Vauban's Wars - Powder and Food Supply

This is the next installment of Vauban's Wars mechanics regarding Powder and Food Supply

You can order the rules directly here: 

• Rule Book (includes all charts and cards to play): https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars
• PDF (includes all charts and cards needed to play): https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars-1
• Custom Casino Cards (if you really want to amp up your game): https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars-custom-casino-cards

Philipsburg 1688 (click for larger image)

Powder Supply

Both the Garrison and Besieger have their Powder Supply tracked during the siege. As players reload their artillery (not infantry) they track how many times they reload. The more you reload the greater the chance of losing a Powder Supply. If you reload your artillery too much the Powder Supply is lost automatically. If you explode a mine you also automatically lose a Powder Supply in addition to the normal supply check. A powder supply check is done on each player's Power Supply Check card. This means that the players won't know exactly when they will be forced to check if they have lost powder.

The amount of Powder each side has is determined by scenario, fortress size, which is then coupled with a random die roll. 

Other events like fire, Critical Damage, weather, and sabotage (via Espionage) can also reduce Powder Supply.

Food Supply

As with most tedious supply\logistics in siege warfare, I have abstracted Food Supply for the garrison in Vauban's Wars. The besieger is always assumed to have enough food for their siege. The garrison, isolated and surrounded, is assumed to have a finite amount of food for the soldiers and civilian population under siege.

The garrison player will start with X amount of food and will lose one food every turn. The amount of food they begin the siege with is determined by the type of fortress combined with a random die roll. The garrison  will lose their food due to either a Unique Event card played during the turn or if the turn ends early due to weather or tied initiative rolls. (There are reminders on the cards and charts for all these conditions) In addition, the garrison can lose food supply due to raging fires in the town, Critical Damage, and to sabotage via espionage! 

When the garrison's food supply reaches zero their Popular Support may fail and then will have to surrender. Only extremely long sieges should see the food supply reach zero, but it is something important to keep track of during a siege. 

All Vauban's Wars blog posts:

https://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/search/label/Vauban%27s%20Wars

Vauban's Wars main page:

https://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/p/vaubans-wars.html

Thanks for taking a look around!

Eric

Vauban's Wars - Espionage and Security

This is another installment in a series of blog posts discussing parts of Vauban's Wars rules I have released.

Rules Book, PDF, and Custom Casino Cards are now available!!

• Rule Book (includes all charts and cards to play): https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars
• PDF (includes all charts and cards needed to play): https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars-1
• Custom Casino Cards (if you really want to amp up your game): https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars-custom-casino-cards

Espionage in Vauban's War

In Vauban's Wars there is a game of intrigue going on under the covers. Each player will be able to do espionage versus the enemy. This allows players, with some risk associated with it, to gather intelligence about their opponent's situation.

The chance for espionage happens when a player turns their own Espionage Card. One spy of unknown quality is given to each side for free, and additional spies may be "purchased" during the game should your original spy make the ultimate sacrifice. The quality of the spy is not known until they are sent on their mission, and the mission can't be cancelled just because your spy may not be of the best quality.

Spy quality is from "scoundrel" to "master" and is represented by a die type. The higher the die type the better the spy. For instance, the scoundrel is a D4, while the master is a D12. 

Espionage Missions

Here are some of the items that a spy is capable of doing during their espionage attempt and a few are restricted to garrison or besieger only:

• Current Siege Morale Points, within two points.
• Current or initial strength of a wall, bastion, ravelin, or gate section. Pick 3 sections per success.
• Whether there is a Sortie or Assault card in the enemy’s deck. 
• Current Powder Supply.
• Garrison’s current Food Supply.
• Garrison’s Popular Support Die.
• Mining\Countermining – divulge the target, progress, and Explosive Level of one mine\counter-mine. 
• Relieving Army Arrival. Garrison tells the besieger on what turn the relief army will arrive.
• Sow Discontent. Turn the population against the garrison or reduce morale of besiegers. 
• Contaminate Food – Garrison loses 2 food supply.
• Desertion (vs Besieger only) – Success means one stand permanently lost by a regular or raw unit. 
• Location of Garrison’s (if any) explosives placed outside of a gallery.

