The Silver Bayonet announcement: first thoughts and gathering some inspiration

 

The Silver Bayonet is a new wargame by Osprey Publishing (not in the blue series) to recreate gothic horror stories in the Napoleonic Wars period. The player will lead their adventurers band against supernatural foes and other nation's bands.

You can buy it directly from Osprey here, or, otherwise, North Star Figures has set up a lot of excellent deals for Silver Bayonet Preorder, including three ready to play (painting excluded) bands: French, British and Spanish. They also made a very nice selection of other ranges figures suitable for this ruleset.

I was a bit disappointed by the choice to include the Peninsula theater in the release set, but I understand the British-centered vision of the Napoleonic Wars. While the British Isles are plenty of traditions for supernatural stories I find the Mediterranean climate more difficult to inspire gothic horror stories, even if the very first gothic novel is set in Italy (e.g. The Castle of Otranto). I believe French-occupied Germany would have been a better deal, but probably they suffered the lack of British troops in that territories.

I believe I will set my The Silver Bayonet campaign in Germany in the years around 1805-1812 but I am still pondering to run a campaign in Northern Italy (a lot of mist&misteries here) in 1797, if I manage to find some First Edition Carnevale miniatures (the new ones being less historical), for my Venetian Schiavoni: if you have any spare Patrician Captain of the Guards or Guards, drop me a message!

Gathering inspiration

While for later 19th century the material is abundant and in many version (The league of extraordinary gentlemen, Pride Prejudice and Zombies, Dorian Gray, Doctor Jakill and Mr Hyde, Dracula, Penny Dreadful, Frankenstein's Chronicles,...), trying to keep the Napoleonic War theme is more difficult.

I listed movies and shows only, in this list.

• Brothers' Grimm (2005), set in 1811 Germany. A bit too humorous for my tastes, but if you eliminate the audio, the scenografy could inspire you nonetheless.
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2015), set during the Napoleonic Wars, it encompasses both the war in the Peninsula and the Waterloo Battle with some nice battle scenes and a well balanced magic element.
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999), set in Northern America, but the story unfold in the our period of interest and I believe the story could be set in any Northern Europe country without difficulties (the headless horseman being common thopos in European folklore).
• Brotherhood of the Wolfes (2001), based on the Gévaudan monster legend and set during the Ancient Regime, so a bit earlier than the Napoleonic period, but the civilians should look almost the same.
• La Révolution (2020), I did not watch this yet, but it is described as set just before the French Revolution with supernatural elements - if you have seen it drop a message below this post!

I am eager to hear your suggestion, too!

New books

Hi all,  quite a long without writing on my blog...well, life gets in the hobby.

Two big news: I got two cats, Pepe and Sally, which keep me busy (and full of fur), and I moved (always in Verona). Some weeks ago I got my new bookcase, so I decided to purchase more books to fill it! Here the picture of the last three the mailman delivered to me.

 As you can see different themes (I hope I will review the books someday):

• East Africa 1940-1941 (Land Campaign) by Mark Sobisnky: a detailed book about an often forgotten WW2 campaign. Even if the Italian Army, cut away from the homeland, was doomed, his men's toughness and courage give the Commonwealth army a worthy opponent. Plenty of wargaming opportunities, especially for infantry-based rules. A friend of mine suggested Crossfire, I think I will give it a go when I will finish painting an Italian Army for this theatre.
  I also suggest as reading: La caduta dell’impero fascista. La guerra in Africa orientale italiana 1940-1941 by Andrea Santangelo (in Italian only).
• A Gentleman's War or Glossy Coats and Tin Bayonets by Foley and Whiteman. I came through this on a Facebook group. The reviews were funny. I think it is a modern version of Well's Little Wars. I will try them to play Italian Risorgimento, along with Micheal Leck's Rebels and Patriots.
• La marca nelle Crociate by Danilo Riponti (Italian). Is a collection of essays about Treviso (a town in northern Italy - Veneto) families in the X-XIII century and their involvement in Crusaders in Holy Land. The interests in Crusades pre-dates this year, thanks to prof. Raccagni involving my club (Band of Butei) in playtesting  Lion Rampant: The Crusader States. I am trying to figure out a retinue for Lion Rampant which can be used both in Italy and in Holy Land, set at the beginning of the Communal Age, around 1150 AD. More will follow about this too (I hope).

