"Best 18th or 19th century period to skirmish game?" Topic

Im thinking tiny skirmishes here of a dozen men a side. Which period do you think is the best for this style from the Horse and musket era?

In my opinion French Indian War is a very good period to be played.
Peninsular War inthe Napoleonic period also works.
Marco

aWI, has far more options, variety, on a general same subjects.
Others might be good but lack miniatures.
Vendée coukd be good, but lacks proper buildings and unarmed civilians.

Polish rebellions…?

If really a few figures you can do anything that includes petite guerre, with maybe a dose of civilians and irregulars.

The Greek War of Independence has possibilities. Only one company makes figures, though several others make figures that could be converted. It is lacking in English language books to help develop scenarios.

Grelber

If I were going to do black powder skirmish, I don't think I could resist Napoleonic naval raiding.

The Napoleonic period really defined the school of thought on skirmishing, previous periods were just irregular mobs IMHO. So in order of my preference for gaming:

Napoleonics (Spain or naval raids)
French and Indian War
American War of Independence
Everything else

French and Indian War is well catered in both 15/18mm and 28mm. Buildings are readily available and scenario possibilities are just about endless. A good mix of troops; regulars, militia, couers du bois, First Nations warriors, canoe borne raids and challenging terrain. For inspiration just watch Last of the Mohicans…lol…

European SYW is highly underrated.
Austrians started the war with great skirmish capabilities. Grenser, hussars and grenadiers taking part in daily light infantry work.
The Prussians got better and better at kleine krieg.
And in the western theatre, the French developed great light infantry doctrines.
And then enemies of France followed suit with many many fancy uniforms.

I opted (after being tempted for many decades….) to do FIW with Donnybrook. There is a wealth of good figures and rules options. A lot of good period touches to bring in some light horror elements as well.

May expand into continental SYW later; my focus would be on garrison troops in Holland fighting gangs of Bokkenrijders.

French and Indian War

French and Indian War would be good, but so would Naval Raiding (like the shores of Tripoli)…

There are a lot of low-head-count (at least on one side) desperate battles in the various British colonial areas, too.

There were no garrsion troops fighting the bokkenrijders. maybe some police actions

Colonial Australia would be ideal if anyone made a decent range of figures for it, but at the moment, apart from a pseudo-Kelly gang (dismounted and armoured only) and some pseudo-Aboriginal warriors, figures have to be converted – which really restricts it as a subject choice to the dedicated enthusiast.

French Indian war for me in the 18th and Napoleonic in the 19th, I also play ACW skirmish

Some great suggestions are listed above, but perhaps it's not a case of the "best" period but instead more a case of finding the appropriate scale and detail to flash out an engaging narrative or scenario, all of which can possibly be found in most subjects. Part of the process is fleshing out that story.

It might be a desperate last stand by FPW French in a fortified farmyard, Bushwackers and Jayhawkers clashing in the ACW, a desperate British patrol fighting it's way through Delhi in 1857 during the Great Mutiny, all offer possibilities. It's a case of following your interest and exploring from there. For me it's the Indian Mutiny, a "what if" French in India scenario based around the idea of the French winning in Egypt and moving on to Wellington's India from there, the Seminole conflicts offer a huge variety of terrain and troop types.

In addition you might want to look at such fascinating areas as the French in Mexico during the Maximillian adventure, the Maori and Cape wars, The Old West and Pony Wars? etc, all have so much to offer. Good luck and happy gaming in whatever area you decide.

Some great suggestions are listed above, but perhaps it's not a case of the "best" period but finding the appropriate scale and detail to flash out an engaging narrative or scenario, all of which can possibly be found in most subjects. Part of the process is fleshing out that story.

It might be a desperate last stand by FPW French in a fortified farmyard, Bushwackers and Jayhawkers clashing in the ACW, a desperate British patrol fighting it's way through Delhi, all offer possibilities. It's a case of following your interest and exploring from there. For me it's the Indian Mutiny, a what if French in India scenario based around the idea of the French winning in Egypt and moving on to India from there, the Seminole conflicts offer a huge variety of terrain and troop types. It really has it all.

Henri Martini, if you haven't already, check out the forthcoming MAA by Osprey on the Australian Bushrangers

link

May well be of interest.

Well… that is a VERY big and VERY pleasant surprise, Mr J1970, although I'm equally surprised they found enough pictorial material to produce an entire MAA on the subject. It's obvious they struggled: that figure on the right on the cover is a trooper of the Port Phillip (Victorian) Native Mounted Police, which was disbanded in 1852, and had very little involvement with bushrangers, who were most active in NSW and Tasmania in the pre-goldrush period. Its main role was 'policing' the pastoral frontier (that is, suppressing Aboriginal armed resistance to land seizures).

Presumably there are also plates of the other mounted police forces of the colonial period, and maybe even one of the enigmatic kangaroo-skin field dress worn by infantry in Tasmania.

I think it would have made much more sense to publish a volume on the entirety of colonial Australia, including rebellions and the frontier. It's probably a slim hope, but maybe the other two dimensions of colonial Australian armed conflict will get their own Ospreys down the track.

Given the – inevitable – prominent positioning of Ned Kelly as the central figure on the front cover, I sincerely hope that the text is balanced and isn't just mostly yet another rehash of the two-year Kelly affair, with the other hundred-plus years of bushranging and the rest of the estimated two thousand bushrangers crammed into the few remaining pages as an afterthought.

On the positive side, at least the hobby will be exposed to the full extent of the bushranging phenomenon, and perhaps a figure manufacturer or two will finally be inspired to make a start on a colonial Australia skirmish range (are you reading this, Alan and Michael?:- ).

I should add that, based on the cover plate, Mark Stacey appears to have done a very nice job on the illustrations. He's certainly captured the raffish look of the typical bearded 1860s bushranger, in Cabbage Tree hat with waist-sash with revolver tucked into it, in the figure on the left.

Hey Field Marshal,
I think skirmishing is all about the stories. Generally, the genre that has the most stories that interest you is the one that will be endure over time with skirmish forces.

I think this pushes one into English language source material [unless you are fluent in French, German, Polish or whatever].

My #1 suggestion would be the Wild West. Talk about a load of movies, novels et al. Between Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour you'd never game it all.

I will say that I happen to not game it myself.

My personal favorites would be American Revolution / French-Indian War, British Colonial, French Foreign Legion, Pulp Stories [eg Indiana Jones].

Plenty of figs available for all of them. With such small forces I'd go for 40mm or 54mm if possible, 25-28mm would offer a nice balance.

My approach would be to get out some books from a library and see if the stories really catch your interest. If not, skip to another period until you really are hooked. THEN go get figs and paint them up.

Just throwing this out there.
Does anyone remember a great article about wargaming the border raids/sheep stealing along the Scottish border in the 18th century? Guess I read it in the 80's but it always stayed with me as an idea.

Do you mean the 16th century Maxshadow? Things were pretty quiet by the 18th century, especially after the '45.

There's been a number of articles in the hobby press on the Border Reivers over the years, and there's also an Osprey, and there's a couple of dedicated rule sets on the subject out there.

While we're discussing colonial Australia, much of the frontier conflict between settlers and Aborigines had a similar character to the reiving on the England/Scotland border.

I'm guessing, based on the cover picture, that the illustrations, and perhaps the text, of that Osprey are organised by colony. The cover plate appears to depict Victorian subjects only, assuming the figure on the left is Dan Morgan.