The everything miniatures wargaming thread

[CountDeMoney]

What can you tell me about how the rules work/the design philosophy behind them?

The only thing that can be infuriating is that the theme of national doctrine prevents you from playing your own style, which in my case is Red Army circa 1942, where everybody goes till everything's dead. Damned Prussian discipline.

[Jacob]

That sounds very interesting grumbler.  How are the units based and how many do you need to field an army?

[grumbler]

That sounds very interesting grumbler.  How are the units based and how many do you need to field an army?

Basing is nominally 1:60, resulting in battalions of 8-12 figures and cavalry regiments of 8-12 figures.  We use in our games an offline system that makes the number of figures per unit moot, so long as frontages are realistic.  Only Napoleon's Battles cavalry mounting won't really work, as the frontages are far, far too small.

To play a decent game, you need at least a corps on each side.  Minigames with divisions can work, but a bad wave assessment could end the game after a single turn of combat (25 minutes) and almost no such game will go for more than 2 turns (50 minutes), as almost no actual division could sustain close combat for longer than that.  Towns might extend that a bit, and you could rest and recover divisions, but that wouldn't be very interesting.

[The Brain]

Finished 22 more African soldiers. Some examples below. Flash photos suck but it's fucking dark up here. At least now I have based them.



Oh, and if anyone didn't recognize the VIP in the other pic here's a hint:

[The Brain]

Tonight I have been thinking. Shut up. I have been thinking that if I want to paint horse and musket stuff (or really anything pre-modern basically) my best bet is Napoleonics. Because of the amount of rules and possible opponents. While there are many many models available for Napoleonics there's still enough around for other periods so models isn't a problem.

If I can only get into the period. I have never been in love with the period. But love can grow out of a forced marriage I hope.

Can anyone tell me which are the most common rules used (until g's rules take the world by storm), and more importantly which scales and basing systems are most common? And which rules are brilliant but maybe not very popular? Is 1/72 plastics used much for gaming btw?

As for armies I have this strange attraction to Austria. It doesn't feel like it has been done to death in the same way France, Britain, Prussia and Russia have. Sweden would be kinda cool but here you do encounter a model problem.

Should I take the Napoleon plunge?

[grumbler]

Tonight I have been thinking. Shut up. I have been thinking that if I want to paint horse and musket stuff (or really anything pre-modern basically) my best bet is Napoleonics. Because of the amount of rules and possible opponents. While there are many many models available for Napoleonics there's still enough around for other periods so models isn't a problem.

If I can only get into the period. I have never been in love with the period. But love can grow out of a forced marriage I hope.

Can anyone tell me which are the most common rules used (until g's rules take the world by storm), and more importantly which scales and basing systems are most common? And which rules are brilliant but maybe not very popular? Is 1/72 plastics used much for gaming btw?

As for armies I have this strange attraction to Austria. It doesn't feel like it has been done to death in the same way France, Britain, Prussia and Russia have. Sweden would be kinda cool but here you do encounter a model problem.

Should I take the Napoleon plunge?

The best thing about Napoleonics is that there are so many great true stories about the period, and they are documented to death.  I, obviously, would not try to dissuade you from the period, because I love it.

The Austrians are an interesting army.  The line infantry is boring as shit (white uniforms?  come on!) but there are lots of neat specialist units, and some very very good line units that can surprise the shit out of an opponent. 

I ran an 1814 campaign that used the Swedes, so I have a sizable Swedish army in 5mm.  They are really very attractive troops, and if you can find the Nafziger book on 1814 you will find that it is possible to do a very neat campaign in northern Germany, with Davout's Hamburg garrison linking up with Ouidinot and fighting the Prussians, Swedes, and Russians.  Numbers aren't too badly against the French and they have some great divisional commanders.

For rules, I would say General de Brigade is the place to start.  It allows for good games with not many figures.  I wouldn't use their basing system, though.  Figures should be based 3 per stand (infantry) and 2 per stand (cavalry) in a single rank with frontages of 3/8" for infantry and 3/4 inch for cavalry in 15mm - twice that for 25mm and half that for 10mm.

Plastic figures aren't in much use because the paint tends to flake off, and painting is by far the most expensive part of the project.

I think 10mm is pretty much the ideal scale for Napoleonic figures these days.  You can fight a battle with flanks in a reasonable amount of space, and still have the figures be big enough to see and appreciate - and this from someone with 5,000+ 5mm figures! 

[The Brain]

Thanks, g. I now have a starting point for looking around a bit.

5,000+? Nice.

I haven't told anyone this but occasionally I have toyed with the idea of doing a 1:1 battalion or something (probably not Napoleonic, maybe GNW) just for display. Very unlikely to happen though.

[Martinus]

Man, that die is frigging huge!

LOL was about to post the same thing.

[Martinus]

About 75% of wargames rules are sold to people who never play them.  I aim to make that 90% in this rules set. 

That pretty much describes me.  Although my oldest boy has been rummaging around my collection of stuff and actually wants to play some things. 

Ok, now that's the first good reason I have heard to have kids.