Success Hangs on a Knife's Edge

The Spy's quality die is rolled versus the enemy's Security Die (normally a D8). I will discuss the Security Die in the next section.

If the spy wins the roll his\her espionage is successful and the other player must reveal the information they want or the action they are seeking to do. If the spy doesn't beat the Security Die the results could be they escape and live to spy again, become captured and executed, or they can be tortured or swayed with promises of fortune to give up information about their previous benefactor. :-) 

Below: Polish army manning the walls of Praga in 1794.

Security in Vauban's Wars

Security (and the Security Die that represents them) is how I have abstracted several situations in Vauban's Wars that would need localized forces without representing them as units on the table. Security in the town is considered to be both the garrison's infantry on patrol and local constables keeping the peace around town, the counter-espionage team to catch potential spies, and for trench raids they are local guards protecting sappers and artillery units. The Siege Die is used in three places in the rules: 

Besieger\Garrison vs Espionage

Garrison vs Coups de Main

Besieger vs Trench Raids

The Security Die is normally a D8, but could be adjust up or down one die type per scenario if required. Another option is to adjust the Security Die for just one of the three options above and leaving D8 for others.

Below Austrian Grenadiers on a Trench raid. These sappers would be protected by the Security Die, which can be further modified in the sappers favor, but  additional infantry units nearby.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this installment for Vauban's Wars!

Vauban's Wars - Available for Pre-Order!!!

It is with great joy that I can announce the availability of Vauban's Wars to be pre-ordered from Piquet Inc. The link below will take you to the website to order a hard copy of the rules and the very nice casino cards to enhance your Vauban's Wars sequence deck. The rules and PDF versions will be available to purchase directly on the week of September 14th, 2020, which nicely aligns with my birthday! :-) Note that the book (hard copy) comes with sequence deck cards on thick card that can be cut out and sleeved. The custom casino cards are an enhanced version of those cards (see photos below).

Once again, you can pre-order the hard copy along with custom casino cards now.

On the week of September 14th, those pre-orders will ship. 

On the week of September 14th you can order and download the PDF versions if you rather have electronic copies of the rules.

More info and pricing can be found later in this blog post.

Pre-order Rules Book here: 

https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars

Pre-order Custom Casino Cards here: 

https://www.piquetwargames.com/product-page/vauban-s-wars-custom-casino-cards

The rules cover sapping, mining, countermining, weather, disease, unique events, coups de main, powder supply, food supply, espionage, trench raids, etc.            

Front Cover

Back Cover

Hard Copy ($40)

Includes:
1 x Rules (97 pages) 75 pages of rules, and if you don't do any mining in the siege the rules are only 63 pages. Spiral bound and full color.
2 x Quick Reference Sheets (double-side, thick card)
1 x Turn & Weather Track (single-sided, thick card)
1 x Powder Expenditure Track (single-sided, thick card)
6 Pages of Sequence Deck cards to cut out (single-sided, thick card that you can cut out and sleeve)

Electronic Copy ($25)

Set of five PDFs: Rules, Quick Reference Sheet, Powder Expenditure sheet, Turn & Weather sheet, and Sequence Deck cards.

Optional Casino Cards ($14.99)

Standard Poker deck with 54 cards. (2.5" by 3.5") These just give you a very nice set of upgraded cards along with a couple blank cards that you can use to add new events or siege ideas. These have unique card backs for each side in the game.

28 x Garrison Cards (including 5 blank cards)

25 x Besieger Cards (including 5 blank cards)

1 x Proof of Purchase card

More information about Vauban's Wars see this page in my blog:

http://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/p/vaubans-wars.html

For discussion, you can join the following sites:

• Vauban's Wars Facebook page
• Piquet and Field of Battle Facebook page
• Piquet and Field of Battle GroupsIO site. (for those that don't want to do FaceBook)

Cheers!
Eric

Vauban's Wars - Trench Raids

Hi,

I'm doing a series of  insights into some of the rules and mechanics of my upcoming ruleset: Vauban's Wars!

This time we are talking about TRENCH RAIDS!

These were minor sorties launched by the garrison to disrupt or damage the besieger's sappers, artillery, or siege works. They would be a company or two in size. The information below will give you a general idea of how it works, but the details are in the rules.

