Franco-Prussian War

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great lists.
I know not all were engaged, but I do Think you're selling the Wurttenbergers short on artillery. They had more batteries in their division than a Prussain corps!

[mollinary]

Great lists.
I know not all were engaged, but I do Think you're selling the Wurttenbergers short on artillery. They had more batteries in their division than a Prussain corps!

Hmm!  Are you sure ML?  I thought most Prussian Corps had 13-14 batteries, while my failing memory told me the Wurttemberg division had only (!) 9.   

Mollinary

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Certainly more than a Prussian division. I stand corrected (again)! 

[mollinary]

Certainly more than a Prussian division. I stand corrected (again)! 

. Absolutely, more than twice the number than in a standard Prussian Division, which had only 4. The difference was the Prussian corps reserve, usually of 6 batteries.  The Bavarians and Saxons, I think, had even more, with 16 batteries to a Corps.

Mollinary

[Javier Gomez]

. Absolutely, more than twice the number than in a standard Prussian Division, which had only 4. The difference was the Prussian corps reserve, usually of 6 batteries.  The Bavarians and Saxons, I think, had even more, with 16 batteries to a Corps.

Mollinary

Yes, I working on a standard of 16 batteries for each german Corps. On Wurttembergers I only made the brigade that arrives at Froeschwiller in the middle of the fight. As I mentioned before my goal is not to build armies per se but historical oob to play historical battles, and my first project was Froeschwiller, thus the W. brigade –I think I have almost everything I would need for that battle but a Bavarian brigade and a couple of French cuirassiers regiments to complete the whole lot. I will complete the colorful Wurttembergers if I need more for any other scenario. But Saxons will come first I guess.

[Javier Gomez]

Hi Javier,
it won't sound an original comment, but your pieces are utterly awesome! Accidentally at my club (Gruppo Ludico Aglianese, Agliana, Italy) we are playing FPW using Bruce Weigle's 1870 rules and pendraken's miniatures too, even if no way near to your beatifull pieces/table. Anyway, i utterly subscribe your opinion about the rules and the scale, keep it up! PS: in painting your models did you used washes or just layers of colours?

Hi! How is your experience with 1870 rules? We started with Blackpowder as is a ruleset everyone know, but I'm considering to move to 1870 in a short term.
Grazie mille

[Werthor]

Hi Javier,
i like 1870 ruleset, it handles command and controll brillantly and i find also the fire phase convincing: french infantry has more range than prussian (the double) but at short range the prussians get an edge. The charging phases is a bit more confusing, mostly because many morale tests are needed and because it's really hard to have a close combat between two infantry units. In any cases the most important feature of the ruleset are the wonderful scenarios, very detailed and playable, with a lot of "what if" suggestions. It doesn't give any point system to recreate fictional battles but i dont miss it since it's not too dificult to build some army builder using as coeficients morale and combat points. The only drawback that i've noticed is that it's not very clearly written, anyway on 1870's website you can download offical FAQ's that help a lot to understand some mechanics. I warmly recommend bruce weigle's ruleset also for the magnificent fluff about tactics, armaments, OOb exc that occupy the most part of the rulebook.

Well, since you are using black powder and i'd like to give it a try for FPW, do you think it works well with 10mm figures? And, moreover, where can i find BP unit stats for FPW war?

Saludos! 
   

[Leman]

My brother plays BP FPW in 10mm so I'll give him a call over the weekend and see if he can email me some stats. Generally in my club we play 10mm BP using 25x25mm bases and substituting cms for inches

[Javier Gomez]

Hi Javier,
i like 1870 ruleset, it handles command and controll brillantly and i find also the fire phase convincing: french infantry has more range than prussian (the double) but at short range the prussians get an edge. The charging phases is a bit more confusing, mostly because many morale tests are needed and because it's really hard to have a close combat between two infantry units. In any cases the most important feature of the ruleset are the wonderful scenarios, very detailed and playable, with a lot of "what if" suggestions. It doesn't give any point system to recreate fictional battles but i dont miss it since it's not too dificult to build some army builder using as coeficients morale and combat points. The only drawback that i've noticed is that it's not very clearly written, anyway on 1870's website you can download offical FAQ's that help a lot to understand some mechanics. I warmly recommend bruce weigle's ruleset also for the magnificent fluff about tactics, armaments, OOb exc that occupy the most part of the rulebook.

Well, since you are using black powder and i'd like to give it a try for FPW, do you think it works well with 10mm figures? And, moreover, where can i find BP unit stats for FPW war?

Saludos! 
   

I have both 1866 and 1870 rules (actually they were my main inspiration to start this project). I completely agree with your general view but my opinion doesn't worth as I read them but barely tried them. Looks good but a bit confusing sometimes. The scenarios are just outstanding!

On FPW, WI#276 published an article on how to adapt BP for the FPW (my second inspiration!). Interesting as a starting point. The BP brigade now turned to be a division, and the basic units are regiments –large for Prussians, medium for French, small for Jaeger/chasseurs battalions. So in the activation phase you activate divisions of usually 5 infantry units (four line regts. plus one chasseur/jaeger battalion) plus artillery/cavalry. This works well but they say nothing on downscaling artillery –I mean, if you play at regimental level instead of battalion level, you should do something with the artillery I guess. They also offer special rules for Germans and French and measures for Chassepot, Dreyse and French and German guns. From my point of view the stats for German guns are plainly excessive. On infantry, the usual stats with Morale 4+ for all, 3+ for special units such as Zouaves, Turcos and Guard and 5+ for Bavarians. The article is honest and funny, very old school, but more a digression than an actual adaptation of the rules. I'm working on my own adaptation, I hope to be able to offer a few ideas as soon as I would be able to test them.

[Javier Gomez]

My brother plays BP FPW in 10mm so I'll give him a call over the weekend and see if he can email me some stats. Generally in my club we play 10mm BP using 25x25mm bases and substituting cms for inches

Yes, we do the same, 1"=1cm. Any tip on BP for FPW will be more than welcome!

[Leman]

I'll do my best, but can't contact my brother on a Friday because that's when he wargames.

[Westmarcher]

..... your brother wargames? So jealous!

[Leman]

It makes birthdays and Christmas very straightforward.

[KTravlos]

We play 1877 (RTW) using 10mm figures and the inches to cm conversion and it works well. Room for maneuver if you need it. So it plays. As or for converting to FPW it really depends on what level of command you want your BP Brigades to represent. Weapon scaling is really a matter of deciding which range band make what sense for which weapon. For example in 1877 we treated the Krnk as a Rifled Musket and the Peabody as a Breech Loading Rifle, and the Berdan II as a bolt action.

We gave higher shooting to Ottoman Nizam and Veteran Redif units, and higher HtH to the Russians. Special rules were mostly chosen created to encourage historical tactics by the gamers.

I really enjoyed the process of building the army pamphlet for the war. It is part of the hobby and I thoroughly recommend it.

Javier i simply cannot get over how well you did those 10mm. You make me regret not going for a better standard in my Russians 

[Javier Gomez]

My last additions, one regiment of zouaves and one of Turcos, using the ACW range figs for more variety. Now I already have the three regiments of each I needed to complete MacMahon 1 Corps. The third zouave regiment is actually the Zouaves of the Guard. Not big different with the line zouaves and never been in the same place during the war, so it makes no sense to me to paint a fourth zouave regiment. Maybe the Papal Zouaves in the future... On flags, I do like to alternate the regimental eagle flag with battalion fanions.