Point a New Player the Right Way?

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JoyousOblivion
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Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Hello all, I am very new to Napoleonics both in terms of gaming it and knowing much if anything about it. Long story short my gaming group was at Historicon last week and all decided to start 15mm Napoleonics. I am doing Austrians currently (due to cheap figures in the flea market) but have plans to do Prussians ideally.

Could anyone spare a few moments to dig in their bookmarks folder for some useful links for starting to understand this game? I have 'assembled' 17 stands of line infantry so far but don't really know how to base my other guys (have a bag of Grenzers/Jaegers).

I have been searching myself but some help from you vets would be very much appreciated for myself and the rest of the lads over at Dicedevils (can't link as a new user, lol)

Thanks again,

Marty (Joyous_Oblivion)
BrettPT
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by BrettPT »

Welcome Marty

I'll try to give you some help if I can.

First question, are your Austrian infantry early (helmets) or late (shakos)?
Secondly, are you looking for historical and uniform information or FoGN army build assistance?

On basing LI, these are generally best used in small (4 base) units.
You would have 2 bases of formed up LI in the rear and 2 skirmishes bases in front. Skirmishes bases have a few (3 or 4) figures on them. You then need another 2 skirmish bases as spares because when you deploy in skirmish formation (which will be most of the time) you swap out the rear 2 formed bases for skirmish ones.

Also paint an additional 2 or 3 skirmish in Jager bases as you'll certainly want some of these to add as attachments to your line units .

General rule of thumb I use for Austrian infantry is large (6 base) units for line and veteran Hungarians, small units for LI and superior Grenadiers. And as many rifle and artillery attachments as you can get.

Cheers
Brett
JoyousOblivion
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Thanks Brett, all this is helping a lot. Right now all my guys are in Shako, so I assume that's 'late war' for Napoleonics.

If I understand your meaning, my grenzers are light infantry and the Jagers are attachments for the light infantry?

I'd really love build advice too, even if it's just to get started playing. I'm working my way through the books now but admittedly it's such a foreign system to me, it's hard to get my head around a lot of things.

For basing the light infantry/Jagers when you say have less guys per stand do they get modelled as staggered on the base or still in a straight rank?

All my infantry is on 40mm x 30mm as recommended by the Rulebook, if that makes a difference.
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by ravenflight »

JoyousOblivion wrote:Thanks Brett, all this is helping a lot. Right now all my guys are in Shako, so I assume that's 'late war' for Napoleonics.

If I understand your meaning, my grenzers are light infantry and the Jagers are attachments for the light infantry?

I'd really love build advice too, even if it's just to get started playing. I'm working my way through the books now but admittedly it's such a foreign system to me, it's hard to get my head around a lot of things.

For basing the light infantry/Jagers when you say have less guys per stand do they get modelled as staggered on the base or still in a straight rank?

All my infantry is on 40mm x 30mm as recommended by the Rulebook, if that makes a difference.
Austrians aren't my thing, but I think they changed from Helmets to Shako around 1809. No matter when they changed, you'd be able to use helmets later as not all units would have shakos as soon as the new uniform came out.

Since you've got 'all Shako' I'd suggest you're quite late. If you wanted to spice it up a bit you could have some in Shako and some in Helmet and go for the crossover period, however I'd suggest if you do that that you do entire bases (at least, possibly entire units) in either/or. An entire battalion/regiment/Brigade would be issued with the new uniform together I would think.
BrettPT
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by BrettPT »

Hi Marty

Yes, if your chaps are in Shakos, then you have a post-1809 Austrian army. Have you got a copy of the army list book Triumph of Nations?
I haven't got ToN to hand, but from memory, your figures would allow armies to be fielded from the:

- 1812 Austrian list (Austria was then allied to France and contributed a Corps to the invasion of Russia)

- 1813-4 lists - covering fighting in central Europe and Italy when Austria changed sides back to the allies. There are many options here, including many options to include allied divisions in an Austrian army (Russian, Prussian, or various minor states). The (in our neck of the woods infamous) 'army list of cheese' (1813 Mixed Nationality list) is worth looking at if you want a strong tournament army - an Austrian division, a Prussian division and a Russian Guard Cavalry division - this makes a pretty brutal list.

