Kingdom of Men - Napoleonic army

Army lists and Tactics
#1

Hi, I’m 40k and historical wargamer. In our club KoW is also quite popular and since I recently started 28mm Napoleonic project with a friend, I thought maybe I could combine it to a KoW project also. For the army list, pretty much all the infantry would be crossbowmen with riffles, but then there would not be difference between jaegers, line, grenadiers etc. how would you guys tackle this problem, with magical items? Cavalry and artillery would be straight forward.

Any insight is greatly appreciated!

#2

Magical artefacts would be the way, yes.

KoW isn’t designed for this period, so it’s not going to fit perfectly. There’s enough leeway to approximate it though.

I should also add a not on skew armies. Skew meaning focussed on one thing, as opposed to a “balanced” mix of troop types.
KoW encourages balanced armies.

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#3

I’ve been considering the same question actually, but I’ve not really thought of a good way to represent Napoleonic infantry in KoW yet…

The problem with crossbowmen with gunpowder weapons is 1) They’re absolutely God-awful in melee, to an extent which doesn’t really fit, I think; and 2) they’ve got Reload! which means you can’t advance and fire but are tied to a passive gunline approach - the antithesis of Napoleonic infantry tactics, mostly.

As for magical items, I don’t think there’s any that affect shooting anymore? You could probably represent light infantry by Brew of Haste, Wine of Elvenkind, and/or Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar, so as to make them faster/more manoeuvrable, but it’d get really confusing which unit has which, and you still wouldn’t have any real option to represent grenadiers.

On a slight historical nerd note, whether or not grenadiers should have their own unit really depends on the army you’re building: the Austrians and Russians often fielded entire bataillons of them on campaign, but for the French I can only remember one instance of this happening - a division during the 1809 campaign - and for the English none at all. So maybe that way you could sidestep the problem, but then of course you also don’t have the fun of different units…

Sorry I don’t really have helpful advice here…

As for avoiding skewed lists, you could use cavalry as your melée mainstay (Knights for heavy cavalry, Mounted Sergeants and/or Scouts for light), in order to have a list that can at least survive if the enemy makes it across the battlefield and into combat, but that would require a very cav-heavy army…

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#4

Thank you Dark Black and Telchar, it seems that I’ll just forget about combining Napoleonics and KoW all together. I’m doing Austrians, so grenadier batallions are a thing as you said. :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

How about using melee units to gain granularity?

So using crossbowmen with rifles as skirmishers, as their job would be to disrupt enemy lines and using rest as melee units. Just because it is called “close combat” in the game it doesn’t mean it can’t represent firefight between two musket armed units even if models are in base to base.

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#6

It ought to be possible somehow…

Maybe the historicals book from 2nd edition has something? Otherwise, ThaneBobo’s idea is also a good one.

And I’m glad to hear of someone else building an Austrian army! Definitely the underappreciated Napoleonic power, IMO :slightly_smiling_face:.

#7

Actually, what about using the Elf list instead of KoM, and using Seaguards as your standard infantry?

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#8

this a tricky thing
problem is of you want them to work as they did in history, no army list really fits as warfare changed a lot between

let it work for KoW, the different units would work with looking at the main focus for them on the battlefield and not what they were able to do
eg Jäger can be Bowman or Crossbow Block, Grenadiers are Rifles, Standard Infantry are Pole-Arms Blocks etc.

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#9

Hi Zouna,
some good suggestions for you from posters. I use Napoleonic era Scottish Highlanders as Fanatics( seems to fit their style!) and as pikemen or rifles.
Dingougly

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#10

Thank you all. @Telchar using them as elves is interesting thought, they would be small elite force then, that honestly could be it. Although using them as melee units as @ThaneBobo suggested is not bad either. I think I will give my Austrians a go also in fantasy setting when I have painted and assembled enough of them.

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#11

The point above about using them as elves can definitely work - your main battle lines as the seaguard units, then archer units. The fact that gladewalker (probably got the name wrong, the elite scouty-stuff?) are going to be regular covers the green jackets, forest guard for Highlanders and decent cavalry options?

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#12

I don’t think the Austrians are going to be fielding Green Jackets or Highlanders anytime soon, but they could be Grenzer and Grenadiers, respectively? :smile:

Cavalry-wise, Silverbreeze cavalry as Hussars or Chevaux-Legers and Stormwind as Cuirassiers/Dragoons, maybe Chariots as Uhlans?

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#13

Missed the reference to running Austrians (have a 6mm Prussian army and it can be annoying when everyone assumes you are doing English or French!)

Even just differentiating a couple of different cavalry units with items would clearly work as well?