WHERE'S THE FREIKORPS? I never thought I'd ever hear myself saying this, but I did. It was during a Warfare in the Age of Reason game against my friend's Austrians. My Prussians had a village on their left flank and a village and heavily wooded hill on the right. Normally this would be a Good Thing, but with one battalion of jaegers and a battalion of Von Kleist's Freikorps being the only irregular troops in my Order of Battle I had a dilemma and found myself saying "Darn it! I need more Freikorps!" Yup, got enough grenadiers and musketeers, what I wanted was more of those Class I irregular mercenaries recruited by Frederick the Great to counter the Austrian superiority in the `small war.' He affectionately referred to them as `rogues,' `dogs' and 'footpads.' We used to garrison tactically key villages with grenadiers in the past, but with experience I've realized that this is a waste of good troops. Once you factor in the disorder and reduced frontages for troops defending villages your Class 3 grenadiers are only rolling one die anyway, so you may as well use Class 1 Freikorps. We've also introduced a local amendment to the WAoR rules that allows Prussian Friekorps to both skirmish and form close order, making them moderately useful in rough terrain for countering those pesky Croatian Pandours that seem to keep harassing my flanks. I could have just used more Prussian musketeers to make my Freikorps battalions, but I liked the idea of having them a little more stripped down and no-frills looking without the smallpack and haversack that are on the musketeer figures. The Old Glory Russian musketeers are cast with just their cartridge box and they fit the bill nicely, after all a tricorne is a tricorne right? In 15mm any other small details of uniform wouldn't be apparent to the casual observer. So I split a bag with a friend building a Russian force and now had four 12 figure battalions. I painted two up as Freikorps in the dark blue coats and medium blue facings, waistcoat and breaches, which actually looks very striking. The other two battalions I painted up as Garrison battalions activated for field service. These Class I lads are in solid dark blue (coat, waistcoat and breeches, they don't really get facings) and no hat lace. They don't get the skirmish option like the freikorps battalions, but they perform stalwart service in the second line giving that essential re-support morale modifier to my sorely pressed assaulting units and they can garrison a village like the best of them, especially if it's the village with the tavern. SCRUFFY MEN IN OTHER ARMIES This got me thinking about some of my other armies. With my late Imperial Roman army one of my favorite units is a legio limitani; a twenty-four figure detachment of those frontier troops who always seemed to be at the end of the line for pay and supplies. They seemed to do a lot of the day-to-day defending of the empire, while the field armies raced around the empire plugging breakthroughs, putting down rebellions and fighting each other in civil wars. The legion is made up of an assortment of very nice Chariot 15mm auxilia figures with a mix of helmets, hats and bare heads. I now almost always include them in my army for late Imperial games. Most of my games are set during the era of migrating hordes in the early 5th century, so having a unit of low quality troops in the migrating hordes of the 5th C., so having a unit of low-quality troops in the Roman ranks is appropriate. With my feudal collection it's my block of peasant spearmen. The peasants are a bag of Old Glory 25mm Norman medium spearmen lead by a Foundry armored Norman spearman I got second hand. This has given me a nice block 32 figures strong. I removed the spear from one of the helmeted figures and gave him a wire flag pole to which is attached a standard featuring a wild boar. A pig seemed an appropriate symbol for a bunch of impressed farmers. It's a very fierce looking pig though. Both units are of dubious morale rating and quite often run like rabbits. But sometimes they've surprised me and hung on quite tenaciously, giving me exceptional value for their low points cost. They aren't going to be storming any citadels, but they are very useful defending the flanks of the better quality units or running down unsupported units of bowmen. When joined by their Commander-in-Chief they sometimes even pass a morale test! I keep wondering why I like them so much. I think because in both cases they were among the last figures painted for their respective armies and consequently I did a better job. I also identify better with them. I'm not big enough to be a grenadier, or physically co-ordinated enough to be a champion sword-wielding warrior. Having reached middle-age, baldness and an aching back I've shed my youthful heroic dreams of conquest and glory and realize I'd much more likely be a spear carrier in the back of the shieldwall hoping it will all be over soon, because there's the harvest to get in and the roof needs rethatching before the winter and did Mary make sure the pigs stayed in the pen? FINDING A PLACE FOR SCRUFFY MEN Of course this all goes against the power gamers out there. We all know the type; it's all veteran legions, Grenadiers of the Old Guard and elite SS Panzer Grenadiers with King Tigers. They focus so much on all the cool stuff and leave no room in their collection for the less glamorous fellows who did the lions share of the fighting. A whole division of grenadiers is kind of cool in a really big battle, but when there are only three divisions on the table it gets a bit silly. Like so much else in life, it's all a matter of balance and moderation. A friend who used to play in the WRG Ancients tournaments (back in the days of 4th and 5th editions) said that for a break from the over-the-top power gaming he and his friends would play `Oasis Wars' depicting rival desert clans fighting over a watering hole. 1000 point equal match ups, but most of the troops were `Irregular D' infantry and cavalry with bows, javelins and slings. Only one unit would be allowed to be `Irregular C' LMI with shields and javelins. In a regular tournament game these guys would be cannon-fodder, but in `Oasis Wars' they suddenly become the kings of the battlefield. In order to break the stalemate of our usual WAoR games, which invariably consisted of the Austrians waiting in position while my Prussians trudged across the table at them we developed the `Battle of Klumpenburg' scenario. Each army was divided into brigades. Only light cavalry and light infantry or freikorps could start on table as an advance guard. The rest of the opposing armies arrived randomly, with their place and time of arrival determined by dice throws at the start of each turn. This made for a very fluid and exciting game and gave our advance guard forces more to do. For the immediate future, I plan on expanding the scruffy men in my Late Imperial Roman army with an entire force of desert frontier units to oppose Persian raiders. The Bedouin tribesmen will change sides depending on the scenario or a die roll, or both. The feudal army has also seen the acquisition of some very disreputable looking light javelinmen who can pose as Irish kerns or Basque mountaineers. Having lost an entire squadron of knights to similar troops once while trying to ford a river, I felt the need for more. If the enemy shieldwall looks too tough, they can always go off to the flank in search of beer. I know I would if I were them. Back to MWAN # 131 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 Legio X This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com