"Franco-Prussian Skirmish gaming" Topic

Does anyone play individually-mounted skirmish gaming during the FPW period? I was thinking about my collection of MBA and similar European buildings that I have for medieval fantasy and WW2 skirmish gaming, and it occurred to me that using these for some sort of 19th century skirmish games could be fun and different. I am interests in FPW, but not enough to invest in building armies at any scale.

It occurs to me that the only mid-C19 skirmish of this sort I've ever played is Brother Against Brother, now sadly out of print. If you can get a copy, it's fantastic. I once played in an early WWI game using Disposable Heroes that was good. I believe there's a FPW variant of TSATF as well.

You know, you CAN do it. You can wargame lots of things. But I'd be careful of the investment. You've got a combination of serious weapons range--always a problem for small-scale actions--and a very limited range of weapons. I'd say buy a couple boxes of plastics or print out some paper soldiers and fool around with them for a bit before you make a serious dent in the budget.

But if you're interested at all in the period, H&R 5mm lets you put together some pretty cheap armies.

Black Powder Games is working on a range of miniatures and skirmish rules for the period called "Eagles of Empire".

blackpowdergames.blogspot.ca

Sharpe Practice would probably work.

+1 for Sharp practice 2

Have a read of Emile Zola's La Débâcle – there is an excellent skirmish between Bavarians & French in a village outside of Sedan. Unless you are playing on a really big table then ranges become irrelevant

Brother Against Brother is available from the author as a PDF. And yes, it is fantastic….

If you can play WW2 skirmish games where firing distances are much greater then in FPW I wonder why somebody would arguing against skirmishing FPW

As the somebody, I think the saving grace of WWII--and sometimes of SF--as skirmish games is the wild variety of weapons. You can push 12 castings and--quite realistically--have them with maybe four different primary weapons and a range of backups. I find the different weapons and doctrines of the FPW interesting in corps and army level games, But start a 1:1 FPW street fight, and what you've got is a couple of dozen men per side all armed with single-shot rifled breechloaders and range so great relative to the table that the difference between a chassepot and a needle gun disappears. (And, of course, one officer with a sidearm. But still…)

It can be done, obviously. But there's so little tactical variety in that war at that level that I'd experiment a little before I wrote a check for enough lead for a decent-looking battle.

And no, I haven't always. But I should have.

Well Robert, you are correct in all you say if one chose to play it that way.

However, I find that good skirmish games are very much story driven and that's what makes it interesting to me. A little terrain, well painted figures and some thought provoking background can go a long way to make a fun game.

The richest source for skirmishes in this conflict is probably the guerilla activity of franc-tireur units.

Robert, why then the succes of the Sharp rules where the armament is even more the same?

Sharp Practice 2 will work well for forces of about 30+ per side. You'll need to come up with your own force lists and might fid the weight of fire too much. For smaller games, Ganesha Games (Song of…) Has a set that would do – can't recall the name right now.

These are good and cheap.
There are even some vaguely FPW types on the cover…
link

One of the TFL Specials had an article on using Sharp Practice for FPW games. It's easily updated to the new version or, if you want something similar but different a more recent Special has had an article on playing Garibaldi in Italy, with force lists free to download from the TFL website.

The Ganesha Games offering I had in mind was Flying Lead.