I’ve been threatening to rebase my “elite” ACW units for weeks now and I am finally getting around to the effort. Here are some more interesting ACW units that I’ve either recently acquired or repainted to serve in different capacities (read: I didn’t like their original paint jobs).
The connundrum I’m facing is a complete “first world problem” in that I’ve already used 11% of my total blog storage space with pictures. I pay a small fortune to google so purchasing additional space from WP is out of the question. The solution? I’m working on it…
“Elite” ACW Units?
Characteristics of elite troops from the horse and musket era or the age of rifles are their ability to take punishment or their ability to rally back after what other units would consider a devastating loss. These troops either have a strong confidence in their abilities, have received exceptional training and equipment, or perhaps have seen their share of fighting and come out better from it – excelling at their trade and trusting in their officers. Some units have a mystique or exclusivity about them like the US Army’s Rangers or the US Marine Corps. It’s the same in other armies and in a battle, sticking around a few minutes longer than other troops or perhaps continuing to try when other units have long abandoned the attack is sometimes the difference in winning or losing a battle. Most of us have played games with elite units on the table, and like me, you’ve probably expected much from them. So much so that a failure to rally or failure to charge at an inopportune moment brings a blush or a snicker.
Neil Thomas chose to classify better quality ACW units as “Zouaves” in his One Hour Wargame rules and while Zouaves came in many different stripes, qualities, and capabilities (and uniforms!) that mystique of theirs is probably irresistable to the wargamer, figure collector and history enthusiast. NT’s “Wargaming: An Introduction” rules do not “bucket” elite troops simply as Zouaves, and so in my version I won’t either (but it’s fun to think of many of them in that regard). NT’s WAI ACW rules and my version have different morale grades, of which the highest is “elite”. The “elite” troops are the ones I want to showcase today.
I will be rebasing the Iron Brigade troopers this weekend in the hopes of getting them on the table soon (although not in my Bull Run game).
That’s it for this unit showcase. I have more pictures but I’m trying to save space – which brings me to the “connundrum”. I’m already at 11% capacity in storage for my blog as stated above. This is probably due in no small part to my phone’s outstanding camera capabilities. The issue though is that wordpress is going to make me pay for additional storage and I’m not particularly keen on that – so I’m playing around with picture quality and size, as well as how the media is presented within the blog (all of which make a difference).
So come with me on this journey to more efficiently load blog images (I never had this problem with blogger because its storage was based on my Google storage which I have plenty of). On one hand, it’s making me more disciplined in terms of the images I load. On the other hand, it’s forcing me to compress pictures and adjust sizes of those pictures, which is extending the amount of time it takes to publish! I’ll be posting best practices as I go. Stay tuned!
Der Wütende Dackel 
Hi Steve, I thought it was an interesting choice by NT to use Zouaves to represent elite units, but I suppose with gorgeous uniforms that stand out from the hum-drum of Blue & Gray, why not! 🙂
For cavalry, I like to think of Buford’s deployment at Gettysburg as a measure of how the rules should operate cavalry in the field.
For Word Press, since their initial allowance is quite small, I wonder whether it is worth you managing the archiving of your blog with a view to continual harvesting of pictures. So make the opening photo the one that is most important to the post. Then post normally and then in six months (say), go back to the post and delete all pictures except the opening one.
Norm.
Hi Norm,
Calling them all just zouaves was probably more exciting or attractive than just saying elite – i get it. For a book that kept all period rules sets and preambles to 2 small pages each, it makes sense not to fuss too much. Zouaves stir the imagination one way or the other!
Buford’s cavalry at Gettysburg fought a textbook defensive action and I agree – that example is certainly the litmus test for dismounted cavalry!
Re the blog – im not sure im disciplined enough to go back and harvest pics. If nothing changed now, id end up with a bigger problem later.
This post was slightly over 1 mb for these 4 photos which wasnt bad and I think could have made the pictures even smaller while not sacrificing much more quality.
But sometimes I feel like the universe is telling me I should not have left blogger 😀
Norm, thinking about this more I may reach the point after scaling back image sizes where I’ll still have to “harvest” images because im not going to buy more storage from WP since I already pay for it from Google!
from memory he uses Zouaves as a generic term for ‘above average troops’, which is similar to what I did. I found it next to impossible to grade units so settled on just having ‘above average’, which I call ‘crack’, troops. It also makes it easier to detect crack troops on the table if they have funky uniforms, even if not historically accurate!
My original Airfix armies had quite a few funky uniforms, but I was using the Blandford book as a reference. I wonder how many other wargamers in the 70s fielded an entire regiment of Chichester Zouave Cadets?
I find it far easier to represent “elite” troops in horse and musket periods with units in distinctive uniforms, and amongst the mass of ACW blue and grey, Zouaves certainly pop. I also sometimes put units in different formations to get indicate quality with the poor units and huddled mass and the good ones in more survive able deployments.
thats a great point – i feel like I could do an entire blog post on just how i represent elite units.
one of my favorite things to do with horse and Musket era troops to have a unit stand out is to rudely “insert” a mounted colonel into the formation riding amongst the troops in the first rank (wouldnt want to march behind him…) as this looks perfectly at home on the battlefield and draws your eye to the difference.
I have seen the future of basing troops, using a mixture of Le Duc’s parsimonious tendencies and Jonathan’s addition of a mounted officer. It looks great for pre-ACW but not sure if it works post-rifle revolution. For Rebs, having two flags may be an option (national & state). Certainly worth a post!
I find it far easier to represent “elite” troops in horse and musket periods with units in distinctive uniforms, and amongst the mass of ACW blue and grey, Zouaves certainly pop. I also sometimes put units in different formations to get indicate quality with the poor units and huddled mass and the good ones in more survive able deployments.
I’ve no idea why that posted twice, sorry.
juggling storage is a real pain. If Google ever start including blogger images in my storage allowance, I will be completely stuffed! I ruthlessly delete images once they’ve been uploaded, but obviously that won’t help with WP who have obviously decided to monetise image storage.
hi Martin thats exactly right – its a business model! Theyre counting on guys like me who just want to upload images directly without any fuss. I was shocked when I realized I was already at 11% of capacity.
That was a huge advantage of Blogger, ill give them that. Having your blog tied to your primary digital storage account makes it nice not to have to worry or think too much about photo storage. I never did with blogger. Uploading images from Google photos to WP is a big pain, too, especially for bigger posts with many pictures.
I wont go into it here but it takes me much longer to post a large battle report now than when I used blogger.
hi Jeffers thats correct – it was a catch-all in One Hour Wargames. So for instance one of Stonewall Jackson’s Virginia infantry regiments could have been called “zouaves” even though to call them that in-person may have gotten us some funny looks..
I was actually surprised at the differences in uniforms in thr American Civil War when you look at uniform books and drawings, particularly in 1861 (heck the whole period has some really outlandish uniforms- those big Bear Skin hats worn by the British Foot Guards in the Crimea come to mind!!)
Hi Steve – figures look superb…agree with the rules being dictated by Buford…looking at V&B ACW book as we speak actually…I think there are always solutions in V&B somewhere 🙂
I received the similar offer from WP that you got, and am contemplating the shift. I like Norm’s point about recycling your current pics.