"100 days or Peninsula" Topic

Basically as the topic suggests if you were starting out what would be the best way to get into/back into Napoleonics?

Jon

If the choice is between these two it has to be the Peninsula.

Much more choice in battles, sieges etc. Armies are cheaper to build (smaller, less cavalry and artillery) Lots of historical campaign possibity over seven years rather than just, em well, just100 days!

Better choice of documentation that doesn't revolve around the events leading to just three major battles.

I could go but I hope you get the general drift?

Everything Trajanus says.

Agreed. 1815 gives you 2 battles for your British. 1 huge one. You also get to field Prussians, Nassau and Dutch-Belgians.

Peninsula you get better quality French troops, more battles from small ones to big ones, Spanish, Portuguese, Poles, Neopolitans and some other exotic types. Much more to read about. Waterloo was a very "continental" affair.

That said both lack Austrians.

+1 For the Peninsular

100 days.

Trajanus and Edwulf have it right. The Peninsula offers more stories to tell with your little toy men.

A very good question!

Bear in mind that with 100 days, you can wargame 4 battles. With the Peninsula, you havae the option of many different battles.

There is A LOT of uniform variety for Waterloo, but also there is just as much variation in the Peninsula.

Spanish, Portuguese, British, Germans, French, Neopolitans, Swiss etc

Although either campagn will cost you a lot of money so pre-warn your bank manager

Oh and good luck!

J

What scale, if you are going to do full armies(in 6mm or 10mm) then Waterloo will let you/force you to paint ĝots od artillery, waterloo had like 500 cannon vs 100 in most peninsula battleship.

Also more cav at waterloo espacaly heavy cav.

If you are going to do just a division or two in 15mm/28mm.

Than its about the same. 10-15 battalions of infantry, 2 batteries and a brigade of horse, in spain as french you are most of the time stuck with dragoons, while allies had heavy, light dragoons, hussars, spanish cav ect.
at waterloo french have much more cav yo choose frim

With the Prussian and French for 1815, you are not just limited to the 1815 battles. You have the basis for many battles from the 1813/14 campaigns.

Why not do both? That's what I'm doing in 54mm. You just need to be less picky about mixing the pre and post 1812 uniforms. And let's face it, the great Victorian military painters got it wrong all the time. Nassau troops can be used as French allies in the Peninsula, Brunswickers can still be used as British allies. No cuirassiers or carbineers for the French, but you can still use Polish lancers, dragoons and all the rest of the French light cav. Use Britsh post 1812 heavy and light dragoons and hussars wearing the busby.

Lets assume that time is your limiting factor.

When starting out, if you're going for the British/Allies then the Peninsula offers you lots of choice and some colourful troops on both sides not available in the later campaign. The fact the British change their uniforms between the two campaigns doesn't help and does upset the purists.

The Dutch/Belgian troops only fight in the Waterloo Campaign.

The Prussians are great for the 1813-4 Befreiungskriege as well as 1815.

I'm with Nick, I would shamelessly use my 100 days figures for the Peninsula and vice versa.

The big plus for the 100 days is you get all that glittering cavalry, French Guards and 12 pdrs and the big N himself. You get more British cavalry too.

But there are more Peninsula battles and they are usually easier to game.

I'm currently enjoying a mini 100 Days Campaign. A very manageable size and it doesn't take forever. We've had one big battle and are half way through an even bigger battle. We're using the Blucher / Scharnhost rules…except we've simplified units up to divisions, rather than brigades.

It's my first campaign game and it's been an excellent introduction.

Do Peninsula, then you can field Royal Marines ;-)

If you want to learn the in's and outs of Napoleonic campaigning, and so get a true feel for the context of battles and the operations of armies during the period, go Pennensular!

I don't really have any new points to add to the core question – there are points in favor of both, you pays your money and your makes your choice – but I'm puzzled by the claim that the French troops in the Peninsula were better than those in the Hundred Days.

I hit the submit button prematurely. I meant to add that if I were starting over, I would go for the late-Revolutionary / early Napoleonic era of bicornes. Figures weren't available until too late for me.

It's never too late for bicornes …

Cheers chaps, off to Iberia it is.

