WARGAME PLATES - BASING MINIATURES

~ General de Brigade Wargame Plate: The Battle of Les Quatre-Bras ~

The following wargame plates that I specially compiled have been designed for all Napoleonic wargamers but especially for those of you using Dabid brown's General de Brigade rules set.

Each plate enables the wargamer to base precisely any of the units present at the Battle of Les Quatre-Bras during the Waterloo Campaign detailing basing guidelines according to the unit’s military structure specific to Belgian, British, Brunswick, Dutch, French, Hanoverian, King’s German Legion (KGL) & Prussian infantry, artillery and cavalry.

Base sizes stated on the “Symbols & Abbreviations” plate are for 25mm - 28mm gaming and are only suggestions. Base sizes are not vital to the game as long as wargamers use the same basing for all units.

Unlike the rules set, where David Brown recommends keeping unit depths to a minimum, I personally recommend leaving 10mm of space at the front of each infantry and cavalry unit to accommodate figures charging, advancing or firing. This allows the gamer to place company bases flush against each other when moving an entire unit(s) in column of companies or squadrons, column of divisions or massed infantry columns.

Compiling the unit strengths has been quite difficult especially as most recent Waterloo Orbats are for the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June sic taking into account losses sustained at the Battles of Gilly, Les Quatre-Bras and Ligny. The unit strengths on each plate have been taken from a number of sources including Siborne’s History of the Waterloo Campaign, Scott Bowden’s Armies at Waterloo and De Bas & Wommersen’s La Campagne de 1815 aux Pays-Bas d'apres les Rapports Officiels Neerlandais and, like any OOB, are subject to debate. I am certain is that the unit strengths are pretty close to the actual number of soldiers present on the day give or take 20 men and hopefully provide a basis for building a regiment, battalion or artillery battery more accurately.

IMPORTANT:

I advise all readers to take note of my “Symbols & Abbreviations” plate in order to fully understand the nomenclature & icons used on each wargame plate. If anyone does spot a glaring error, please email me direct at j.cutting1@btinternet.com and I will re-edit the plate, if required.

WARGAMING PLATES UPDATE:
I will post the remainder of the Anglo-Allied wargame plates over the weekend and the French Orbat will swiftly follow. I will then update existing UNIFORM PLATES and continue to compile new plates for each unit present at the battle.

HARDCOPY PRINTED VERSION:
Finally, for those who have already asked and for those interested, I plan to make available high quality printed versions of each wargame plate featured on my blog for both the Anglo-Allied & French army in the very near future. If you are interested, then can I recommend you subscribe to my Yahoo Forum - “The Battle of Quatre-Bras” (button on my menu bar) and I will keep you posted as to the date when they will become available.

Many thanks and all feedback is extremely appreciated.

JC