- 1815 - lists - where the Austrians fought Murat's Neapolitans and then invaded western France in the 100 days campaign.

RE your question, you can have both Grenz and Jaeger LI units.

Your line infantry will be able to have some 'attachments'. Attachments are a separate thing to separate LI units. Attachments are modelled by replacing a base in a line regiment with an attachment base (attachments can be an artillery base, a skirmish base, a cavalry base or a brigade commander base - all 40mm x 30mm). A unit can include up to 2 attachments, but the various lists will contain restrictions on the total number of attachments allowed in your Corps.

LI units can have cavalry/artillery/brigade commander attachments (skirmish attachments are not allowed to LI units). In practise, you wouldn't bother with attachments to LI units (a possible exception is a cavalry attachment). My most common use for LI units is to skirmish in front of enemy artillery units. Skirmishing LI are the paper to artillery's rock.

Because Austrian Line/Hungarian/Grenadier regiments are classed as 'unreformed', they cannot shoot at medium range (6MU) unless they have a skirmisher attachment (or an artillery attachment which gets you 2 medium range dice). At 10 points, rifle skirmish attachments are far more cost-effective than musket skirmish attachments (8 points), which is why most Austrian players would always model their skirmish attachments as Jaeger (rifles) rather than Grenz (muskets).

Grenz are definitely LI. They may be compulsory skirmishers in many post-1809 lists. A compulsory skirmisher LI unit has no 6/8 figures 'formed up' bases, but instead each of the 4 bases in the unit has 3 or 4 figures skirmishing on them. I model my skirmishing bases with 3 staggered figures.

I'll need to double-check how Jaegers are dealt with in later lists, but I think they are mostly normal LI with rifles - ie a small unit consists of 2 bases of formed troops and 2 bases of skirmishing troops (during the game you swap out the 2 formed bases for 2 more skirmishing bases when you want to go into skirmish formation).

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Brett
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by Saxonian »

Hi Marty,

first of all I would just like to welcome a new player - always a good thing :) .
Second, all the above advice is excellent and to the point.
My main suggestion would be to try to find a group of players or a club nearby to where you live who use the rules, and go along for a few introductory games.
I play at the League of Ancients in Melbourne, and one of the guys in our group regularly runs learning games for any newbies who want to get a handle on the rules. Quite often you will find that something that appears at first to be confusing is actually pretty straightforward and easily understood when you see it in action on the table. This is true of any rule system. In our learning games we usually pair up a new player with one with a bit of experience, and this helps things move along. You are in control of a division or two (6 - 8 units), rather than a whole corps. And the whole purpose is to get learn on the rules, not winning or losing.

And finally, just spend a bit of time looking over the forum. A lot of things get discussed and clarified.

Happy gaming, Herr Archduke!
JoyousOblivion
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Thanks for all the help and advice so far guys. We don't have a group that already uses these rules, so our group, as a team is learning and playing them, mainly because it is something we have never done before.

Now I have to try and figure out basing my Grenzers and Jagers.
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by Saxonian »

Think of it this way:
- all infantry units have 4 or 6 bases (small or large unit).
- all infantry are either line or light. The main difference is that light infantry shoot better (more shots) at medium range, and have the ability to go into skirmish formation. This makes the unit harder to hit in shooting, able to move more freely, but vulnerable to close assault.
- a unit of line infantry has 8 figures on all of its bases (you can get away with 6, but I think 8 looks better!).
- a light infantry unit has its front rank depicted as skirmishers - 3 or 4 figs in suitably dynamic poses (firing, kneeling, etc), and its rear rank the same as line inf - 8 figs. This represents the unit as being formed (in normal ranks).
When a light inf unit goes into skirmish formation, the 8 figure bases are replaced with spare skirmisher bases. If they change back to formed, the rear ranks are replaced with the 8 fig bases again.

