"Taking the Plunge into the Napoleonic Scene. Please Help" Topic

My great love as a kid was the Napoleonic Wars. As a young kid I bought Empire and spent my entire childhood savings on minis.

I never shot a musket in anger and the magnitude and scale of the era scared me off ever trying again.

I play WW2 mainly but I still harbor the dream of someday playing it out…

Suggestions of rules and minis? I know its a pretty broad question but I need some guidance

Thanks

These messages keep on getting the timed out bug…it's getting tiresome…

May I suggest:

General de Brigade – 1:20 scale with Command rules – plays a very satisfactory Napoleonic feel game.

Or – Sharp Practice for a small scale Skirmish style game.

Run now while you have the chance.

Oh and decide on what scale you want to play; 6mm, 10mm, 15mm or 28mm

Then decide on what size of battalions or do you want Regimental or Bde.

So running is still available.

Once you go Napoleonic you never go back.

I would agree with Mithimee…decide on scale first and then think about how many units you want on the table in one go….

I would recommend the 15/18mm scale as this allows you loads of miniatures along with great detail and ease of painting.

General de Brigade rules look great.

There are a sum question you need to ask yourself

1-Are you doing all the work (ie are you having to put out both sides)?

2-Do you have any favourite regiments,units,generals or battles that will be a good place to start.

3-What is the size of the playing area at your disposal?

4-what sort of game do you wish to play? skirmish,battalion, brigade,division,corp or army level game.

5-Are there any figures you have see you like?

6-How much do you wish to spend?

Answer these question before you need to think about rules.

I wish you luck with your new project.

PS- You will find Napoleonic wargamers tend to be a passionate bunch, most are happy to give you advice and help.

Here's my ha'pennys worth:

Decide what scale actions you want to fight. One of the attractions of the Nap era is the grandeur of the 'big battalions'. The famous battles of this period – Austerlitz, Borodino, Leipzig, Waterloo – were huge affairs.

I'd love to build my armies with 15mm AB figures (the very best), for example, but I simply can't afford it, either money-wise, for the figures, or space-wise, for the battles. This would be doubly true of the larger 25/28mm scale (tho' you could use these larger scales if you're only fighting skirmishes).

I'm interested in Russia 1812, an epic campaign on a massive scale, so I'm building my forces, in an ironic yet practical way, at the smaller scales of 6mm & 10mm

Once a scale is decided upon, building your armies is, at least for me, a lot of fun. In 6mm Adler reign supreme, at least to my tastes. Baccus are good too, and I even have some Heroics & Ros, but the latter don't mix so well, whereas Adler & Baccus do.

In 10mm I have Magister Militum, Pendraken & Old Glory. MM are my favourite. MM & Pendraken come individually, whereas Old Glory are in strips (with very thick bases!)

When it comes to basing and rules, I can't help, as I haven't got that far myself yet!

Good luck, enjoy! And keep us posted ;-)

Guys first of all apologies for posting this several times here .
Thanks for all your excellent advice and recommendations.
As I mentioned on the other doppelgänger thread I posted; the responses I received have given me the confidence to finally "retake" the plunge into the area of wargames that I always most admired and most desired to play.

I'm quite an impatient person but due to the advice given here I'm going to plan on taking things very slowly and doing as much research as I can before making the same mistake again.
Hope you don't mind if I throw a few. More questions at you as my journey becomes more concrete.

Again many thanks for all your help

John

Good to go slow. Build a Division at the most and go for Line stuff first, nothing worse then painting Guard types at the beginning and then finding your painting gets better as you get used to the figures.
Different scales for different sorts of game really and what it is that interests you about the period, is it the uniforms or the tactics or the grande tactics.
Just dont be put off by the apparent complexity 80% is dead easy just the more esoteric fringes can be tricky to figure out and in the end the process of doing so is part of the fun.
As for rules a lot out there have about as much period feel as WH40K and dont be conned by rules that suggest you can refight Waterloo with a 100 figs a side on a 3x4' table.
Oh and do forget having any sort of life outside Napoleonics lol
L

Another piece of advice that is often given but which I foolishly chose to ignore is that it is a good idea to paint up units in greatcoats first. Admittedly it does mean you miss out on much of the colour that attracts people to Napoleonics in the first place but it does enable you to get figures on the table in a fraction of the time. Word of warning though, it's not a good tactic if you are planning to do a British army as they almost never wore their greatcoats into battle.

