Hi all,

So I've finally plucked up the courage to write this. I'm a long time wargamer (Games Workshop - Sorry!) of 30 years, but have no taken the plunge into historical wargaming until now.

I'm looking to start in Napoleonics, but was hoping to get some tips from you all on the do's and dont's at 6mm.  What rules should I use, painting tips on 6mm etc.

I'm thinking of starting with the Coalition army at the battle of Talavera and going from there.

Which rules are best for you will largely depend upon:

What kind of battles you want to fight

How many figures you want to buy and paint

How long you want an average game to be

How much table space you have

How comfortable are you with having a brigade or regiment as a single base, or if you want to see the columns lines and squares of individual battalions

Do you prefer to play on some kind of gridded board or not

So I would give a fair bit of thought to these things first and that will narrow down your rules choices to look at to a manageable selection.  The only thing that is quite annoying to do in 6mm is units which have small figure-counts and casualty figure removal (the old WRG 1685-1845 rules, for example).  You can still use these rules, but they tend to work better if you use the basing for 15mm or 25mm and put more figures on the base.  Individual removal of 6mm figures is too fiddly for most of us.

So to take your example, if you want to do Talavera on a kitchen table and are happy with a single base being a brigade, games like Polemos: Napoleonics, Horse, Foot and Guns, Blucher, Grande Armee, Bloody Big Battles will work well.  If you want a base to represent a battalion but put into brigade groups, then Et Sans Resultat, Field of Glory Napoleonics, Napoleon's Battles, Age of Eagles and first edition Shako will work well.  If you want the battalions to be in individual formations, but still have a quite quick game, then some of the Crusader publishing rules will work well.  And so on.

For painting tips, there are lots of good guides out there.  The "how-to" on this site is very good.  Per Broden did some great guides recently which are just as suitable for Napoleonics.  There is a very good guide in this back issue of Battlegames.  But mainly it is decide which colour undercoat you like, consider using a slightly brighter shade to make the colours pop out a bit, and spend some time experimenting with basing to find a method you like. 

Hello Ascarin!

The only thing l can add is to give strong consideration to using Baccus basing system called Polemos basing. You can use it for pretty much any popular rule set as is or with a few minor house rules. It matches the way Baccus sells their figures so you can mount your figures right out of the bag. No need for extra figures or short figures. The 60mm x 30mm base is for infantry, cavalry, limbers and wagons. The 30mm x 30mm is for artillery and commanders. Just two base sizes for your entire collection.

For larger scale games (entire battles), I suggest Bluecher, on 80x60mm bases. Put loads of figures on them and they look pretty good, like an actual army going into battle. For smaller scale games, I prefer Lasalle, with each unit made up of 4 bases (each 40x20mmfor infantry, 40x30mm for cavalry). Another favourite is Grand Armee, for which I use 2" square bases, but there's nothing to stop you using either Bluecher or GA sized bases for each of those games (and others that use big bases). All three are great games that are highly recommended.

Hello Ascarin!

Note you can play Blucher, LaSalle and Grand Armee using the Polemos system of 60x30 bases. No need to try and figure out different basing sizing for different rules. As l said in some cases you can play as is or a simple house rule or two.

Thank you all!

That does seem to make basing a lot simpler, before I knew all this I had already ordered the Baccus 60mm x 60mm bases (as I thought this was a standard - teach me for not reading further!).  That said it sounds like the may suit those game systems above.

Personally I'm looking at recreating some of the battles of the Peninsular/Spanish Independence War using Baccus 6mm as much as possible on a maximum 6' x 4' table.  I don't think I want to use a ruleset that is 100% accurate to the time period, for example I'd like some shooting between units to happen further apart than in base to base. Just something that's fun where maybe a 60mm x 60mm base can represent at Battalion.

I'm a painter before a gamer, so I'm particularly looking forward to painting the models and putting them onto scenic bases (not sure how my 28mm painting background will cope with this but we'll see).  I will post some photos in the gallery once they're done.

Thank you all for the warm welcome and your advice!

Asc

For 60mm x 60mm figures, may I recommend looking at Steve Jones' blog? With painting guides, (and here and here) some battle reports and some very decent rules, it is really worth checking out.  There are also quite a few good scenarios out there for the Peninsular War that were written for Grande Armee, but easily modifiable to many rulesets.

If you have decided to use 60mm x 60mm bases on a 6'x4' table, I will strongly suggest that you think of each base as a brigade, or you will struggle to carry it off.

Yeah, the small table will limit the size of your battalion games. You might want to also consider just using the 60x60 for building bases and other things like clumps of woods etc. That way their not a total loss and order your 60x30 as soon as Baccus reopens. The smaller base just gives you more manoeuvre room on your table and generally gives you a more dynamic game regardless of the rules you use.

Hello Ascarin!  Lots of good advice here... and now... what about those pics?... curious, just curious.