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Starting out with the Epic scale for DBN armies, I have something of a blank canvas. My Napoleonic 28’s are French / Austrian, so I wanted to take the opportunity to field something different and the Prussians are where my gaze has fallen. So the Epic project will see a pairing of newly formed French / Prussian Pocket Armies.
Rather than just going with some generic forces to fight some generic actions (which is fine), selecting a theatre / battle might just impart some extra flavour on the play and so my shelves were scanned for inspiration.
‘Boom’ as the cool generation are saying! Jena - Auerstaedt 1806.
I have a rather beautiful book on the subject, Jena Auerstaedt - The Triumph of the Eagle, from the pen of E.G. Hourtoulle and published by Historie & Collections.
A 120 page hardback, it is chock full of illustration, including lovely full colour uniform plates and nice clear maps of the actions, while also supported by a very readable text on the battle and good orders of battle and organisation notes - it is a dream book for the wargamer!
Alone, that would be enough for me, but my beady eye noticed that I also have four boardgames on the Jena Auerstaedt subject;
The Coming Storm by Kevin Zucker from Operation Support Studies.
Trois Batailles en Allemagne by Didier Rouy from Pratzen Editions and Legion Games.
Jena - Auerstaedt, one of the old Napoleon at War Quads (SPI), recently republished by Decision Games.
Deux Années de Gloire, of the Jours de Gloire series, published by Vae Victis
If nothing else, this offers a ton of play opportunity and will allow me to really get a detailed appreciation of the battle(s) and also, there will be that thing of some situations created in the boardgame playings, being suitable for transfer to the figure table, where they might generate some interesting set-ups for the DBN armies.
Despite all of this marvellous detail in front of me, of late, I have enjoyed prioritising theme and flavour on the figures table above exact replication of history and so I will be using the Jena - Auerstaedt arena to that end.
Having a quick look at the characteristics given in DBN of my two 1806 armies, The Prussians get a -1 to their command point allowance, their musketry range is reduced to reflect their lack of skirmishing capability, they get a bonus in close combat and cannot use column for assault.
The French get a +1 to their command point allowance and an additional bonus when using column attack.
These differences might bring some additional interest to the table.
Anyway, this all seems fertile ground for a lot of near future napoleonic gaming on my table.
Resources;
I have other web space at the COMMANDERS site, where more on this will be written about over the coming weeks. LINK.
https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html
Interesting choice to game Norm, never saw that coming! Looking forward to seeing progress on this I must admit.
ReplyDeleteGood Morning Donnie, it is not a battle that I have much experience with, so I thought new project, new slice of history. There is a much more marked difference between the two armies than if I would go to my normal time frame of 1815, with the fighting around the St. Amand area (and on which I have already written a nice scenario for my own rules).
ReplyDeleteI think the 'theme and flavour' approach is a good way to go Norm. The sort of thing I use for my ImagiNations games, as I still feel I'm playing the period, but without the strictures that historical OOB etc can provide. I certainly look forward to seeing how these games play out, as as mentioned before, the rules offer a nice way to get that 12-15 units per side game in in a reasonable amount of time, and of course, of a smallish table. Good to see this post appearing 'normally' dare I say it...
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, I pre-published last night, scheduled to appear at 0500 hours this morning and it seems to have done that okay, I have also just used the Feedburner thing described by Jon. I don't think anything else can be done.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, I feel that in my boardgames, the designer has really grafted to get the order of battle and history right and so for figures (which I want to be doing something different than the boardgames), I prefer a more relaxed approach.
So many die rolls are made in a typical wargame that within the first 20 minutes the game has a mind of its own anyway, plus I quite like the old 'teaser' approach. Hopefully the 1806 campaign can deliver something new for me.
Great stuff Norm, I shall look forward to future posts on the subject. I think having some sort of historical background for tabletop battles is far more interesting than generic hypothetical situations and there are some interesting asymmetries in 1806. Of they also lead neatly into the joys of Eylau and Friedland, which are also very interesting engagements. I've done both in the last couple of years with my Neil Thomas mashup.
ReplyDeleteI note that in the DBN army lists, moving from 1806 to 1807 brings some changes for the Prussian army, so that will be interesting.
