Russians in Shakos and Bayonets

I wrote a similar article some time ago, but when I read it recently I thought it was incomplete and perhaps too conciliatory. So I'm going to fix that. This time we'll go through all the units and discuss what they might represent and how they are historically.

Unfortunately, as in other rules, the Russian army is being beaten. In some cases the designer has not done his homework, in other cases he has succumbed to long outdated legends. It seems that the publisher surrendered to the community's demands that armies should not be the same, that there could be some variation and content in the expensive thin staple.

Let's start with the officer. Officers are the same across the board in the basic stats, where they differ is in the national rule and then in the optional rules. Both are tragic in this case. For example, according to the developer, apparently jäger regiments and sharpshooter units didn't have officers because an officer can't have a scout rule and thus is unable to keep up with a unit that has a scout rule. Along with the Austrians, they are the only ones that don't have them in the rules. And that's not all, in order to take the Veteran rule on an officer you have to have a grenadier unit, which the Guardsmen are not. The Elite skill is not in the player's choice at all. So guard is without an officer, resp. you can't make a guard officer. Any other rules like swordsman etc we can dream about. The highlight is time travel. What else to call having a red commissar moved into Napoleon's army who can shoot his own soldiers to keep morale up. That's simply nonsense.

Now comes the infantry. Readers of my blog and those really interested in the Russian infantry know that it was organized from jäger, infantry and grenadier regiments. Each regiment had two elite platoons, rifle and grenadier. Studio Tomahawk offers us Musketeers, Grenadiers, Jägers and Skirmish Section. It's probably up to you whether you want to play fusiliers of the Grenadier Regiments as Musketeers or as Grenadiers. So Grenadiers should be reserved for the Musketeer, Jäger and Grenadier Battalions only.  Again, infantry is without any choice. Where all other armies come with variation, the Russian army has a rerolling of 1s in close combat. No options to differentiate the quality of units using rules like conscripts or veterans. Grenadiers from jäger regiments don't even have an optional Lights rule (like the French Carabinieri). This is either ignorance or intention. Both are sad.

And what's sad next? The Russian infantry hits at -2 against the British and at -1 against the French and costs a point or 2 less than the "competition". Putting aside the fact that there is no single reason for this, then your games will be tough and not very entertaining. A bit of theoretical mathematics (really theoretical). If we play 400 points Russians will theoretically put 44 models on the table with 13.2 hits per round, 40 French models will do 16 hits per round and 36 British will do 18 hits per round. This statistic is of course biased because the game has non-linear activation, but we can see that in a game where fire efficiency is key, playing basic infantry (i.e. the most numerous troop type) is downright counterproductive. At long range, where you have a10% probability of a hit, compared to the 20% or 30% of the British, the game is really anything but fun for the Russians. With the Russian heavy infantry not having the Veteran rule, and better morale only being bought for command points via the National rule, the life of a Russian infantryman is a truly tragic ordeal. And the player's too. By the way, Russian militias and villagers have 7+ to shoot as well. Why a trained soldier is on the same level as a guy seeing a rifle for the first time in his life only the designer knows.

Let's leave out the math, jagers and free shooters are a little better off. They shoot at 6+, which is again less for tirailleurs than the French and English, but they can take the veteran rule governing morale.

My personal recommendation for playing infantry is to ignore Musketeers stats and play Musketeers and Jägers alike as Jägers. After all, the Russians deployed grenadier and infantry regiments in loose formation, so the lights rule doesn't bother us that much, especially in skirmish play. Musketeers stats can represent better opolchenye units, garrison regiments, regiments of the inner guard, or new newly formed regiments instead of conscript rule. Fusiliers and grenadiers of grenadier regiments and grenadiers of infantry regiments play as Grenadiers or Jägers. Steal grenadiers of jäger regiments from the French Carabiniers. You won't find them in the Russian armylist.

The Skirmish section entry represents most likely Marksman platoon in skirmish chain. Russian infantry and jäger regiments did not usually fields marksman the same way as French their voltigeurs. Anyone could skirmish - volunteers, selected sharpshooters, experienced soldiers, flank files of the centre platoons, or marksman platoons. So there's no need to worry about it to get the models right. And it doesn't matter if we're talking about jäger, grenadier or infantry regiments.

