New Project: Small Napoleonic Armies in 28mm

Summer is half over. So, what have I been doing with my hobby? Late last year I started a new project that I've been thinking about for awhile, involving small Napoleonic armies. Some points I needed to consider were:

• Have small scaled down armies (similar to DBA armies) that fit on a dining room tabletop & not have to purchase/paint hundreds (thousands?) of figures.
• Have a set of rules that were easy, yet had enough detail to satisfy any period (WSS, SYW, AWI, Napoleonics).
• Minimize cost.
• Minimal effort (on my part), which means having someone else paint the miniatures (since I'm busy painting ancients & some WW2 stuff).

I checked into 15mm, 18mm, & 28mm (plastic). 18mm surpassed 15mm in quality and availability & contained all the troop types I was interested in for the 1800-1807 period for French, Austrians, Russians, & Prussians. The scale is right too, for the tabletop. However, the cost (for AB or Blue Moon) was not that much less than plastic 28mm. 28mm have the advantage of being larger and seemingly more fun to play with. Multi-player games seem better in 28mm. However, not everything I want is available in 28mm plastic unless I look around at different manufacturers, including lead figures. The final consideration was: who will paint my figures?

I wanted to avoid painting if possible, so I found someone who would paint 28mm Napoleonic figures for a reasonable price with a basic block painting job, who also lives in my state. I could not find someone who would paint 18mm nearby. 

The next consideration were the rules. I decided to go with Horse, Foot, & Guns (HFG) by Phil Barker. HFG is similar to DBA, but has more detail. The scale is 1 element/brigade (1500-2500 infantry). An army of 25,000 infantry can be represented by 10 elements or so. A battle like Austerlitz has between 60-75 elements, very doable. Other sets of rules that we may try: DBN by KISR, DBA-HX (this is the Humberside DBA extension up to 1850, available as a free download, as updated to DBA 3.0 standards by Robert Madrigal), and the army level rules in Paddy Griffith's book: "Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun."

My friend Bob has French Revolution 28mm period miniatures. My early Napoleonics could fit into the later part of this period as well (1798-1800), so our forces are somewhat compatible.

So, my initial armies are Austrians & French. Victrix makes 1800-1805 period infantry in plastic for both. The cost is around 60 cents/figure. I also picked up some Victrix French artillery, & Perry plastic French Hussars & Dragoons. I had to go with metal for the Austrian artillery & cavalry, & command figures, so I chose Perry 28mm metal figures. If I get around to doing smaller forces of Russians & Prussians, I am considering metal figures by Brigade Games, Elite, & Three Armies.

Honestly, I discovered that I am not a big fan of assembling the plastic figures, so this is one drawback to the project so far. However, they look good when they are assembled & painted, and in some cases have superior detail to metal figures. They also feel much lighter and more fragile than metal. They can, however, be more easily repaired than metal.

At this point, all my Austrian infantry & artillery (enough for 2 x 20,000 man army corps), as well as all the French cavalry is painted, so I'm currently in the process of varnishing (Miniwax Polyshades with Tudor Brown stain), basing, & flocking them.

Below are what I'm working on:

Perry plastic French Dragoons. 2 Regiments, one with yellow, the other with pink facings.

Perry plastic French Hussars, the 3rd & 9th Regiments.

Perry metal Austrian Artillery.

Victrix plastic Austrian infantry, assembled as Grenzers and 1800 Light Infantry in Helmets.

Perry plastic dismounted French Dragoons.

Perry metal Austrian Grenadiers on the left, Victrix plastic Austrians assembled as Grenadiers on the right.

Victrix plastic Austrian Infantry. 

I just completed assembling 2 boxes of  Victrix 1800-1807 French infantry in bicornes, along with some Perry metal French generals. These are on their way to the painter.

As you can see above, I still need to flock them and add flags. Once the French are completed, I can start gaming & will have about 30 elements/stands per side. An 1805 Austrian Corps in this scale consists of about 8 fusilier stands, a Grenz stand, a Marksmen stand, 1-2 light cavalry stands, 1-2 artillery stands, and a Command Party stand. This scale is similar to that used in Sam Mustafa's game "Blucher."All the bases are 60mm frontages, per HFG/DBA/DBN, etc. Some historical battles we may try are Marengo & Caldiero.