"Figures for _Diplomacy_" Topic

Salutations, gentlefolk,

A friend of mine recently bought the new (Hasbro) Avalon-Hill
edition of _Diplomacy_. Nice board, thorough rulebook, but the
pieces are die-cut cardboard. To those of us 'ancients' who grew
up with the wooden pieces, seems incongruous.

So was thinking of making up replacement 'pieces' (12 armies and
fleets for each nation (Coincidence?)) with 15mm or 10mm soldiers
and 1/2400 scale ships (Know about ships (old battleship buff, I
am) and have some already).

The soldiers, now:

Wondering if the uniform colors would be distinctive enough ?
(Willing to go back to troops of the Franco-Prussian or Turkish-
Russian wars for distinctive minis.) Would like some infantry /
cavalry / maybe machine guns for each – doth army lists for the
pre-WWI DBA variant exist?

Planning to use 'Fire and Fury' / 'Johnny Reb' standard basing –
1" front, 3/4" depth (25 x 18 mm). Doth the common rules for this
period use other basing? (Cardboard ctrs are 3/4" square)

Painting guides ? (Don't want to buy seven Ospreys)

Suggestions for scale and manufacturers welcome. Long-term project
- don't want to have to buy everything in one bite.

Thanks, very much, for your help with this.

Yours, John Desmond

10mm Russo Turkish look and Pendraken or Rank and File for 15mm along with Lancashire games

Pendraken WWI would be diverse enough -- you can really tell nationalities apart by the headgear, uniform colour is just a bonus. I'd go with early war, though, and pick the dramatic looking units.

There are enough sites on the net to get uniform colours -- it's not like you need every troop type, just basic infantry or one or two "nationally distinct" troops types.

Neat idea, BTW.

Since it's a board game, you could 'cheat' by putting the British in red coats.

Let's see:
Brits red or khaki
French dark blue, red trousers
Austrians light blue-grey
Italians green – use Bersaglieri for distinctive headgear
Prussians field grey – distinctive headgear
Russians green – a different shade from Italians
Turks olive drab

I think you are on the right lines vt, but not distinctive enough at a glance- Diplomacy doesn't always have nice deliniated lines

British – Red
French- Light Blue
Austrian White-grey
Prussians Dark Blue (Prussian Blue even!)
Russian- Green
Turk- Yellow
Italian Dark Grey (from the front of the Osprey for WW1)

Neat idea! I have an old Diplomacy game with the wooden blocks. Miniatures on color-keyes bases would look really good! I would think 10mm for Armies and 1:6000 for Navies would be about the right size on my board.

*color-keyed