hello!
After initiating a short discussion on the relative merits of SYW v Nappy gaming a couple of weeks ago I have suddenly begun to hear the siren sounds of the Franco-Prussian War calling to me.
I almost set out on an FPW project a few years ago, having read the Michael Howard volume, a couple of Ospreys and the Ascoli book on Mars-de-la-Tour, but dissuaded myself by conjecturing that it was too close in style to 1914 Great War gaming which I have (very large) settled forces for (using GWSH).
What are others' views on this? I can see that there isn't the range of armies that you can find in SYW or Nappy gaming, and it lacks the colour, variety and 'verve' of the latter of those two periods in particular. It's also less well-known and perhaps more dour - but there are (I am told) some seriously excellent books on the various campaigns which have come out(or been translated afresh) fairly recently.
Again, asking favours of the Pendraken Forum hive-mind.... is it "too close" to early Great War gaming? Is there any one book you would recommend from a military perspective that might set out best for me the merits of the 1870-71 campaigns?
Imperial phase, big set piece defensive battles.
Republican phase, lots or interesting, smaller, meeting engagements.
Lots of colour if you look at cavalry and Franc-Trillieurs or allied German troops.
Depends what sized battle you want to fight, and which season you want to fight in.
BBBB do both G games in an easy evening, I do Corps level with Black Powder.
The "Just two nations" thing could be seen as an advantage - especially to avid collectors without impulse control.
On the other hand there are non-Prussian Germans, and various French contingents for the avid collector.
The Prussians are a bit monotone, but the the pantalons rouges add some flamboyance.
Then there's the "slight asymmetry":
* French Chassepots outranging the Dreyse.
* Krupps outranging the DeBanges.
My limited experience suggests it takes a well tuned set of rules to prevent this degenerating into a "range war".
I've not played, so I hope others can suggest suitable rules, and explain how they handle the specific aspects of the conflict.
I say do it! But then I am biased - I and my comrades created the "Bloody Big BATTLES!" rules specifically so that we could fight entire FPW battles in an evening on a 6'x4' table. Hence the rulebook includes scenarios for the nine biggest battles of the war, plus there's another 8 or so in the BBB io group files.
On "colour": Bavarians add colour to the German side; tons of variety on the French side. (Papal Zouaves, Turcos, sailors, a railway gun ...)
On "verve" vs "dourness":
These guys playing a BBB Gravelotte game in Nashville last week seem to have been having a good time!
https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-HChLQD?fbclid=IwY2xjawManhBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtx8us2GllVomZ8boCmH8Xtitoe6ovJFRUMVtwDLFDmDjgHfEbpVW8V9_JYf_aem_-xVWa0RhNETBupdPUUDwHQ
More seriously: the battles mostly have plenty of manoeuvre, and the armies have very different character and doctrine (beyond the weaponry), which makes for interesting tactical challenges. The attempted breakout at Mars-la-Tour; the fighting withdrawals at Borny and Beaumont; Sedan is a surprisingly entertaining game; Loigny/Poupry is always fun, both sides having to move a lot.
If you want to see what reviewers think of BBB:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2016/10/collected-reviews-of-bbb-bloody-big.html
Now I wanna play FPW! :'(
I have looked at the FPW, but then slipped back just 4 years to the shenanigans of 1866.
Thanks for the responses.
Will 1870 be a bit of a slugfest compared to 1809 or 1812? I probably want to game at around Corps scale, either in 10mm or 6mm (the latter, I know, an heretical leaning). I like the idea of manoeuvre and the different dynamics of the two armies. I know some battles wee arduous tests of static courage under intense infantry fire (Gravelotte-St Privat) while others were more mobile.
Although not to quite the same extent as with the Napoleonic period, there seems to be an abundance of rule-sets.
I can hear the siren voice of Helion calling me to some of its FPW titles? Where should I start (perhaps not with Helion)?
Henjed, Please can you keep the thoughts in your wandering mind to yourself. I have enough problems being distracted onto other wargames related projects by my own mind, while still having several projects on the go. Without you making me think of others I might like.
Your post reminded me of playing Franco Prussian in 6mm using Principles of war rules, and now I am thinking "Where did I put those rules" despite not having suitable armies for either side.
So next time your mind wanders, please go and get coffee......and stay away from posting on the forum. ;D ;D
I'm a distraction to myself and a danger to others! :D
But sometimes you just have to give in to the voices within!