When you see people refer to an attachment, you can think of this as an upgrade that has been purchased for a unit. The upgrade is depicted on the table by replacing one of the regular bases of a unit with a different base.
One of these attachments can be a skirmisher. This can only be given to a line infantry unit, and simply improves its shooting capability at medium range. The unit cannot break into skirmish formation, they just shoot better.
You can also have artillery, cavalry and officer attachments - each gives a different benefit. No unit can have more than two attachments, and the lists tell you how many of each your corps can have.

Your jagers are light infantry as I described above - front rank skirmisher bases in 4's, rear rank formed in 8's, with some spare skirmisher bases to use when the unit breaks into skirmish formation.
The Grenzers are a special case. In certain lists, the late ones in particular, they must always be in skirmish formation and cannot be formed. If you use them like this, you won't need any bases of 8's, all the bases will be 4's all the time.
Either of these guys can be used to make up skirmish attachment bases for your line infantry, though the fact that the jagers use rifles makes a difference - but I'll let you work that one out for yourself! :D

I hope that all makes some kind of sense :shock:
deadtorius
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by deadtorius »

Veteran Austrian player here as well, welcome to the white coated world of slow and steady movers.

I have been looking at the above posts and it seems most of your questions have been answered, but as afar as Jaegers goes until 1815 and I think one of the early 1800 lists in Emperors and Eagles your jaegers can not skirmish. If you have the army list books its in the beginning of the list under customized army where you will see the notation about Jaegers not skirmishing. The light infantry and skirmish thing seems to be difficult for most players to get a grasp on as far as what it looks like. Grenzers go from being permanent skirmishers to normal light infantry, they can either skirmish or form tactical depending on the year list you are using.

Personally as far as basing my own figures goes my light infantry bases are 6 figs per base for the rear base and 3 figs for the skirmishing base. Now I am playing 28mm so perhaps it might be slightly different for you with a narrower frontage to your bases but smaller figs. My line infantry all have 8 figures on their bases. Also by personal choice my light cavalry is mounted 2 figures to a base the heavies are mounted 3 figures to a base. this is both a cost issue and a left over from many years of playing other rules where light horse is 2 figs to a base. With the Austrian army your Chevaux Leger (light horse) and Dragoons (heavy cavalry) are both in white, and look exactly the same. So the 2 or 3 figs also makes them easier to tell the cavalry apart.

Grenzers are from Bosnia, Serbia area sort of the former Yugoslavia area. They are part of the Austrian Empire but not a single nataionality. Austria was an Empire and it had provinces throughout Europe. The Dutch and Belgians being part of the Empire at one time. So you get idea it was a real ethnic mix of soldiers. Grenzers naturally like to fight in loose skirmishing formations hiding behind rocks and trees shooting down on their opponents etc. the Austrian high command was anti-skirmish in general preferring to fight in line as was done in the previous century. The French adopted and developed the use of more skirmish troops, Austria liked things the way it always had been. Thus the Grenzers were taught to fight in what the game calls "tactical" formation. In our case its forming lines and advancing in these lines and trying to keep them straight etc. Grenzers don't get it. You will find in early and later lists that Grenzers are permanent skirmishers. 1805 and 1809 they can be light infantry that can both skirmish and form tactical.

Its personal preference but I always take mine as Poor Drilled since they can form tactical if need be and are a bit more useful I think. Personal choice. Try them as both see what works best for you.

Quick note on painting. If you have or can get the MAA book on Austrian army 1 Infantry, it has nice colour plates and lists regiment numbers names and facing colours. the odd thing about the Austrian army is that their army is split into two basic categories "German" troops and "Hungarian" Troops. For the cavalry all Hussars are Hungarian, all other cavalry are German. Not such a big deal. For the infantry "German" troops wear white uniforms with black leggings. "Hungarian" troops wear white coats and sky blue pants with a yellow and black stripe up the side of each leg and "Hungarian" knots on the front of the thighs. These were like a twisted black and yellow ribbon sewn on the pants. I mostly just paint them yellow myself as its just easier, especially with the knots.
Now for the Grenzers, they wear a white coat early on, which seems to have been in use for most of this period, changing over to a dark brown coat (at least officially) after 1800. They wear sky blue pants as well (with either jacket colour) with side stripe and less ornate knots on the front. Once again the knots and pant stripe are yellow and black.

