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A very nicely put together video on a great subject. Many thanks, I am now subbed.

I’m really enjoying this series as it has come just in time as I resume painting my Prussian II Corps for 1815. The reservists episode was very enlightening. A couple of suggestions for additional resource and miniatures is Elite Miniatures who do a great publication on reservists which goes hand in hand with there range. And also Front Rank that has a British & 1813 uniform options. These two ranges would compliment Calpe. Keep up the good work

Can you recommend a game that works well in 1/72 scale? I've never played any Napoleonic wargames before but I have 2 boxes of Landwehr, 1 box of reserves and 1 box of jager in that scale. I want to create a historically accurate division or brigade based around the 1815 campaign.

This is exactly what I've been looking for, now I can finally paint my Prussian Reserves. Thank you.

I have read on the Prussians recently and one weird Anglo misrepresentation seems to be the numbering system. Going through von Plotho's actual work which is most cited, there are no mentions of numbering. He only states regiments by their provincial numbering and doesn't use the "1stes Pommersches IR Nr. 2" nomenclature. Likewise, GenWiki writes these Nr. # designations as appearing from 5 November 1816. Then there's a TMP thread where Prince of Essling and Oliver Schmidt both claim its fabrication. Thus if the Garde-Regiment zu Fuss was never numbered until the 2nd Regiment was formed, the Leib-Infanterie and the rest could not have been numbered down. On the contrary, the handwritten Rangliste of the Prussian Army for 1813 does show numberings, but the 1808 and 1812 versions do not. In 1815, with the renaming/formation of the 13th to 32nd regiments, von Plotho writes them as such without numbering the first twelve. So it seems that they intended to institute the numbering and provincial designations but were interrupted by the Hundred Days (after all the Final Act of the Vienna Congress was ratified right before the campaign started). My personal theory here is that English sources immediately after the wars heard about the seniority but only dived into the topic after the AKO of 05.11.1816 which is how we have this supposed renumbering of the Garde-Regiment zu Fuss and all after that myth that tends to appear in English-language discourse but ends up unsupported in German documentation.

The "Portuguese" uniforms provided by the British were actually intended for the Spanish Army as reorganized in 1812, with the "light infantry" shako instead of the Portuguese "Baratina" shako.

I just now found your channel. Good job, I love the details.

Might be a dumb question but since the prussian army was larger during the hundred day campain. How did their uniforms reflect that. was the new 28 ish regiments updated since 1813/14 or did the newer regiments keep mostly to their volenteer attire? (painting up some waterloo prussians and very confused about collars and cuffs post liberation of 1814)

I thoroughly enjoy these "uniformology " videos.

I do find this interesting and good for you for presenting what is complicated so clearly. Thanks you.

In my mind there is nothing more glorious than the sight of ranked Napoleonic miniatures. These are beautifully painted and excellent research. My only issue is that you've got me hovering over the buy button on the Perry website 🤣

Wtf you recording on a iphone 3? 720p quality and constantly out of focus

I’m assuming this is the same for Pike and Shot?

Thanks, enjoyed the vid and some useful thoughts, Ive been on and off with a channel for a bit with limited uploads but have taken this year as a push to motivate me to upload more. Mainly uncommon mini reviews and my painting logs. The first for those looking, as they tend to be ones I have looked for and not found, the latter to help clear the pile of shame. Congrats on the 1000 too.

Fantastic video. Thanks for sharing.

Great video since it's targeted at people in the hobby! There is a lot of great info here. One question I'd like to ask: what video editing software are you using? Thanks again!!!

I use a system that works both for skirmish games (like Sharp Practice) AND big battles. Each Group of 8 infantry is based as 1x4 men, 1x2 men and 2x1 men. I magnetise and transport each such group of 2x4 figs on its own sabot or metal sheet. This permits casualty removal for Sharp Practice, while allowing easy movement in mass formations. Combining two, three or four such groups allows me to field a full battalion for GDA. I mount my skirmishers in pairs with two singletons in every six as ‘change’, allowing them to join line battalions if needed. NCOs, officers and standards tend be based separately allowing them to be used as tokens in Sharp Practice, or simply switched into the big formations for battalion games.

Thanks for the video and sharing all the behind the scenes data. I've been tempted to start my own channel and this may push me over the edge to do it

What do you recommend for 15mm?

Really enjoy your presentation - I've never actually found the 1813-15 Prussians in any way interesting previously, but a detective job over sword knots was just the thing to spark interest! Army coming along great.

