I’ll often paint a single test model before batch painting the rest. It lets me take my time on making sure I’m selecting the right colours.
In the case of Napoleonic miniatures I find this is also useful as I will refer to images on my phone about the uniform of the unit I’m painting. Then, once the model is done, I can just keep it in view while I paint the remainder. This prevents me having to keep turning the old phone on and off while I paint.
So here’s the model, this is a phone picture so apologies.
It had been given a rating of 7.6 on BoardGameGeek from 50+ ratings.
Beyond the Gates of Antares invites us to a time when mankind has evolved into new and diverse species: the strangely powerful NuHumans, masters of the Panhuman Concord; the ape-like Pansimians, the greatest warriors in the whole Galactic Spill; and feral Revers primitive Humans driven by a irrepressible lust for adventure and danger. It is a universe where technology and humanity intermix indistinguishably, where human knowledge and endeavour has long since been supplanted by integrated machine intelligence IMTel. Where humans go their technology goes also, protectors, workers, and fighting machines in the form of WarDrones armed with deadly weapons and shielded by energy fields a thousand times more resilient than steel.
Warlord Games’ YouTube channel has produced a series of excellent videos explaining Gates of Antares.
1. Introduction
2. Order Dice
3. Shooting
4. Pinning
5. The Assault Phase
6. Leaders
7. Q&A
If you’re interested in getting into Beyond the Gates of Antares, I can’t suggest you start anywhere else but these excellent collection of videos.
It has been given a rating of 7.8 on BoardGameGeek from 550+ ratings.
Written by veteran game designers Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestley, Bolt Action provides all the rules needed to bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop. Using miniature soldiers, tanks and terrain, you can fight battles in the shattered towns of occupied France, the barren deserts of North Africa, and even the sweltering jungles of the Pacific.
Players get to decide which of the major or minor World War II powers they would like to represent, and then construct their armies from the lists provided. Army options are almost limitless, allowing you to build the kind of army that most appeals to your style of play. The choice is yours.
The original… now changed slightly in Warmaster Revolution
On Point HQ has produced a series of excellent videos explaining Bolt Action. I recommend checking our his other videos as well!
1. Building a Bolt Action Army
2. Unit Quality and Issuing Orders
3. Combat
4. Pinning and Morale Tests
5. HQ Units and Snap to Action
6. Transports and Tanks
7. Ambush
8. Troop and Vehicle Movement
9. Medics and Snipers
10. How HE Shots Work
11. Artillery Movement and Orders
12. The Turn Sequence
If you’re interested in getting into Bolt Action, I can’t suggest you start anywhere else but these excellent collection of videos.
So my issues of Wargames Illustrated arrived this week with their accompanying sprues.
I managed to get hold of three copies of the British Heavy Cavalry sprue.
The Sprue in all its glory.
I’ve started by painting the Scots Grey’s and first off these models are really easy to paint straight on the sprue. You just need to clip away any armatures of the sprue that are connected to the horse or riders directly.
I may have gone a little too detailed considering their size but this is only because I’ve enjoyed painting them so much.
I can’t wait to see the unit finished and on its base. I’m also looking forward to painting the cannon and seeing what that looks like. Once I’ve a few units done I’ll post again.
It’s been a little while since I last posted to the A Life in Wargames series, for which I can only apologise. These articles take a lot more effort than the others I write and unfortunately I’ve simply not had the time for the research recently.
John Stallard, from the wonderful city of Cardiff in Wales is a Games Designer who for 27 years worked with Games Workshop. In 2007 her left and set up Warlord Games along with Paul Sawyer (who some of you may remember from White Dwarf).
John lived in Cardiff until he was four years old, at which point his family moved to Scotland where his father was working for BP, eventually at the age of ten John and his family moved to Worcester.
His cousin introduce him to military models and toy soldiers after his cousin thought he was much to grown up for such things handed John his collection. John set about expanding his collection by making weekly purchases of Airfix kits with his pocket money.
The first set of rules that John played was the Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming written by Bruce Quarrie (1974), which he then followed up with Skytrex’s Middle Earth Wargames Rules (1976).
Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming (1974)
After university John moved to Nottingham a move which was prompted by reading a job advert in White Dwarf. After a successful interview John joined Bryan Ansell‘s Citadel Miniatures team, initially working in the Mail Order team reporting to Rick Priestley.
John learnt about customer service from Bryan Ansell and his wife Diane. Games Workshop was very forward thinking at the time where orders would be sent as soon as an order form was received, meaning the customer often had their orders within the week rather than the 28 days advertised.
