"10mm Napoleonic figures? " Topic

I am getting into Napoleonics after a long absence and want advice on good figures available and rulesets. Would like to game either Waterloo or Borodino, hence the small scale size. Thanks Jonnathon.

Pendraken first
Bend Sinister next
Magister Militum due to costing more.

Believe it or not, unless really abstracting, those 2 battles are 2 of the biggest of the era. You will need to probably go with a brigade equals a stand or similar.

You need to ask:

1.What is the smallest unit representation I want (battalion, brigade?)

2. How many figures per unit?

3. Do I abstract formation or do I represent them?

Blucher would be good as one stand can equal a brigade. Playing card size stands but you could always go smaller? Each stand us a mini diorama.

Personally, I prefer multi-stand battalions. The least amount I have seen allowing visual representation of squares, columns and line would be March attack. 2 stands make a battalion but stands are much smaller.

Older set includes Napoleon's Battles where one small stand equals a battalion. Also Shako II.

I actually like De Bellis Napoleonicus using the attrition rules. Infantry is on a 20 by 40mm stand representing a brigade.
We play it with 10mm here. You could go with smaller stands if wanted as well. Just as long as you match the opponent.

I am looking at doing General d'Armee but no more than 3 corps a side and in 15mm. Battalions are 6 stands of 4 figures each. So more figures and more space. Could do larger battles but space would be huge. And needing multiple armies would require a huge investment in figures and painting time.

Volley and Bayonet

Pendraken all the way- I am doing a similar project for the 100 hundred days, using General D'Armee. I will try to post some pics of my efforts so far if you like? Honestly the customer service, figure quality etc I do not buy from anyone else at the moment. The Dutch/Belgians have just been released and they look great. For general D'Armee I am working toward the average 5 Brigades per side though so I won't be re-fighting Waterloo, I will be doing bits of it though and looking to push out toward multi corps eventually.
NB

Waterloo especially and Borodino are not some of the biggest in size for participants or area fought over. Bautzen, Leipzig , Dresden even Austerlitz( for battlefield size) where bigger. I think you need to address the two things you want before starting the scale of the units( 1 -20, 1-60) so 12 figs or 24 figs or more an infantry unit, secondly your playing area. My table is 12 x 5 foot, and we play games the scale being approx. 4 foot to the mile in 15mm and we use FoB2 and Empire, last week we did Austerlitz in 6mm and 1 foot to the mile using ESR

I just received some samples from Pendraken from their 1809 range and they are quite detailed. I will try to post some pictures when painting is complete and some Old Glory cavalry as well. I am considering Volley and Bayonet or Blucher for rules.

My preference on 10mm Napoleonic Figures is Old Glory. They come on five-figure sticks, which makes them very fast and easy to paint. They also have separate skirmishing figures are are often useful. Magister Militum are also quite good, but I recommend you look at the Old Glory offerings. Most of my 10mm Napoleonic collection is from Old Glory.

As for rules, I will put in a shameless plug for Fate of Battle ( link ) .

I second Old Glory 10mm as the basis for armies supplemented with minis from others.

Pendraken are, for me, the best 10mm Napoleonics on the market. There are gaps in the range, no Peninsular War figures for example, but for Waterloo no problem at all.
Old Glory are nicely detsiled, but I duslike the infantry in strips. The cavalry are very nice sculpts, but smaller than Pendraken.
Bend Sinister figures are very fine, anatomically more accurate than other ranges, so a bit slimmer. The range is mainly for Waterloo. The original intention was to make a range compatible with the GHQ sculpts, which are available from Magister Militum in the UK. Not always easy to get a response from the owner, but I think the figures are worth getting.
Magister Militum's own figures are significantly chunkier than Pendraken. They do have a very complete range, including the elusive Peninsular Spanish, Portuguese and early British in stovepipe shakoes. I have seen complaints that the castings are now carrying excessive amounts of flash and are difficult to clean up.
A relatively new player in the 10mm Naps market is Lancer. I find them a bit " gnomic" but they have their fans and they are certainly doing a good job of rapidly expanding the range.
If you are wanting to play large battles, then the old stager Napoleon's Battles is definitely worth a look. An infantry brigade will usually have 4 to 6 stands, each one has 3/4 inch frontage (1 inch for British and later Portuguese) x 1inch depth, cavalry are on 1 inch x 2 inch (although I use 1inch square bases and put two together, as I like to play other rule sets like Over the Hills and General D' Armee). Last week we used these rules to play Eylau on 9 foot x 4 foot table, but have done Quatre Bras on a 3 x4, and other battles on a 6 x4.

Your rules will depend on how much of the battle you will put on a table at a time. Your actual gaming units will be two levels down

Thus if you are using x stands to the Battalion, you will be the divisional commander, with command stands representing Brigadiers.

We played a ACW battle as a mini campaign – Maneuver the Divisions and Corps on a map, and as they came into 'table range' play that bit As Divisions. Sometimes 3 different games/evenings were three divisions fighting simultaneously.

