Unit Organisations in TSATF

One thing I have done [as of 2008] is slightly tweak the organisations of units to try and more closely replicate the real life historical organisations – while still keeping to the general intent Larry Brom put in the rules and approximately the same number of figures per larger formation (Battalion or Regiment). As we are using the same organisations for our Fire & Sword Campaign I ended up putting together Visio Organisation Charts of them as visual organisation reference for Roundie & Kieran (who weren’t familiar with, my perhaps pedantic, idiosyncrasies over organisation tables) and as a result of an unrelated discussion on the Sword & Flame Yahoo! Group it occurred to me they might be of some little interest to one or two people out there (although I’m sure I’m not the first to do so and many will have their own views different to mine)…

So here’s the couple I have done so far – in general I have tried to be what I think is reasonably historically accurate and captures the right feeling and flavour from that perspective, while keeping as close as possible to the original TSATF intent and maintaining game balance and playability. In general the Imperial Company [20-Figs] & Squadron [12-Figs] become the standard smallest unit, both operationally and administratively (as they typically were in real life), the idea being smaller units such as Half-Companies [10-Figs] or Cavalry Troops [6-Figs] weren’t significant in Victorian Warfare and are therefore only represented as and when needed in individual games (by detaching figures from the parent Company or Squadron unit).

Imperial Organisation incl. Auxiliaries & Native Allies

Intended as a general guide to the standard Imperial Formations and typical auxiliary units. There are some compromises to both accommodate historical organisations but also keep things like the standard TSATF 20-Fig Infantry unit (rather than a new 10-Fig unit). Last Update 09 January 2009: Download PDF file of Alternate TSATF Imperial Organisations 179KB.

Historically based Organisation of a Mahdist “Flag” (Division) in the Sudan

My interpretation of a typical (but generic) Division of the main Mahdist Army, primarily covering about 1883 to 1889 before it deteriorated under the reign of ‘The Khalifa’ and before the bulk of the ‘regular’ troops became rifle-armed Jihadiyya. Last Update 09 January 2009: Download PDF file of Alternate TSATF Mahdist Organisation 210KB.

Notes

In the above charts I am working loosely on an assumed approximate scale ratio of 1:10 for Imperial Troops and similar Auxiliaries (actually probably 1:9 is closer to the truth – 84 Figs equalling about a 750 Man Battalion), and around 1:20 for the Native Forces.

These are PDF Downloads and are done to International A4 Paper Size – so if you print them and have non-A4 paper (such as US Letter) make sure you have the ‘scale to fit’ option active in your PDF Reader:

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