"Old School 15mm Napoleonic Miniatures?" Topic

Alternative Armies sale banner caught my attention, and while browsing their site I came across their 15mm Napoleonic figures. While certainly not up to today's standards, they do have a certain old school charm.

I am thinking about painting a couple of armies over the winter months for nostalgia and as a change from painting the larger, more detailed figures that are popular today.

So my question for the hive is this…

Besides Alternative Armies and Monday Knight Productions, anyone else still selling old school 15mm Napoleonic figures?

Thank you to all who respond!

Don't know whether you consider these "old school" or not, but 19th Century Miniatures carries the Old Glory 15s line of Napoleonic Figures: link

Two good friends of mine use their figures almost exclusively in their Napoleonic armies. They paint up quickly and look good on the miniature battlefield.

Jim

Minifigs!

link

Thank you Col and Fg for your suggestions!

Let me clarify what I am looking for.

In 30+ years of Napoleonic's, I have painted 3mm, 6mm, AB, Old Glory, Battle Honors, Minifigs, and 1/72-1/76 plastic figures.

My favorites are Minifigs and 1/72-1/76 plastics because I like the poses, and they are, for me, not overly detailed. I paint an AB or OG-BM figure and if the figure has it sculpted on it, not matter how small or irrelevant, I feel the need to paint it! Even if you cannot see it using the 3 feet rule!

I am looking for 15mm figures that are truly old school, both in size, sculpting, and detail (or lack there of).

Irregular, maybe? I'd lean towards Minifigs myself.

I was looking at those old figures as well. I thought they were the best (at that time). I have just purchased and painted some Indian Mutiny figures from Irregular- They are still nice, a little bit flashy. Minifigs is still pretty good, I filled in some parts of my WSS with them recently and some Napoleonic Saxons.

Actually got more Minifig 2nds at the Fall in from Viking Forge
Starting in 1981 still much of my collection are Minifigs

Historifigs

I would probably look at Lancashire, but this is a list of all the suppliers i use. My favourite supplier is no longer in business, which caused me to do a lot of research.
Scale Creep Miniatures: link
Peter Pig: link
Xyston : link
Forged in battle: link
Tin Soldier: tinsoldieruk.com
Irregular: irregularminiatures.co.uk
Magister Militum: magistermilitum.com
Lancashire: lancashiregames.com/lg
Essex: essexminiatures.co.uk
Campaign: link
Old Glory: link
Minifig: link

KevinV – I will take a look at Irregular, thanks!

14Bore – Those Viking Forge Ancient and Renaissance figures look great! I may use those for my ancient and renaissance armies. If I ever get to there…

rmaker – I love Mike Taber's N-scale Napoeonics! Great little figures that paint up superfast!

pfmodel – Thank you for the list of manufactures. I forgot about EC's Deep Fried Happy Mice comparison site, very useful! Out of curiosity, who was your favorite supplier?

Out of curiosity, who was your favourite supplier?

Heritage figures, they were true 15mm and were surprisingly detailed. My 2nd choice was minifig's, which are overall rather good. The issue with Lancashire is some figures are good, but some are not very good. As a result i need to buy a few figures first to determine if I should go all out, but they are cheaper and some of the figures, especially infantry, are surprisingly good.

Alas the perfect match for Heritage has gone. Naismith, and by association Roundway too, I fear have been lost. Their current owner has passed away, I believe, and they have not been available for sometime.
Magister Militum are up for sale, so are out of production. Only what is left in stock is available.
Warrior have been out of production for some time too. Whether they come back is anyone's guess.
Minifigs cavalry are a perfect match for Heritage & Naismith. Their foot are noticeably taller.

What happened to Heritage moulds? They were available a few years ago via Facebook, but have disappeared off the radar again.

What armies are you planning to paint. I have a tonne of French and Russian 2nd Gen Minifigs I'm looking to let go. A good number have been painted to a very good standard.

Cheers
Dean

Well, I specialized in selling 15mm for over 30 years. 1983-2013. I stocked most of the ranges over the years. I got some bulk deals such as buying Blackhawk Distributors stock of Minifigs and buying Mike's Models USA stock when the closed the NE operations. The Minifigs ranges that I got was a combination of 2nd generation, 2T generation and 3rd generation where the bases were slightly different.
19th Century supplied both Old Glory 15s and BattleHonors.
Stone Mountain carried the Chariot UK French Revolution. The Paris Mob was a super seller.
In the Gallic Frontier range, they had some great civilians.
Jacobite Napoleonic range was a must for had to find uniforms in the 1970-80s. They had weak ankles, so metal rot was a big issue.
My personal collection of Napoleonics was the Heritage, later Empire out of Texas. I really enjoyed the etched flags. I really do not remember another company trying it.