Old Glory infantry are great but limited ie the French only in shakos no line in bicorns or overcoats. Some cav needs to be put together.
Pendraken have great service and nice individual castings. These take longer to paint.

Rules-wise, I suggest you look at a Snappy Nappy (better than the name, I swear) or Blucher if you're looking to refight whole battles. The multi-based battalion rules only do the mid- or large battles if you have thousands of minis, numerous players, and 14 feet of table. Great if you do, but for those of us with a 6 x 4 table, I'd use the aforementioned rules to do a full battle.

I would go Pendraken and Bend Sinister, which is what I have got, naturally… Pendraken are continuing to release figures and I understand the Peninsular is in planning. but not soon.

Compatibility can be a problem when mixing 10mm from different manufactures. I prefer Pendraken but have many Old Glory infantry. These mix quite well on the same base, but you need to separate the Old Glory infantry strips which is a bind, and since they are not designed to be, you can lose some detail in cutting. Lancer Artillery is good and mixes well. The Lancer infantry and cavalry is not compatible. Over all, if you want to play safe and stick with one source, I recommend Pendraken. Their service is excellent, but then Lancer and Old Glory (UK) are also very good

Do the OOBs include strengths, or is it just the battalions? Want too use with FoGN

Hi Jonnathan, drop me an email if you'd like some samples sending out: pendraken.co.uk/ContactUs

I game primarily in 10mm. For me I probably prefer Pendraken, followed by Lancer figures and they are compatible in scale. Personally I don't find Lancer 'gnomish'

I have a fair number of Magister Militium figures but they are slightly larger figures. They also have some errors, for example the Spanish grenadiers lack the distinctive long "flame". As far as I can tell they're just Austrian grenadiers renamed.

Old Glory. Well their equipment is good and they do some items that the other manufacturers don't. Easiest artillery and equipment to assemble.

Their cavalry is two part castings and best glued before painting as some of the fits are bad and the figures need filing. There infantry come in 5 man strips that don't work with my basing system. Worst yet they have molded flags that are horrible.

GHQ – an incomplete line for Waterloo. The metal is very flimsy and the muskets bend very easily. I'm currently replacing all my GHQ infantry because of this. THeir cavalry are horrible. They have very deep bases, some 30mm, you will loose about 50% of swords during the shipping process, You'll loose the rest in painting and playing the first game. Their artillery castings are nicely done, but their gun crews are flimsy. I've GHQ guns with OG crews and that works.

Bend Sinister, Si is a great bloke, but he's had some issues over the last few years. His range seems smaller than it was and his website isn't user friendly. Smaller than Pendraken/Lance but some nice figures in there.

If you want to check out how the games look with these figures check out the "ATF" games here.:

link

BTW, hopefully Tom Dyer will reinstate his excellent AIM figures some day.

Slowly working on that Elliott.

v/r
Tom Dye

Is there a way we can encourage you Tom? I guess these things take time…

My list of 10mm Useful Wargaming Manufacturers. hope it helps.

As always, comments are appreciated.

Take care

Andy

Our range is geared up for earlier than Waterloo as saw the figures were already out there, and my favourite battle is Austerlitz although we are creeping into the Peninsular just because a lot of our customers have asked for them, and early Prussia is getting enlarged just because I like the uniforms.
lancerminiatures.com

GHQ – an incomplete line for Waterloo. The metal is very flimsy and the muskets bend very easily.

Good feedback, I was going to purchase GHQ 10mm but I suspect I may flip to Pendraken, which was my 2nd choice. I have a lot of GHQ 6mm and have no issues, so I suspect it may be the moulds, which is a surprise. GHQ is normally very good.

As for rules, I am looking at 6mm and 10mm to reduce my playing area but will use different rules for each. I like reproducing historical battles and most 6mm rules are rather abstract. My current thoughts are BBNB or The Age of eagles. I am currently using a figure game version of a SPI Boardgame, napoleon at war, and that is working rather well and is quick to teach new players, which is critical for me right now. This is a refight of Wagram;
youtu.be/__kEXEujok4

Other rules which may be worth a shot are Volley and Bayonet, but this depends if you want to reproduce historical battles.

If you just want an enjoyable, but abstract game, then Blucher, Snappy nappy and DBN may be a good choice.

This is a video discussing he merits of small bases, which I feel are the sweet spot for 10mm.
youtu.be/JoR2TgU8CLM

This video lists some rules which can allow you to refight a historical battle, which is another sweet spot for 10mm.
youtu.be/5U--NhX9Vxw
youtu.be/MhCOCWaeyxM

Well… Epic Waterloo by Warlord game seems a super obvious choice.

As for Black Powder rules… probably impossible for a full historical battle that size, I'd try Volley and Bayonet.

We'll have our new Peninsular ranges online in a couple of months time, covering British, Brunswickers, Portuguese and Spanish, with over 70 codes coming online.