Quote from: Orcs on 26 August 2025, 05:01:35 PMHenjed, Please can you keep the thoughts in your wandering mind to yourself. I have enough problems being distracted onto other wargames related projects by my own mind, while still having several projects on the go. Without you making me think of others I might like.
Your post reminded me of playing Franco Prussian in 6mm using Principles of war rules, and now I am thinking "Where did I put those rules" despite not having suitable armies for either side.
So next time your mind wanders, please go and get coffee......and stay away from posting on the forum. ;D ;D
Fancy a game in 10mm,come over to LB
Quote from: fsn on 26 August 2025, 03:20:32 PMI have looked at the FPW, but then slipped back just 4 years to the shenanigans of 1866.
Yes, 1866 is a ton of fun too.
Quote from: henjed on 26 August 2025, 09:15:00 AMis FPW "too close" to early Great War gaming?
Not at all. Plenty of manoeuvre and depth and attack and counterattack and ebb and flow and fresh decisions to make every turn, not grinding incremental advance where all the defender has to do is roll firing dice.
Quote from: henjed on 26 August 2025, 04:41:33 PMWill 1870 be a bit of a slugfest compared to 1809 or 1812? I probably want to game at around Corps scale, either in 10mm or 6mm (the latter, I know, an heretical leaning). I like the idea of manoeuvre and the different dynamics of the two armies. I know some battles wee arduous tests of static courage under intense infantry fire (Gravelotte-St Privat) while others were more mobile.
Actually, 'slugfest' is a word I find myself using more for Napoleonics. In Napoleonics, firepower is less, so the assault is more important, and troop density is often such that it feels like alternating battering rams. (That has a charm of its own - Borodino was great.) In FPW, firepower is greater and has longer range but doesn't yet trump manoeuvre to the extent it does in WWI. Instead, it makes it easier for a mobile and clever attacker to concentrate enough firepower to blow enough holes in an enemy line to then charge through it. Of course, the enemy then responds in kind. But it means there is movement and the situation can change quickly.
I think there were actually fewer corps-sized actions than multi-corps battles in the FPW. It really was all about those 20 or so major set-piece battles. That's why we created BBB - when Dave W said "let's do FPW", I said "OK but this time let's do it properly". I didn't want to be doing just one sector of a big battle. That's where you do run into the problem of no room to manoeuvre and limited options. The Prussian Guard at St Privat? No thanks! (Each to their own, of course, and not everyone's tastes fit with my prejudice - just trying to say that I think the most fun to be had from FPW is at that higher big battle level.)
Quote from: Duke Speedy of Leighton on 26 August 2025, 06:52:18 PMFancy a game in 10mm,come over to LB
Thanks for the offer, I may wel take you up on that
I'll take a look at the BBB web-site, Chris.
The reason I play only early Great War is to avoid too much static slaughter, massive artillery assaults and 'over-the-top' death charges. Not that August to November 1914 didn't have quite a bit of that anyway!
Of all the games I have played, GWSH has fielded my biggest armies (I have played with 3 divisions a side - I think two corps on one side in one game): but it is still one company=one base (so a division has between 55 and 63 bases, without including attached artillery) so a single base for a regiment or even for a brigade is a novelty for me :-)
Cheers, Henjed. If BBB appeals, great, but if it's not your cup of tea, also fine, of course. I'm not here to do a 'hard sell' (let's face it, it's only pocket money), just trying to share the love for 19th-century big battles.
On the Great War and 60-element divisions: I think it is generally accepted that a sensible structure is to give orders "two levels down" and track casualties "three levels down", and that a player/commander ideally handles 8-12 units at that 2nd level. Thus, if you're fielding two or three corps, you want your units to be divisions, and you want to track casualties at a level below that (maybe brigades, maybe battalions, depends a bit on troop scale and rules). Tracking individual companies is too granular for that scale of game, in my view. One of the essays in my series of 'Reflections on Wargaming' addresses granularity:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2017/05/v-e-day-games-and-granularity.html
Just from a practical point of view, the more elements and units on the table, the more decisions a player has to take and the more moves he has to implement, all of which takes time (not to mention mental effort on minutiae). I have a formula for BBB: (((total inf or cav units on both sides) x (game turns)) + 30)/100 = total game time in hours. Hence, for a typical BBB game of 10 turns with 15 units a side, ((30x10)+30)/100 = 3.3 hours.
Excuse me waffling on but I have thought about this stuff a lot and like to talk about it too!
