Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Guys - for the next title I am working on I will be adding in dismounted images for both Units and 3D artwork for the dragoons. This will be so that when you dismount the cavalry dragoons they have an image that corresponds to their Units image. The Dismounted dragoon image in the Units.bmp file will be for those dragoons that did not have enough horses and were relegated to a "foot soldier" role.

Currently what is happening is that when you dismount a French dragoon in Marengo you see a 3D Hungarian grenadier infantry image. If you only play in 2D (like I do) then you never see a difference. My change will add in a dismounted 3D image that will work for both the mounted and dismounted unit types. For the dismounted units that will be the 3D image you see all the time. For the mounted types its for when they dismount.

For the game the following nations will have dismounted images:

French dragoons
Austrian dragoons
Russian dragoons

As far as I can tell the Prussians, Bavarians, Hesse-Kassel and British did not dismount their dragoons. I have yet to see where the Prussian dragoons, if lacking proper mounts, would put their troopers in as "foot soldiers." The French did this in many situations during the 1792-1794 period when the dragoon regiments lacked horses.

As we all know the dismounting of the dragoons was not a regular practice and pretty much was rarely used. We dealt with that at length in a thread tucked way down the forum list. There were dismounted dragoon units in the Russian army of 1812 and the French army of 1805. We have read of the bad reports of the French dismounted dragoons during that campaign and why Napoleon never did that again.

As to weapons. The D class Dragoon unit type was increased in melee power by my request. I did this to give a Medium class of cavalry. Thus if you have cuirassier that did not wear the breastplate you could give them a Medium class (D type) rating. I do not plan on giving the dragoons a carbine as the mounted fire option usually means that the units go low on ammo. Paco backed this up today in testimony of his games he has had in the Bonaparte's Peninsular War title. He said that many of his cavalry units ended up either low or out of ammo. Ammunition supply really had more of an effect by far on the infantry than the cavalry.

The dismounted dragoon UNITS (French) will have a carbine. The Austrian and Russian dismounted dragoon units will probably end up in "alternate" type OBs/scenarios. A full artwork PDF listing will be included in the game with dragoon units that dismounted being highlighted for ease of reference.

I will be adding in a sub folder called "Dragoons" in the game and in there will be every OB that has Dragoons that can dismount. Those OBs will have a weapon (carbine) for the mounted dragoons. You will have to copy the scenarios and then change the OB name to use the "mod" OBs. I am meeting you guys half way so to speak in an attempt to offer you the opportunity of using the dismounted fire option.

I will not be giving the cavalry pistols as per BPW. I just think it senseless to allow cavalry to fire for 1-3 man losses per shot. We lose enough cavalry as it is in the games. Again the supply end of it will be a problem.

As I stated before the main reason for the D type now is to differentiate between Heavy, Medium and Light cavalry. Thus there are more D types in this game (Gendarmes, Karabiniers, etc) than in the rest of the other games I have worked on. As a result there will also be more dismounted unit types. The French have both mounted and foot Gendarmes. While not in large numbers they are there nonetheless and a dismounted image for the cavalry is appropriate.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

Thanks for your efforts.

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Well I had to take a long look at the addition of the dismounted dragoon images and had to pass on doing that. What I have added in is one dismounted French dragoon for the early battles of the French Rev. where there were insufficient horses to mount the men and ad hoc "Dragoon a Pied" units were fielded. They will be armed with a carbine but they will not be able to form square. They will not detach skirmishers either.

The main reason for no new images is that it would be a lot of hassle for Mark to move the 3D images around from the Marengo image files we are going to be using for this new game. We will reuse as much of the Marengo artwork as possible and the less work for Mark the better.

I did add in a lot of new images today for the Army of the Conde'. I am done adding in images. The entire set will have 231 images. Compared to the 78 images in Marengo that gives you some idea of how many I have added in for the new game. Many additional images for existing types like Line infantry, Hussars, Chasseur a Pied, you name it. No, I did not add in every facing version for the Austrian infantry but I thought about doing it Just way too much coding for me and frankly I am starting to feel a bit run down and need to keep the mental tasks simple.

I just finished work on the battle scenarios for the 1796 campaign. I am now doing the small "Campaign Info Image Maps" or CIMMs as I call them. Those small images you see when you read the Overview, Situation, Decision or Victory/Defeat/Draw dialogs in the campaign front end. The campaign should be fun to play. I kept it much simpler this time than I did for the Marengo campaign file. I have two more to do and possibly a third if I find the time. Total of 4-5 campaigns for the game. Should be plenty.

Sorry I was not able to fit the dismounted dragoons in but I think that most of us prefer to use them mounted anyway. And mounted fire results in No Ammo/Low Ammo cavalry units. The mod guys can add in weapons and extra images if they want is what I figure ...

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)