Trench raids are vital as part of an aggressive defense and can delay the success of a siege by a week or two if done right. This could be the difference in a siege outcome.

General Mechanics

When the garrison player turns a Trench Raid card, they can send 1 to 4 stands of infantry, plus sappers if they are going to attack empty siege works, against the besieger's sappers or artillery.

They can't send more than two infantry stands per target. So if you have 4 stands of infantry going you would have two targets with two infantry stands designated against each target.

The garrison designates the best combat unit as their base Combat Die, and that is modified for an additional stand sent into the raid.

The besieger uses their Security Die as their base Combat Die, which in turn is modified by local infantry units that are close enough to the target of the raid to defend against it.

As mentioned before here are the possible targets:

• Besieger's Sappers
• Besieger's artillery units
• Besiegers empty parallels, saps, or gun emplacements.

If the garrison's trench raiders roll high enough they can force the target to retire, force the target to retire with loses, or eliminate a target (they would likely need to be weakened unit to do this). 

If they roll high enough against empty siege works they will make them unusable. This forces the besieger to rebuild the siege works to use them. This can be extremely frustrating to the siege timetable.

On the other hand, if the Trench Raiders roll too low they will be sent packing back to their parent units with UI loses. Below we can see the Austrians doing a trench raid with two targets. One target is two infantry vs. sappers, while the other is one infantry vs. sappers. Raid #1 is by one line infantry unit, while Raid #2 is led by Grenadiers and one line infantry in support. In both cases, the sappers have friendly support which will increase their Combat Die value.

Yes, this is a risky event for the garrison, but the positives outweigh the negatives most of the time.

Hint, Garrison player should use Grenadiers or Elite Light infantry as the lead combat unit in Trench Raids.

Cheers!

Eric

Vauban's Wars main page

Vauban's Wars - Example of Siege Deck Building

The engine of Vauban's Wars, like other Piquet\Field of Battle rules, is the sequence deck. In Vauban's Wars each side will have their own Siege Deck of actions\events that occur during a turn.

Each side has a base deck of 11 cards, with 3 additional Bonus cards added to the deck based on season, leader quality, and nation quality. In the end, each side will have 14 cards in their Siege Deck. If the season, leader quality or national quality doesn't add enough Bonus cards, then the remaining cards are filled with a Siege Drags On card(s) until 14 cards are in the deck.

Here is a table showing all the cards names in Vauban's Wars (section 9 of the rules)

The base Siege Deck cards have a bomb symbol on them for easy identification. Players can pick any card they like that does not have a bomb symbol on it as an optional card based on leaders bonus, national bonus, and or season. (“Relief Army Arrives” is an exception as you have to roll that event in order to add that card) Some cards are not available to both sides per the table above. The Besieger’s deck has a red top stripe and the Garrison’s deck has a blue top stripe.

The garrison base deck cards with the bomb symbol. These are the custom casino cards that you can purchase to enhance your experience. These cards come with the core rules book too.

I'd like to run through a couple turns of a thought process for both sides during a siege and how that may impact their Siege Deck composition.

Siege Deck Additional Card Options

This is siege pitting the French vs Imperials (Austrians) during the War of the Austrian Succession. The ditch surrounding the fortress is wet and mining and countermining is allowed. Escalade of the fortress walls is not permitted in this scenario. A practical breach will be required.

The Siege is starting in spring, but will change to summer on the second turn. Both sides have average commanders so will not get a leadership card bonus.

The French bonus for the War of the Spanish Succession when their siege-craft was at its peak, is two bonus cards of their choice. Spring doesn't give a card bonus. This means the French commander on turn one will have 2 additional cards of his choice to add to his Siege Deck, and a final card of Siege Drags On.

The Imperial (Austrians) bonus for the War of the Spanish Succession is only one card, while spring doesn't add any free cards. So, the Imperials will round out their additional cards with two Siege Drags On cards.

French Siege Deck Composition Turn 1 (Spring)

The French get two cards of their choice and one Siege Drags On to add to the base Siege Deck of 11 cards. This will give him 14 Siege Deck cards.

The French now need to make a decision on what two cards they should add to their Siege Deck. You will notice many of the cards are already at their maximum level. This leaves Assault, Command Indecision, Leadership, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, and Siege Move as possible Bonus cards.

