Austrian Landwehr (1809)

[SteveC]

The vast majority of Landwehr (and volunteer) battalions has a least 1 jaeger company armed with rifles.

If all the unit had rifles, you add 1 per base to the points cost . If you add a skirmished attachment and that was rifle armed, then that's covered. But what about the above situation? Do you take the 1 point addition per base and live with it or add 1 to the unit cost?

Landwehr also should be treated at reformed but with the slower movement rates of unreformed (per British infantry) with a option of having average or poor elan as per the Insurrection infantry. Some units evaporated at the slightest hint of danger, others hung about for longer. VIII Corp's second infantry division, Chasteler's, had it's 2nd brigade was virtually composed of all Landwehr (exception 9th - Jaeger Battalion).

Ta

[deadtorius]

2 companies out of a regiment, which is roughly what a unit is in the game, hardly seems justified to make an entire unit rifle armed. Adding an a attached skirmisher with rifles seems more appropriate. Personally I prefer to keep the attachments with the line troops, they are less likely to run away and lose the attachment.

I don't have much info about Landwehr tactics, but you seem to imply they used skirmishers as part of their normal formation. This might cover your rifle companies better, but they would get more dice than their line counterparts with an attachedvrifle would.

[SteveC]

Assuming standard 'model' of 6 companies to a battalion, 1 was rifle armed and 'trained' in the LI role. Trained is probably a bit of an exaggeration in many respects but the jaeger companies were recruited from the game keeper/hunting communities of their base areas, so would have been a bit better than their line company counterparts.

Using an attachment approach is fine and actually might be an authentic reflection of what happened if the Jaeger coy strayed too far from it's parent battalion. However, you'd need to rewrite the lists to allow any Landwehr or Volunteer unit have a rifle armed skirmisher attachment. In points cost terms, it's slightly dearer - 4 @ 6pts (conscript), -2 for poor = net 4 pts/base + rifle skirmisher attachment @ 10 pts, giving you a cost of 26pts for a fragile unit or 34pts for a better unit or one of the volunteer units (Erzherzog Karl Legion, Vienna Volunteers or Moravian Volunteers). That's 2 pts/unit more but looks/feels better.

I don't play competition games these days, so using a the list as basis and going down a more a authentic OoB path isn't an issue. I tend to play with VIII or IX Corps, plus some Landwehr (or Insurrection) units as padding to add numbers, so getting them right is important to me.

[deadtorius]

in a friendly game case you could add an extra rifle armed attachment making it mandatory for any Landwehr. Don't forget that attachments shoot separate from their parent unit so don't get the same re-rolls. As an alternative you could make the landwehr attachment 8 points and make them re-roll 6's.
I would suggest giving the volunteer units 2 dice for tests like line units since they seem to have been more reliable than the average Landwehr unit was.
Just some thoughts.