18 June 2015

The Battle of Waterloo 200 years today!


Well I did not get to play in any Waterloo commemoration mega games, I am quite jealous of you who have. To live in the Antipodes!

I had to do something to celebrate so I pulled out all my Napoleonics and laid them on a table. Although I am not certain, I think I started painting sometime in 2005-6. The lead pile has considerably reduced, really very few and French and British lying around now. Still quite a few Prussians and a brigade of Dutch-Belgians. I also think there are 2-3 battalions of Austrians and of Portuguese. Could be much worse!

But the big question is how many? Take a guess the answer is below.
6x4' of soldiers
8-9 years of painting
Prussians.....all Calpe
The Brits
A lot of French
Prussian Commanders
The Brunswickers......all from Perry. Two line battalions to go!
The Hanoverians, mostly Perry and some beastly Victrix Plastics
The Portuguese......all Front Rank
An Austrian Brigade.......again from Front Rank
The Rifles
Nothing like massed French
One of my favourite French units.....the 13th légére in pre Bardin.....Front Rank again.
Crusader Miniatures do very nice pre Bardin ligne figures
Perry cavalry are a bit of a challenge to fit in with other manufacturers, but who could resist these Mameluks
Prussian Cavalry
The Black Duke
These Westfalia Miniature's Kielmansegge Jäegers are the best figures in my collection
The man who started this megalomania. F... you all who do not like Bernard Cornwell or the TV shows!
The Front Rank Portuguese are quite nice
Those white uniforms are daunting
One needs some Rockets
Hanoverians
The Perry mounted Rifle Officers are really quite superb
Well that is it all 2712 of them. I thought it a little more but of course there is still the pile!

22 comments:

  1. It clearly is something to see them all together ! Although you'd need 6 times the board surface if you would want to play them all... The curse of miniature wargaming I assume. Anyway, thanks for these pictures and Vive l'Empereur !

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  2. What a grand spectacle, John! Magnifique!

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    1. I would love to see all yours laid out Peter, but I suspect you do not have a big enough table.

      John

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    2. Knowing that you used a 6 foot by 4 foot table, I made my own estimate of how many troops that would be - I figured about 1.5 square inches per figure, then decreased it by a 10% fudge factor to allow for space between units and so on. 24 feet x 144 sq inches/sg foot = 3,456 square inches.

      Divide by 1.5 = 2,304, less 10% = 2,074 figures on a 6 by 4 foot square table. Call it 2,000. You actually managed to fit considerably more than that. So, a 12 x 6 foot table should be able to fit at least 6,000 figures, and I have a little less than that now. So, I could do it (my table is 6 x 18 feet, if I ever cleared all the junk off the far end!). However, unboxing and reboxing that many troops is a HUGE amount of work - I ought to know because it takes me a whole weekend to pack for Historicon each year, to say nothing of smaller conventions. Having said that, I do tentatively plan to do a "group shoot" of the Prussians in July, and that will be 900+figures by itself!

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  3. Love the Dayglo Mamluks and 3 rocket launchers, surely more than wellington had!
    JJ

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    1. They are very shiny Mameluks. The 6pder rockets on the represent Wyngates troop. I am not sure what battle the 24pders could be used for.

      John

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  4. That is an impressive collection John

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    1. Thanks Adam, all I have to do now is get them off the table!

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  5. Nice megalomania there John, Napoleon would be proud!

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  6. Wow, what an impressive collection!

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  7. Wow John. What a superb collection of Napoleonics. I should do a stocktake of mine - but I'm afraid of what I might find! A simply brilliant collection John.

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    1. Thanks Doc, I am sure you will get yours out sometime soon.

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