"About De Bellis Napoleonicis v 2.1" Topic

Hello everyone,

Page 3 on De Bellis Napoleonicis v 2.1

If a base represents an infantry brigade of 2000 to 2500 men or a cavalry brigade of 1200 to 1500 men, how do I go about representing the different regiments constituting these brigades, because they have different uniforms and most of the time if they have the same uniforms they have different distinctive regimental colors and I am not talking to you about elite companies of certain units of certain armies.

Paskal

You don't. Just put as many figures in whatever scale you are using as will fit on a base, and paint them as a regiment of your choice.

Or, you use more figures per base by adopting smaller-scale figures and/or bigger bases.

I think you'll have to go down to 6mm at least. I don't know what the base size is though. Frank Chadwick's Volley and Bayonet has 75mm square bases for a brigade, which might allow a small number of, say, 10mm figures per battalion, but I suspect 6mm (or whisper it, 2mm) would give a better impression.

As above, just put as many or as few figures on as you want, painted how you want. The 'unit' is the base, not the bits of Lead or plastic stuck to it.

If you really want to model the individual regiments/battalions/squadrons then 2mm strips might be the way to go.

This is true of all rules which use brigade or larger bases, and there are many.

You can also say that each stand is a battalion/regiment. You probably won't be able to do the largest battles but it does look good.

At that scale i would pick a corps and just average everything out within the corps. But i must admit at a scale of 1 element equals 2500 men, that is a reasonable scale. You could even reproduce Leipzig on a large playing area at that scale.
youtu.be/eKT0QwRkROY

@Dexter Ward,
sPaint them as the regiment of my choice? So I choose only one regiment from the brigade?
That would be a shame.
This will end up bothering me.

@BillyNM,
This is not regulatory, you have to try to respect the rules and not distort them. I am using 25mm figures and want to put 8 infantry figures per base as indicated in the rules.

So if for example a brigade is made up of 4 battalions, I would put on average 2 figurines per battalion unless their respective numbers are disproportionate, but from then on, goodbye to my figurines of officers, nco's, standard-bearers, musicians and specialists in all kinds by company types in the same infantry battalion or cavalry regiment.

And for the cavalry which has fewer figures per base it is worse.

@advocate,
Impossible, I only have my dear 25mm MiniFigs with their masses of figurines of officers, nco's, standard-bearers, musicians and specialists of all kinds by type of company in the same infantry battalion or cavalry regiment.

@Martin Rapier,
As above…

@Legionarius,
Yes, it is enough to change the representation of the units, the movement distances and the shooting ranges without changing anything in the game system and distorting the rule but then it is impossible to lead the biggest battles, which is not the spirit of this rule.

@pfmodel,
That's the whole point of this rule like that of "Horse, Foot and Guns" rules…

Most of my stands are painted as a single regiment. Some of my Netherlands militia stands are a mix of 2, helps give them a motley look with varied uniforms.

Fighting smaller battles where 1 stand = 1 regiment works quite well. Some of the downloadable scenarios do this.

We play with 15mm figures on 60mm wide bases (and the corresponding measuring units for 60mm width) in order to put more figures on each stand. This also allows for varying the figure count and formations a bit to make it easier to spot different troop qualities at a glance.

With 25mm figures, you could go to wider bases if you like without distortion if you increase the play area and measurement units. Say, double the play area and measureements from the 40mm standards to 80mm.

I don't know yet what I'm going to do because I have a lot of other questions.

Or you treat them like I'm treating the unit counters in the 1975 Airfix Waterloo Wargame that I just bought, and just put one to two figures on each base that are representative of the units it depicts. Your other figures you just base for a different set of rules :-)

The Airfix game's base sizes vary in size with 1cm equalling 1,000 men, which is also the attack strength. The large bases get two figures or even three figures, the others get one. My Bijlandt brigade token has an Airfix British infantryman painted as a Belgian and a HaT British light infantryman painted as Dutch. The base colour tells you which army it belongs to: Anglo-allied bases are red, French are blue, Prussians are dark grey.