After a year John left the Mail Order team to retake his exams, which he failed. He put this failure down to playing Warhammer all the time. John then worked in a freezer warehouse during the summer where in a forklift truck accident he lost most of the toes on his left foot. He then attended the Wargames show in Manchester on crutches and saw Rick Priestley behind the Games Workshop Mail Order stand. Rick Priestley asked if he wanted his job back and he returned to Citadel Miniatures.
John progressed from Mail Order to Trade Sales, followed later by becoming Sales Manager and later became Head of Sales and then Sales Director. He stayed with Games Workshop until 2007 when he set Warlord Games.
Warlord Games came into being because I had always wanted to do historical military models. I’ve been fascinated with them since I was six. I kept on saying to two consecutive bosses at Games Workshop that the company should start to do historical models. I remember Tom Kirby, a man I admire very much, saying to me, “John, I’ve done a study and if you add all the historical gaming companies together it comes to £2m, there’s just not enough money in it.” Being older and wiser than me, he’d actually done the research. I said, “But Tom, that’s because it hasn’t really been done before. What was the market for Goblins with spears fifteen years ago? Bugger all! Citadel and Games Workshop made the marketplace by making great models and banging the drum and producing wargames rules.”
– John Stallard
John teamed up with Paul Sawyer (White Dwarf Editor in yesteryear) who’d also been made redundant by Games Workshop, they contacted Renedra Ltd, the plastic manufacturing company who has previously been Games Workshop‘s plastic manufacturing arm. They also bought on board Bob Naismith to make their figures.
Warlord’s upcoming British Starter Set for Black Powder: Epic Battles
It takes around four months for the complete manufacture of a set of plastic models. During the period after the final designs were made for their Warlord Games plastic models (Romans), John found out that the Perry twins also had an upcoming plastic release. They were still working for Games Workshop at the time but they had set up Perry Miniatures in the background (which was allowed within their contract). They were going to release some plastic American Civil War figures which would be made as either Confederate or Union troops. There release would be the first ever 28mm plastic historical wargame figures, beating Warlord Games by only two or three weeks.
John Stallard’s work:
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
So I’ve been looking at getting into Black Powder at the 6mm scale but have tried thinking about creating realistic base sizes (when compared to the other units of the period).
So my first point of reference is the number of men in each countries line infantry.
Infantry Battalion Strength
Based on this I can then calculate the bases I need. Bearing in mind that only the British formed on two ranks when in line as opposed to the other countries mostly forming in two ranks.
I therefore need to show this on the bases. So I decided to use a simple equation of a single Baccus figure representing 12 men. Therefore I could calculate how many models I would need per unit.
I’m very new to Napoleonic Wargaming (but have a fairly decent knowledge base of the history) and very new to Black Powderany
I’ve decided to play Black Powder at 6mm. I’m only collecting a couple of small forces so that I can play against friends and family without them needing to collect army as well.
But how to go about this?
I’ve already decided that all the measurements will be carried out in centimetres rather than inches. So what about basing?
Here’s where you can meet issues. The general consensus between Napoleonic players of 6mm is to base your miniatures on 60mm or 40mm wide bases. This allows them to be used in other game systems as well. That’s great, if I decide to try out another ruleset then I can.
Looking at the Black Powder rulebook, there are three unit sizes; Small, Standard and Large. As there are three unit sizes the simplest method would be to have a number of bases relative to the size. So 3 bases for large, 2 for standard and 1 for small.
This should result in a smaller game with the ability to fit more units on the table. I will post it updated of the Miniatures of once I’ve painted and based them.
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
Welcome to Woehammer – have you noticed the lovely feeling of no adverts (ads), no pop-ups and no auto-playing videos? Well, that’s the norm here at Woehammer.
But this is only possible because of our wonderful Patreons. So, some articles over 1 year old will now display our Patreon request at the top of the article… like this one! Don’t worry, we are not adding ads – but if you can afford to donate to the site, we would definitely appreciate it.Membership is available from just £1/month (plus taxes!!)
The pre-order of Waterloo Epic Battles has reignited an urge to play this period.
However it can be daunting to approach this period. I want to put together a few thoughts on how to get into Napoleonic Wargames.
Scale
Your first thought before perhaps even considering the rules, is what scale do you want to play?
Napoleonics can be played at any scale with manufacturers producing miniatures at everything from 2mm to 54mm and beyond.