I second both LeonAdler and SJDonovan's recommendations.

Painting a couple units in greatcoats with shakos covered will actually serve you for just about every nation.

My questions for you are:
1) what level of command do you want to play? (Do you want to be Wellington, Ney, or Craufurd?)
2) What scale(s) do you play now? (ie, what terrain do you already have?)
3) What looks like a 'battalion' to you? (ie, how many figures do you want per battalion?)

If you want to be Napoleon or Wellington, I don't have a set of rules to recommend, as I'm not interested (yet) in that level of battle. Ask one of the other guys, I'm sure someone has a recommendation for being 'Le Grande Fromage' himself.

If you don't mind being Craufurd, in charge of the Light Division in the Peninsula (or one of the other division commanders), I really do like LaSalle as an intro to Napoleonics. While you're only in charge of a single division, the author and I look at is as you're in charge of the lead division or the one at the most significant point, the fiercest fighting.

LaSalle's rules are explained very well, and are IGO-UGO with the classic move-shoot-assault phases. The trick is that the order of phases is Shoot, Assault, and then Move. You finish your turn not knowing how the assaults you ordered in played out! Then your opponent gets to try to shoot your troops up on the way in, if your troops aren't driven off by fire you fight the assault, and either you push him back or he pushes you back. Then he gets to move troops around and try to do the same to you.

Your troops are based en masse, Infantry battalions are 4 bases for average sized units and 6 bases for large units. I forget what cavalry units are (I think they're also 4 strong), and artillery batteries vary between 3 and 5 bases, depending on the typical strength of the nation's batteries. You will probably want some markers to show how many Disruption points each battalion has taken (you need 4 per battalion), and you may want skirmish strength markers as well. I would suggest one skirmisher marker per point of strength, as you can add additional companies to the skirmish power. You may also want artillery limbers.

Now, some people may recommend Black Powder, but I don't think BP is a good introduction to the Napoleonic era. You need to do a lot of prep-work ahead of time to figure out what sizes of units to use and what stats to give your units.

I started into Napoleonics with AB minis. ABs Napoleonic minis are big 15mm, but they have incredible detail. They're widely seen as the best available. After buying enough Rifle Brigade and Portuguese Cacadores to field a couple full companies 1:1 (100ish Rifles and about that many Cacadores), I saw a gent here on TMP who was using 3mm minis and going for nearly 1:1 mini:man ratios, deploying each company in the proper formation with file closers and guides, the Colours up there with the Colonel, etc. And apparently he could crank out an entire 540-man unit in less than a week, which was beating the hell out of my 20-men-a-week pace when I was forcing myself to paint. So I have decided to shift to 3mm in very nearly the same manner. I may simplify a few things, haven't had time to try things out. I'm keeping the ABs, I'm just going to base them for skirmishing instead of ranked up with multiples per base!

Thanks again chaps ….I regard your advice as invaluable and is very much appreciated. It's actually incredible to see the generosity on display and it's why I value TMP so much.

@Lion in the Stars
Before I asked here I was considering 6mm (I didn't realize there was smaller) because while I love the detail of 15mm (i game ww2 in 15mm, 20mm and a little 28mm) and I do enjoy painting but I would love to display the vastness and volume of men in formation. I don't know if I'd be disappointed by the quality of 6mm or 3mm but the speed and presumably the cost factors are very attractive to me.