Once you get down to something the size of a large postage stamp representing a brigade, you're arguably better off marking them with NATO symbols than figures, but that's no fun. I'm now wondering if you could play DBN with the AWW counters…

This is why I build for Battalion/regiment. I can be specific and accurate for the overall battalion facings and look, and then when I play games at the brigade level I just fudge and use what I have that is close and covers it. Youll go insane trying to represent every regiment in a brigade because it is a ton of fudging, and that isnt fun either. If you base for brigade and show all this detail, then if you go down in scale its weird and almost useless. Battallion is just enough wiggle room to fudge some detail but still show something moderately accurate as well.

That is just me and while I mostly prefer regiment or battalion, I also like to be able to play other scale games. If youll only ever play brigade this advice is useless and ignore me, listen to Dexter Ward and go about your day.

@4th Cuirassier
In a game at brigade level, you would have to put a figurine or two per battalion or cavalry regiment (depending on its strength) forgetting my beautiful figurines of officers, standard bearers, nco's and musicians etc, which is a shame…

@DevoutDavout
Playing the rule at battalion level is distorting it, HFG and DBN are for playing entire historical armies.

Hmm

I think you're overthinking it.

I know on his Waterloo video Alex has different figures on a single base – so the heavy cavalry at waterloo are 2 different figures on the base.

Personally I like DBN because it means I don't have to paint multiple battalions of 24 / 36 / 48 figures in different uniforms then find the space to put them…

But as with all rules, its horses for courses.

Kind Regards

J

I'm peeling this rule because I love it.

TMP link

TMP link

TMP link

Paskal, if you're that fixated on the figures and how they're painted you want another set of rules. If 8 figures represents a brigade they are generic infantry, if French then either ligne or leger; if Austrian, Germans, Hungarians or Grenadiers .

@Mark J Wilson,

Precisely no!

With four to eight 25mm figurines on a base you can represent the different units making up this or that brigade!

But why bother – unless you love painting different figures with slight variations of uniform? – as the division or corps commander just thinks,
"I'll send the 3rd Brigade to take that farm."
Not,
"I'll send the 3rd Brigade, which consists of the 1/47th Foot, two battalions of the 59th Foot and the understrength 75th Foot, to take that farm."

That's exactly how I work !

"I'll send the 3rd Brigade, which consists of the 1/47th Foot, two battalions of the 59th Foot and the understrength 75th Foot, to take that farm."

No generic troops with me, a military unit for me is like a human person, no two are identical.

To my question if in DBN, the areas given on page 11 for BUA and NLF are for 15mm or 25mm figurines, Alex replied last night:

"Hello Pascal
All distances quoted are for 15mm scale (see 1.4) Therefore with 25mm figures on a 60mm Frontage, BUA's would be approximately 160mm x 160mm and NLF's 120mm x 90mm.
However If I was using 25mm figures, my personal preference would be to go with a 80mm Frontage and double all quoted distances.

Alex"

In conclusion now with 25 mm figurines – 50 mm corresponds to 100 paces.

This modifies all our previous calculations!

Furthermore, after asking Alex the question, this also modifies the quantities of figurines on the bases, which suits me well :

So now on a base for 25 mm figurines we can stick on these larger bases:

- 2 – 5 figures on a "C-in-C" base instead of 2 – 4.
- 2 – 3 figures on a "Sub Commander" base instead of 1 – 2.
- 10 "muskets" figures instead of 8 per base.
- 8 "light infantry" figures instead of 6 per base.
- 4 "jagers" figures instead of 3 per base.
- 10 "Levee en masse" figures instead of 8 per base.
- 4 "Guerrillas" figures instead of 2-3 per base.
- 5 "Heavy Cavalry" figures instead of 4 per base.
- 4 "Light Cavalry" figures instead of 3 per base.
- 3 "skirmishing cavalry" figures instead of 2 per base.
- 3 "Irregular cavalry" figures instead of 2 per base.
- 5 "Foot artillery" figures instead of 4 per base.
- 4 "Horse artillery" figures instead of 3 per base.
- 4 "Rocket Launcher Servants" figures instead of 3 per base.