will I. Sam said in the past Blucher would use the same basing as Lasalle. A change in direction it would seem, but it appears they will be compatible.

Sparker, on the basis of the teaser promotion campaign from Sam thus far I think your conclusions are pretty accurate. Looking back over all his releases he seems to surprise us every time, no two are alike, different level, different focus every time. I'm guessing Blucher will be very different again.

Hi Sparker,

Lots of interesting things to chew on here…

1) All Sam is doing is pointing out that all of our ‘figure' games are really played with differently sized counters, be they be made of card, mdf, plasticard or even beer mats. We cut these to shape, and play the rules. To make things more interesting to us we stick variously sized and shaped painted bits of metal and plastic on these counters, but that has not one effect on the way the game plays.
It is the basis behind people quite accurately pointing out, that very, very few sets of rules are ‘for' a certain scale of figures. The said bits of metal stuck to the bases are there for aesthetics, not to make the game work.
As an aside, as Sam has adopted the eminently sensible option of using base widths as the unit of measurement in his rules, they will be scaleabale for use with any sized base, so you are not limited to playing card dimensions.

2) With regards to the bits of metal and visual representation, I'd stick to a bit of advice along the lines of, ‘the large the action portrayed the smaller the figures needed and vice versa'. You are quite right that bigger figures cannot generate the mass. Eight or nine exquisitely painted 28mm figures on a base would look less like a brigade and more akin to a group of blokes taking a flag for a walk. So yes, smaller scales are the correct tool for the job in this case.

3) With regards to painting 6mm. I've had discussions about failed attempts to paint 6mm SO many times…There really is only one word to sum up how to do it successfully and that is technique. ANYONE can do it, including those with bad eyes, only one eye, tremors or less than the requisite number of fingers. I know cos I number people with all of the above issues amongst my customers. Please do contact me directly and have a chat. If you can paint successfully in any other scale then you can paint successfully in 6mm. I repeat, it's just a matter of technique. It will be worth it because they are the perfect size for brigade bases.

4) Yes, I've done and seen loads of brigades done on various bases sizes, but naturally mostly on 60x60. If you wander over to the Baccus site you'll see loads there in the products listing and in the pages of the forum and projects section.

Cheers

Peter

Hello Sparker!

I think Sam has said basing will be flexible and that those that based for GA will have no problem adopting. I also think that although intended for 15mm a large number of 6mm became fans. They mainly chose the 60x60 base as mentioned by Peter. Like Peter I have seen a lot of brigade bases and by far the 60x60 seems to be the favorite choice. Here again my number one base choice the 60x30 comes into play. Many have chosen to use two of these to form one 60x60. It allows you to customize the units in your brigade and in some cases to expand the frontage of your brigade. Either way it seems that both of these base styles will probably work with Blucher.

I would also second Peters comments about painting 6mm. Anyone can do it once you understand how to do it. It's a lot easier then painting 25mm or 10/12mm. Peters figures are clearly designed with painting them in mind. All 6mm figures are not the same, Peters are different, in a good way. I've painted different scales of figures and all types of 6mm. Until I painted Peters figures it always felt like a chore. Now I can't wait to paint the next batch!

The 2mm fellows have also developed some interesting ideas about brigades. What some of them are doing is mounting different troop types and nations differently on the same bases. So aside from some small splashes of color you can tell the different brigades apart by the way they are mounted.

Best regards,

Glenn

"Eight or nine exquisitely painted 28mm figures on a base would look less like a brigade and more akin to a group of blokes taking a flag for a walk. So yes, smaller scales are the correct tool for the job in this case."

ROFL – so right!!

It's a miniatures game. Therefore the visual appeal is… whatever you decide it will be.

But it will also have the option of being played with cards, instead, if people don't have the miniatures, or space or time, etc. The idea is to bring some new people in, who might want to try a Napoleonics game, but who baulk at the notion of spending thousands of dollars and a year or more to do an army first.

The cards are poker-sized, which makes them pretty similar in size to the old Grande Armée 3" squares, and that's plenty of space to put 2, 3 4, or however many Lasalle bases you want, together as a "unit."

Numbers of figures, base sizes… and thus all "visual" aspects: are up to you.

-

Due to a weird glitch, I'm no longer able to access TMP from home, so I can only come here every now and then, when I can steal time at work.

TMP link

Therefore accept my apologies that I won't be responding to most comments here.

Sam

Good Peter (who produces one of the best products in this world) and good friends!