I'm going to do quite a bit of research before deciding and I'd love to hear from anyone who has made a switch from one to the other (3mm, 6mm to 15mm etc)

I originally played 25 mm 20 years ago. Our games were division vs division style games with battalion sized units with rules that matched. For this purpose there are hundreds of decent simple rules with a lot of them mentioned here. Our group converted to 15 mm and assembled a huge collection for playing games on the corps level, some times with multiple corps (still battalion sized units). We tried several rules, but ending up with our own house rules, which are a mix of empire, corps d´armée and several other + a lot of new ideas. Some ten years ago, we became annoyed with the inability to play battles with proper maneuvering on the 1:1000 ground scale we had with our 15 mm units, and we started our 6 mm project based on the Adler range, where we now have a large collection. We play on a ground scale of 1:2000, and have room for deployment marches and flanking maneuvers on-board with battles (some part of campaigns) with multiple corps with battalion sized units.

All the advice here is sound, with the major decision being whether to play with units that are brigades or battalions. I have never found rules where the units are brigades to give ME the feeling that I am looking for in a game, but each to his own. If you are going down the battalion sized games road seriously consider 6 mm, because when your collection grows, you will still be able to field it, and have room to maneuver (we play on a game table that is 5 meter by 2 meters and still think we need more room in 6 mm). I see many 15 and 25 mm games, where the units are massed so close, that the game – except for the uniforms have no more resemblance to Napoleonics than Warhammer. An alternative to 6 mm might be 10 mm (pendragon is excellent) with fever figures per unit. I do believe that a batallion in line should take up a maxumum of 100 mm, if you want any kind of maneuvering in your games.

Don't think anybody mentioned 20mm and 1/72. If cost is an issue or not wanting to spend a fortune on something that may not take, 1/72 plastics are the answer. Hordes of types are available. Have a look at Plastic Soldier Review (PSR) site, prices from sites like the Michigan Toy Soldier Company. No doubt the old chestnut of 'plastics are impossible to keep paint on' will come up; loads of advice on this and other forums on how to make this go away. Rules; have a look at DBN, uses few figures and is a reasonable introduction before launching into the world of morale factors, national command abilities, musket ranges on wet days, etc. etc. Plastics and 'Bang! you're dead' rules do it for me (going straight to hell, ain't I?) :)

Thanks again for some more great pointers. They definitely made things more clear with the scale of mini that I think would best suit what I'd imagine is what I'm trying to represent . These clarifications have being so helpful because as Some one mentioned earlier they've helped me to which have helped me to ask myself some questions that will help to define what I actually want. So far I think listening or reading all the posts have directed me or confirmed to me that I might be happier moving towards battalion sized units and examining what's out there and consider what resources I have available and the practicalities of building as large a force as I envisage and fielding that large a force I'm definitely getting more persuaded on 6mm.

As I mentioned earlier I love mini detail and painting but one thing that has honestly intimated me about this wonderful era is the prospect of painting hundreds and hundreds of highly detailed minis. Against that the beautifully elaborate uniforms and the richness of their colours and intricate designs are a massive attraction for me to this age. So what would j compromise? Well after seeing some if the. 6mm I've being amazed by the detail. I'm not a fan of small scales in ww2. For me whether it's ww2 or Waterloo this is not just about recreating historical events or solving tactical conundrums or pitting your strategic skills against a tactically astute opponents. As well as all these things I think I want to create something of beauty and even wonder. Even if it's just something I find wonder in (I hope not though and that's why I enjoy posting my ww2 AARs.

Apologies for any errors in the text but I'm on holidays and I'm using my iPhone which I hate!

Hope some of this made sense…just sharing some random thoughts in appreciation of the help received here.and on all the other threads I started.

You could always try to get your feet wet with 28mm Skirmish starting with Songs and Drums and Shakos by Ganesha Games, it means you can paint up a dozen troops, and see how you like it, then expand from there.

You can work up to other larger games too! Like some people have pointed out. Sharpes practice is about 40-60 iirc?

I mention Songs and Drums because it's what I have just started too, it was a really fun way to get into the Nappies which I had always wanted too but never brave enough to take the plunge yet.

My Prussian Fusiliers

Very nice 28mm…I'm definitely after the smaller scale mini for a larger scale battle…for now ;)

For the 3mm stuff, I think your option is O8 aka Picoarmor: link

At $4.25 USD a pack of 150 infantry figures, they're cheap even if you're doing 1:1 forces (3-4 packs of infantry per battalion plus command is $25 USD or so per unit). I think one strip of troops is 10mm wide, so if you're doing highly compressed 'big battles', where you'd normally have a battalion of 9 men on a 30mm frontage in 15mm, you could have 90 men in the same space.

