"June 18, 2019 Waterloo Game in 54mm" Topic

We played a Waterloo game in 54mm yesterday. We used the Neil Thomas Napoleonic rules. As in the real battle, the two sides were pretty evenly matched with the French enjoying a slight advantage in artillery and cavalry. The French advanced all along their front and one unit of French Line Lancers made straight for the British on the crest of the ridge. The Lancers almost made a breakthrough, which would have required two Anglo-Allied units to leave the field, chasing after them, but they were stopped by British volley fire. On the French left, many units were drawn into an assault on Hougoumont, as happened historically. Also, as historically, the British sent their heavy cavalry down the slope to break up the French infantry attacks. The Scots Greys were destroyed when they were unable to retreat while the Royal Dragoons and Household Cavalry were more successful and bet back the French columns to their front. On the French right, Dutch infantry in Papelotte held the Allied left and beat back French attacks. On their left, the French were able to do better then their historic counterparts and took Hougoumont while the battle continued back and forth in the woods. In the center, French heavy cavalry counter charged the British heavy cavalry and that combat continued for several turns without a decisive conclusion. The Household Cavalry especially distinguished themselves holding off the French Dragoons and Cuirassiers. By turn twelve it was evident that the French attack had been blunted everywhere except for Hougoumont and we called the game in favor of the Anglo-Allies. Since we did not represent the arrival of the Prussians, the French were able to retire in good order.

Wow! Nice game.

Jim

It's BIG!

Impressive….most impressive!

That's nice

Awesome! Thanks for sharing

I don't see a single Lucotte, Mignot, or Mim on the French side!

Looks great!

Best looking 54mm Nap game I've seen.

Looks fun!

Nice looking game, Nick !

Proper toy soldiers, lovely!

Btw, it's only close order infantry and hordes exiting the table that force your opponent to remove two of his units. If cavalry exit, you just lose your cavalry!

Jeffers, thanks for the clarification! This was our first time using the rules.

No probs. It's actually a really simple rule that stops players massing all the toys in one spot. This is what one player did at a club I went to a few years ago and it just led to dull slogging matches. Neil Thomas put an end all that nonsense…

Jeffers, the more I read and play the Thomas rules, the more impressed I am with the way he distilled game philosophy and mechanics down to their bare essentials.

That's great, Nick – I love a convert! Whilst not perfect (hence my modifications) they meet my twin requirements of being simple and 'having the indescribable something that makes it feel like what I've read'. The one hour rules are good too, especially for big battles. I was tempted to graft on the Shako command and control rules, but I'm out of the gaming scene now so haven't had the impetus.

Nick. Do you and/or your group blog or FB these figures/games. I'd love to know more. Thanks

Marc, thanks for your interest. Sorry, no blog or FB page. No group either, I'm the only one in my Silicon Valley group of gamers who does 54mm. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. I'll have to consider doing blog, why not?

Hi Nick. The usual questions, what make are the figures, do you convert, painting styles, basing conventions etc etc. Just a fan of the big boys

Hi Marc, truthfully, I only painted a small percent of the collection. I bought most of the figures off of eBay over the course of five years. Close up, the style varies a bit, but I am going for an over all impression of massed troops. The rules I have used so far: Neil Thomas' Napoleonics and About Bonaparte, both use four stands per unit. About Bonaparte uses only two infantry figures per stand, which I find too sparse to represent a battalion, although I enjoy the rules. Four infantry figures to a stand, for a total of sixteen, looks right to me. Skirmishers are two to the same size stand; cavalry is also two to a stand. On the French side, the figures are a mix of AIP, HaT, Britains Deetail and A Call to Arms and Airfix. Oh, almost forgot, the mounted Chasseurs and the line lancers are 60mm Starlux that, unfortunately, tower over the heavy cavalry figures, so I try to keep them on different sides of the field of battle. British: Highlanders and line infantry are Airfix, Rifles are AIP, Dutch Belgians are A Call to Arms, Brunswickers are Alamo Mexicans with a black paint job. Cavalry are a mix of Italeri and A Call to Arms. I do not convert as I have been lucky enough to find the correct figures I need. I will be doing to some head swaps to make Prussian artillery and cavalry figures so that next time I play Waterloo I can include the Prussian arrival.

Nick

Try this firm:

link

Obviously £5.00 GBP a pop makes a pricey unit, but you get spare bits in each set which can be used for conversions. Although they're probably not far away from Detail figures in terms of cost now.

Jeffers, thanks. I'm familiar with Helmet. I've bought a lot of bits and pieces from them but have yet to assemble a full figure. I have a slight concern that the multipart models may not stand up to the rigors of wargaming. They are $10 USD each to the US. I am looking now at X-Force Chasseurs and Lancers which come out at $7 USD/ea, including shipping.

I was wrong about Deetail – they are going for upwards of £15.00 GBP on eBay!

X-Force stuff looks quite nice. Luckily in the US you have TSSD which stocks lots of goodly stuff for 1/32. Lots of conversion potential, which is half the fun of that scale.

Jeffers, sadly, the owner of TSSD sold the business. A greatly reduced inventory is now available on eBay under the name: auction

Well that is sad. I bought a few things off them 10+ years ago and they were nice people to deal with.

From FB chatter the TSSD range is back in full production