Turn one of all siege games is focused on digging, then moving, then reloading. The player here would like to make sure they start digging lots of saps and parallels, so adds one "Sapping & Mining" card to the deck. In addition, they want to make sure they have flexibility around movement so they add a "Siege Move" card. For their last cards they are forced to take a "Siege Drags On" card. Note, you would never take "Command Indecision" cards on purpose! This cards is reserved for abysmal commanders and goes in the deck regardless of any bonuses that you have.

Imperial Siege Deck Composition Turn 1 (Spring)

The Imperial player gets one card of their choice and two Siege Drags On cards to add to the base Siege Deck of 11 cards. This will give him 14 Siege Deck cards.

The Imperial player needs to pick one card from available options. As can be seen the only cards that have not been maxed out are Command Indecision, Leadership, Relief Army Arrives, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, Siege Move, Sortie, and Trench Raid.

Since the besiegers are in the first parallel (long range), the garrison is not that interest in reload cards at this point in time. Moving around is not critical at this stage either as your garrison forces should be ready and in place to fight. You can't add the "Relief Army Arrives" as that is added to the deck after being rolled via a Unique Event. Leadership (rallying units) is not critical now either. The entire point of the garrison's defense is to make matters difficult for the besieger and delay their advance. The Imperial player takes "Trench Raid" as their optional card as this lets them raid enemy sappers, artillery, and empty stretches of the besiegers siege works to destroy them. The other two cards must be "Siege Drags On" to bring their total to 14 cards.

The players now roll for initiative and flip cards acting on them as they move along. Note, on the first turn the besiegers always win the initiative and must go first. Units that are loaded may fire at any time and don't require a card to fire. Once they have fired they are considered unloaded and need a "Reload" card to fire again.

French Siege Deck Composition Turn 2 (Summer)

As mentioned before, we would move from spring to summer on turn 2. This has the benefit of giving each player one additional card choice. Now the French player has 3 additional cards of their choice! Life is good in the siege works! (At least for the chief engineer). The French just wish the garrison's Trench Raids weren't so effective as he has lost a sapper company and heavy gun section to these raids!

The French player sorts out his base deck (cards with the bomb symbol) and then decides which three additional cards he will add to the deck. 

Available Choices: Assault, Command Indecision, Leadership, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, and Siege Move.

French Choose: Reload, Sapping & Mining, and Siege Move.

As the besieger you will almost always want the extra "Sapping & Mining" card as there is so much siege work to be done by both sappers and miners. The "Reload" card was selected this time as in turn 1 you were able to build saps and some of the 2nd parallel (including a few gun emplacements). Time to move those guns forward and fire at targets of opportunity!

Imperial Siege Deck Composition Turn 2 (Summer)

With summer upon the siege, the Imperials now have 2 additional choices and one required Siege Drags On card. We have hard decisions as the besieger gets closer and closer.

Available Choices: Command Indecision, Leadership, Relief Army Arrives, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, Siege Move, Sortie, and Trench Raid.

Imperial Choose: Reload, Siege Drags On, and Trench Raid.

Since the besieger hasn't opened a mine yet, we are not going to take an additional "Sapping & Mining" card. Trench Raids are still great options during the first 3-4 turns, so we are taking that one. Lastly, the besieger is getting closer making effect fire from your fortress guns more of a critical option. Let's take the extra "Reload" card!

Once again the decks are shuffled and initiative is rolled. Winner chooses who acts on the initiative first.

Moving the siege we are now at TURN 6

...

French Siege Deck Composition Turn 6  (Summer)

The third parallel was established a week ago and effect artillery and mortar fire has cleared the garrison's glacis! A mine was started and working towards the King's Bastion. The French player wants to keep his forces focused on the breaching target of the King's Bastion. Still has three choices

Available Choices: Assault, Command Indecision, Leadership, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, and Siege Move.

French Choose: Reload, Sapping & Mining, and Siege Move.

Imperial Siege Deck Composition Turn 6 (Summer)

Imperial commanders still has two choices with one required Siege Drags On card.

Available Choices: Command Indecision, Leadership, Relief Army Arrives, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, Siege Move, Sortie, and Trench Raid.

