Charles Sharp

In reference to your 15mm figures and mounting: Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! I've been painting 15mm early 18th Century figures for about seven years now, and because I started with 12 figure battalions in a single rank, have stuck with them all this time. However, I've always preferred the look of a double-ranked larger battalion. When I started painting 25mm Marlburians last year, I bit the bullet and went to 24-30 man battalions in 2 ranks, and now I have the opportunity to unload most of my 15mm collection and start over with larger battalions. This, of course, will be enough to get me committed to the mental hospital, which oddly enough is only 200 yards from my house.

I prefer to mount my figures on 2x2 stands, in 15mm 3/4 inch wide by 1 inch deep, or 30mm x 40mm for 25mm figures. Even though columns don't appear much except in approach marching, this does allow a reasonable column appearance when placedin line ahead. Also, since I prefer field strength to paper authorized strength in my units, the average 500-600 man battalion becomes 5-6 stands, each stand representing 100 men. For you later 18th Century folks, this would also allow a single stand of grenadiers to represent a single grenadier company of Austrian or Prussian infantry, with no variation in stand size required.

Having spent 20 years in the US Army as an NCO in the artillery, I'm also a firm believer in All the Guns I Can Get. Two figures and one light gun will fit neatly on a 3/4" x 1" stand in 15mm, and Hallmark (England imported by EHQ) makes the finest 15mm artillery in the world - all early 18C stuff, including such goodies as real 'galloper guns' for your British foot andy VERY impressive 24-32 pounder pieces for arguing Divine Rights. They also make two-wheeled ammunition carts, so I can throw in Low Ammunition Rules for the brigades, an idea borrowed from Fire and Fury rules.

Give me some time and I might drop you a small article on using Age of Reason, or in fact, any set of rules that calls for specific unit sizes, with varying figure ratios and strengths. Right now, let me just note that AOR relies on the following: the average battalion rolls 2 basic firing dice, which on the average will inflict 8.3% casualties and cause a morale check with every three casualties (25%) inflicted. In melee, the average battalion rolls two basic melee dice (12 pips) ;plus modifiers, and inflicts casulties at the same rate: 8.3%/2 dice.

Therefore, the following chart gives the modifications required to use AOR rules with various sized battalions:

Fias/Btn	Figs/Die for Fire/Melee	Die Pips/ Casualty
12	6 figures/die	6 pips/casualty
20	10 figures/die	4 pips or 3-6 on die
24	12 figures/die	3 pips or 4-6 on die
30	15 figures/die	2 pips or 5-6 on die
36	18 figures/die	1 pip/casualty

I'm working on simplifying the figuring even more, by using stands instead of figures as my base for record keeping. Since my battalions are 56 stands each, I throw one die/3 stands, or fraction thereof, and count 6 pips/casualty as usual. However, instead of marking figures (which I detest), I drop acasualty figure behind the battalion. On the second such casualty, I remove a stand, and whenthe third casualty drops, check morale.Every stand removal after the first causes a morale check. The beauty of this is that I only need one casualty marker per battalion for record keeping. Editions Brokaw makes both infantry and dead horse cavalry casulties for my Marlburians in 15mm; Old Glory and Wargames Foundry both make casualty figures in 25mm, and now Old Glory (Bless Russ From Whom All Blessings Flow) has Austrian and Prussian casualties out for SYW in 15mm. Makes for a dramatic battlefield too.

Although the cavalry regiment is used by just about all the rules, I prefer to figure battlefield statistics by squadrons. For one thing, while the size of a regiment could vary dramatically, the squadron was a fairly standard number of men. In fact, I believe right up to late in the century, a French squadron consisted of however many companies it required to make a 120-140 man formation in the field. Regiments could start a campaign with 3 squadrons, and end it with one squadron containing all 12 companies! I'm mounting 4 figures per squadron on a pair of two-man bases, removing one base per casualty suffered, which keeps it in line with infantry casualty removal.

In melee, all units throw I die/3 stands. Since 2 horse on one stand take up the same frontage as 4 foot on one stand, this gives the proper melee foot-horse ratio for AOR automatically, and keeps the relative importance of numbers, morale, position, etc. the same as in the current AOR rules.

As if painting 25mm Marlburians, repainting 2,000+ 15mm Marlburians, and working on 15mm Franco-Prussian and US Civil War projects isn't enough, I have these Old Glory SYW Prussians already mounted on the painting sticks... the men with the nets will be knocking at my door any minute now. 

You didn't specify what you were looking for in the French Maison, but from my Funcken I gather that the Garde du Corps, Gensdarmes and Cheveau-Leger were all wearing the loose coat and tricorn, at least up to 1745. Check the Dixon mounted figures for these also. For Grenadiers a Cheval, without the coat pinned back, the only figures I know of are Editions Brokaw and Roundway, but they are at opposite ends of the 15mm scale: Editions Brokaw are very slight, true 15's while Roundway are all 16.5-18mm tall and pretty 'robust'.

Finally, in your planning for the War of Austrian Succession, do you have room for a little article on the tactical differences between the 1740's and the 1756+ era? Gainers who are used to what the horse and foot can do in the late 1750's, in most rules, may be surprised at the limitations on those same units just 15 years earlier. As it happens, I'vehad to deal with this a lot, since most of the folks that play in my Marlborough games are more familiar with the SYW or Napoleonics. Watching a player from the 'later era' throw away whole brigades of cavalry in what he thought was a thundering Murat/Seydlitz charge that turned into a stately trot pitting mounted pistols against 4 bristling ranks of muskets has taught both me (and said player) that there are some real battlefield differences in how the combat arms work between 1700-1745 and 1755-1805. Luckily, most of the differences are fairly easy to include as modifications to the 'standard' SYW rules: I have written modifications for Age of Reason and Koenig Krieg already.

I'm trying out my own 'Kleine Krieg' at Northwest HMGS's Enfilade convention this May, a sort of Western Gunfight rules with smoothbores. A squad of French Dragoons led by Captain Mallard and Lieutenant Poulet ride into Wertheim, Germany. The officers are looking for military information and glory, the men for loot. At the far end of the town, a bridge is guarded by a squad of militia, and the inn 'Zum Goertz' is filled with a jagermeister carrying a gun with rifled barrel, or filled with jagermeister sold by the cup or barrel. Having been stationed near Wertheim for four years, I have to be careful not to make the scenario too realistic or insane.

If I can make a simple system work with the equivalent of 10-12 figures/ side, then I can try to expand it to company-squadron actions using a low figure ratio: 3-5 to 1, with 1:1 leaders, for instance. For one thing, a good set of 'semi-skirmish' Eighteenth Century rules will give everyone more of an excuse to paint up all those beautifully individualized Old Glory, Dixon and Front Rank 25mm figures.

[Editor: I'd love to hear how your skirmish game works out. I think that the hobby as a whole is headed in this direction if the games at recent conventions are any indication.]