It is all for now, feel free to comment on the blog or on Facebook if you read any of these books or have further suggestions!

Since I know you are curious about the cats:
Pepe on the left (male), Sally on the right (female)

Rebels and Patriots, first AAR

First game and first thoughts with Rebels and Patriots, Osprey Wargames last rules by Michael Leck and Daniel Mersey.

Rules took definitely a lot from Rampant mechanics, but most of all from Rampant mentality: they aim to provide a fast fun game, both cinematic and historically plausible, through reflecting the ebb and flow of the 18th to 19th century warfare without dealing with a lot of minutiae.

Quick insight: they succeed in giving me the feeling of being a company commander of the period, without sinking me in a lot of details to remember. 

If you're looking for a ruleset with lot of tables for different weapons this could not be your first choice, but probably you'll missing a lot of fun.

Since my Risorgimento miniatures aren't painted yet,  I used Franco painted 1/72 Napoleonic figures to test the rules. We deployed a French and a English company.

English 24 points

Line Infantry x2 @8 points

Light Infantry (Rifles) @6 points

Shock Infantry (Highlander) @6 points

Light Cavalry (Scot Greys scouting) @4 points

French 24 points

Line Infantry x2 @8 points

Light Infantry (Voltigeurs) @6 points

Light Infantry (Dragoons scouting) @4 points

Light Artillery @ 4 points

Skirmishers @2 points

English (commanded by Franco) used the terrain better: their cavalry hidden behind woods and charged against formed Voltigeurs. They inflicted a lot of casualties (4), but Voltigeurs didn't faltered and the following turn delivered a deadly volley against the cavalrymen, who ran away.

On the other side, French failed to cover decently their Dragoons behind the woods, taking some silly casualties from English Riflemen. French artillery was deployed over one hill, but failed to contribute in a significant way.

The battle revolved around the central hill, quickly occupied by the English infantry, but French failed at dislodging them. Franco was pretty aggressive, ordered his highlander to charge downhill (BTW being uphill only provide bonus during defense): they destroyed one French line infantry taking only light losses.

They engaged and badly hurted a second infantry unit the following turn, but this time they were repelled in disorder. At this points French Dragoons (hidden better behind the woods) took the moment and charged the Highlander routing them.

Despite this French were soon in such a bad array any more offensive was impossible for them. Luckily the game ended before the last two English unit (both without any significant loss) can reach them.

Probably a lot of mistakes was made, but a lot of fun was had too, overall the game flowed well (and I just read the rules once).

Some thoughts from the first game:

• Cavalry, even if light, charging formed infantry in good order may (if it can avoid being shot ) inflict heavy losses, nonetheless cavalry seems to be a one shot weapon against good order infantry, lacking staying power.
• It's very useful to place a lot terrain, particularly fence and other light covers and not just broken terrain and woods. This would help reducing shooting deadliness.
• Shock infantry may be very powerful in attack: combining first fire, charging, being in close  can bring the needed score to hit the enemy a 2+, pretty deadly!
• Morale tests influenced only by last action losses helps making unit less fragile and stay in game for more turns despite greater casualties rate from firing. I found the morale and order test well thought, overall.
• The game turn continuing after a failed activation has been a very welcomed news. So did the casual charge movement, very well integrated in the order system.
• The officer are more useful now, but I had like more Officers being separated from their "guard unit", since when inside infantry they're quite slow and looks more like sergeants than colonels, but just my opinion and shouldn't be too hard to house rule.

Eventually I think Dan and Michael succeed in create a ruleset easily adaptable to European theater from Seven Years War to French Prussian War, encopassing a lot of (to me) interesting conflicts. I'd resist the urge to buy lots and lots of miniatures! 

Et Sans Resultat! - my review (a repost)

Et Sans Resultat! The best grand tactical Napoleonic Ruleset I tried since a long time.

