Getting ready for Enfilade 2018

I am putting on the Race to the Bridge Napoleonic Scenario at the NHMGS ENFILADE convention this coming Memorial Day weekend in Olympia, Wa. Our group will be using a 5 ft X 8 ft table for our games, so I have enlarged the map a bit from the previous game.  Here it is just below:

You can see I've changed a few things. The woods now run along the side of the roads instead of being in clumps. This will allow troops from both sides to move quite a bit before being spotted. The hill has now been placed in the center just in front of the junction of the the roads. The British side now also has a walled enclosure with an orchard. This evens up the map so both sides have the same advantages. I'm also thinking of putting some buildings across the river so if one side gets across the bridge they would have some cover to hide in.

To accommodate more players, I've increased the forces to allow up to four played per side. I don't think SP plays well with that many players, but its a convention so it is what it is. Game is mostly to give gamers an idea of how the rules work and encourage them to play the rules on their own. Hopefully maybe they will become so enthused,they'll put on an SP game at next year's convention so I won't have to.

  So below is the French Side. I've geared the game for three players a side so each player has two Groups of Formed infantry and one  Group of Skirmishers. If there are four players, one can move the Skirmishers. First is a Unit of Poles(4th Regiment Duchy of Warsaw) who fought in the Peninsula in French service. It consists of six Voltigeurs, eight Grenadiers and eight Regulars.

Next is the main French force with two Groups of Regulars and one Group of Voltigeurs. I saw an ad for here on TMP for female Napoleonics from Elite Wargames & Models (Elite Wargames and Models)

and had to pick some up. So I gave the French player the option to use either Lieutenant Yvette Bardot or Sergeant Emil Fortu to lead the Skirmishers. (See picture below)

Lastly is another two Groups of French Regulars, but with dismounted Dragoons as the skirmish element. I did this because I like variety in the forces, they look good on the table, and it allows me to borrow from the TooFatLardies Contra Guerilla List French Gendarmes  and give them the Movable Deployment Point characteristic. I thought about providing them as an eight figure mounted unit, but decided against it as it would complicate the game and I would have to do something on the British side to even it out. .It was easier to just provide them dismounted  

On the British side there are also three groups of forces. Two are British Regulars with a Group of Riflemen as Skirmishers. In one of these forces the Regulars consist of a Group of Grenadiers and the other is light infantry company in Line. I did this to balance the Grenadiers in the Polish units and also the figures I had available were all Elite company figures. I had acquired these figures second hand all ready painted. They had front plates on their Shakos, but all had shoulder wings and the hat plume was painted white over red which is for a Center company. British Light Infantry would have a bugle-horn badge instead of a front plate so they couldn't be Light Infantry. So I re-painted the hat plumes green for the skirmisher company and white for the Grenadier company. Yes, I know. Its very anal, but I couldn't let it go.

Finally to spice things up the third Force is composed of Spanish Regulars with some guerillas as the Skirmish unit. This allowed me to use another one of the Elite Wargames figures as the skirmisher leader, Marquesa Catalina Curvallo, aka "La Garra"(the Claw).

Due to the cost of the British Riflemen(12 points) I had to give the French more Support Points to even things out. So the French received a good ten more Support Points than the British. Well see if those British Riflemen are worth the points they cost.

To make the game move faster, I've printed up the Leader cards with images of the Leader so I don't have to look at a list when a card is drawn. Here is what they look like below:

Lastly, here are some better pictures of Miss Bardot ans Miss Curvallo:

 

Marquesa Catalina Curvallo, "La Garra"

Lt. Yvette Bardot

I'll post an after action report after the convention in May.  It was a lot of work getting these ready. I had to paint up quite a few extra figures to flush the units out and re-stand a good third of them, but every thing is done now. Hopefully it will a lot of fun.  Constructive comments always welcome.