15mm Napoleonics

Russian Cavalry

I promised myself I would not start another wargames collection.  This is how the ball starts to roll, denial!  I liked playing the occasional game of General De Brigade with my friend's 20mm Napoleonic collection.

Black Powder Rules by Warlord Games

Then Warlord released Black Powder in 2010.  After a couple of years I got the rules but I promised I would only limit myself to one small army.  Then I released not everyone will have an army so I would have to have two opposing armies.

I did not fancy collecting lots of metal 28mm (as there were little or no 28mm plastics then) so decided on 15mm.  As I was only collecting small armies I turned to eBay for the supply of the majority of figures.  I did not fancy painting loads of Napoleonics with their many, many, many bright colours.  So ready painted would be a great option as long as the good wife did not nag too much as to how much it would all cost.

Russian Army by Turbil Miniatures on eBay

I duly ordered some ready painted Russians but I was going to base them.  I used a our gaming groups 15mm basing convention.  That is to say a standard single 28mm figure base size of 20mm for an infantry figure is represented in 15mm at 60%.  Which means the infantry are on a 12mm square base and the cavalry are on a 15mm x 30mm base.  So bases are ordered initially from Essex Miniatures then later Warbases which are cut more accurately.  I also decided to order some magnetic tape and steel paper to create unit bases that would accept the magnetic based figures.  This gave some flexibility when changing formation or representing different sized units on the table top.

Russians v French using Black Powder Rules

So there it was a 15mm Napoleonic Russian Army was started.  

It is now 2018 and I have Russian, French, British and a generic German 15mm Napoleonic Armies.  I can also borrow my local Wargames Club Austrian and Prussian armies.  

I now almost always use Kings of War Historical rules for Historical Games, so much so I have co-written an un-official Napoleonic expansion.  This expansion has been rigorously tested for British, French, Russian, Prussian, Austrian and generic armies.  The final draft was given the once over by Mantic Games themselves but is completely un-official.  The best parts of these rules are that they use the Kings of War Historical core rules, they are still fast play, there is no need to change formations and all armies have to have at least 20% of levy units.  All told the figures are something approximating to 40,000 points using Kings of War Historical Napoleonic rules.  

Now what could I use all these figures for …………. ?