Because the enemy mine is getting closer (need to countermine) and fires are starting to spread in the town due to incendiary mortar rounds, the garrison picks Sapping & Mining. Trench raids are beyond dangerous now and heavy fire is the only way to prevent an assault. He picks "Reload".

Imperial Choose: Reload, Sapping & Mining, and Siege Drags On.

The decks are shuffled and initiative is rolled. Winner chooses who acts on the initiative first. During the turn Imperial countermining efforts are for naught and the French detonate a mine under the King's Bastion, causing terrific damage, while breaching batteries finish off the bastion causing a practical breach! Imperials are hoping for a Relief Army Arrives event! Maybe the garrison should just surrender or launch their own major Sortie?!

French Siege Deck Composition Turn 7  (Summer)

We are now into the fourth week of the siege and the French are making great progress. Breaching batteries have been placed the enemy glacis and have cleared large sections of the curtain walls. Assault forces have been moved to the third parallel and we have a breach in the King's Bastion! Our spies tell us that enemy morale is at a breaking point.

Available Choices: Assault, Command Indecision, Leadership, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, and Siege Move.

French Choose: Assault, Leadership, Reload

Reload to keep up constant fire across the curtain walls and other bastions. Leadership to rally as many forces as possible before the assault and Assault as we are ready to storm the fortress.

Imperial Siege Deck Composition Turn 7  (Summer)

Still have two additional choices and the Siege Drags On card to add to the Imperial deck. However, things are looking bad for the garrison. A practical breach has occurred on the King's Bastion, and an assault is likely in the near future. Popular support has become a problem, while fires are spreading in the town. 

Available Choices: Command Indecision, Leadership, Relief Army Arrives, Reload, Sapping & Mining, Siege Drags On, Siege Move, Sortie, and Trench Raid.

Imperial Choose: Reload, Sapping & Mining, and Sortie.

Imperial player knows this is the last gasp. He has fought with honor, but he needs to hold out one more week according to his orders. The only way he sees this happening if he delays the enemy with a major Sortie. He picks the Sortie card hoping to have that pop up before the besieger draws their Assault card (if it is in their deck). He picks reload too as he wants to make this a contested fight. Sapping & Mining would have helped with retrenchments, but he will just rely on the existing Sapping & Mining card in his deck. 

Once again the decks are shuffled and initiative is rolled. Winner chooses who acts on the initiative first. The Besieger wins by 5 (initiative points), and elects to go first, hoping they turn the Assault card. On the fourth initiative the Assault card is drawn!

You now switch to your favorite tactical ruleset to fight the assault. Most sieges were successful without an assault. A full assault should be a last resort. 

I hope you find this helpful in understanding the Siege Deck composition for Vauban's Wars. 

Note that different wars and participants will have different types of additional card options. Some have none because their corps of engineers is just inept. 

Cheers!

Eric

Maximilian Adventure - Republican Army Rebased (plus Queretaro)

The last rebasing project for the Maximilian Adventure is complete. Here is the Republican\Jaurista army!

I really can't tell you own difficult this was to rebase these figures. Nearly all of the miniatures were plastered to metal washers, then glued to the thick wooden bases. Here is an example of that type of basing. Nightmare. As usual, click for larger images. You can also right click and open in a new window for the largest image resolution.

Republican Army

The rebased army is made up of 15mm figures with mainly Freikrop figures, but also Minifigs, Musket Miniatures, Frontier, and Old Glory ACW figures can be found mixed in.

18 Infantry Regiments

7 Cavalry Regiments

3 Artillery Batteries 

4 limbers

4 Brigade Leaders and two more getting painted. (round bases)

1 CinC

The entire army (below)

CinC reviewing the troops

Infantry

Except for about three units, each Juarista unit has 2 to 4 different figures per base with each figure's uniform being unique. Makes for an interesting and motley group!

8 Line infantry regiments

10 National Guard infantry regiments

Line Regiments

Frontal shot with the Supremos Podres in the center in grey

More angles and a close up shot.

National Guard Regiments

I will likely use labels with names of locations rather than the generic National Guard 1, National Guard 2, etc that I used before.

Cavalry

4 Regiments of Line Cavalry

3 Regiments of National Guard Cavalry

The NG cavalry are in the column on the table (3 regiments), while the second column closer to the right is the Line regiments.

