"Scaled down Waterloo Farms" Topic

I am planning on doing bits of Waterloo at a ground scale of 1" = 20 yards or so with 28 – 30mm figures

There are a lot of nice models of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont out there but they understandably use the same height and groung scale giving them much too great a footprint at my chosen ground scale.

Anyone have experiences, thoughts, or photos to share regarding this idea?

I reckon La Haye will only be about 3 or 4" long not counting the orchard. Four walls would do the trick but lack character. Thinking a small farmhouse might look better. That sort of thing.

Thanks in advance.

I'm doing a similar project using 15mm groundscale with 6mm figures (I used double suggested basing from the rules). I found most 6mm models are great height wise but way too big footprint.

I am researching all the building and surrounds sizes in real life using images and google maps and then scaling them down to the footprint. Then I am building the structures using 6mm height thereby giving them a little bit of a stretched result.

Then I am resizing images from paper models and to match each side of each building and gluing them on.

At 6mm this should look okay once you add trees and bushes around the buildings.

I am about to start on my 1st building at:
link

A lot of people use the "one size down" concept for buildings – that is use buildings one size smaller than your figures – so for 28/30 mm figures use 15mm buildings.

While it was more then 25 years ago, and I eventually gave them to a friend, I built Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte for 1/72 scale, and if memory serves me right the latter was not far off what you envisage, so maybe try one of the manufacturers who make them in that scale or make your own. I don't have any photographs but apart from the fiddly windows on La Haye Sainte's roof, which I eventually gave up on I think, the buildings themselves are not the hardest to construct for a straightforward wargames layout, whereas if you want them looking historically accurate in every detail, then you are back to commercially available models.

The site seems to be playing up with double posts, as my message appeared twice!

Thank you all!

Despite the reputation of this place I have never failed to receive quick and helpful comments on a thread that actually has to do with wargaming!

@Wargaming Depot Dave

Your table looks fantastic! Well done that.

I use 20mm (actually 1:72 plastics). My Waterloo buildings are card at 15mm scale by Pireme buildings. I also cut down the length of each building so that their footprint was even smaller.

Rod

Finally decided to use a "box" building as I did for Quatre Bra.

The foot print is about the same as a small resin/wooden building but none of the those I have or have seen looked sufficiently the part.

Bob

Decide on the footprint, & make the buildings as tall as looks right, but slim them down – they do look a bit skinny, but see what you think.

My Boys Own Waterloo used buildings and ground scale that were at once undersized and oversized, if you get my meaning.

nice models malcommcallum, but I would personally have a problem with Hougoumont taking up the same distance as the space between LHS and La Belle Alliance! Its bigger than Plancenoit in scale! And one end of the chateau looks to be out of musket range of the other !!! :)

Still, each to his own. Id have it 75% smaller, judging by the size of your units, even if it has to be representational rather than an exact replica.

Hello M C LeSingeDew!

The problem is a common one. Your figures have a ground scale and your buildings have to match the same footprint otherwise they take up way too much space. The photo above is a great example of using too many buildings. So you can't use a model of Hougoumont in your figures scale. You simply have to pick probably a single building in your scale that reflects the actual size of the compound in relation to your ground scale. Waterloo is a great battle to look at as the dimensions of some of the buildings can be obtained. I think Hougoumont held about the strength of a battalion in it so your footprint for your building should match the footprint of one of your battalions.

I like your solution to the problem, but it probably should have been a little bigger if your figure scale is using battalions.

A reasonable thing to remember is in scale if one figure equals x number of men then your buildings also represent a number of buildings, not just one.

I'm not a fan of using different sizes of buildings for different scales as sometimes it just looks weird. Use a scale that matches your figures, but use a footprint that matches the size of your units and you will be fine.

Best regards,

Glenn

I would agree with you Glenn, but before I make my final decision on one of the three options that exist, I would like to see a picture if anyone has one of the 6mm buildings used in s 15 mm battle. I can't imagine it looks right but I've had people say it's not bad, so if anyone has a picture of this could you post it?
Thanks
John

You can't get away from it looking a bit weird, I'm afraid, I find the standard conventions on wargames terrain, with building matching the figures rather than the ground, makes the terrain look all wrong. It's a matter of taste. I have decided to learn to live with 6mm models and 15mm figures. But I understand why so many find that unacceptable. Your eye adapts to it – but it will look wrong to outsides. But you can get more than one building to a village, with room for a few trees too!