"2) With regards to the bits of metal and visual representation, I'd stick to a bit of advice along the lines of, ‘the large the action portrayed the smaller the figures needed and vice versa'. You are quite right that bigger figures cannot generate the mass. Eight or nine exquisitely painted 28mm figures on a base would look less like a brigade and more akin to a group of blokes taking a flag for a walk. So yes, smaller scales are the correct tool for the job in this case."

See I would say that even then it does not work for me. I got a whole nice out of the box Napoelonic 6mm French army from Baccus. And I painted it nice, and it looks nice, and then I tried to play Polemos and the units just felt wrong.

I mean it may be the fault of my basing, but a battalion of 24 6mm miniatures does not give a nmore "representative-feel" of a battalion then one of 24 28mm miniatures. It is true you get more battalions on the ground but still it did not feel "heavy enough". Those battalions did not feel like the rather large congregations of men they are.

Is this

really more representative than this?

I would say no. Now this is my own opinion of course, but bear with me.

However if you decided to use every stand of 6mm miniatures as a company for a Brigade level sets of rules, then yeah, it feels more representative to me. Those battalions do feel like the huge sometimes unwieldy mass of men they really are.

For example

Would you say this is more representative, if you assume every base is a battalion, and thus a division of 10 battalions

or if you look at the same picture and consider every base a company and thus a brigade of two battalions?

Compare it to this

I think that in my eye the first picture gives a better representation than the second of what a group of two battalions "feels" like. But neither one really works for divisional or coprs level games.

See Peter, I think the reverse of what you say. I think that it is at the Brigade, and divisional level that 6mm miniatures can really shine, because they can give you for a good price a great "representation feel" of how large battalions were really.

Let me do a comparison. Let us say you wish to collect a "representative" french brigade of 1813. This would be made up of 4 battalions of 6 combat companies each.

In 28mm let us agree that a good number of miniatures for such a battalion, one that would give us some idea of how it looked and fought would be 10 miniatures per company. So 60 figures per battalion, 240 for the whole brigade. We need to keep into consideration that you need to be able to fit and maneuver this things on a gaming table, but that we do not need too much maneuver since we command a brigade, usually with specific tasks.

Using Perry Plastics (which is what I used for my 28mm Napoleonics) and buying from the war-store (my usual 28mm store), you would pay 150-180 $ (32$ per box, 5 boxes, plus some extra miniatures).

In 6mm let us say that my 24 miniature companies are good. That means 6 strips per company, 36 per battalion, 144 for the brigade (which would give 576 miniatures) . Buying from Scale Creep minis, which is were I got my Polemos stuff, a pack of 20 infantry strips is 10.50$. You would need 7 packs for 73-90 dollars to represent it. And frankly, I bet you can fit that brigade in smalelr table.

This whole, lengthy exercise, should persuade some of you that a good domain for 6mm is the brigade level game, were your battalions are huge formations, lumbering away at the enemy.

I am not making the case that this is the one true rule, nor the case that this works for all (it is up to you). But I would say if you really really want to get the good representative feel of the size of Napoleonic tactical formations, than 6mm or 3mm or 10mm at the brigade level will give that. Hell I have decided I am rebasing all my Polemos boys for a Brigade level game. :D

Has anybody got any good images of these tiny 2 or 3mm blocks – they sound an interesting idea when combined with Bruce Weigle style terrain. That aesthetic approach may well suit these new rules.

Has anybody got any good images of these tiny 2 or 3mm blocks

Take a look at this (not mine) blog.

link

Baccus: "All Sam is doing is pointing out that all of our ‘figure' games are really played with differently sized counters, […] To make things more interesting to us we stick variously sized and shaped painted bits of metal and plastic on these counters, but that has not one effect on the way the game plays."

Sorry, but that statement is wrong. Playing with miniatures has many effects on rules, some you can call negative, but they influenece the way games are played:
- You cant stack miniature bases.
- You usually have no or few informations on miniature bases. (The number of miniatures could be an information, sometimes there are additional informations written on the bases. But the difference to a counter wargame ist obvious.)
- You cant hide miniature bases. The usually hiding mechanisms of rules involve replacing the miniatures by a blind, a form of counter.
- You cant track casualties on counters by removing losses in the form of models. (I dont know any counter wargame that uses a system like Warhammer.)
- The biggest difference for miniature wargamers. You dont have the look a general would have had in the battle. And i am not talking about the representative aspect of the size of units, but the uniforms and visual impact. On a Waterloo battlefield the miniature wargamer will notice with one look: There are the Scots Greys. A counter wargamer will not notice.
- And the visual impact has a psychological impact too. A miniature wargamer can be intimidated by the enemy force. A counter wargamer … i dont think so.

