Napoleonic Army: The Decision

This is a follow-up to an article originally written for my patrons in March of last year, which I made public here yesterday. The article ran through the decisions you must make before collecting a Napoleonic army for miniatures gaming. I noted that I’d never collected one in all my years of minis play but hoped to finally do so in the future. Well, that time may be near!

My two biggest stumbling blocks were finding a ruleset I could commit to and ensuring I’d have at least one friend who would join me. Recently, Studio Tomahawk released the Shakos & Bayonets supplement for its Muskets & Tomahawks game. The first edition of M&T was strictly French and Indian War and the American War of Independence. The second edition has been reorganized along the lines of the studio’s other major game, Saga. It now has a core rulebook that covers the whole black powder period and then supplements that provide additional rules and army lists for various conflicts. Shakos & Bayonets covers the Napoleonic Wars.

I already liked Muskets & Tomahawks and played many games of its first edition. One thing that makes collecting a force for M&T more attractive is that it concentrates on small engagements. A typical force is 50 minis or so, which is more achievable for me than a big battle game requiring 300+. Obviously, you won’t be recreating Austerlitz or Waterloo with Shakos & Bayonets. Battles here are raids, reconnaissance expeditions, and other small local affairs. The sort of stuff you see in the early Sharpe’s books.

With rules chosen and the scale thus determined (28mm, my favorite), I needed to figure out which army to play. Shakos & Bayonets provided lists for the Austrians, British and their Portuguese allies, French, Prussians, Russians, and Spanish, plus a more generic one for Minor Powers (of which, there were many in the Napoleonic Wars). Since M&T is a small-scale game, I thought would provide a great opportunity to focus on such an army or sub-faction.  Here are the forces I considered.

Grand Duchy of Warsaw

After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Austria, Prussia, and Russia gobbled up its territory and Poland as a sovereign nation ceased to exist. After Napoleon defeated the Prussians, however, the lands Prussia had acquired were ceded to France in 1807. Now Napoleon could have granted independence to the Poles, but instead created a client state called the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Still, this was a step up for the Poles and they were a firm ally of the French until Napoleon’s ultimate defeat at Waterloo. Murawski Miniatures even makes a whole range of 28mm Polish troops, which would make collecting them easy. Honestly, I would probably have gone with the Grand Duchy of Warsaw but for one factor. My friend who is most interested in putting together a Shakos & Bayonets force has chosen the French, and the two were not historical opponents.

King’s German Legion

Another force I considered was the King’s German Legion. This was fully part of the British army but has an interesting story. King George III of the UK was also the Elector of Hanover, a small German state in this period. The French occupied Hanover in 1803 and dissolved the Electorate, so many officers and soldiers made their way to England so they could continue the fight. The KGL proved a formidable fighting force, offering excellent service in the Peninsular campaign, and providing a legendary defense of La Haye Saint (a walled farmhouse compound) in the Battle of Waterloo. I was temped by the KGL but they ended up being my second-place choice.

Black Brunswickers

The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg was another small German state (German unification would not happen until later in the 19th century). The French occupied it as well, and incorporated it into another client state they created called the Kingdom of Westphalia. Napoleon made his brother Jerome king (ah, nepotism). Anyway, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg did not take this well. In 1809 he formed a small army variously called Schwarze Schar, Schwarze Legion, or most commonly these days the Black Brunswickers. Our dude the duke wanted vengeance so bad he dressed most of his troops in black and they wore the Totenkopf (death’s head) badge on their caps. They fought with the Austrians in Germany, then made a fighting retreat west when things went wrong. The British fleet brough them back to England and they subsequently fought in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. Pretty interesting, eh? And Perry Miniatures makes a whole 28mm line of Brunswicker minis so again they’d be easy to collect.

I decided against them for two reasons. First, the black uniforms were somewhat of a turnoff. Part of the fun of fielding Napoleonic armies is their colorful uniforms. The more important factor was that the black uniforms and Totenkopf badges were later adopted by Hitler’s SS. Obviously, the Black Brunswickers pre-dated Nasim by over 100 years, but still the association was an uncomfortable one.

Bavarians

Finally, we come to the winner: the Bavarians! At the start of the Napoleonic Wars, Bavaria was part of the relic that was the Holy Roman Empire. They ended up siding with Napoleon, and Austria invaded Bavaria in 1805. After Napoleon’s crushing victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, Bavaria and other German states that supported him were rewarded. Bavaria gained kingdom status and joined the Confederacy of the Rhine, a new alliance that basically destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. They fought with the French through the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. As a result of that debacle, the Bavarians flipped to the allies for 1813 and 1814, joining the Sixth Coalition that defeated Napoleon for the first time and sent him into exile.

The Bavarians had all the things I was looking for. They were something different than the “great powers” of that era, they had colorful uniforms that would stand out on the tabletop, Perry Miniatures and other companies had easily available figures, and crucially they fought both for and against the French. That means I could have historical matchups with a wide variety of opponents.

Decision made at last, I now need to make some sample army lists and decide exactly which figures I need and in what quantity.  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.