What happened to Heritage moulds?

My understanding is the old heritage moulds are owned by Mark Blackmon and were made by a company he called Empire Miniatues. They are no longer in production and are not likely to ever be again. I am told by those who have contacted him, that he wants way to much for the rights, and still wants a say in their marketing and production after selling. The result is the brand is no longer available.

I also liked the 1st generation minifig figures, the ones on strips of 5 infantry or 3 cavalry. They were not up to todays standards, but if you put some effort into painting they came up well. They were also very cheap and were true 15mm, or a bit smaller.

Were Heritage related to the Der Kriegspieler 25mm range? I wondered what happened to them.

Were Heritage related to the Der Kriegspieler 25mm range?

Apologies, i never research that brand. There were a number of other ranges which Mark owned and are not coming back, but i am only familiar with the 15mm Napoleonic and 15mm ACW.

Iirc Empire had used a storage room located at the Reaper company. This was back in the 1990s.
I think Duke S. produced Der Kreigspielers until he Egan his Heritage project.
Heritage was known for 15mm Napoleonics. He also had a range of ACW and WW2 Germans in 15 mm.
They also had ranges of 25mm in the 1970s. These were Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and John Carter of Mars.

Wow. I never would have thought someone who owns the molds to a figure line that would probably do well in today's market would not put those figures into production.

I understand that there is a lot involved with the production of miniatures, but with the creation of the molds it would seem that the most expensive and time consuming work is done.

There have been numerous instances of stubborn game and miniature owners refusing to sell or license their property because of ridiculous ideas about value. It seems pretty clear that no one is making a mint in this industry (except Games Workshop), and certainly someone with a (likely incomplete) 50 year old miniatures line won't make a mint.

The idea that someone could do more than break even, and maybe pay for a weekend vacation too, with the proceeds of putting the Heritage lines back into production is laughable. I wish someone would do it as a labor of love or as part of a larger business, but NO ONE is quitting their day job to do this.

The idea that someone could do more than break even, and maybe pay for a weekend vacation too, with the proceeds of putting the Heritage lines back into production is laughable. I wish someone would do it as a labor of love or as part of a larger business, but NO ONE is quitting their day job to do this.

Very true, but i would love it if this range came back. I liked the artillery and it was true 15mm and for that scale very detailed. I should of stocked up when i had the chance.

Such a shame, and very short sighted. But yes, they've probably missed their 'window'. Beautiful figures, but yes an incomplete range by many standards. Who, starting out in Napoleonics, would buy into Napoleonettes rather than say Warlord Epic, or one of the 15/18 modern Napoleonic ranges (that are still being extended)?

If they were to go into production I imagine there would be a rush of probably orders from Napoleonette and Confederette owners filling 'holes', but then…?

To be fair I'd probably only want Austrian and Russian generals, a pack or two of French line, and a pack of French light firing. No-one is going to be able to retire on sales of that magnitude.

I anticipated the demise of Naismith many years ago, long before Tony sold the ranges to Roundway-Naismith. I decided to add Prussian, Russian, Austrian, Swedish forces to my collection. Glad I made that decision. I just regret not stocking up on their ECW limbers.

As an aside the loss of these ranges is but an inconvenience, they aren't going to set the world alight if they came back into production. I don't think many 'lost' figure ranges would – possible exception being some of the old skool Citadel fantasy figures, the tribes range in particular.

I agree with the above. If you compare Minifigs 25mm Napoleonics with the equivalent Perry metal figures, they are more expensive (£1.75 vs £1.42 GBP each). The Perry plastics are much cheaper (63p/figure). Why would anyone starting pay more for figures that aren't as well sculpted? I think they would only appeal to someone who has an existing collection.

I have been trying to extend my Heritage/Napoleonettes collection for years without much luck. Would be great to see them back in production but as others have said lots of reasons that's not going to happen.

Does anyone have a pdf version of the old Heritage/Napoleonettes catalogue for the 15mm napoleonic range? Assuming there was one?

Copenhagen,

This site has a catalogue page with a listing of the British and French figures. They seem to have been newly released at that time and other nations weren't available then.

Those figures look REALLY good!

That's a great help, thanks Trockledockle.