- And the visual impact has a psychological impact too. A miniature wargamer can be intimidated by the enemy force. A counter wargamer … i dont think so.

Well this miniatures wargamer, for one, has never been intimidated by his opponents little metal men. If that's what you're saying.

YMMOCV

The main thrust of your argument seems to be that board wargames aren't like miniatures games. I don't think anyone is trying to say they are.

Indeed, in my case having painted miniatures assures defeat. My painted space-marines and I.G lost 75 battles only getting 1 tie with mostly unpainted armies, while my painted saxons in Saga are regularly crushed by unpainted Irish.

In case it needs to be said again: Blücher will be a miniatures game.

That can also / alternately be played using unit cards.

The choice is yours.

The biggest difference for miniature wargamers. You dont have the look a general would have had in the battle. And i am not talking about the representative aspect of the size of units, but the uniforms and visual impact. On a Waterloo battlefield the miniature wargamer will notice with one look: There are the Scots Greys. A counter wargamer will not notice.

The counter gamer can't see what's written on the counter?

Given the notorious difficulty of identifying enemy units on the field, even at close ranges, anything that includes some Fog of War is probably a good thing.

And the visual impact has a psychological impact too. A miniature wargamer can be intimidated by the enemy force. A counter wargamer … i dont think so.

Most miniatures gamers probably also play board games and computer games. All gaming is imaginative. I've known lots of board gamers who get very, very involved in what's happening on that board, just as I've known many miniatures gamers who couldn't care less if they're using Macedonian pikemen as proxies for the 9th Panzer Division; they just want to play the game.

-

But again: you'll have the choice to play it in any way that appeals to you: miniatures or not.

If the unit of maneuver is a brigade, I'm tempted to make large sabot-bases and lay out a "typical" brigade on them using 3mm minis (no bigger than 15mm, and O8s 3mm keep looking more and more tempting). British example: 4 battalions in two lines, with an artillery battery between the battalions in line.

Or I might do something a bit different.

Thank you all for your interesting responses. Lots to mull over here already…but for now:

Peter yes your website is inspirational! However I have honestly tried to paint 6mm several times over the years, as I can't fault your logic, but each time I get beaten by the fact that painting them becomes a chore, whereas I actively enjoy painting 28mm or 15/18mm figures…

Sam I do appreciate that Blucher will be a miniatures game, that is why I am so keen to get ready early! But allowing the unit cards as an easy entry is a great move in my view, and will certainly ease its path at my club!

I think I'm going to experiment with a couple of 3mm O8 and 10mm Pendraken brigades based up on card sized bases and see how I go…

I have a similar dilemma, I have a 15mm collection that I've been working on for a while and I am not keen on starting a new force from scratch. I am using the standard 40mm frontage, 8 to a base for line infantry and I am considering how these can be put together to look like a brigade.

I could use each base to represent a separate element of a brigade, so for example a brigade with skirmishing ability would have three bases of line infantry and a skirmishing base.

I need to do up some 60mm square 3mm bases now. Fortunately I just happen to 50 Litko bases and several thousand 3mm figs lying around…

The cards are an interesting idea. There was a fantasy game a while back that did that: you could buy complete armies for $20 USD-30 or whatever and they were overhead views. There were no accompanying minis but nothing saying you couldn't sub one for the other.

No need to buy Crispy, just a quick search on google produced a pile of different troops that can be printed and stuck on card

cheers

2mm making a comeback? Wonderful! I just got rid of the last of mine in a clear out a year ago!

Oddzial Osmy 3mm figures are good but even they are too tempting to spend time trying to do detail as you can see all round each figure – can't do that with 2mm blocks!

I first "met" Sam digitally on a Volley and Bayonet forum where he was an active contributor. His Grande Armee rules came out using that same basing. So unless Sam intends to rebase his entire collevtion I am sure that 3" or 2/3rds scale basing will at least be sn option.

His Lasalle rules let you play with any old base sizes, and I would imsgine he would only encourage sales by doing the same thing with Bluecher.

Looking at all this 2mm stuff reminds me of the "hair roller" armies back in the day!!! Well, you might as well use rollers, for all the good 2mm armies will do for table aesthetics. Maybe cards arent such a bad alternstive after all if you plan on using 2mm stuff…. :)

I've seen some STUNNING 2mm games because the terrain was gorgeous. The figures do give a "600 foot general" look so I think they can be quite effective but then it's about how the BATTLE looks, not the figures.

