The Look of It

The basing scheme I have decided upon for my Napoleonics venture is a product of a variety of constraints. First off I want to use 28mm/30mm figures from a couple of different ranges (see below). This has an immediate effect on groundscale issues and practicality. I am not particularly interested in skirmish games, which are the obvious way to use 28mm and larger figures, when a gaming table the size of a tennis court is not available, so some sort of compromise in the way massed units of troops will be deployed must be adopted.

I was inspired by the memory of an article many moons ago in Miniature Wargames, about a project to game Waterloo representing every unit on the table each as one dioramic base. Each base would show a small portion of the soldiers making up that regiment in action, instead of trying to represent a shrunk down version of the entire line/column. One base is a little too restricting for my needs but 2 bases still allows some flexibility in showing different unit formations.This is the basic infantry battalionI am decided on, with 2 bases of six figures. Side by side they show the infantry in line and one behind the other one of the variety of columns used on the battlefield (companies or divisions for example.)The cavalry are based just the same (but with just six figures,) representing a regiment. I am fairly happy with this as a compromise between playability and complexity that will allow me to do divisional sized games or larger with a realistic prospect of painting the figures and completing games in a reasonable time.

Efforts so Far

My painting efforts have, so far, been a bit sporadic and random. I have simply been painting figures as they have taken my fancy and without a particular plan in operation. Starting with the figures from The Assault Group (now with Alban Miniatures) that brought my attention back to Napoleonics, the first few stands I have painted are Austrian Jagers.


Part of the attraction of this unit was trying to get the grayish blue colour right for these figures. The basing is what I am adopting as my standard for infantry; six figures on a 60mm x 50mm base. Two bases for a battalion.

The Eagle Figures Spanish by Ian Mountain, are very fine and a pleasure to paint. There is a great selection from full uniform through partial uniform to entirely civilian clothing:

The only cavalry in my chosen ranges that currently exist are hussars for the Austro-Hungarians. The plastic cavalry from Perry Miniatures are a good substitute. The cuirassier and hussar boxes are both excellent and there are some British hussars on the way.


The French figures from Alban are currently limited to infantry from light regiments but only the Voltiguers (the light company) from line regiments and this leaves me potentially short of the bulk of French infantry. The Perry French are too late for my needs so I have tried an experiment of using spare Perry hussar heads on Victrix bodies. The results are reasonable but I am hoping for figures from Alban to fill in this gap.


I do love the flexibility and ease of conversion that plastic figures allow, so earlier Perry French infantry would be almost as acceptable.