Home Forums Horse and Musket Napoleonic The Magpie Effect (gaming)

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  • #183026
    Avatar photoOotKust
    Participant

    As an aside because life is getting too serious, what few units of unnecessary dross have you collected in the name of gaming… because…

    Some of mine have been in past:
    – Lanciers Polonaise de la Garde- but then years later reccognising that they’re only good for 1812+ (coz really- they didnt have lances before 1811; and secondly- was it really at Wagram they picked up Austrian lances etc. or is that an apochryphal myth? More like the Poles demanded to get back their ‘primary’ arm!).

    – The various ‘Foreign Regiments’ of fancy dress legere…

    #183027
    Avatar photoTony S
    Participant

    Unpainted?  I’d prefer not to think of those – I’m sure I’ve forgotten some purchases that seemed quite good at the time, and that everyone was enthusiastic about…for about a week or two.

    As for painted…hmmm.   Possibly the various fancy dress types in the early ACW.  I confess my Zouaves still appear much later than they should, because they look sartorially sharp in a sea of butternut.

    You could also perhaps include some GW figures purchased because “everyone was enthusiastic about…for about a week or two”.  Killteam and Necromunda to be precise.  After a few games, we found the rules didn’t really suit us.  However I’m not sure I would call those forces dross, since although they don’t get used in the rules they came with, they are certainly used in a lot of other generic SF rules that appeal more to us.

    I do remember raising a foreign Swiss regiment for the Sun King, simply because I wanted to paint some yellow uniforms.  I was very happy with the results, and they always appear in battles, again to break up the monotony of pearl grey coats in that instance.

    Oh – I do have an 1859 Austrian marching band.  Simply because.

    #183031
    Avatar photoOotKust
    Participant

    Haha Tony, I’m happy to say no such ‘roll-on’ effects for me- luckily I don’t even know what some of your references are! [And happy with that].

    Could be unpainted, but I’d created units hodge-podge in the 70’s; the ‘group’ above were stripped sometime in the 90s; so then carefully ‘filed’ the figures exist, one or two resisted paint stripper, but most are metal again. The only possible existence for recreating the Polish Lancers would be to augment my meagre 1813/ campaign dressed line units French, but that is a long way down the plan (as to not be included at all…)

    I’ll add the Dragoons of la Garde to the list- not a unit I’d thought highly of at any time, however, as I’ve telescoped my ‘1805’ Army toward 1807, I may indulge whimsey and create the first two escadrons (perhaps 8 figures?) that sallied out in late 1806. I think they functioned under Murat to get ‘experience’ and later under Bessiéres command proper.

    I also have a battalions worth of 1815 Brunswickers in greatcoats that, sans drooping plumes, will now become a French party ‘lookalike’ in acquired [aka liberated/ requisitioned??] Prussian coats; useful to augment a regiment to 3 battalions as many were anyway in the 06/07 campaigns.

    cheers d

    #183034
    Avatar photoWhirlwind
    Participant

    Hmm, not quite sure what you mean by ‘dross’…if you mean ‘niche;:

    I have a couple of Royalist Emigre units in my Napoleonic British forces (Uhlans Britanniques and one of the Hussar regiments, oh and Chasseurs Britanniques; more to follow!); at least four battalions of Portuguese Militia; some Italian Levy and Sicilian units are in the pipeline

    I have some of the Foreign regiments in my Napoleonic French forces too

    War of the Three Kingdoms clubmen

    My “French” WSS force is mainly foreign regiments (Irish, Swiss, Italian, German); plus I have the Royal Ecossais from the ’45 chucked in, along with 2 Jacobite cavalry regiments.

    #183035
    Avatar photoOotKust
    Participant

    Hmm, not quite sure what you mean by ‘dross’…if you mean ‘niche;: I have …

    I understand and your summary looks good.

    Dross to us means loose, unnecesary, dirty perhaps in a physical sense. So I’m asking about the non-essential, what you wanted/liked but don’t need etc. types.

    Fine if your thing is the eccentric, or extreme than the blank, bog-standard ‘named’ army types. [And equally I tend to dislike the grey-bland so called competition armies…]

    Thats kinda how my first incarnation grew, but after 5 years I recognised my ‘French’ were anything but. I reversed direction and made plans… [cue Captain Kirks voice…].

    I stripped line and Garde alike, vowing never to create the latter again… however, as my research depth increased, I again reversed direction and reinstated some units. Always, always creating more line than Garde first; always creating commanders and supports for the formations I was making, another ‘Golden Rule’.

    cheers

    #183037
    Avatar photoGuy Farrish
    Participant

    Hmm? Dross?

    First Napoleonic unit I bought and painted was (of course!) Imperial Guard Grenadiers. Don’t! I know.

    Most treasured (and useless) unit was at the other end of the scale: the Irish Legion, 4 battalions of boys in green. Ah well; I loved them, despite everything.

    Swiss: French redcoats. What’s not to love?

    Howitzers. I spent hours trying to lob howitzer shells onto Prussian, Austrian and Russian units with shell burst circles, to very little effect. Then I noticed it was only me who owned any – there was a reason for that.

    Good days.

    Now I have unit after unit of boring French line in muddy greatcoats who go and win battles. Sad really.

    #183039
    Avatar photoOotKust
    Participant

    Yes Guy you’re right, who didn’t?
    Certainly colourful.

    Even in WRG days I had a buddy who wanted ‘colour’- so he chose Mexicans!

    40 years later he’s grown up, and finally making his first French Army- a 1799 Armée de Nord mix! Such is progress.

    #183041
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    I’ve got all kinds of twentieth-century junk. I just finished painting a steam engine aka a Fowler B4 artillery tractor.

    I sometimes design entire games, around single esoteric vehicles, although it took over 20 years between painting and playing with my converted Flammpanzer Char B in its proper role as Pz Ko 224 at Arnhem.

    I also like converting stuff. One of my favourites being a Russian command bus, based on a photo. It is essentially a garden shed on the back of a Gaz AA truck.

    Do I really need a 1/144th scale V2? Well, I’m sure it will come in useful one day.

    I only play Wargames as an excuse collect all this crap.

     

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

    #183052
    Avatar photoOotKust
    Participant

    Well Martin I’d say you’re winning the race in the name of ‘extremism’ then… 😉

    #183053
    Avatar photoOotKust
    Participant

    …What’s not to love? Howitzers. I spent hours trying to lob howitzer shells onto Prussian, Austrian and Russian units with shell burst circles, to very little effect. Then I noticed it was only me who owned any – there was a reason for that. Good days. Now I have unit after unit of boring French line in muddy greatcoats who go and win battles. Sad really.

    To come back to Guy…
    1- Yes ‘Howitzers’ like Russian Unicorns seem to be badly catered for in gaming. They could be deadly accurate, or moderately ineffective, given my reading (errps…) based on the number of ‘officer and commanders’ who succumbed to them (and that really deserves its own analysis some time)…

    2- Well muddy greatcoats as appropriate I guess. I also have a token few to ‘bring up’ one day… after all with 1807 coming they will need them.

    d

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