Using These Lists

This booklet is a companion to 2 by 2 Napoleonic's. It contains twenty-eight army lists spanning the period from the French Revolution to the War of 1812, arranged in five sections: France and her satellites, the Coalition powers, the Peninsula, the North and the small states, and the wars beyond Europe.

Each list gives the army's character, a table of unit allowances, and a ready-made sample force of 40 AP — the standard game size — so that a new army can be put on the table without any arithmetic at all. Players are encouraged to build their own forces within the allowances; the samples are merely one historically-minded way to spend the points.

Notation

Each Command can take up to the indicated amount of units. A minimum number other than zero means that unit must be purchased (usually HQs). For example: 1–3 HQ means at least one HQ must be purchased, but no more than three may be. A number in brackets indicates that if that unit type is purchased, then that is the minimum amount. For example: (2)–6 Line Infantry means that if you choose to buy Line Infantry, you must buy at least two and a maximum of six.

Staff Points

Each list shows its own Staff Point allowance, which replaces the standard maximum of four given in the rulebook. This is the chief way the lists express the quality of an army's staff work: the Grande Armée at its height may buy up to six, while the armies of Frederician Prussia, Bourbon Spain, and the Sultan may buy none at all — once their battle plan is made, it is made.

Unit Sizes

Where a list shows a “Large” entry, those units may be purchased Large at the cost shown. Other sizing (including “Small” units) is intended for historical recreations and requires the agreement of both players.

Light Infantry

Every unit in 2 by 2 already includes its own skirmish screen. The Light Infantry unit type represents the rare formation composed wholly of skirmish-trained troops — the British Light Division, Austrian Grenzer, Portuguese caçadores, Prussian jäger, American rifle regiments. The lists therefore ration it carefully; where an army has no such formations, it has no Light Infantry at all, however fine its skirmishers were.

Unit Point Costs

† No Militia unit may be “Small”.

The Irregular Units & Lancers

Five unit types introduced in the rulebook's Optional Rules chapter are used by these lists as standard units — no special agreement is needed to field them. Their rules are repeated here in brief:

Irregular Shooters (1.5 AP, move 3″, range 1″)

Units who form in order but are not drilled in the European manner. They count as infantry armed with small-arms, and receive −1 when shooting.

Irregular Warband (2 AP, move 3″)

Units without missile weapons who engage in melee only. They may not shoot under any circumstances, and receive +1 to melee rolls.

Irregular Cavalry (2 AP, move 5″)

Cossacks, ghazi horsemen and the like. They count as Light Cavalry, except: they rout whenever any other unit routs within 2″ of them, or passes within 2″ when routing; and they may not initiate melee against infantry unless that infantry is Disrupted.

Irregular Mounted Shooters (2.5 AP, move 5″, range 1″)

Horse-archers and mounted skirmishers. Irregular Cavalry that may also shoot — small-arms (bows count as small-arms) at −1. Shooting Pins them as usual; a mounted swarm's escape is the voluntary rout available to Light Cavalry.

Lancers (3 AP, move 5″)

Light Cavalry trained with the lance. They receive +2 in melee against any Disrupted unit, and −1 in melee against cavalry at all times.

Army Special Rules

Every army in this booklet carries one special rule — a small piece of national character, named and stated in its list. They are deliberately minor: a modifier in a narrow circumstance, a new use for Staff Points, or a once-per-game grace. Where a list may not purchase Staff Points, its special rule says so. One extra thing to remember per player; the rest of the character lives in the allowances.

Allied Armies

Some campaigns are best represented by combining lists — Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese army, or the polyglot force that stood at Waterloo — and players are encouraged to do so. With the agreement of both players, an army may be drawn from two or three historically allied lists. Divide the army's AP total between the contingents before purchasing. Each contingent respects its own list's minimums and maximums, except that the army as a whole needs only one HQ, which must come from the largest contingent.

Only one contingent's army special rule applies to an allied army — the player chooses which when the army is drawn up. Some lists are at their best, and most historical, as allied contingents: the Spanish Guerrilla rarely stood in line of battle alone, and Portugal marched beside Wellington.

France & Her Satellites

The Coalition

The Peninsula

The North & The Small States

Beyond Europe

Designer's Afterword

These lists are offered as history seen through the 2 by 2 lens: each army's character is expressed almost entirely through what it may buy, how large its units run, and how many Staff Points steady its reinforcement rolls — not through pages of exceptions. Each army carries exactly one named special rule: one extra thing per player to remember, and, the author hopes, one small reward.

Players should feel free to argue with the history, adjust an allowance for a pet campaign, or write lists of their own using the unit costs at the front of this booklet. If a force here plays wrong to your reading of the period, change it — and write to the author, who has strong opinions but weaker certainty.

Finis.