Taking my troops to show and tell: Black Powder, 3mm

I got roped into a "show us your hobbies" deal at the uni back in May.

"Do you really want to see what Ido with my free time?"



"Of course Professor Blanchette!" Then, perhaps remembering that I study sex work: "Er... what is it?"

"Wargaming."

"Oh! Like Warcraft?"

Sigh...

So anyhow, that's how I ended up taking my Black Powder set-up to NUPEM for an afternoon. I brought along a little bit of everything, including a selection of rules and Osprey bookc, my paint set, and - of course - the figures and terrain.

Wouldn't you knoiw, the kids figured it our right away? Turns outmany of them have already played computer games like Total War. They even know the lexicon! It was very easy to show them how things work!

We didn't have time to play a game, but I ran them through a few moves and combats. Several of them seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, including several young women! That was really cool, given that wargaming is still very much a male ghetto. One kid said he wanted to set up a Saga campaign with me, so there is hope for gaming in the future!

Anyhow, here are the pics...

 Overview of the 3 x 2 foot table.

  
The French move into the valley.

A regiment of Chasseurs a Cheval charges the Austrian Hussars...

Cavalry battle on the left flank.

The Hapsburg Army Expands

Here are some photos of my 3mm Austrian Empire forces for Black Powder. All of the figures are by Oddzial Osmy, of course, bought through Pico Armor in the U.S.

New here are three battalions of Hungarian troops, two more batteries of artillery and four squadrons of hussars to go with the five battalions of infantry and one battery that I have previously painted up.

The Austrians will eventually get another three battalions of infantry, six squadrons of chevauxlegers, four squadrons of cuirassiers, and two battalions of grenadiers, as well as a regiment of Grenzers and a jaeger battalion. The light infantry is already on the painting table.

 The entire army, as it is so far.

The Hungarians! Note that the labels aren't correct at this point: they're just added in to give me an idea of what they will look like in terms of color and composition.

Hussars! These guys were actually pretty fun to paint, as I will show below....

Finally, here's how I painted the hussars. Going from right to left, you can see the application of each individual color, in fourteen individual stages.

First Austrian brigade for Black Powder finshed!

Here are some pictures of my first Austrian brigade for Black Powder.

These are 3mm (or 1/600) Napoleonic figures from Oddizial Osmy, via the good folks at Pico Armor. And behind that, there's a great story, which will tell you everything you need to know about Pico Armor's customer service.

Last year, I went up to a conference in Rochester New York. Being that I am normally based out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I took the opportunity to place my first Napoleonics order with John and the guys from Pico.

It arrived while I was at the conference but, unfortunately, all the Napoleonic infantry was swapped out for ACW infantry!

Well, needless to say, there was much wailing and nashing of teeth on my part, because at this point, I was a couple of days away from heading back home.

When I informed the folks at Pico Armor, however, they immediately dispatched the correct order via overnight Federal Express to my hotel room in Rochester. They even told me to not sweat the ACW stuff (although I did manage to get it back to them). Now THAT is service!

I have been buying stuff from Pico Armor ever since the O8 3mm figs came out and, for my money, there's not a better mail order company in the market!

The photos...

These really don't need much by way of explanation. This is a two regiment, five battalion Austrian infantry brigade, supported by a 6 lbr artillery battery. Four of the five battalions are over-sized by Black Powder standards. That means that even though this brigade is bog-standard in terms of its morale and general characteristics, it packs quite a punch in the firepower and melee department, as well as gaining extra endurance points.

The slogan of the Austrian Army might as well be "quantity has a quality all its own".

It's probably too difficult to see in these picks, but one regiment has the 1805-style helment while the other has the 1809-style shako. Oh, and the buttons on both regiments are gold, not silver... ;)

The buildings in the background are all from Brigade Models Small Scale Scenery line. Their English Farms and Mediterranean Village sets, to be exact. I have  some Normandy Villages on order and these will be slightly more "historical" for the Central Germany, 1813 scenarios I plan to play, but for now, c'est la guerre.

The scenery is my typical 3mm set up: painted cloth scenery pinned to flocked foam mats. thumbtacks and stick pins have been transformed into bushes and trees and hold everything down.

When finished, the Austrian army will have two infantry brigades, a vanguard brigade (made up of Croats, Jaegers, Chevauxlegers and Hussars) and a small reserve brigade of grenadiers and currassiers.

After that, I will embark on Wave Two, which will include more French Infantry, some German Ally regiments (Nassauers, who'll be able to fight for the French in 1812-13 and the Allies in 1815), French Guard Cavalry and either the Prussians or the Russians. Ultimately, I want to be able to deploy 4 brigades of each of the major allies and some 10-12 brigades of French.

French Army for Black Powder: 3mm Oddzial Osmy

The core of my French Napoleonic Army for Black Powder is FINALLY finished! I rebased it during the World Cup and painted up the last few units.

Here are some pictures:

 
I learned  a lot doing these.

In the first place, as with all microscales, you need to exagerate your paint jobs and use the brightest colors possible: medium gray for black, bright crimson for red, bright blue for blue, etc.

I originally began painting far too dark and had to go back and touch up units.

