I just bought the rules, they look great. I’m almost finished with my current project and am starting to think about the next. As a Canadian, I’m extra fascinated by 1812. Does anyone have any great scenarios where one base is one unit? I’m ideally looking for a 10-15 unit per side force so I can get it painted in less than 5 years! 

Could I please piggy-back on this question and ask what are the biggest forces (in RdG terms) employed by the various armies in the conflicts covered by RdG?

Hello zabarr!

Glad you like the look of the rules. As a fellow Canadian our group in Toronto had a blast playing 1812.

Sadly our former website had a number of 1812 scenarios on it, but that no longer is available. It's not hard to design your own scenarios by simply searching the web. You can often find the orders of battle a map and a brief overview pretty quickly just by putting in the name and date of the battle. From there just create an RdG order of battle to match your collection and your set to go.

RdG is designed for players exactly like you. You can increase the scope/size of your battles as your collection grows. The two scenarios in the book are designed at a scale that has a base represent about 100 infantry. You can easily convert that to a higher number of 250 or 500 to represent an entire unit. Have a look at the example on page 8. The really interesting thing is how the dynamics change in a game between a game that has only a few bases vs. a game that has double or triple the bases. They are both very enjoyable, but are intended to address different sizes of collections and possibly a different number of players.

Hope this helps you out, if not just fire away.

Best regards,

Glenn

Hello John!

Most of the battles in these wars were very small compared to their European counterparts. There are only a few that exceeded 5,000 men per side. However, the makeup of the various armies changed, some had lots of militia while others had lots of Indians and others were mainly regulars. The scenarios in RdG give a pretty good feel for the average battles in each period. So if you build your armies to play those scenarios you will have an excellent base to start from. Obviously when you encounter battles that do have lots of Indians or militia then you will probably have to add some figures.

The other thing is trying to pick your ultimate scale/scope size. During testing we played all the sizes and found that players enjoyed the lowest scales the best (25-50) as it just blows up the size of the games and gives a small battle a big battle feel. The old saying bigger is better seems to work very well. It also seems to make the game feel a little more intimate when the 24th regt has three or four bases.

Does that answer your question? If not just let me know.

Best regards,

Glenn

Thanks Glenn. To follow up on the theme that bigger is better, does the game play well at 10-15 units (with one base each), or does it need the larger forces to do it justice? Beyond aesthetics, how do larger base units differ fro m smaller base units?

Hello zabarr!

Your welcome!

Excellent question. Yes the game plays very well and very fast with games of under 15 bases per side. It also limits you to pretty much a solo or two player game. We have played games that have multiple players and they only command one or two small forces of say 4-5 bases each. We knock those games off in under two hours and they are a blast. We often switch sides and play them again.

Once you expand your game to say 12-24 bases per player and add in more than two players the entire dynamic changes. You will simply have more action on the table and more inter action amongst the various players. You also have the opportunity to build a more elaborate defence or plan of action simply due to the fact that more bases are in play. The more and different personalities also create a different perspective.

The best way to start this game is by starting out small. That gives you a chance to see how things work. Once mastered then think about expanding. As far as I know everybody who has played this game has enjoyed it no matter what level they have played it at. So justice is served to all at all levels!

Hopefully that answers your question. If you have anymore just let me know and I'll try my best to answer them.

Best regards,

Glenn

Great, thanks Glenn!