There are other things you can do. Reduce footprint of buildings to create tall but narrow ones. Go for toy-town buildings with small size except doors and windows. Use garden sheds, etc to represent farmhouses, chapels for churches, etc. Or combinations.

Well, here is my issue. This is a special occasion and I'm pulling out all the stops. This isn't going to be a normal "gaming" table with easily done terrain and things that look nice and we would typically allow.
I'm building an actual "terrain model" battlefield for this celebration, and am making every effort to get every detail correct (within reason).
It's aggravating that of all things the structures are the one problem. No solution is satisfactory to me! Lol
That's why I would love to see a real picture of someone who had gone with 6mm buildings with 15 mm troops.
Both my gaming partners each had a different opinion too! Imagine that! Lol
Anyway, I just want as much info as possible before I commit to two of the most famous buildings in southern Belgium!
Thanks

Well, I think there isn't a choice. Empire ground scale is 40 yds to the inch. La Haye Sainte would be around 1.5 inches long. A 6mm representation would be way too big. So, guess I will go with a tiny outbuilding for each farm. Kind of disappointing

I think it`s necessary to compromise in this respect between aesthetics and function. I made a model of La Haie Sainte. It`s at a smaller scale than my 6mm figures, but the farm`s footprint is not too big. It`s not an exactingly accurate model, but it`s just "La Haie Sainty" enough I think to be on table without dominating the battlefield.

The important thing is that the troop formations look reasonably in scale with the area the buildings occupy.
Photos show the orchard and two columns of Foot Chasseurs of the Guard attacking the south eastern corner of the farm complex.

A lick of paint will improve the aesthetic effect.

I think you have achieved a very pleasing effect that suggests the appearance of the farm complex without taking up too much space on the table.

It does look good and very workable. The trade off is the key element. It's just personal preference and I'm democratic. So far my partners feel like the 300 plus yards if battlefield gained from a correct footprint is more important than the cosmetics of having La Haye Sainte proper.
Thanks for sharing your pictures though!

The biggest problem i have discovered is that you cannot equate ground scale to troop scale. 15 mm figures are a completely separate thing from ground scale. We use figures to represent X number of troops, but that has nothing to do with ground scale. I did some figuring last night. If u assume a 15 mm casting is representative if an average man if 6 foot height, then with La Haye Sainte being roughly around 180 foot in length, u could place 30 figures head to toe just along one side of the perimeter.
So, take it from there. We can decide how many men our castings represent, I've seen a lot of guys on here that are using 6 mm figures at the 15 mm ground scale. Ground scale remains the same, u just use more castings.
Your pictures above are great. They fit the castings and work perfectly for a battle. The disappointing thing is, if your ground scale is the priority, then u will never be able to use s historical model.
So I guess it's all about personal preference
Thank you for posting the pictures!

John

John. I'm afraid I haven't a decent picture of 15mm figures with 6mm buildings, so here's a lousy one of a hastily put together game. It's actually meant to be Quatre Bras – but the building is a single storey Mediterranean farm building from Timecast.

I think it's bearable – but those Timecast buildings tend to have a decent footprint. The effect isn't as good with smaller Total System Scenic ones (which you can see out of focus in the foreground and background) – though extra contextual stuff like walls and trees could help with that.

My inspiration is Bruce Weigle's boards for his 1870 series (just Google his name). These take a lot of work. My hope is with quite a lot less work you can achieve something that makes you think it is a real place rather than a wargames layout.

Bruce's scale is 1in to 100m. He uses 6mm figures (though not the enlarged Baccus/Adler ones) with buildings on a two-thirds scale – 4mm. wooden blocks. If your scale is 40 yards to 1in than that is nearly three times more space – giving you 10mm buildings for the same sort of look. I am smaller than scale Bruce (though not for the game in the picture) – which with 15mm figures means that I have to be very scaled down. 6mm buildings was the smallest I though I could go.

Has anyone ever tried putting all of LHS on the table but counting only part of it as a building for game purposes?

Eg you'd have the whole thing on the table but only the southern face would count as actual terrain?

Similar to Mathew`s post, I`ve used some 6mm buildings in conjunction with 15mm ancients – It works OK for me at least but I tend to think that we are still able to let our imaginations work for us when models of different scales are used in play.

As for unit`s occupying buildings, one thing that I suggest, if space is limited, is simply leaving the command base of a unit in a BUA as a token sign for the whole unit.