In the spring of 1994 a group of players gathered at the Source, on Rice Street, and formed the Twin Cities Historical Miniatures Gamers club. There were a solid thirty players and after a ruckus first meeting it was decided that our first club project would be the Franco-Prussian War.
I was at the time a very junior member to the organization, I was fascinated by the discussion. This was my first historical project I was actively involved in. By the second club meeting we had narrowed the choice of games to "They Died for Glory" and "In the Age of Bismarck and Napoleon III". More than 25 years later I don't remember the specifics on why people preferred one game over the other, rather in the end we choose "In the Age of Bismarck and Napoleon III".
As a group each individual purchased a copy of the rules and a small allotment of figures. Being my first historical project I jumped in feet first and attempted to learn to swim. My first units were French Foreign Legion for 1870. I received lots of pointers from the more senior members and some of it was actually good information. When directed to by eight times as many figures as I actually needed was not one of those times.
As a club we played a number of games, and tell more than a few stories, ask Jim about the line in the sand. I am not going to go into all the details but the club fell apart when the store moved locations. I like so many others were stuck with eight times too many figures for a project that barely got off the painting table.
The figures for the Franco Prussian War have never been fully removed from my painting table. In the past 27 years there has always been some figures for this project on my painting table, sometimes there have been a lot of figures on it. Be it for nostalgia or desire to see the one project through I have regularly circled back and took a new view at this project and tried to envision a popular outcome that would bring it back to the table. This may be the 10th of 15th time I have serious dug into this project since 1996 but a man has got to hope.
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| French Provisional Line |
There just is not any rules that just jump out at players for the period. Arguably we have the same choices today in 2021 as our group had in 1994 to choose rules. "1870" was published in 2001, is probably the only addition to the rules choice. I could argue that none of the choices excite me personally and none of them strike me as truly playable for a group.
The follow on question is what would it take to adapt another set of rules to play this period. How long have you as a reader got? And how much detail do you want me to get into.
The first problem is the scale of the game, followed by tactics, and experience of the military.
The American Civil War is often called the first war of the industrial age, but it pails in comparison to scale of the Franco Prussian War. The largest Armies in the ACW were 75,000 men, give or take, in the Franco Prussian War the numbers were 750,000 men. The machine gun, modern artillery, and other industrial weapons of war were in their infancy, the battles at times looked like the Napoleonic Period and at times like the First World War.
I have had lengthy discussions with other parties concerning rules adaptations that might work. We always get stuck on the argument does the game look like ACW/WWI played with figures in other uniforms or does it feel like the Wars of the second half of the 19th Century in Europe. Usually it is the former, not the later.
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| Prussian Line Figures |
To me to have a tactical feel to the game, opposed to a boardgame played on a tabletop, the units must
represent battalions, rather than Brigades or Regiments. I like board games but I don't want my miniatures games to be board games. How big are Battalions? Between 600 and 1000 men depending. If you play games like Regimental Fire and Fury players would need 650 to 800 figures to represent a brigade while "In the Age of Bismarck and Napoleon III" that number shirks to 60. Neither extreme appeals to me.
In the end I think you are going to have to take a game system and scale it to meet you needs. There are two possibilities (cough three depending on how you want to a scale). Both come from the American Civil War genera of rules; "Regimental Fire and Fury" and "Pickett's Charge". Personally I think there is lots of possibility for "Picket's Charge" but one huge draw back. We already know the basis of the rules for "Regimental Fire and Fury" do we really need to learn and understand another set of rules.
To be Continued.