I am an outlier in that I base everything on 25mm round bases and use movement trays. I do this because I play Sharp Practice, which encourages you to do this, but there’s no reason it can’t work for other games. It isn’t idea for massive scale games though where removing figures from the movement tray isn’t necessary, but you can always just stick them down temporarily with a bit of tape or blue tack. It will definitely make your formations less dense, but it won’t impact gameplay as long as your frontages still work out.

Great vid. Brought back my own pain of putting one together.

Congrats on the 1k subscribers, it's one hell of a milestone! Started my channel properly around 6 months ago, mainly to help reduce my lead/plastic mountains and learn more about youtube itself (as Mrs. Wifey-Woman wants to start a channel), currently only 175 subscribers, but slowly getting there.... Have already realised that I have developed my own painting style that works (and recently won a 'best painted' award at a tournament).... Been using Canva for my Thumbnails, but thanks for the tip about Gmp, I'll take a look!

Interesting seeing the TH-cam graphs

So many shoutouts and good ideas. Great work.

I'm struggling to understand why people get hung up on this. The figures are purely representative. Real battalions vary vastly in strength and are hundreds of men, not 24, 30, 36 etc figures, it's purely aesthetic and really up to you, what you like and what you can afford and is not in any way, shape or form a Napoleonic battalion.

I have primed all my dwarves n acquired them from various manufacturers. Highland, gw, reaper n DnD plastic. Cant wait to get em all painted so I can play a game with a fully painted army!

Great stuff! My Dwarf army is a mixture of 4th, 5th, and 6th edition models as it took me about 15 years to collect them all (back in the day). I finally painted them all about 5 years ago! 😅

Looks great! I also am working on a 5/6th ed dwarf army. Where are those trees from? I’ve been hunting for them

Very nice work. Your channel inspired me to sit down a few extra times in 2024 to work on my dwarf collection.

I base according to Morbey, which is essentially amended "In the Grand Manner"....To me, it gives the proper Napoleonic look....

army looks great!

A great looking army. Looking forward to seeing it grow this year

They look awesome & ready to cross off some grudges! Happy new year!

A great deep dive - well thougt out and articulated. Well played Good Sir!

I'm currently sitting on a pile of Prussian Perry figures and finding you doing this series i think is a godsend lol. Basing alone you described it 100%. coming out of systems that have defined base sizes per miniature... I've been trying to figure out what to do, was leaning to the 40mm square with 4 figs... but I really like your point about Prussian battalions having 4 companies, and those 8 mini 60x40 bases look stellar. Jaeger is the other one trying to wrap my head around. Look forward to more!

Surly base size is decided by the rules chosen. I have heard far to much talk on subjects that as far as I believe are totally unnecessary. The choses are 1 stick to which rules you decide, 2 change the set of rules that suits you're way off playing and 3 Stop Bitching and write your own bloody rules for Pete's sake. Happy New Year guys and just enjoy the hobby as you prefer.

Locally we settled on 6 figs on a 50x50 for 28mm Naps

Just started on a friend’s Prussians was not sure where to begin, this video was perfect. Thank you!

I’m trying to write my own napoleonic rules. I play solo, but after over 60 years of gaming, I have seen where many rule books/sets manage to slow down play. ( there are some brilliant gamers who write successful napoleonic rules, who are then persuaded to alter the rules to fix a problem, when the problem is often the players who haven’t read and understood the rules or tested what a small change will make to the authors intent. Also are the rules meant to be a game or a simulation. The game has all the nations have the same army with different uniforms. Peter Young’s book Charge! or how to play Wargames I still have some Spencer Smith 30mm plastic AWI figures with paint flaking off every time I open the box. The main problem for me is my typing speed or lack of it . I always take note of new rules by older Wargamers as they have the experience of knowing what problems lie ahead. One thing that always used to be left out of rules is an army list for the protagonists. It should always be decided what campaign are you going to build an army for and what size battles for the rules. Waterloo is a brilliant campaign to refight because of the major battles but look at the Prussian’s in the early days of the campaign ? The Prussian Corps that ran into a French division. Find a board game that matches the action ant you will find a division who was leading the Prussian defence? And the French brigade or division probing for an unguarded river crossing. So I’ll aim the rules for a divisional battle but there may be a lt. cavalry brigade in front of the French ruing a picket line. So you may need a higher level of command and control. Many very good rule sets don’t give specifics of how messages are passed without sticking a paper note rolled up and pushed between the horses legs. Before worrying about the big things perhaps a 1,000 to 2,500 army points per side giving both armies a chance to defeat the other play the game then see what was wrong or a rule that wasn’t there. Ow in my case I will be playing both sides I have Brits and some French, some Prussian all in 15mm. For short games I think halving the possible figures in a battalion will shorten the games a written plan of attack or defence for both sides means that they will have structured orders and the General is the only one who can change the basic plan. I’m looking for a part of 1812/13 where I can recreate an engagement between the French and one of the Prussian or allied armies, but so far I’ve only found corps fighting on the flank of there army.

