Napoleonic 1808 - 1815
28mm 1809 Project
This was quite a small, self contained ‘from scratch’ project. Two ‘Pocket Armies’ type forces have been built, one French, the other Austrian for some themed 1809 battles.
The project aimed for each side to have eight units, specifically to play the Liebnitz scenario in Neil Thomas’ book ‘Napoleonic Wargaming’.
His fictional napoleonic battle from 1807, fighting around the town of Liebnitz has sort of bath-tubbed army forces, comprising of line infantry, light infantry, Guard infantry, light cavalry, heavy cavalry and artillery, collectively in a style that reminds me of the old ‘teaser’ type scenarios that used to pop up in magazines.
I have a couple of boardgames that cover the period, so I am also hoping that during play, they will create some local situations that will translate to the figure table and that some of these rather nice figures can get an airing.
Some One Hour wargames
As soon as there were six units per side, I had enough painted units to get some of the scenarios from Neil Thomas’ One Hour wargames book.
Above, a scratch built redoubt comes out of storage. this was built for two 50mm artillery bases, but the 1809 project uses 60mm bases, so there is a bit of a squeeze. To the left … The Old Guard.
Some initial reading
Good old Osprey! Between these two books, they should give me a good feel for the campaign and the illustrations and photographs that are typical of Osprey publications, should help with some scenario building.
Superb on line resource
Someone at The Lead Adventure Forum posted a link to this amazing PDF resource.
The Austrian Imperial-Royal army 1805 to 1809, by Enrico Acerbi, is a 198 page book covering uniform plates, facings and orders-of-battle, together with information on reform and organisation etc.
