Hello all! Yes, Greg, I was enjoying the "English Horse-Holders" thread discussion too, so I will try to repeat the tuppence worth I sent, and hope that others will do the same.
I find that dragoons can be the most expensive troop type (unlike the historical reality) as you have to provide mounted and dismounted bases, and if horseholders are done to scale (ie 1 stand per sqn) that would be too much.
However, last year I played in a game where we had 1 stand with mounted horse holder & 3 mounts on a large circular stand (Front Rank French) to represent the place where the dragoon brigade dismounted (3 sqn's providing a 3 stand unit). We then said that if this stand was fired on & sustained casualties it would disperse beyond rallying and the dragoons would have to use "shanks' pony" to get home! We thought this appropriate to the morale & status of dragoons in this era. If the dismounted dragoons returned to the mounts, it would take a full move with a "Form" order to mount & get into formation, being disordered while forming up.
We did not allow for moving this marker stand, but I guess it could move trying to follow the brigade or move into cover. I thought a move of 6" as a compromise between foot & mounted movement allowing for the difficulty of herding the un-ridden mounts. The stand could be counted as a unit & need a "Move" order marker to proceed. However being fragile they will disperse if charged or sustain casualties, the mounts being uncontrollable.
Barry, this brings up a point - we assumed that squadrons from different regiments in a brigade would dismount as 1 stand per squadron, but would form a single unit of 3 bases and then move as a single entity with a single order marker (Indeed, if there were 4-6 squadrons it could form several units of up to 3 bases). Is this so, or does each dismounted squadron count as a seperate unit needing seperate order chits?
Cheers, Rohan.