I love that formula! And I think I recall reading at least one of your more philosophical blog posts a few years back. I must take another peek.
Large GWSH battles certainly become practically unwieldy in terms of moving so many stands. As the commander of a Corps, I can see that knowing what is happening to individual companies would be unnecessary (indeed unhelpful!) - although, as an avid reader of first person accounts of combat in those sultry months of August and September 1914 in particular, it's a level of detail that (for those campaigns) works for me.
Interestingly, the effect on morale of troop losses in GWSH is measured not at a company or even battalion level but at regimental level (which of course doesn't really match across to British as opposed to French, German or Russian structures), and I have house-ruled some changes to reflect that fact. (For the BEF, these morale checks are supposed instead to take place at brigade level, but I don't think the effect on chaps in the 1st Barsetshires of seeing the 3rd Loamshires fall in thickets to their left would necessarily have been the same as that on chaps in the 1er battalion of a regiment seeing their mates from the 2eme battalion of the same regiment die in droves - but that's possibly contentious and another matter entirely...).
When I was mulling over Napoleonic gaming a few weeks back (I have a sadly butterfly mind at times), I was caught in the dilemma between that desire for granularity (to at least have one stand per named, designated, dearly-loved battalion) and the desire to fight larger battles than such granularity could easily/practically accommodate (and which would render some of those battalions visually anonymous). It reminds me of a criticism I read of the Blucher ruleset which said that with such abstraction you may as well use counters rather than figures (which I think at least in part misses the point - minis are pretty much always better than counters, however abstracted the troops they represent might be!).
But BBB and similar rulesets which rely on a certain level of 'unit abstraction' (which, let's be frank, is to found in almost every game we play) may provide me with a fresh way of approaching battles, a way which I haven't yet experienced.
Mike
I've certainly noticed the tabletop / reality gap with Napoleonics.
It's almost as through the era is divided into two.
1. A world of plodding linear warfare where a few expert generals have cracked the code and manoeuvre swiftly for advantage.
2. Everybody gets it, and has raised massive armies - return to the meat-grinder.
Most of the interesting battles don't fit on a table of you adopt the Featherstone / Grant standard of Infantry battalions.
Some (often American authored) rules move the action to the Brigade - with some loss of "formations and county regiments".
I have developed an affinity for the recent (and free) Valour and Fortitude rules.
But when I put a historic battle on my table I bathtub it.
Smaller battles: For each real brigade deploy a battalion.
Big Battles: For each real division, deploy a battalion.
Bathtubbing isn't perfect, a lot of cavalry strength dissappears "down the cracks" unless you allow a bit of rounding up.
Likewise, the only guns you'll see are the corps and army assets, mainly in grand batteries.
Despite the imperfections, I've found that bathtubbing provides some interesting games.
Something not mentioned so far about BBB that drew me in - it's scenario based, so each battle has different objectives. In a battle that famously led to an orderly retreat, your objective will be to get X stands over the table edge while your opponent has to stop them; in another, you're battling over particular locations (towns, hills etc, and it may not be the same amount needed by each side either, the French might need 2 for a victory, the Prussians 5); in another it's supply trains that need to get across to the other side of the map. There are very few that are "kill off as many enemy units as you can and force a morale break."
It also neatly takes away the "so I have poorly trained French with bad morale, and you have twice the number of well-trained Prussians, with massed artillery, and high morale and a great starting position" problem of other games based on historical battles (which BBB does - hence the books and downloads of various battles) by having these victory conditions be the deciding factor. In the above case, yes, of course the French are going to lose; the question is how badly? Are they going to hang on the town on the left and keep the Prussians at bay on the right, while their centre collapses, or are they going to try to keep on for another two hours in the centre too so that an orderly withdrawal from the battlefield can take place? And what aspects are the Prussians going to concentrate on, when they effectively need to take out at least 3 of their 4 objectives in a short time period?
Finally, the last thing I really like is an in-built campaign structure - each battle suggests a slight edge for the winner of the previous battle (so for example, if you won at the previous battle, your fragile division is no longer fragile, or you gain an extra small cavalry unit, etc. There are also suggetss for what-ifs - at this battle, one of the generals was late in getting to the field, so none of his troops played a part, but if you wish to, have him arrive half way through, with this effect on the objectives, for example.
Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 27 August 2025, 11:48:31 AMI've certainly noticed the tabletop / reality gap with Napoleonics.
It's almost as through the era is divided into two.
