Scale!

  The most daunting decision I think when venturing into historical miniatures is scale.  The wealth of choices is staggering for sure, even when you have a narrow era such as I have chosen (Napoleonics).  Scouring the interwebs quickly you realize there are manufacturers for scales as broad as 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 18/20mm, 1/72, 25mm, 28mm, 40mm,  and even 54mm.  Well, what to pick, and why are largely going to be up to your group.

  My first Impression was quickly to get into 15mm, as this is a scale I have not really done before, and I want very large armies and wide battle lines as my aesthetic for sure.  I started buying some samples from various manufacturers (and a few searches through Ebay) and was pleased with many of the models I received, but not all.  The variation in actual dimensions of the different "15mm" models fairly quickly caught my eye.  many were similar in height from what few pictures I could gather, but in hand, they did not look very cohesive.  Some had much more "girth" or more cartoony features with exaggerated head size and hands/feet.

  I also had some 28mm Perry Bros. and Victrix models on hand from an earlier purchase (I'm called Ooh_Shiny for nothing) and took them to the guys I will be playing with and went over the advangaes and disadvantages of both scales.  Here is what it broke down to:

15mm:
- Can be cheaper.  There are alot of manufacturers, with a wide variety of pricing.  the cheapest, yet highest quality, models I found were 48 infantry/16 cavalry for around $16
- Variety.  Pure and simple, there are alot of options for forces at this scale, even small factions of a single duchy that fought semi-independently during the wars between 1805-1815.
- Faster to paint.  With less detail on the models, and pure amount of surface area, the models would paint up fairly quickly

28mm:
- Availability.  28mm manufacturers are carried by distributors around the world, I would not need to go to each individual manufacturer's website to purchase models.  I can even order these models from my local gaming store.
- Familiarity/Comfort Zone.  This may seem an odd one to add as a upside, but even though I love trying new things,  the scope of the visual of 28mm is one of the reasons I play these games.  The terrain we already have will work without looking out of place or being unwieldy on the tabletop.
- Hobby.  There are plastic multipart kits for this scale, assembling and painting is part of the fun of wargaming to me, I like painting at this scale with all the detail it provides.

  When it came down to it, we decided to give 28mm a go.  I will probably come back to 15mm at some point, it has alot of character to it, but this will be my first historical game and I want to make it a smooth transition from what I already play.

 Left to right: original Battle Honours minis(15mm), new Battle Honours Cav(15/18mm), Inifinity (true 28mm), Warmachine (Heroic 28mm), GW Necron (GW Heroic 28/30mm)

 Some Victirix (tan) and Perry Bros. (grey) 28mm next to the same Infinity and Warmachine models for scale.

Black Powder - My dive into the world of inaccurate firearms and stabbing people

Well, I have poked around a few 'Cons in my time and I always see those older gentlemen playing these games on gigantic tables, with really sweet terrain, and tons of miniatures in ranks and ranks.  I may not be as long in the tooth as some, but I fancy a big table and tons of miniatures, so I put on my best powdered wig, hiked up my trousers and forged ahead into the unknown...

...and promptly got lost.  The amount of manufacturers, scales, rules and time-frames is simply staggering.  I started where my experience told me to start, pick a ruleset.  This was no easy task as I wondered the very corners of the internet to find what was out there.  And I do mean the very corners, behind all the silly cat videos and porn from the 80s were some very poorly designed and hard to look at websites, with some generally interesting information.  Now I gathered from my research that a few rulesets were most common, though the arguments over which was better gets fairly heated. 

My options for what I wanted (aside from about 2 million home-brews and local gaming club collaborations) were narrowed down to just a few.  Now I wanted some feel for the era, but not a complicated ruleset that would take ages to teach, as this is not an every week type of game I wish to play.  It had to be one that I could get my friends to dig through, and nice pictures help, so I wanted an actual rulebook, not some printout with a ton of charts.

Here is my first draft list of rules:

Black Powder - Warlord Games (duh)
General de Brigade - Cavalier Books
Lasalle - uhm, yeah I forget (Google to the rescue: Sam Mustafa Publishing LLC ,  Honour Wargames)
Napoleon at War - Mat at War Games

I am not going to lie, ease of acquiring the book did play a part in my decision,  Warlord Games has a good amount of distributors (even some on this continent!) and some like GdB are only sold directly from their publisher (that I could easily find).

I was not disappointed in my selection once I ripped open the package and dug into the rules.  Right away the forward to the book sets the mood perfectly, this was exactly what I was looking for.  The rules are written by Jervis Johnson and Rick Priestley (of GW specialist games fame) with the collaboration of the Perry Brothers (sweet, sweet plastic crack dealers, seriously check out their website for beautifully sculpted models: http://www.perry-miniatures.com ).

I read the entire book that night, cover to cover, including the side bar facts and stories and the very nicely laid out sample games (scenarios) that they had played using the rules.  These rules are not for everyone I can tell, as there are no points values or army lists per se (they do have a point conversion system toward the back of the book if you just can't live without one).  Basing and army construction is more of a guideline to point you in a direction, not a WYSIWYG or forget it type of game for sure, it will take some discussion amongst your group to decide how you want to go and you are only limited by what you mutually decide.

That's probably enough for now.

Next time: Scale