Furthermore, I put a blue pom-pom on each infantry figures head (red and gold for grenadiers and voltiguers, respectively). I know that French infantry had color-coded pom-poms by company, but at this scale, you need something to catch the eye at arms distance. With their white surcoats, the French looked too indistinct from the Austrians. With a blue pom-pom added, however, the blue bleeds through to the eye, even at this distance. (Close up, they look a bt more like Bavarians, perhaps, and if I ever do that army, I am going to have to make them baby blue so that they contrast).

Finally, I orignally gave these figs a medium green flocked base. Bad idea: they didn't stand out enough. I thus went to fine yellow flocking with some light green coarse flocking tossed in as bushes and the result is as you see it. I am quite pleased with it.

What you are looking at here is some 80-90 dollars worth of Oddizial Army 1/600 scale figures, bought through the wonderful guys at Pico Armor. They took me a year to paint, but only because I went very slowly and rebased and repainted several times, trying to get the proper effect. 3mm is a new scale and needs new techniques when it comes to basing and painting. I hope to find time to write a painting and basing primer for Napoleonics later this year.

What we have on the board are:

6 battalions ofline infantry
2 battalions of light infantry
1 battalion of veteran light infantry

2 foot batteries
1 horse battery

4 squadrons of cuirassiers
4 squadrons of chasseurs a cheval
4 squadrons of hussars

Sundry skirmisher and regimental and brigade command stands.

Doing this same army in 28mm scale would cost around 600 dollars or more. Although it would be much more visibly impressive, it would take much more time to paint and a huge amount of room to play and store. This army fits in a cigar box, plays on my coffee table, and cost about 1/8th what a comparable 28mm force would cost.

Still to come for the French are:

More limbers and commanders
2 Old Guard Battalions
2 Middle Guard Battalions
3 Veteran line battalions.




I eventually plan to buy another 12 infantry battalions, a heavy Guard Cavalry regiment, a light Guard Cavalry regiment, a dragoon regiment, a Carabinier regiment and 4 battalions of Young Guard.




The French will also get some allied forces: 3 Polish infantry battalions, 2 Nassauer infantry battalions and 3 Saxon infantry battalions. There will also be a Polish Lancer regiment and a couple of squadrons of Saxon Cuirassiers and German Chevauxlegers.

As always, my "historical" gaming presumes that all this is going on in an alternate dimension "just next door": I don't strive for absolute accuracy, just reasonably plausible forces. This allows me to paint up forces which I probably shouldn't, were I to stick to stirctly historical OoBs.

When finished, my French force should allow me to "bathtub" any Napoleonic battle up to and including Leipzig 1813, at roughly 8:1 scale (i.e. every 8 battalions/squadrons are represented by one on the table top).

3mm Confederate ACW Regiments for Black Powder

On our recent trip to England, I managed to pick up a copy of Black Powder, the Perry Brothers' excellent and well-produced rules set for 18th-19th century miniatures warfare. Black Powder uses the same basic engine as Blitzkrieg/Cold War/Future War Commander in that it's a mutation of Games' Workshop's old Warmaster system. I thus thought it'd be a great game to get as it would allow the folks I play with to learn one basic rules system for combat from 1700 to 2100.

Back in Rio, I set about re-basing my O8 3mm American Civil War armies for the new rules. Here's the first two Confederate States regiments on a recently built terrain module:

Black Powder units are regiments or battalions and can be based to any size you like, depending on what your collection holds. All you really need are enough stands to reasonably portray the five basic unit formations: line, column, assault column, square and skirmish. Using 28mm figures (which is the scale the Perry Bros prefer, being independently wealthy and owners of a huge, private gaming room), this means 24-36 figures, based two b y two on 40mm x 40mm stands.

Being that I am an apartment dweller and independently impoverished, I play in 3mm. I've thus decided to base my Black Powder regiments on four 20mm x 20mm stands. Four is enough to attractively model the four principle formations and I have a bunch of skirmisher stands painted up for when the regiments break down into the fifth formation.

Each stand contains two O8 infantry strips, which makes each regiment cost about USD 1.75. I plan on building 12 infantry regiments, 2 cavalry regiments and 3 artillery batteries for both the Confederate and Union armies, which means that the entire ACW project, including houses and fences (also bought from O8), will be brought in at under 100 USD.

I've also provided each regiment with a separately-based colonel because I plan to port the leader rules from the old Battles and Leaders boardgame to Black Powder.

Cavalry and artillery will be based differently, of course. Each cavalry unit will be a half-regiment of four stands, accompanied by 4 dismounted skirmisher stands. This will give the cavalry the proper on-table foot-print as compared to infantry. Union batteries will be three 30mm x 30mm stands and accompanying limbers, each stand with two cannons. Confederate batteries will be two similarly-sized stands.

When O8 comes out with its Napoleonics line later this year, I'll probably go with six stand units as it will allow me to make each stand a French Line company. Even so, this means my Napoleonics game will take up half the footprint of one of the Perry's 28mm games. I'll probably simply reduce inches to centimeters and play that way.

For the ACW, however, I can cut all ranges by 1/4th if I like, given that my regiments are 1/4th as large as the Perry's suggested 32 figure regiments in 28mm.

Again, this shows off the two great benefits of 3mm gaming: cost and space. There is no way I'd ever take up ACW gaming if I had to play in 28mm - or even 10mm, for that matter. But at 3mm, it's a small project that costs very little and can be played on a coffee table. And while it's not as visually impressive as 28mm, by a long shot, I think the above photo quite clearly shows that we're not dealing with "grains of rice" or "counters", as many 3mm haters often charge.