1. A world of plodding linear warfare where a few expert generals have cracked the code and manoeuvre swiftly for advantage.
2. Everybody gets it, and has raised massive armies - return to the meat-grinder.
But the meat-grinder does have an epic feel, provided the rule mechanisms aren't as attritional as the battles and the game moves on from decision point to decision point. Borodino is a good for-instance:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2023/01/borodino-majestic.html
Quote from: Nick the Lemming on 27 August 2025, 01:57:24 PMSomething not mentioned so far about BBB that drew me in - it's scenario based, so each battle has different objectives.
Finally, the last thing I really like is an in-built campaign structure - each battle suggests a slight edge for the winner of the previous battle.
Nick, thanks very much for making these great points. I didn't mention them myself as they are features of the rules rather than of the FPW, but indeed the scenario structure and objectives was an important tool to help to make FPW games fun. So often a BBB game will come down to an exciting last turn, even the last couple of throws of the dice, with several objectives contested and win/lose/draw results all still possible. That's not just luck, it's a deliberate result of careful scenario design.
Quote from: henjed on 27 August 2025, 10:36:49 AMI love that formula! And I think I recall reading at least one of your more philosophical blog posts a few years back. I must take another peek.
Thanks, Mike. The "Reflections" essays can be found here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2021/10/reflections-on-wargaming.html
Quote from: henjed on 27 August 2025, 10:36:49 AMWhen I was mulling over Napoleonic gaming a few weeks back (I have a sadly butterfly mind at times), I was caught in the dilemma between that desire for granularity (to at least have one stand per named, designated, dearly-loved battalion) and the desire to fight larger battles than such granularity could easily/practically accommodate (and which would render some of those battalions visually anonymous). It reminds me of a criticism I read of the Blucher ruleset which said that with such abstraction you may as well use counters rather than figures (which I think at least in part misses the point - minis are pretty much always better than counters, however abstracted the troops they represent might be!).
Yes, the necessary abstraction to play big battles does lose some of the personality. But we don't have to throw all the babies out with the bathwater. BBB units may be divisions but they comprise multiple bases. That means (a) BBB still uses formations (Line, In Depth, Column of March, to reflect whether a unit is optimised for fire, assault, or movement); and (b) an individual base can represent a particular battalion or regiment so we can still cheer on Berdan's Sharpshooters or the Polish Legion, etc. For me and my kindred spirits, it hits the sweet spot where it achieves the grand battle goal but still has a tactical feel and some flavour and character. (Others' sweet spots may be elsewhere, of course.)
Thanks Chris, Nick and others - a lot of food for thought: I'll be at Colours in ten days or so and may pick up a BBB ruleset if there's one there and mull over the issue of scale of battle and granularity of unit detail a bit more.
Great thing about BBB is you only need a few Pendraken packs to make whole armies. 8)
Quote from: Duke Speedy of Leighton on 28 August 2025, 10:16:38 AMGreat thing about BBB is you only need a few Pendraken packs to make whole armies. 8)
That is a decided advantage. 10mm is my preferred scale for non-skirmish games, but I had been thinking about lurching possibly to 6mm (!).
Quote from: henjed on 28 August 2025, 09:41:09 AMThanks Chris, Nick and others - a lot of food for thought: I'll be at Colours in ten days or so and may pick up a BBB ruleset if there's one there and mull over the issue of scale of battle and granularity of unit detail a bit more.
Usually we lay on a BBB participation game at Colours but various work, family, conference, medical etc issues meant we can't do it this year. :(
Quote from: henjed on 28 August 2025, 10:37:58 AMThat is a decided advantage. 10mm is my preferred scale for non-skirmish games, but I had been thinking about lurching possibly to 6mm (!).
All my armies are 6mm, but if I were to start again now I think I'd go 10mm so that it would be easier for some of my comrades to tell who's who and which way they're going ...
I've got the first two Bloody Big Battles FPW scenarios, Froeschwiller & Borny-Colombey, loaded on Tabletop Simulator (TTS).
If you own TTS then I would be more than happy to teach you how to play BBB online.
Froeschwiller is very good for demonstrating the differences between the Chassepot rifle and and the Krupp cannon :)
Alan
That's a kind offer, Alan, but I am really trying to keep my screen time down. Increasingly, my day job - which used to be all about talking to people and explaining things face-to-face - has turned into a Zoom or MS Teams dominated series of rather empty screen-staring interactions.