The following article was submitted some considerable time ago but raises a number of interesting questions, so I thought it might provoke a little correspondence. I have not changed Jan's words, other than where I feel it assists in understanding his points. The English is, therefore, his - and he needs to make no apologies for it - Ed.

The very stimulating wargames forum articles "Who do we think we are" (Battleflelds issue 3) and "Battlefield formations and other factors (issue 4), stimulated me to wonder about what I think is the most important factor for representing my tabletop wargaming or at least what do I want to represent on my wargames table.

After reading the articles a couple of times - my English is not as good as I wish - [it's better than my Dutch! Ed.], some hard thinking and a little bit of whisky to stimulate my brain cells (or was it the other way around?), all fell into places.

Maybe it sounds a little dramatic, but I think I have found the way I want to represent (or wargame for that matter) the battles of the past. To be honest, my favourite period is the French Revolution and Napoleonic period so most of my thoughts will concentrate on that.

To state it bluntly, I think the most important question is: "WHAT IS THE SCALE I WANT TO FIGHT AT". With "scale" I don't mean the scale of figures I want to give battle with (15mm, 25mm or any other scale), but I mean: "do I want to represent a fight on company, brigade, or any other possible level?"

This of course is a dilemma which lies very close to the Derek Henderson 11 who do we want to represent" question. But I think that the first question which has to be solved is what kind of unit and/or what kind (or to be maybe more precise what scale) of battle do I want to represent. After solving that, I can decide what is/are is the basic unit(s) I use to represent the fight and last but not least I can decide which commander I will be. Is it the company, the battalion or any other commanding officer which is suitable at that level? It will of course be no surprise that I want to be the most senior commander of the force.

So I returned to my Napoleonic library and browsed through my books about battles, skirmishes, campaigns, etc., to look for examples of fights, read campaign diaries and biographies of participants in the various wars and look at the fighting which took place in the 1792 to 1815 period.

Today's wargames trend is to represent bigger and bigger battles and you must at least be a corps commander "to get the feel of the period" and recent Napoleonic rules use a wargame figure scale of at least 1:60 - play on a realistic scale the battle of Waterloo in fifteen minutes?.

[I'm not sure to which set(s) of rules Jan is referring, here: anybody played with any which fit the description? This smacks a bit of the "60 minute Shakespeare Company" who perform one-minute versions of the bard's greatest hits - interesting but stupid. Ed.]

To my surprise (not really) I found out that Napoleonic warfare consisted far more of skirmishes, raids, convoy~ attacks or any other reasonable small scale battle on company, battalion or brigade level than I beforehand imagined. Also flank-attacks, rearguard actions etc. occured to my opinion a lot more than big battles, although this small scale of warfare is of course far more unknown or just paid less attention to.

It also renders lesser glory to represent a lower level commander (who doesn't want to be Davout at Auerstedt or Napoleon at Austerlitz to name just two?) and when giving a public demonstration, who of the audience has ever heard about the crossing (and the fighting which was a result of this) of the Meuse in 1794 by the French troops?. You haven't either? Well to my opinion the French revolutionary period is a very underestimated wargame period which is a shame, but that's another question [or articles?].

With the above in mind, read for instance the book "With Eagles to Glory" by Gill (PS: read it anyway, it's such a good book) and you will find a lot of very promising wargame scenarios on small scale warfare that only wait to be played and to my mind would give a good wargame at home and also for demonstration purposes.

One aspect of the smaller scale wargaming is, that terrain is far more important than in the "bigger picture" wargames. Villages, buildings, streams, hills etc. become very important and give also opportunities for defending, channelling attacks and giving protection to flanks. Something the article of Keith Barley in Battlefields 4, although in connection with the English Civil War fighting, makes very clear. To my mind the mentioned influence of the terrain on the fighting of a battle which Keith refers to is correct, but only if the scale of fighting is related to it.

So to where leads all this, you may ask (hurry up man, come to the point!). Well, at least the two mentioned articles set me thinking about what I want to represent and I think, that it leads for me into another direction than the nowadays big battle- scene wargames-rules which are so trendy. No, I think I will explore the smaller battles where a maximum of one division orjust a brigade, battles to regain small successes against opponents.

There are of course some (a lot?) disadvantages. The most important will be, that my resources (the units) are restricted; the orders that I will have received will tie my hands most of the times. Also, gone are the big battles with it's glorious charges of the cavalry reserves, gone are the guard regiments. Also corps-commanders are of course out of grace and are only the source of the "defend at all cost" or "take that village" orders. Orders which my valiant men will try to achieve with all the spirit they find in their tin (or plastic) bodies.

What I get in return are the tough brigade and junior commanders, the light cavalry and infantry skirmishes, the fighting against Spanish guerillas or Austrian irregulars in the mountains of Spain or Austria (hurrah for Andreas Hofer), a rearguard fight or a convoy action against Cossacks and a lot more exiting, stimulating actions. Also, the building of a terrain to battle over will be much more rewarding in my opinion than the terrain which is normally required for the big battles.

Another aspect which I already mentioned is, that the scale I will use will be 1:10 or 1:30 at most to represent companies, squadrons etc. And painting may be therefore more tedious as I can paint no more of those glorious old guard, middle guard, young guard, horseguard, lifeguard, Prussian guard, Russian guard. etc.

One problem I know I will have are the rules to use, for as far as I know there are only very few. One handicap I also have is, that I prefer the simple and easy to remember (and to use) rules. No rulebooks of hundred pages, long list of plusses and minusses for morale, combat, seventeen different steps and distances a unit can travel etc. This is not a request for a De Bellis Napoleonicus version, although DBA brought back for me the joy of ancient wargaming so, why not?

So, to the readership my cry for help, which rules can be used best in this context and why? Also, am I correct in the above? Comment (politely of course) via the editor please.