The other Russian infantry are units specific to the Patriotic War. Militia - Opolchenye - villagers - Partisans, and Volunteers. Most of the partisan units operating in the rear of the enemy were made up of regular army soldiers or Cossacks, which is why I used the term villager, for the guys defending their villages from French raids or ambushing columns of deserters and retreating allies.  There's nothing special about these units in combat, they're useless (I am in history, not in rules), they cost a few points so they mainly increase your attack dice, adding an activation card to your deck. Both guerrillas and opolchenye have their own officers.

Volunteers are the exception in terms of quality. These are private militias, made up of hunters, foresters, retired veterans, etc. from wealthier estates. At the same time, they can represent elite militia units, such as the hunting sotnyas of the St.Petersburg militia, which distinguished themselves at both Polotsk and Berezina.

Even with Guard infantry regiments, we are unlucky to have any variation. The unit is called Guard Regiment, has better stats than infantry and grenadiers, and can take the Swordsman rule. That we would address Guard Grenadiers, Guard Marksman, or that we could have Guard Jäger Regiments in the Army for example /with the Lights rule/ is something the designer missed. The elite guard sharpshooters are another option and are supposed to represent the really good snipers of the guard jäger regiments. They shoot 5+, cost an awful lot of points, but you can't give them a rifle. They can represent anything you think shoots really well. Selected jäger regiment sharpshooters and NCO had bore rifles. If you want these units represented on the table, use English Rifles. No Sharp's. And if you don't want to mix Guard units from different lists then use French Guard units. By the way, feel free to use French for the whole army, for sheer simplicity.

With that, I'd close the infantry and move on to the cavalry. Here the situation is downright tragic because Mr. Designer didn't do his homework and find out that all cavalry regiments, except mounted hunters, turned in long guns to arm militia and new regiments before the start of the Patriot War. Only the flankers (16 per squadron) were left with firearms.

Uhlans, hussars and mounted jägers have the same mechanical basis in armament with the carbine, and all can (uhlans must) buy a lance to go with the carbine. Mounted jagers with pikes are funny, but OK, anyone who knows history won't do that. However, in hussar regiments only the first rank had spears and they didn't have carbines at the same time. So the armament of the units is not ideally designed at all, instead of choosing a weapon you create nonsensical mixtures. Moreover, Russian dragoons were not armed with muskets, but with carbines. Since perhaps no one makes an infantry Russian dragoon so you have deprived RAW of shooting from this unit. Or make a deal with your opponent to play them as armed with a carbine. The rest of the cavalry is acceptable game-history wise. The Cossacks aren't unnecessarily strong, nor are they unnecessarily weak. Bashkirs and Kalmyks don't have the option of mounted spears, they shoot bows instead! And they don't have chain mail option either 😉. The cuirassiers match the other armies, properly without carbines. Guard cavalry is then a more elite variant on the rank and file regiments, with all the aforementioned ills.

One cannot forget the mounted sotnyas of the opolchenye, for whom the same applies as for the infantry units. However, some militia units organized by the wealthy nobility, such as the St. Petersburg Immortals, can be played as uhlans, cossacks, or hussars.

But cavalry in Muskets and Tomahawks is, in my opinion, really weak and very situational, so tread carefully.

The last component of the army is the artillery, which doesn't stand out in any way except for being manned by "Fearless" and having one better agression. Interestingly, Napoleonic artillery has deteriorated rapidly since the Seven Years War (Redcoats and Tomahawks).

For my part, I'd add the cantines from the French army, or the priests from the Spanish army. Give him a horse and he's a mullah of the Bashkir regiments, give him a camel and he's a Buddhist monk of the Kalmuk regiments. I miss foot cossacks, but again, they can be represented by jägers. And of course Sledge Artillery is missing as well. But yeah, it probably never worked either way.

At the end, it's not good, but it's not entirely bad either. You will have tough times facing British and any scenario benefiting shooty units will be tough to handle. But, you know, in the end it was mainly the Russian army that forced Napoleon's first surrender and then paraded through Paris.