by Rob Morgan Of course, merely suggesting that the loss of one of Bonaparte’s beloved ‘cuckoo’s’ might have the germ of a solo wargame in it led to some further discussion. So, I turned again to Steve Ede-Borret’s 1993 article mentioned earlier. Try this for size: In battle, the Eagle was never far from the […]
Periods – Napoleonic
Eagles
by Rob Morgan In my earlier note, Band of Brothers, I mentioned the battle of Eylau, fought in a deep snowstorm in February 1805. Well, we were discussing Boney’s campaigns over a beer, Jack and I, and the perils of fighting in foul weather came up. This was, in many ways, General Bonaparte’s worst battle, […]
Band of Brothers
I’ve just finished reading Die Hard!, by Philip Haythornthwaite (originally published by Arms & Armour in the 1990’s but readily available on e-Bay). It’s a short account of a dozen battles and sieges of the Napoleonic Wars, including Marengo, Badajoz and Eylau. The last of these was fought over two days in a snowstorm (anyone […]
Medic!
by Rob Morgan I’ve started reading through a pile of Napoleonic War books this Autumn and am halfway through the first of them, Colonel H.C.B. Rogers’s 1974 volume, Napoleon’s Army. It is proving very interesting and remains a seminal work. The book’s chapter on French medical services provides a simple comment that field hospitals of […]
Umbrellas at Dawn.
by Rob Morgan A letter in The Times the other day revealed that in the campaigns against Bonaparte during the Peninsular War, the Duke of Wellington forbade the use of umbrellas! In 1814, at Bayonne, he rebuked one senior officer for allowing his men to carry them. He said that the Guards may in uniform, […]
Bring Me My Bow
by Rob Morgan The old chestnut of how much better British infantry might have performed against Bonaparte’s tightly packed hordes had the longbow still been in use cropped up the other day in one of our wargame discussion groups. We were reminded that, though the proposed longbow revival would have required a national fitness and […]
A Sample Article for October
In this month’s sample article from previous issues of Lone Warrior, “The Spanish Ulcer”, Kevin White shares a complete set of wargaming rules for the Napoleonic era set in the Iberian Peninsula. The rules are grid-based and use playing cards instead of dice. Command-and-control, variable combat results, and a Reaction Table, combine to make a solo-friendly […]
Review of Napoleonic miniatures set
Jim Rohrer reviews an inexpensive set of Napoleonic miniatures and finds them suitable for creating a diverse force. It’s on the Reviews page.
‘Combat: US Soldier versus British Soldier, 1812’ reviewed
Martin Smith reviews an Osprey Combat series book, this one comparing U.S. and British soldiers in the War of 1812. It’s on the Ospreys at a Glance page.
‘Easy Napoleonics’ rules added
George Knapp provides his “Easy Napoleonics” rules, with an emphasis on mechanics that are “simple, but not simple-minded.” They’re on the Complete Rule Sets page.