"Commands & Colors using 18mm figures on a printed mat." Topic

It's been quite a year, and hopefully things will improve for us all next year and we can begin to gradually enjoy the social side of our hobby again.

Upside for me though has been to paint 700 x 18mm Napoleonics since the first UK lockdown in April, plus putting together a Commands & Colors set up on a printed mat with 125mm hex grid. The figure bases can also be used for DBN rules which are my current favourites.

The project is ongoing as I will be expanding the Spanish troops next year and paint a complete 1813 Prussian army. There is a short video on my blog featuring most everything done this year, it's a bit of a mish-mash I know the Guard were not in Spain but having painted them (or some of them so far) they had to get in on the action!

My blog has been running for 10 years now but is currently dedicated to Napoleonics (18mm & 40mm scales) should anyone care to take a look at the video.

Thanks to Tony Barr at East Riding Miniatures who has cut all of MDF bases this year, basically everything you see was cut by Tony including the hill hexes, the river sections and road sections, figure bases etc.

Thanks also to Tinywargames for the excellent printed hex mat. Hovels for the Peninsular buildings including the lovely windmill and church. S&A scenics for the trees and vineyard, Blue Moon and AB for the figures (I'm now a dedicated AB man but a few of the French and British infantry bases are BM's, all cavalry are AB's).

Hope you enjoy my little end of year video :)

Cheers,

Lee.

youtu.be/JafPWNIwzfQ

napoleonictherapy.blogspot.com

Images below show the beauty of the DBN rules, wargaming on a folding card table just 2'6" x 2'6", this is the standard 12 points per side game.

Brilliant

Nicely done!

Our group has been using miniature figures with the C&C – Napoleon rules for several years. But we use 25mm figures!

link is an example.

We've also done the Samurai variant with 28mm figures and the Ancients variant with 15mm figures. I'm working on getting 15mm figures painted and based to use with my newly acquired Medieval variant using 4" (~100mm) hexes.

Jim

inspirational

+1 ;-)

Absolutely love your basing system for DBN. In fact, I think I might adopt it. Looks like 50mm x 35mm standard, with artillery on 50mm squares.

Do you also increase the size of terrain pieces by approx +25% accordingly?

Cheers

Thanks all.

Jim, that's the way to play C&C, excellent :)

Snowcat: Yes, my DBN bases are indeed 50mm x 35mm for infantry and cavalry and 50 x 50mm for artillery, just works for me with 10 foot per base so I can get the flag in the centre! My terrain pieces are based on 100mm squares, I can get a few of the 15mm Hovels buildings on with enough room for a single base. Woods are now on irregular shaped templates but still around 100m.

I was lucky enough to find a secondhand folding card table for next to nothing and just recovered it. It's 2'6" x 2' 6". Because I found the game a bit 'fiddly' to play I increased the ground scale slightly to 1.5" per 100 paces and my trusty measuring stick (wooden knitting needle) is marked up accordingly.

Cheers,
Lee.

Couple more DBN pics.

The basing system is very flexible so for example I can also play Commands & Colors on the game board, which I find quite visually pleasing too.

Great minds think alike! For my DBN setup I increased the stand frontage to 4.5cm so I could get 10 regular infantry in 2 ranks of 5 each. My figures are 15mm, not 18mm, so I didn't quite have to widen to 5cm frontage stands. Agree that DBN is a great set, even for solo. And the author Alex has put some great demo videos on the internet.
You have done amazingly beautiful work in the lockdown.

Durban Gamer: Much appreciated :)

I agree DBN works well solo, all we can do at the moment! I have been watching more of Alex's videos this week, I like his 'lockdown teaching videos', they helped me to clarify a couple of points around shooting and close combat, took me a while to get used to the system after playing C&C for 9 years but they really are my favourite set now and I get to play on a grid free table :)

Lee.

Thanks Lee. (I'm all over your blog at the moment!)
Nice job on repurposing that card table. Did you have to remove the side edges to fold the felt cloth through?
And where did the 'Spanish?' boy drummer wearing the bonnet de police come from? I can't find him on the AB site.

Cheers

I love C and C with minis. Well done!

The only way to play CnC. Nice job!

Thanks gain for the comments, much appreciated.

Snowcat: Hope the blog is useful to you in some way :) The card table was bought locally after a couple of weeks browsing ebay for one, the asking price was just £10.00 GBP, I insisted on paying £20.00 GBP but she was really reluctant to take it! The cloth was worn and faded so I removed the side strips and recovered with an S&A Scenics green cloth, the wooden battens simply nailed back into the same holes, quick and easy.

The drummer may be a militia drummer variant, not sure, but you know AB, so many variants! I'm finishing off 3 more infantry bases to complete my Spanish DBN army, will be my next blog post in a few days :)

Cheers,
Lee.

Aha! I thought that's what you'd done. :)

I have a 3ft square (extendable) dining table in the study/games room. Should work very nicely with your DBN basing system, and allow up to 18 units a side.

Your blog has already been very useful. I'll be getting much of my scenics from the same folks you used (S&A, Battlescale) plus TimeCast Models.

Thanks again.

Cheers