So to answer this, how do you imagine your battles to look? Do you want small skirmishes between groups of soldiers? Or would you like to recreate the battle of Waterloo in detail? If the former is your option then perhaps look at 28mm miniatures and up. If you’re inclined by the latter then perhaps try 15mm and smaller.
To give you an idea of how these different scales look on the tabletop I’ve included a gallery below to show games at each level.
Your next question is what type of game are you after? Would you like to play an accurate simulation of the battles at the time or would you like a game you can play in a couple of hours?
There are so many different Rulesets on the market for Napoleonic wargames you’re spoilt for choice. I’ve included a list of the most popular systems below.
Black Powder by Warlord Games (Rick Priestley & Jervis Johnson)
Black Powder (2nd Edition)
Black Powder is a game which can be played in a couple of hours and is designed really for Brigade or Division level games. What does that mean? Well a brigade is a small army of perhaps 3-5 units in total (up to 5,000 men roughly). A Division is perhaps two or three Brigades.
To give you more of an idea of what this means the Battle of Waterloo involved nearly 200,000 men across three armies. The French had five Corp (being 5+ Divisions each) and four reserve Corp.
Introduction to Black Powder
Blucher by Sam Mastafa
Blucher
Blucher is focused on giving you a game at the Corp level. In this each base represents a Brigade rather than a Battalion, meaning the amount of men that can be represented on the battlefield is much greater.
Typical Blucher bases using 6mm miniatures
Blucher, again, is fast play rather than simulation meaning that you should be able to complete a game on an hour or so.
Storm of Steel Blucher Battle Report
Polemos by Baccus (Chris Grice)
Marechal d’Empire
The Polemos series have rules for perhaps every era of historical Wargames. They have two sets of rules in the one book for Napoleonic. Marechal d’Empire focuses on gaming at Corp level or above enabling you to recreate the big battles of the age. General de Division gives you rules for fighting smaller encounters of Division level. The game is focused on using the Baccus 6mm miniatures as a basis.
Polemos has a fantastic army building system where the army you use is generated through dice rolls. Meaning that your armies may not be balanced, after all many battles in the Napoleonic age weren’t balanced themselves.
Polemos based 6mm Baccus Miniatures
Sharp Practice by Too Fat Lardies
Sharp Practice
Aimed at giving you an experience of small skirmishes with heroes full of character much like the beloved TV series Sharpe from which it derives its name.
A game of Sharp Practice will take an hour or two to complete.
Miniatures based for Sharp Practice
The benefit of Sharp Practice is that through using a relatively low model count you’re not going to be painting the same colour scheme and model for 100+ times.
Introduction to Sharp Practice
Miniature Manufacturers
There are again do many great companies out there. Here are a selection of the most popular.
Victrix do both 28mm and 54mm miniatures for Napoleonic wargames. With a pack of 16 54mm miniatures costing £25 and a pack of 56 28mm miniatures will set you back around £25-£30. A Brigade would cost roughly £100-£120 through Victrix.
The Perry Twins do various 28mm box sets for Napoleonics with a pack of 40 plastic minis setting you back £20. A Brigade would cost roughly £100 through the Perry’s.
Old Glory produce excellent 10mm and 15mm miniatures. With 100 10mm miniatures setting you back £15 and 30 15mm miniatures costing £16 (command is separate at £6). Meaning a Brigade at 15mm will cost around £80-£90 or at 10mm around £40-£50.
Baccus focus on 6mm miniatures for a variety of wargame eras. They are possibly the very best 6mm miniatures you can get and are relatively cost effective as well.
Baccus 6mm
With four battalions to a pack which itself costs only £7.20 for 96 figures you’ll have small force ready for as little as £30.
I hope you’ve found this useful. I’ll hopefully be doing other articles much like this in the future.
I’ve personally been waiting for this day for a long time. Ever since Warlord Games created the Epic Scale American Civil War sets I was praying and hoping they would do them for Napoleonics.
As it is the most popular gaming period outside of Fantasy and Sci-fi I thought I wouldn’t have long to wait.
The new sets go on sale on Friday and they look wonderful. All the models are in 15mm scale and when ranked up into Battalions and Brigades they really look the part.
The French Starter Bundle
I’m looking forward to getting into this myself as I’ve always been a fan of the Napoleonic era after watching Sharpe as a boy. I never started with Black Powder before however as the scale felt off for Grand Battles and the games always looked like skirmishes to me. No more! With this set I can enjoy the games of Napoleonics I always envisioned!
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