[Syt]

I recommend the following book to Wargamers:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Achtung-Schweinehund-Harry-Pearson/dp/0349115680/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240138311&sr=8-1

Some of you may recognize a bit of yourself in some of the chapters.

[The Brain]

I saw Avalon Hill's old Napoleon's Battles in the store today and I bought it on impulse. I remember holding it in my hand 16 years ago and deciding against it since at that time I was looking for boardgames and not miniature games. I don't know if the rules are good or not but the "whole system in a box" thing is pretty cool as a kind of starting point for me to compare other stuff to, and for inspiration. There's even some "terrain". Cool.

I'm guessing that the rules are very old-fashioned compared to newer offerings.

Didn't see any good books on Napoleonic tactics in the bookstores. Can anyone recommend something? In my bookshelf I pretty much only have Adkin's The Waterloo Companion and Weigley's The Age of Battles.

Edit: Oh, and grumbler. Best manufacturers for 10 mm?

[Jacob]

I can't tell you which is the best, esp for Napoleonics, but I have some of the Magister Militum 10mm Qin Chinese and they've compared favourably to the other manufacturers I looked at at that scale.  They have Napoleonics too.  http://www.navigatorminiatures.com/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=815&strPageHistory=cat

I'm guessing grumbler will say Old Glory since that's where he got his,  http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/categories.asp?cat=96

If grumbler says 10mm is the way to go then he's probably right, but if you are interested in checking out 6mm I suggest Baccus: https://www.baccus6mm.com/index.php
Baccus is also the home of the Polemos ruleset, though I can't vouch for the quality.

[The Brain]

I bought the GNW starter set from Baccus a couple of years ago. Today I got it out from the closet and I think I'm gonna paint some of them to get a feel for 6 mm before I make any decision on Nap scale. I kind of like Baccus.

[Alatriste]

I saw Avalon Hill's old Napoleon's Battles in the store today and I bought it on impulse. I remember holding it in my hand 16 years ago and deciding against it since at that time I was looking for boardgames and not miniature games. I don't know if the rules are good or not but the "whole system in a box" thing is pretty cool as a kind of starting point for me to compare other stuff to, and for inspiration. There's even some "terrain". Cool.

I'm guessing that the rules are very old-fashioned compared to newer offerings.

Didn't see any good books on Napoleonic tactics in the bookstores. Can anyone recommend something? In my bookshelf I pretty much only have Adkin's The Waterloo Companion and Weigley's The Age of Battles.

Edit: Oh, and grumbler. Best manufacturers for 10 mm?

Naver played the game, but I have a copy and have always found it money well spent. Army lists were far better than most (I don't know if modern lists have improved but when 'Napoleon's Battles' was published the lists were far better than anything I had read) the generals lists are huge and well researched and IIRC the rules seemed generally very reasonable.

And did I mention that they cover the Wars of the Revolution too?

Regarding books, IMHO the best is George F. Nafziger's 'Imperial Bayonets'; dry in the usual Nafziger's style, but packed with facts extracted from contemporary regulations. Brent Nosworthy's "With Musket, Cannon And Sword: Battle Tactics Of Napoleon And His Enemies" is not highly regarded amongst historians (too 'wargamish' and contains some egregious mistakes) but I found it quite readable too, if certainly much inferior to Nafziger's work. 

And I have to warn you: Napoleonic history works are a true minefield, I'm almost constantly amazed by the levels of blind nationalism and sheer hero-worshipping displayed not only by fans but by writers and historians too (and nationality matters, but the worst Austrian army fanboy is no Austrian nor German, and some anglosaxon writers would die gladly for the Emperor of the French... )

[grumbler]

I saw Avalon Hill's old Napoleon's Battles in the store today and I bought it on impulse. I remember holding it in my hand 16 years ago and deciding against it since at that time I was looking for boardgames and not miniature games. I don't know if the rules are good or not but the "whole system in a box" thing is pretty cool as a kind of starting point for me to compare other stuff to, and for inspiration. There's even some "terrain". Cool.

I'm guessing that the rules are very old-fashioned compared to newer offerings.

Napoleon's battles is a fun rules set, though very ahistorical at at times silly.  It's real offense is that it requires remounting troops 9or, if creating new units, mounting the figures in a way that makes your units worthless for any other miniatures rules).  It was actually designed as a SYW rules set (and that shows, sometimes, in the terminology and unit values) and that is why your "brigades" look and act like battalions - because when the rules were first written, they

were

battalions!

So, have some fun with them using the paper units and terrain, but for Davout's sake don't mount any figures in this system!

Didn't see any good books on Napoleonic tactics in the bookstores. Can anyone recommend something? In my bookshelf I pretty much only have Adkin's The Waterloo Companion and Weigley's The Age of Battles.

The best descriptive book on how a Napoleonic army worked is probably John Elting's http://www.amazon.com/Swords-Around-Throne-John-Elting/dp/0306807572/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240225402&sr=8-1 Swords Around a Throne.  It is very wel-written as well, but find a hardback copy as you will go back to this a lot and a paperback copy won't stand up to the use.

Brent Nosworthy's Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies is probably the place to go after SAaT.