4 - 3 - 2 - 1

With all the decorating I have been doing over the past few days, I have had plenty of time to do some thinking about how I want to organise my collection of Napoleonic wargames figures into units. When coupled with my thinking about a grid-based set of early nineteenth century wargame rules that I want to write, I have come to the following conclusions:

• The units will be organised into four, three, two, and single figure-strong units. (Four figures per infantry unit, three figures per cavalry unit, two figures per artillery unit, and one figure per commander and their staff.)
• I will use the nomenclature of 'regiment' for infantry and cavalry units and 'battery' for artillery units.
• Units will comprise figures that are in the same pose (e.g. standing firing, kneeling firing, advancing, re-loading … with the figures in less active poses being used to form second-line/reserve units [see units marked with * below]).
• Each figure will be individually based so that it can be removed from the unit to show unit degradation due to combat.
• I will use supernumerary figures (e.g. musicians and/or officers) to indicate elite units. (These will be the first figures removed when the elite unit suffers casualties.)
• My rules will use the Combat Dice from the COMMANDS AND COLORS: NAPOLEONIC game to resolve combat.
• My rules will have some command restrictions built into them. (Either I will use the cards from the COMMANDS AND COLORS: NAPOLEONIC game or the dice from RISK EXPRESS or the 'Pips' system from DBA/HoTT ... or something that resembles one of these systems.)

With these ideas in mind – and with the additional figures that arrived recently in the post – I have reorganised my collection of Napoleonic wargame figures into the following four 'armies':

• French:
• Infantry: 13 Regiments (1 x Guard Grenadiers; 5 x Line Infantry; 6 x Light Infantry; 1 x Militia Infantry*)
• Cavalry: 11 Regiments (5 x Cuirassiers; 2 x Carabiniers: 2 x Hussars; 2 x Lancers)
• Artillery: 6 Batteries (2 x Horse Artillery; 4 x Foot Artillery)
• British:
• Infantry: 11 Regiments (4 x Foot Guards; 2 x Highland Infantry; 2 x Line Infantry; 2 x Rifles, 1 x Highland Fencibles*)
• Cavalry: 4 Regiments (1 x Life Guards, 1 x Dragoon Guards, 2 x Light Dragoons/Hussars)
• Artillery: 4 Batteries (1 x Horse Artillery, 3 x Foot Artillery)
• Prussian:
• Infantry: 7 Regiments (6 x Line Infantry; 1 x Landwehr Infantry*)
• Cavalry: 5 Regiments (3 x Dragoons; 2 x Hussars)
• Artillery: 1 Battery (1 x Foot Artillery)
• Allies:
• Infantry: 4 Regiments (2 x Belgian Infantry; 2 x Brunswick Infantry)
• Cavalry: 1 Regiment (1 x Dutch Carabiniers)
• Artillery: -

I have quite a few ‘spare’ figures that will be used to form additional units as and when I can purchase more Del Prado pre-painted 25/28mm-scale Napoleonic wargames figures via the Internet.