If I had to start over I would go with 1/72's (I have 15-18mm). There seems to be a wide choice of figures and maybe a bit cheaper.

Oh I should also point out, that Songs of Drums is compatible with any scale basically, because it only uses 3 measures Short-Med-Long range sticks, so as long as they are consistent you can use anything :)

Although skirmish isn't what people mostly want out of Nappys :D

Just bought some 10mm in a store in Calgary but they had no 6mm. 10mm are highly detailed but they'll take me along time to paint.

I honestly think I'll have to try painting both to be able to truly decide. I think 3mm is just too small fore though

3mm you basically block paint, I've read.

Trousers, then coats, crossbelts, hats. brown for the weapon, steel for any fixed bayonets. Done.

John, before you get into this too deep,

Go find people you will play against, there is no point in having a 6 millimetre army if the local opponents are all using 28mm. (there is little point in a 3/6/10/15/18mm army anyway as far as I can see but that is my personal opinion)

It is your army, do what you want.

There is a saying in my group that it is funny how everyone gets the best first. Please do not start with the Guard, everybody gets the guard. As your painting skills progress, in five years time your Guard is going to look shabby against the newly painted grunts.

After 30 plus years of collecting and painting 1812 period Russians, I still do not have a Russian Guard unit, though I do have 1700 plus painted 25/28mm figs. (I do have the Pavlov's but they were Line grenadiers in 1812.)

Questions
Are you an anorak? Are you likely to get wound up if the buttons don't show or the braid is the wrong shade?

Are you old, approaching 50 my eyesight is going and I need a lens to paint even 28s.

If you get bored, will you want to sell them?

If the answer to any of all of the above is yes, then I would go for larger figs, they are easier to paint and hold value.

Your next dilemma is which army.

French fought everybody everywhere, but lots of people have it, everybody turns up for a game with French and it is going to be Dull!

Russians, Austrians and Prussians fought both for and against the Ogre, so you will probably find an opponent.

Neapolitans and Spanish a very pretty, but lousy troops, in Rules like General de Brigade it does not matter too much, in Bruce Quarries Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature rules they stink.

Once decided, whose figures?

Front Rank, Perry, Steve Barber are all nice. I don't like foundry, because they sell in packs, and Old Glory, mainly because their faces are ugly (especially the women). If you are going Prussia CALPE miniatures win hands down, no contest; they are the reason that Front Rank don't do Prussians.

I am old, so like the feel of metal, but some of the plastic figs are exceptional. GW has moved into resin so I do not think it will be long before the other big companies do too. New kids Warlord are doing some nice stuff but the range is limited.

Hinds figs have apparently recast / moulded the Hinchcliffe ranges and they have some of the best Carts and Guns on the planet. Views from a colleague are that they are now as good as they were in the 70s.

I would not touch Minifigs but some folk love them.

Do you want an army that is "uniform" with all the troops in the same pose (old style) or more random with all troops out of step in ragged trousers and different hats, a more modern approach? Your choice of figure may dictate what you can do in this regard so think ahead, although units by different manufacturers will look ok next to each other if they are not too different in scale.

Keep the Mem Sa'ab / GF on-side, keep her sweet, you could buy and paint a unit of Neapolitan troops for her birthday, she may never use them, but you could… and they would be soooo pretty. but as Napoleon said, no better than no troops at all!

If you are fixed on 6mm/10mm buy the best detailed figured you can, paint the front rank of the unit as well as you can, with the rearmost lines done in blocks. choose your rules with care.

Before you really take the plunge, join a club, most will welcome new blood

Good Luck

Rabbit

Rabbit thank you for the insights…lots I hadnt even considered :)

You might find these rules interesting. Napoleonic Command is a very interesting approach the period.

warartisan.com/rules

Thanks I'll take a look at those too…not exactly sure what I'm looking for yet but I reckon I'll find it quicker that way

I would second the suggestion of Napoleonic Command2.