Artillery

3 batteries (various calibers)

These are in front of the Line battalions along with the oxen limbers in the rear of the column.

Photos are combined with the line infantry at the top of the post

What is Left to Do?

I have enough extra figures to paint up two more infantry units, one batteries, and one or two more cavalry units. None of which are needed to game at this point in time. I do have to put labels on the units in the near future.

Now I just have to get these back on the table!!

Imperial Mexican Army Rebased
French Army Rebased

The Siege of Queretaro the Board Game

I met a gentlemen named Steve Kling who is going to be publishing some unique games and one of them will be the Siege of Queretaro, which is perfect for this blog post! You can follow him on FaceBook @ https://www.facebook.com/The-Historical-Game-Company-LLC-and-THGC-Publishing-1458809827724208/?ref=bookmarks

Also, they are considering making enlarged vinyl maps for those that want to incorporate miniatures!!

YouTube Battle of Quebec 1759 example of play: https://www.facebook.com/The-Historical-Game-Company-LLC-and-THGC-Publishing-1458809827724208/?ref=bookmarks

Company website: http://www.thehistoricalgamecompany.com/

Box Cover art for Queretaro!!! (click for large image)

Cheers
Eric

Maximilian Adventure - French Army Rebased

My second rebasing project for the Maximilian Adventure is finished. Yea me! 

Here are the French in all their glory. Roughly 2 divisions plus cavalry when it is all said and done.

Video of the army (should have taken a photo of the entire group, oh well)

Figures are 15mm mostly Freikorp, but some Frontier and Minifigs.

Infantry

1st Brigade (2 line battalions on right, 2 Zouave battalions on left, 1 Chasseurs a Pied in the front)

Here you can see the heavy and field gun batteries. 

2nd Brigade (2 line battalions, 2 Legion battalions filling in for Zouaves until they are painted, 1 Turcos Battalion (Algerian Sharpshooter\Tirailleurs) in light blue, and 1 Chasseurs a Pied)

3rd Brigade (miscellaneous brigade with sailors, two line battalions, and the Egyptian battalion that served in Mexico). One day I may get around to fielding two more Zouave battalions for this brigade, but most likely I will just leave it as is.

Frontier Sailors, Old Glory Egyptians, and Minifig Chasseurs a Cheval in green.

Cavalry

The 5th Hussars (2 stands in blue), 12th Chasseurs de Cheval (4 stands in green), and Chasseurs d' Afrique (8 stands in blue with white havelocks). Each stand represents a squadron. Oh, I know the Spahi (4 squadrons in red) didn't server in Mexico, but damn what if they did?!? 

Artillery

Imperial Guard artillery crew is from the Freikorp FPW range. I like how they turned out. I haven't painted six of the guns, and should have them done in a bit. The other two batteries of field and heavy guns are in the infantry brigade photos.

What's Left to Do?

Two battalions of Zouaves. These will be of high priority (need to buy the figures), but will use Legion battalions in their stead until they are painted.

Contra forces, both cavalry and infantry. Not very many to paint and certainly not an immediate need.

Cheers
Eric

Depending on the size of my battle, the French C-in-C will represent General Forey or General Bazaine

PS - Below is the French organization as of 1st December 1862 with more troops added through 1864.

French Army

By the 1st of December 1862, when General Forey arrived in Mexico to take command in place of Rear-Admiral Jurien de la Graviåre, the distribution of the various commands was as follows: 

Commander-in-Chief: General Forey 

First Infantry Division 

    Divisional Commander: General Bazaine
    Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel Lacroix 

1^st Brigade (General Baron Neigre)

• 18th Battalion of Chasseurs (Commandant Lamy)
• 1st Regiment of Zouaves [2 battalions] (Colonel Brincourt)
• 81^st Regiment of the Line [2 battalions] (Colonel la Canorgue)

2^nd Brigade (General de Castagny)

• 20th Battalion of Chasseurs (Commandant Lepage de Longchamps)
• 95th Regiment of the Line [2 battalions] (Colonel Jolivet)
• 3rd Regiment of Zouaves [2 battalions] (Colonel Mangin) 
• Turcos Battalion (Algerian Sharpshooter\Tirailleurs) (Commandant Cottret) 

