My immediate plan is to paint a total of three Leger and six Ligne battalions to face my six painted British battalions before moving on to some guns for the French (I already have a battery of three guns for the British, see pic below), one or two cavalry regiments for each side, and a couple of rifle companies to finish off the British brigades: That should be enough to play a first game with the British defending.

Looking further ahead, I have realised that I’ve probably initially overbought for the British side (twenty-three Battalions including Portuguese, with nothing yet for the Light Division) and I haven’t bought enough for the French (a mere seventeen battalions). 

My eventual plan will be to buy three units for the Light Division (probably a large thirty-two man battalion of the 52nd, a unit of eighteen figures for the 95th and a battalion of 1st Cazadores); plus an extra battalion of Cazadores to fight alongside the brigaded Portuguese (currently six line and one Cazadores). This will give a Anglo Portuguese infantry list of:

2 x 32 man Guard infantry battalions.
1 x 32 man light infantry battalion.
14 x 24 man (including 3 x KGL, 1 Highland, 1 light) infantry battalions.
6 x 24 man Portuguese line infantry battalions.
2 x 24 man Cazadores battalions.
7 x 6 man ‚rifle companies‘ (4 x 95th, 2 x 60th, and 1 x KGL).
118 x skirmishers for line battalions an alternate figures for light battalions skirmishing.

I’ll bring the French up to twenty-one twenty-four man battalions and three thirty-two man battalions (plus skirmishers) by adding another four light and three line battalions to the lead pile – giving a total of fifteen battalions of line and nine of light. I can’t see myself ever needing more than twenty four units on my 12 x 6 table at any one time – twenty four battalions have a line frontage of over twenty feet – though the split might be a bit Leger heavy if they are all fielded at the same time.

I’m going to keep the cavalry numbers as small as reasonably possible whilst trying to cover all of the bases. The British will have three regiments of dragoons, two of light dragoons, one of hussars and two of Portuguese. The French will have three regiments of dragoons, three of chasseurs, one of hussars and one of lancers, the latter very much just for the fun of it. This will mean buying another eight regiments.

As for guns, I’m still not sure. Currently I have three batteries of three guns for each side – two of foot artillery and one of horse artillery. Once I’ve decided what will actually constitute a battery on the table – 1 gun, two guns or three guns – I’ll have a much better idea. I guess this will largely depend on what rules I end up using. In any event, I’m not going to buy more than three more guns per side and hope to get away with what I have.

The rules thing is, as always, the key. I want to play games with multiple divisions, with brigade sized formations (French regiments) representing divisions, with sufficient rules detail to allow the constituent units in a ‚division‘ to use battalion formations and tactics. Those who know me know that I don’t get overly hung up on ground scales, time scales and such, as I’m more interested in a game’s overall narrative, and consequently a false figure / unit scale is an easy leap for me. At the moment my rule set short list is Piquet (with well honed house amendments), Lasalle and Black powder. Piquet is the most complicated and slowest of the three sets (though years of use has made the mechanisms second nature) but always give a good tense game with a good narrative and plenty of period feel. The other two look to give fun fast flowing games but might lack some period feel.

Once I’ve hacked my way through that lot……..The Spanish?………The Sudan? Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Next up the 3rd Battalion 36th, then I’ll shift attention to the three battalions of 2nd Leger.