I find it very satisfying that you are going through exactly the same thought process that I did and coming to the same conclusion. My formula has always been "(200 - 250mm ) divided by the number of companies @ 15mm per figure" TBH 40x40 bases would drive me nuts as they would be very fiddly.

Finding a ground scale, then getting everyone to use would be difficult. But it is one of the items that separate the Napoleonic game from the Napoleonic simulation.

Button counting promoted to button accountancy but this complicated information was delivered with great aplomb. Fascinating and worth a watch for anyone with ambitions to enter the Napoleonic labyrinth, well done.

Excellent informative video. One question, outside of the march -attack pose, have you tried placing 8 Victrix figures on a 60mm base?

Thank you very much for your excellent explanation of this topic. Also very much appreciated is your pronunciation of quite a few difficult German words, many of which younger Germans would have difficulties getting right. 😀

I’d make one observation. Determining base size on theoretical Regimental manning is a tad unrealistic. No battalion would ever be at its doctrinal strength a week after marching out of its depot / barracks. I think fretting over base size is a bit like worrying if the sun will rise tomorrow. Better, in my opinion, to simply pick a base size based on the frontage a battalion would be expected to maintain ‘in the battle line’. Consequently my units are based in a variety of ways. Some are six bases of 4 miniatures in two ranks on 40mm squares. Others are 6 figures on 4 bases that are 45mm wide by 40mm deep. Bottom line, as long as each battalion has a frontage between 180mm up to 240mm I’m fine with it (regardless of nationality) because no one battalion was ever going to have the same strength as its sister battalions within the Regiment \ Brigade..

I am a veteran wargamer and no matter what period I play I like my units to represent what they are supposed to be , in this case Napoleonic close order infantry ! Long ago I learnt to base my figures how I want to base them and not how the rule writers suggest , You can always adjust rules to fit Your basing .. For me it's the look of the unit that counts, rules are secondary in this choice but this only comes from years of playing Wargames , but it's quite liberating ! So seeing well painted Napoleonic infantry based in open order makes me cringe , seeing average painted figures based well shoulder shoulder on dioramic bases wins the day for every time !

I wish this had been released before I had based 5 battalions of Russian infantry, I'm locked into a system now! Gread vid, liked and subscibed.

An interesting video. I would think that the recommendations you have provided actually prohibit new players from joining this glorious part of the hobby and are actually for those with an intimidate understanding of the period. For those wanting to just play the era, the rule sets you have mentioned with standard frontage have solved all the problems you have provided. What happens if I want to play Essling, have Austrian battalions based according to one of your recommendations ie. eight figures per stand for the beginning of the campaign, but now need to consider attrition?

Loved the reflection on basing! This has already been a significant source of headaches too me as well. While historical accuracy in unit composition is important to me, I think I lean towards prioritizing rule flexibility. For instance, the rules I’m most drawn to-Soldiers of Napoleon-determine the number of bases based on a battalion's "strength" rather than its historical company structure (full or large battalion equals six bases). Other rule sets take a similar approach. My project will focus on the 15/18mm scale, though I haven’t started work on it yet. To narrow my focus, I’ve chosen a small battle from the 1808 Peninsular War, set in Catalonia, between French and Spanish forces. However, this introduced another challenge: the battalions in these armies varied widely men strength. Some battalions weren’t even formal units but rather ad hoc amalgamations of others. I think I can effectively represent these differences by standardizing base size rather than equating each base to a company. This method aligns with the rules, simplifies the process, and allows for visual variety reflecting historical differences in battalion strength. Initially, I planned to model each battalion with six tightly packed bases featuring eight figures per base. But after estimating the money and time costs, I realized this wasn’t practical. Instead, I’ve opted for six bases with only three figures per base. One of the things that made me decide on 15mm rather than 28 is saving space, and having six bases of eight figures saves very little. The Peninsular War's irregularities might work to my advantage from a hobby perspective though. They give me the opportunity to paint a mix of non-standard French troops (some still wearing white uniforms), Neapolitan and Italian forces, ragtag French units like chasseurs de montagne, and of course, the Spanish, with their mix of regular uniforms with bicornes and cool grenadier hats and guerrilla fighters. This variety should make the project more manageable while also adding visual interest and depth.