DeleteSupposedly after the shock of Jena, The Prussians moved to more modern tactics. Sounds like I should pick up a copy of DBN for a look.
Delete:-)
DeleteGood choice. I have a small 10mm 1806 Prussian force for DBN and will be expanding that next year when Pendraken release their range. I'm probably going to do Saalfeld as a starter.
ReplyDeleteHi Andy, thanks for dropping by. That is really interesting. from memory, Saalfeld is small but cavalry heavy, I will be looking at that over the course of my research and play.
DeleteSounds very, very interesting sir!
ReplyDeleteHi Michal, I am getting quite drawn into this DBN thing.
DeleteTo think of the number of “clear outs” you’ve had over the years…yet you still manage to have four board games covering the subject. Sheesh. In full agreement with you about preserving the flavour without slavishly following every aspect of the battles. Translating board situations into actual miniatures games is something you do really well so I’m sure we’ll be getting some interesting stuff on the blog.
ReplyDeleteHi JB .... they could have course just happen to be the only four boardgames that I have left :-)
DeleteHopefully the boardgames will get interwoven into this DBN project.
While I may not play all of the wargames that fill my game closet, like you, they are tremendous resources and reference material for designing scenarios and getting a flavor for both period and battle. I use them like books in my library. Curiously, I have fought Auerstadt many times but never the accompanying battle of Jena.
ReplyDeleteHi Jon, in each of the boardgames I mentioned, they all have scenarios that link the two battles (fought on the same day) and it is probably in the special rules of each game that establish those links, that I will find the most interest.
DeleteMost interesting I shall look forward to seeing how this progresses.
ReplyDeleteHi Phil, most of my dablings have gone to the earlier Austerlitz or the later 1809 Danube campaign, so this will be a bit of new ground for me to tread and hopefully will keep the enthusiasm high.
ReplyDeleteI only vaugely know Jena to be honest, read about it ,got the osprey but never dug deep. Those Historie and collections books are excellent, I've got Wagram, Borodino and a smaller paperback Aspern Eisilng, all veey nice. I also like to base my 28mm collections on an order of battle for somewhere specific, my French and Austrians are pretty much all Wagram related, although my confederation of the Rhine are less so, my plan for my 28mm Prussians reflect the 1813 battle of Mockern and my 1809 Spanish will be the army of Catalunia, so I can do the siege of Gerona and can then be stand ins, Im always impressed at your ability to just produce appropriate boardgames from stock!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Hi Iain, I have that small Aspern - Essling and it is a 'throw all other books away and just keep that one' type of volume - excellent.
DeleteThere is a big Wagram boardgame coming out by the end of the year by Legion :-)
Looking forward to seeing the game Norm. I hope Alex can keep up with all the orders for the rules that you seem to be inspiring :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Jim, I hope he does another intro battle video, they compliment the rules nicely and have helped me.
ReplyDeleteNice Norm I hanker after Prussians myself at some point. Jena a very interesting battle, it’s very hilly !
ReplyDeleteHi Matt, it seems a much overlooked battle ..... or perhaps it is just me that has over-looked it :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have plenty on inspirational scenarios for your DBN adventure Norm.
ReplyDeleteI saw on your Commanders site that you will be playing with unpainted figures initially. Can I suggest that any units that do particularly well get pushed to the front of the queue and those that do poorly to the end. 😁
Hi Ben, 'promotion', great idea ... I hope all of the cavalry do badly :-)
DeletePlenty of information to draw upon with the book and 4 board games. From memory do 12 units in DBN equate to a corps?
ReplyDeleteHi Peter, yes, that is the terminology that the author uses, so his 'big battles' are two corps (24 points) plus. It is a 12 point army, some things cost 1½ points and some just ½, so you might end up with say 11 - 13 actual units (bases), plus some armies get a free base.
ReplyDeleteThe slightly odd thing is that because of the way DB* systems work with blocks of units being activated for 1 Command Point, the terminology of line and column also creeps in, which is counter what you might expect at corps level ...... but it works.
Nice stuff Norm - I look forward to seeing your new pocket armies painted up and in action - that is an impressive collection of books and boardgames you have there!
ReplyDeleteHi Keith, A French limber will start being painted up today. I surprised myself on the number of Jena related games that I have.
ReplyDelete