Second Infantry Division

Provisional Divisional Commander: Brigadier-General Douay

Chief of Staff: Major Acting

1^st Brigade (Colonel L'Hériller – Commanding Provisionally)

• 1st Battalion of Chasseurs (?)
• 99th Regiment of the Line (Colonel L'Hériller) 
• 2nd Regiment of Zouaves (Colonel Gambier) 

2^nd Brigade (General de Berthier)

• 7^th Battalion of Chasseurs (Commandant Albici)
• 51^st Regiment of the Line (Colonel Garnier)
• 62^nd Regiment of the Line (Colonel Baron Aymard)

 

Cavalry Brigade “de marche”

Brigadier-General Mirandol

1^st Provisional Regiment (Colonel de Brémond d'Ars)

        2 squadrons from 1st and 2nd Chasseurs d'Afrique

2^nd Provisional Regiment (Colonel du Barail)

        2 squadrons from 3rd Chasseurs d'Afrique and 2 squadrons from 12th Chasseurs a Cheval

Land-based Naval Assets

Battalion of Marine Fusiliers (sailors) – (Naval Lieutenant Bruat)
2nd Regiment of Marine Infantry (2 battalions?) (Colonel Hennique) 

RJW - Japanese Imperial Guard Division, 1st Army

The Imperial Guards Division is the second division I've completed painting and fielding for my Russo-Japanese War games. Most of the figures were already painted when I bought them, but I had to rebase, flock and do some touch-up painting to prepare them for battle. It was quite a lot of work.

  

The Imperial Guard was part of the Japanese 1st Army and fought in the following engagements during the war: Yalu River, Motien Pass (Motienling), Liaoyang, Shaho, and Mukden. The division fought in all major engagements outside the Port Arthur siege\assault.

The Imperial Guard uniform had red cap band and red collar, while the LINE regiments had yellow cap bands and yellow collars. These figures are in the early war winter dark blue uniform but the Guard Cavalry is in the khaki uniform that was issued later. All regiments and brigades are color coded on the back of the base for easier identification during a game.

Infantry figures are 95% Frontier miniatures (15mm), while there are a scattering of Irregular miniatures throughout the commands stands. One command stand has Falcon USA figures in it, which are very nice. Artillery is from the Really Useful Guns range sold by Irregular Miniatures. Cavalry figures and their dismounted counterparts are also from Irregular miniatures. Flags were made from clipart, and touched up to add blue-ish outline, which I then touched up with paint.

The commander of the Japanese Imperial Guard is Lieutenant General Hasegawa, and he was in command of the Imperial Guard throughout the war. He can be seen in the photo below.

Below is General Baron Hasegawa in front of the artillery regiment.

Imperial Guards Division (1st Army) Order of Battle

Commander: Lieutenant General Hasegawa

1st Brigade: Major General Asada
     1st Guard Infantry Regiment (3 battalions of 4 companies each)
     2nd Guard Infantry Regiment (3 battalions of 4 companies each)

2nd Brigade: Major General Wabanabe
     3rd Guard Infantry Regiment  (3 battalions of 4 companies each)
     4th Guard Infantry Regiment (3 battalions of 4 companies each)

Attached:
     Guard Artillery Regiment (36 guns) 6 batteries of six 70mm Arisaka Field Guns (Col. Kumamoto)
     Guard Cavalry Regiment (3 squadrons) (Lt. Col Kasa)

Entire Guard Division

1st Brigade on Parade

Major General Asada, commander of the 1st Brigade, Imperial Guards:

Below is my version of Major-General Asada of the 1st Brigade along with his regimental commanders:

2nd Brigade on parade:

Major General Watanabe, commander of the 2nd Brigade, Imperial Guard:

More of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd and 4th Guard regiments

Guard Artillery Regiment, six batteries (stands), with 6 guns per battery.

Colonel Kumamoto, commander of the Imperial Guard Artillery Regiment (figure on round base above):

Guard Cavalry Regiment, with dismounted stands. Cavalry regiments attached to the division were small 3 squadron regiments of about 300 men per regiment. I gave this regiment a Hotchkiss MG too.

That is my Japanese Imperial Guard Division! So excited to get them on the table!

Japanese 2nd Division here.
Japanese 12th Division here (tbd)