When I started wargaming here in Verona, we had neither a Napoleonic ruleset, nor adequate miniatures. That was quite peculiar, as the Napolenic Wars are one of the favourite periods for wargamers around the world.

After some years, I decided to start a Napoleonic project with Marco, the only other player interested in that era. After some checking on the Net for adequate rulesets, we found some interesting ones: we got a few, tried some, and will try more in the future.

We found the lack of a clearly dominant ruleset quite peculiar, thus  we had to choose by ourselves what we wanted to pursuit. Some characteristics are mutually exclusive, such as the difference in focus between the tactical control and the “grand tactical” one: to achieve both seems to be beyond the possibiliy for any wargames, without becoming muddled in endless minutiae and almost impossible to play or enjoy.

So we split our search into two different fields: a “grand tactical” ruleset and a tactical one. During my search I found on TMP news about a recently published ruleset that piqued my interest, and I got the general impression that it was focused both on command and control and relatively “rules-light”. That was what I was searching, and I had to try it!

That game was Et Sans Resultat! (ESR from now on). Delivery required some time (the US is kinda far from my quaint little Verona, after all!). From the graphical standpoint, the book is a very pleasant view: it’s a full colour spiral book, nicely illustrated, with the rules clearly supported by examples. You could say I loved it already.

The cover of the rules, stunning artwork*

We tried it with the stock redoubtable cardboard stands – still lacking minis for the age, sadly!- and we liked it quite a bit: the rules gave us the “feel” of being a Corps commander in a  Napoleonic epic, without having to worry too much about tactical nuances, or details like checking when a formation had to form square or line or whatever. I won’t focus particularly on the details of the ruleset here, as I’ll give a link to my own review of ESR at the bottom of this article.

No miniatures, for now

So we started buying and painting (very slowly, as usual) our miniatures: we picked French (of course), Austrians and Russians. The chosen period was approximately 1805-1809, because in those years there were some battles in our Northern Italy,  as well as in the Central Europe.

In the meanwhile, the author of ESR, David M. Ensteness, who is very active on the social networks and on the Yahoo group about ESR, adressed many of the concerns and improved the rules by publishing an updated Second Edition. The graphics were even better, the rules  clearer and simpler to grasp, with many unclear points explained more thoroughly, reducing the chance of different interpretations.

Last year we ran a demo game of ESR at Verona Model Expo. We have to thanks Stefano Bassetti, who borrowed us his huge (and awesomely painted, I may add!) 6 mm collection. We had a rather interesting scenario, loosingly based upon 1809 Bavarian Campaign.

Our demo game at 2016 Model Expo Verona.

Then others projects stumbled in, and real life tooks its toll, so our Napoleonic gaming and painting slowed down considerably. We still managed to try FOGN and we’re going trying GdB for the tactical level game (stay tuned on the blog for news about them!).

I also purchased the second campaign book published for ESR, “Roll up That Map”,  focused on the year 1805 in Germany.

And so we get to the current day, and I’m proud to announce you I managed to publish my first article on a wargaming magazine. My review of ESR 2nd edition has been published on the last issue (January 2017 – number 63) of “Dadi e Piombo”. For the non-Italian readers, “Dadi e Piombo” (Dices and Lead, literally), is the only wargaming and miniature magazine currently published, once every 4 months, in Italy. It also organises two main events in our hobby conventions in our country: Milano Wargames and Dadi.com in San Marino.

Well, enough chatting, you can found my review here, both in Italian and in English:

http://thewargamingcompany.com/pdfs/Dadi-Piombo_Magazine_Review_in_English.pdf

http://thewargamingcompany.com/pdfs/Dadi-Piombo_Magazine_Review_in_Italian.pdf

Should you be interested in Et Sans Resultat!

Its website:

http://thewargamingcompany.com

Yahoo group:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/etsansresultat/info

And the Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/thewargamingcompany/?fref=ts

We also started an Italian Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/596705093827879/?fref=ts

*All the images are used with permission of The Wargaming Company