"Why don't you use limbers?" Topic

According to Wikipedia:

A limber is a two-wheeled cart designed to support the trail of an artillery piece, or the stock of a field carriage such as a caisson or traveling forge, allowing it to be towed.

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Why don't you use limbers on the wargaming table?

1. They aren't necessary to game with.
2. Cost and time to paint and mount.
3. Availability for some periods.
4. Clutter on the table.

I use them to show limbered and unlimbered guns.

When ready for action the guns are on the table and the limber teams are put back in the box.

But sometimes I'm lazy and just turn the guns about and put them in a column.

Due to ground scale and figure size issues, they greatly distort the amount of space that they actually take up. And, when gaming in larger scales, it is easy to spend hundreds of dollars on limbers alone for a single army and, well, I'd rather spend that money on something else.

Because I play fantasy micro-skirmish with no more than ten or so models on a side, and artillery doesn't figure into my ganes at all. But if it did, I would certainly have limbers for every piece.

Because I play science fiction games in which antigravity technology has rendered towing obsolete. Artillery pieces that are not mounted on vehicles are carried by grav vehicles, not towed.

Limbers only make sense when artillery is redeployed on the battlefield.

In that case, scale kicks in. If one gun represents a battery or three, the footprint of the artillery base (single or not) already covers quite some ground. A limber just outscales most systems. If you play somewhat near 1:1 (one gun on the table = one gun in the battle) you are probably misusing artillery in a skirmish or have a pretty large table. Then of course you should use limbers.

Just in case, do build limbers for my artillery – even when I play the Italian wars, which was not the most mobile time for artillery…

We use them in ACW and at times SYW. I always wanted to incorporate limber damage during counter battery fire. You miss the gun but did the limber/horses sustain damage? Equals less ammo or slower movement. My pleas fell on deaf ears.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It depends how much other stuff is on the table to push around.

Real artillery units take up a lot of space, and having a load of wagons, trucks etc is one way to show that.

I use them for three reasons:

• Napoleonic artillery batteries were very deep when deployed as all the supporting elements were spaced out behind the gun line. Take a look at Adkins Waterloo to see this in detail. The model limber and team cover this area effectively. In the rules I use the ground scale is such that the guns alone don't cover the depth of the deployed battery whilst limbers and teams do.

• I wanted to show when guns were deployed and able to fire and when they are being moved. Batteries took up a lot of space when moving down a road and limbers and horses represent this.

• They look great on the table top.

I don't use them for the ECW as the guns rarely moved during battles. The Perrys don't make them for the Sudan period – if they made them I'd buy them.

For me the only real negatives are the cost, as it does add up and that they are a lot of work to model.

Laziness so far but I am planning to start using them soon…

I aways use limbers with thesame reasons as Timmo. What I hear from those that don't use them it is that limbers are expensive. This is the same reason you don't see battalion guns in infantry units (uused in some countries up to 1806)

I have not because they take time and effort to build/paint but now am starting to make and use them for the same reasons as Timmo and Browand – especially for my Napoleonics, which at 6mm are much less trouble to build and paint

Since all I do is 6mm Sci-fi … there is not a lot of them. But I have painted up a few tow vehicles …

As with Timmo, I use them in my 6mm armies to show the area behind the battery which my other units cannot enter and have to manouvre around. Artillery batteries have an enormous amount of 'stuff' and these represent that 'stuff'.

7th VA Cav: The rules set "Rally 'Round the Flag" (ACW set) did have exactly what yuou were looking for with regards to what you hit when firing at a battery. Limber, Horse, Gun, Carriage, crew all suseptable.

My friend introduced me to his method during a game a couple years ago. He uses one horse based preferably a limber horse to represent an entire limber. Works pretty good.

+1 Timmo, I could not have said it better.

we did because the mover shaker of our games owned a store and sales were 1st and formost

Use to only have a few, cost mostly. But on a limber extravaganza and working on having enough for every battery on the game board. My goal is 1 limber for every battery and as many caissons as I can get after the limbers.

Because I drive a Fiat. No way can it pull a limber.

Often additional victory points are given for capturing or destroying the enemy baggage/artillery train.

I didn't used to. But now I'm planing on adding limbers to all my SYW, Napoleonics and ACW forces. As mentioned. Artillery has a huge depth. And secondly it looks good.

I do use them.

Phil

Because I wargame for fun and (depending on the game) some lite history. I'd rather spend my army budgets on putting more units on the table than on having the right mini to represent artillery logistics.

I do not use limbers on my battalion guns for 7YW. That is because they didn't have limbers. Otherwise all of my guns that are horse drawn have limbers.

Just found 48 limbers (that I had inherited) for my German WW2 6mm artillery/anti tank guns. They were with 90+ wagons for my German army for transport.

I like the look of them and try to use them for all of my 20mm ACW and Napoleonics.

But for my 28mm stuff the cost of limbers is too high to justify them. Plus, anymore I would rather get more infantry or cavalry painted up instead of limbers.

You don't need a limber for every artillery battery, it is rare, in a wargames setting, for every battery in your army to be limbered. I usually only do two, maybe three at the most, more than enough. Also, like gamershs, the battalion guns in SYW don't use limbers in action.