Wednesday, August 7, 2013

First go at a fourth scale

I've always had a soft spot for the Napoleonic period.  For me, it is the sine qua non of historical wargaming. With its combination of colorful uniforms, outsized personalities, and many different troop types, the period represents the best that our hobby has to offer.  So it is no surprise that one of my first wargame armies, back when I was still in my teens, was 15mm Austrians.  Then I had to paint a French army to fight them.  They sat unused all through college and grad school, and when I took up the hobby again after grad school, my playing space was seriously limited, so 6mm armies it was (this time French and British).  My eyes had a hard time focusing at that scale, so I moved up to 10mm forces (going Austrian, British, and French, with some Bavarian allies just to be sure).  I finally feel confident enough as a painter to work in 28mm, so I sold off all of my old armies and started fresh this summer.  I'm starting with British, and I'll move on to French and their allies when I get bored of red jackets.

I finished six battalions, and today I made them parade in my back yard.  Next up are one more unit of light infantry (so I can have a complete Light Brigade), some officers, and a few sections of artillery.

I got over my aversion to plastics, and most of the figures you see below are Perrys (the light infantry on the right are Victrix).  There are some minor errors that I may or may not correct, mainly due to brain farts rather than a lack of research.  Note the red-over-white plumes of the unit in the left rear, and the reversed colors on the light infantry.  I may correct these errors later, or I may invent clever stories to explain the idiosyncrasies ("Can't tell your left from your right, major?" barked the Brigadeer.  "Well, until I say otherwise, you will march as you are while the every sergeant in the army laughs at your foolishness!").





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