Jon

Weren't the troops in the hundred days hastily raised units of conscripts padding out a poorly equipped army. Shadow of it's former self I think. Commanders in the wrong jobs.
In Spain and the continent the French were a veteran force and better equipped I believe.

To be fair the British and Portuguese in Spain were probably better than the British and Allied troops too. Though I think the allies in 1815 were fairly well supplied and equipped.

A popular view is that the French 100 days army was populated by a higher proportion of veterans than had been the case for many years, and so was one of the best French armies ever. But the formations tended to be new, and hadn't had time to settle in. Also a bit of a tension between the lower ranks and the officers, who suspected of being less committed to the cause.

French Peninsular formations were usually veterans – though cadres might be stripped out and sent home. I have read that their extensive experience in small anti-guerilla operations was not good for discipline in the bigger battles though.

More battles in the Peninsular theatre, and more room to make your own non-historical scenarios (if that's your kind of thing) with the time taken and size of the theatre too. Peninsular all the way.

I'd like to see some proper stuff on French units from Spain being stripped prior to the 1812 Campaign – the Russian one that is.

Also after it, to make up losses prior to the 1813 – 14 campaign in Germany. It would make interesting reading.

I read far more Sharpe than was healthy back when I was in grade school, so I had to go with the Peninsula.

As a possible advantage, the Peninsula gives you lots of different uniforms to paint, which means you can alternate battalions to (hopefully) avoid getting burned out from painting too much of the same.

To take a slightly different approach, if you want something less vanilla than the average Napoleonic army, try Bernadottes Army of The North in late 1813.

Prussians, Swedes, Russians, Hanoverians, Mecklenbergers, Hanseatic League, Lutzows Friekorps, Russo-German Legion, KGL and a British Rocket battery !

For variety it takes some beating.

Trajanus there's quite a bit of detail on that in Oman, at least in the 1813 case. It would be interesting to dig down to unit level by combining strengths in May 1813 with earlier – I think the data is there. The result was a large number of one battalion regiments, some numbering quite a bit over 1,000 men.

I expect Oman also gives a lot on 1812 too – but I haven't read up on that.

I fell into the Peninsula, but have not regretted it (much). I took some time off gaming, when I came back everyone was doing 28mm Naps. I asked what wasn't covered yet, and was told "Portuguese." Victrix had some nice metal ones (now available from Brigade Games) and they looked nice. Plus, in about 40 years of Naps gaming, I'd never done Portuguese.

The original plan was "just one brigade", but of course that's how all obsessions start, isn't it? Now I'm doing Hill's whole 2nd Division and French to match. It's a reasonable size, the figures available these days are a joy to paint (Front Rank, Brigade, and Perry Bros are coming out with Peninsula Brits soon!) and its new for a decades-long Napoleonic gamer. Score!

Now if only I could get some proper Legere figures….

Some resources for you John
napoleoniccampaigns.com

Trajanus there's quite a bit of detail on that in Oman, at least in the 1813 case.

Thanks Matthew, with seven volumes of the bloody thing I never think about looking for details!

Time for a dig!

I'd like to see some proper stuff on French units from Spain being stripped prior to the 1812 Campaign – the Russian one that is.

Here is Oman describing the 1812 withdrawals: link

Trajanus there's quite a bit of detail on that in Oman, at least in the 1813 case.

And here is 1813: link

The Peninsula was a side show. In 1815 Wellington and Blucher confronted the main enemy in the main theatre and defeated his main army.

If the availability of what-ifs is important, you can set those on whatever grounds you like.

Uniform variation is a wash between the two, and in either case you will end up painting figures who fought nowhere else. A big positive of an 1815 army is that the British and many Hanoverians can also do duty for the War if 1812 in America, which is a whole mother flavour again (and also allows what-ifs. What if Napoleon fled Elba and landed in America? Americans with Old Guardsmen commanded by Napoleon?)

The Peninsula was a helpful resource sink, but no victory by Wellington in Spain was going to force Napoleon from the throne. In both 1814 and 1815 that required the defeat of Napoleon in northern France and the occupation of Paris.