Austrian conscripts heavy list?

[spring]

Hi gents,

For some odd reasons i like to play "horde" armies and would like to know whether the
Austrian can field more average conscript than the 24 max bases found in the rulebook
(Austrian corps 1813)?

I'm still waiting for my Triumph of Nations book so don't know about earlier Austrian lists...

Yes i could try French late corps d'armee as they can field more than 30 conscript bases but i'm not
playing French so would rather try Austrian or Prussian to go conscripts heavy

Any idea?

[deadtorius]

Austrian army of Bohemia 1813-1814
German Line Infantry, Average Conscript 20 bases max of 48 bases max total for German and Hungarian bases.

Landwehr you can have up to 6 bases of poor drilled

Each base costs 6 points.

1809 Army of the Danube you can have up to 12 bases of Landwehr but your line infantry can be large, which is really nice for reducing hits from shooting and melee.

Over all Austrian troops are cheaper than most of their French counterparts. Playing 1809 and lately 1793 the Austrians can get pretty big armies, in the later years they should outnumber most Froggie armies.

Hope that helped with your hordeish desires

[spring]

Thanks Dead, nice to see there are options for large armies whether they are playable or not
is another story though
I was also thinking of Neapolitan Spanish but that maybe a little too much
thanks again

[Blathergut]

The Austrian 6paks are tough to deal with.

a) the large units reduce any hits by 1
b) when they have either an artillery or skirmishers attachment, they fire just as well at medium range as the basic French reduced by Austrian cavalry (esp. the artillery attachments)

[spring]

Blathergut, yup i did notice that some arr's reported that 6 paks could be resilient but wasn't
so sure that it involved poor conscripts ^^.

[BrettPT]

I would agree with Blathergutt that if you want to field lots unreformed or conscript infantry, the ability to field most of these units as large 6 base formations is a good thing.

If you like hordes, shako topped Austrians are a good army choice. Plenty of army lists they can be used for. If you want an occaisional change from the horde you can field a Grenadier & Cuirassier force.

Late Austrians also have plenty of options to attach one (or occaisionally 2) Saxon/Russian/Prussian/Swedish/Bavarian/Neapolitan/Wurtemberg divisions for variety.

Need to enjoy painting white however ....

[Blathergut]

Our last two battles have been set with the 1792/3 armies. My French have had endless smarms of superior conscripts. I tried running them large the first time and small the second time.
In both instances:

-not very good at shooting

-if you have to pass a CMT at some point, it can be frustrating since you only get 1 die (at least cohesion tests can gain a die if you have rear support!)

-I loaded them up with skirmishers and artillery attachments and this helped the firepower problem a bit since those don't reroll '6' results

So, the hordes of conscripts can perform well, if positioned carefully, and if given officer support to help pass CMTs (something the 1792 French army is lacking since they can't have attached officers ), but I found if one BG goes, esp. if it doesn't have room behind to retire/rout, the whole smarming swarm crashes down awfully fast! Once a conscript BG is running towards the back of the field, that extra die for cohesion tests is lost and that becomes painful.

[hazelbark]

I recently ran 4 Russian divisions of infantry with everything basically as poor Drilled although some opolchenie. A far cry better than conscripts. But a similar problem when you have a large number of units that are weak you have a real potential for cascading problems...Fortunately a timely charge by by sole Dragoon unit stemmed the incipient collapse and turned the battlefield into just a gruesome day to be a soldier. i.e. bloody draw.