Hopefully that is all somewhat helpful and not too confusing.
JoyousOblivion
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Wow! Thank you so much everyone. This last few posts really jelled everything together for me, and have me some awesome insight into the Austrian army. I have picked up a couple books about the era but they are Prussian centric as that is what I wanted to start. I'll have to keep my eye out for the book you mentioned Deadtorius as it sounds like an awesome resource.

What I've done so far is assemble a large horde of line infantry. I've went 6 to a base purely for painting purposes and they still look awesome all ranked up. I always paint on bases so prefer to have a little room to maneuver with my brush, lol.

With all this knowledge, I'm off to assemble my Jagers and Grenzers now and if my hands aren't destroyed by filing bases flat I might tackle the other bag of line infantry (though I'm not sure when I'll need 34 bases of line infantry...)

Looking a bit forward, I'm guessing my next purchases will be cavalry and some unit commands/army command. The Jagers and Grenzers have command figs but my line infantry does not.

One question to close it off. Can I ally my (much smaller) Prussian force to my Austrians? I have A unit of Prussian line infantry +command, 6lb'er battery and a unit of Hussars (I think, bought the only AB cavalry the guy had left).
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by pugsville »

JoyousOblivion
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Thanks kindly Pugsville, all added to my growing list of bookmarks for this game/era
JoyousOblivion
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Ok, so my fingers are near dead after all this filing of metal infantry.

After a couple nights work, I have two bags of infantry assembled. This has netted me 17 bases of line infantry (in advancing poses) and a unit of Grenzers and a unit of Jagers.

First up is the Grenzers (left) and Jagers (right). If I understood you correctly I have built them right. I have 1 rank of each in 'line formation' and then a rank in front of that in skirmish formation. Then ahead of that in the pic is the replacement bases for when the unit goes into skirmish formation. Did I get it right?

Image

Also, here are the line infantry done up a couple nights ago!

Image

I've checked and these old 'Old Glory 15s' match up almost perfectly with Blue Moon so my orders soon will either be through Old Glory 15s or through Old Glory and their blue moon line (man that's confusing) depending on who can do better shipping to Canada.

Does anyone know of a site or guide to painting these guys using Vallejo or Citadel paints?
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by pugsville »

deadtorius
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by deadtorius »

Those Osprey titles I had mentioned are: MAA 176 Austrian Army of the Napoleonic Wars 1: Infantry and MAA 181 Austrian Army of the Napoleonic Wars 2: Cavalry
One question to close it off. Can I ally my (much smaller) Prussian force to my Austrians? I have A unit of Prussian line infantry +command, 6lb'er battery and a unit of Hussars
From 1813 on you can have Prussian allies in your Austrian army. I think though that you might need some more Prussians, but you would have to look at a Prussian list for sure. I have used Russian allies myself and found I needed at least 12 bases of line infantry so maybe 1 or 2 units more of Prussian line. You are ok with artillery and likely the Hussars will be fine as I would think you can have a mixed division.
I am presently working on taking my Russians from simple allies to an army of their own. Russia and Austria allied more often than Prussia and Austria did. Prussia and Austria were still shooting at each other in the last century. Austria ended the 1700's with their standard ally Bavaria, who would join the Confederation of the Rhine and switch sides to fight with France. You will find several lists in both Empires and Eagles and Triumph of Nations that you can take Russian allies with your Austrians.
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by KendallB »

You will have to get a unit of Prussian landwehr if you want to add an allied Prussian division. There is a restriction that every infantry or mixed division must have a landwehr infantry unit. The good thing is that they can be large units and are graded as average conscript, superior conscript or even poor conscript (they can't have skirmisher attachments though)
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Re: Point a New Player the Right Way?

Post by JoyousOblivion »

Thanks again all, so much more to read and learn. Need to be making an order soon too, lol.
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