I built an experimental mini-FPGA table system into the project I did for Pico Armor last year using 60mm square Litko bases. The idea was that each square would represent 9" on an FPGA scenario map when using 20mm frontage bases to represent brigades. I never got around to a more advanced version with roads and rivers, but it wouldn't have taken too much effort.

If I went back and did it again I'd use my new-style glue forests instead of the wire trees, which in this case are a bit out of scale to the ground (although in scale to the figs, actually). The idea was though that it'd be like a "miniature 28mm table" on which, of course, the trees would also be out of scale to the ground.

Now that Sam's card idea has got everyone thinking outside the box, I've gone back to the old colored sticky tabs with military symbols on the Ferraris maps. One major advantage of tabs/symbols is that you can put a lot more information onto a tab than you can onto a base of figures. Hits, morale and supply/ammo, command chain and commander name, for instance. Tabs also lend themselves very easily to a roster and a system of blinds, by simply numbering your tabs to correspond to a hidden list of divisions that you have. You can also place hidden orders, special conditions, etc, by just sticking them over top of the units effected.

You can then throw down some 3mm figs as markers for the units represented in the tabs:

But the figs wouldn't really matter, it would be the tabs that are important. The figs are just for decoration. Alternatively, the figs might be used to represent something, formations, for instance. Of course a game that looks like this might not appeal to everyone (especially since it doesn't have terrain). It would definitely be much closer to a complicated board game than a "miniatures" game. Yet for doing large, complex operational level stuff, it would present a lot of options. I would actually say that it might present too many options for anything other than a kriegspiel, it actually would look exactly like a modern day operational/intelligence map once you get all of the tabs up there. It certainly would solve all of the interpenetration/overlap/brigade formation arguments that have been going on here recently, since it allows stacking and even an explanation of why they're stacked/ how they're stacked right on the board (a tab with a diagram of the stacked brigades could easily be stuck over top of the stacked units).

And of course, there's no reason this couldn't be taken down to the battalion level if needed.

I blame Forwardmarch for putting the 3mm bug in my ear, but how can you not like army setups that look like this:

Or near-actual-headcount, real formations in the same table footprint as typical 15mm basing schemes?

So what is the ground scale in those photos?

Cheers,

The Bandit

Lion in the Stars: thanks, haha! Keep giving me compliments and I may actually get around to finishing a set like that properly… life however, as always, is intruding on my hobby time, big move coming up, promotion at work, excuses, excuses, excuses…

Bandit:

Well, in the bottom one, if FPGA says that 3"= 300m then 20mm=300m. Or in other words, 20mm= 3" brigade base. I wanted to make it as easily translatable to the FPGA scenarios online as I could.

For the record, anyone wanting to try out FPGA on the cheap can put together an FPGA army with O8 figs super cheap/quick.

In the two pics with the Ferraris maps, I'm not sure because I didn't write the scale down on the map, but I think that each tab is about 300m in frontage. I'd have to double check though using google maps. As i think about it the idea of using the bases to show the brigades formation and the tab to hold the units information might be a good one.

The other cool thing about using tabs is that you can have units on the table at multiple levels of representation, like in military use. For instance, you can have a tab represent a cav division, which is under a hidden movement marker. As it approaches the enemy you can break it out into brigades. You would need some rules for doing this, unless you had a ref involved, or were willing to write it down (I'd wager than anyone willing to play on maps with tabs is probably crazy enough to not mind a bit more complication!)

In the pic in the middle, with the map and the figs, the blank yellow (Austrian) tab could be a blind hiding either another division, a brigade, an artillery battery or nothing- the French don't know because the French forces are crossing a double-stream at the foot of a small rise and can't see up there. It's the sheer number of small tactical situations like this that make the maps so effective when used with small unit footprints.

Say you are using the Nafziger OOBs, for instance. You could print off the OOB and assign each of your, say, twenty divisions a number between 1 and 30. Ten of these numbers would actually be blanks, fake units that once an enemy IDs are simply removed from play. You'd write the numbers down on the tabs and place them on the map with only the basic "type", cav or infantry, written on it, since this would have an effect on movement. When the unit is revealed then you can write out the information onto the tab, or replace it with one you've already got ready. If you are Napoleon you are more interested in whether Davout, who is six miles away, is facing off against a division, a corps or a reinforced battalion guarding a key bridge. You can therefore skip the brigade level combat and resolve it at the division level. This is easy in a moderated war game like the ones the US military does. It's a bit more difficult in a 1 on 1 miniatures war game like we're used to. Of course, if you wanted you could also break out the division into brigades, as noted above, and resolve the combat that way. There's a lot of options with it.