Getting into Black Powder and Napoleonics cheaply

If you are interested in Black Powder, but daunted by the prospect of painting lots of large models, the following may be of interest. I'll go through the background, the painting, basing and gaming, then touch on future plans.

 

• Background: 1/72 plastics
• Painting: An easy formula for general use and a specific recipe for Austrians
• Basing: A scheme adapted from Shako that works for Black Powder
• Gaming: Some general notes on playing with smaller figures.
• Postscript: Future plans.
  

Background:

Back in my uni days I played Shako, providing both sides in 1/72 plastics. For a long time I after I had no games, miniatures languishing in boxes, others unpainted. About a year ago I invited some friends to visit during the summer of 2020, and at the same time my club had started getting into Black Powder. I had signed up to produce a French force for this, but I didn't fancy producing vast numbers at the time - and tried to keep myself on a short rein. I thought back to my old Shako forces, and fancied I could use them as a springboard.

My friends honeymooned in Vienna, so they were quite interested in leading some Austrians to glory against the French. Games Workshop's Contrast paints were out just then, and I realised I could produce some tolerable Austrians for a minimum of effort. I bought two packs of infantry, a pack of artillery, one pack of heavy cavalry and another of light, and brought them to a tolerable standard within a few months.

Painting:

1. Wash your miniatures with lukewarm water and washing-up liquid and let them dry.
2. Glue them to a tongue depressor or lolly stick for painting.
3. Apply a coat of PVA glue and leave to dry.
4. Prime them in the colour of your choice.
5. Paint with a few simple bold colours. Don't get too hung up on detailing.
6. Apply a suitable wash or a contrast paint.
7. Glue them to bases.
8. Varnish prior to applying static grass, if you're using it.

 

Example painting with the Austrian foot:

1. Primed white as this was the main uniform colour.
2. Applied GW's Contrast Apothecary White all over the models and let it dry.
3. Drybrushed white.
4. Flesh: a flesh colour.
5. Facings: an appropriate colour.
6. Musket: dark brown for wood, silver for metal.
7. Backpacks and rolls: brown for the packs and an apt colour for the rolls.
   
8. Black bits (Shako, boots): Contrast Black
9. Apply washes to flesh and anywhere you'd like to accentuate detail.
   

Basing:

 

The basing scheme I followed for Shako was 6 horse for a cavalry regiment (Two bases: 3 horse on a 2"/50mm deep by 3"/75mm wide base) and 9 men for a foot battalion (Three bases: 3 men on a 1"/25mm deep by 2"/50mm wide base). I used 1/72 plastics, which you can still buy for about a tenner a box. One box generates 2-3 regiments of cavalry and 3-5 battalions of foot at my scale, i.e. about a brigade in a box.

For the Austrians, who field larger units of foot than other nations, Shako suggested adding a fourth base to an infantry battalion. Black Powder's recommendation to have a Large unit be about a third larger than a normal-sized one. Therefore, my existing units of French were 9 men to a battalion, while the new Austrians were 12.

Gaming:

Ranges, movement and base sizes:

A benefit to using smaller sculpts is that you can fit in a game on a lesser space. I'm lucky enough to have repurposed a table tennis table, which can fit a 4'/1.2m by 8'/2.4m setup quite easily. I shrank all the distances in the Black Powder rulebook to 75% of their originals, e.g. cavalry move 13.5"/34.3cm per bound, not 18"/45.7cm. A lucky command roll for cavalry on turn 1 of a Black Powder game at normal distances can see them move 4.5 feet/1.37m, which is deeper than my table space allows. Using reduced distances just for 28mm models is suggested in the Peninsular War supplement that Warlord have produced, so I know I'm not alone in this! A normal foot battalion in line Black Powder's recommended scale for 28mm is c. 24cm/9.4" across and 40mm deep, whereas one of mine is c. 15cm/6" across, or roughly 2/3 as broad. Therefore, you can either fit more men onto the table or, if you have a big table, leave room for flanking manoeuvres.

Playing the game:

I mentioned above that I painted these Austrians up for some friends I invited to visit in the summer of 2020. This being the Year of the Plague, they weren't able to visit, of course. However, that hasn't stopped us gaming. We've been using video calls via Messenger on Facebook. I know many others have been using Zoom for this sort of thing, too. With a camera in your mobile, you can happily get both distant and zoomed-in views of the action. I find it helpful to offer my own thoughts, especially when introducing people to the game, "You could move that battalion there, but note my cavalry brigade is just here," swivel the camera to highlight an area they've missed, "and you'll be exposing your flank". You'll find that the more you play, the less you need to do this, but it's more enjoyable for your opponent if they aren't making the sorts of mistakes they wouldn't make in person.

We've been having a battle of a Saturday afternoon for several months now, and it's a lot of fun!

 

Postscript:

My friends and I have rebooked our in-person game for next summer, when we'll be playing in the garden. Given this year's restrictions, and the government's inconsistency in addressing them, I have in mind a three-month window (June through August), and we'll narrow things down closer to the time.

 

They've been bitten by the Napoleonic bug, and have picked up the Black Powder rulebook and some of the Victrix Napoleonic Austrians in 28mm. I did say earlier that I had wanted to avoid producing two armies, but "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley", and I've found myself helping a friend paint up his 28mm Waterloo starter set from Warlord in addition to my own 28mm French. Consequently, we should have a few brigades on either side on a nice big battlefield: 12'/3.6m by 6'/1.8m is my plan for the garden!

This doesn't mean I'll abandon my old 1/72 troops. I dug out three regiments of French cavalry last night - chasseurs a cheval, hussars and line lancers - with a view to painting them up. I'm sure I have divisions' worth of infantry in the house: British, Prussian and French. After years in silence, they are seeing the table again!

Odds and Ends

Tidying things up at the end of the year, I find a few photos sitting around that I have yet to share. Some are old bits of work refreshed, others are wholly new. Without further ado, here we go. First off, a huge load of hedges I made some months back. Quantity was the watchword with these, not quality, but they look better up close than in this distant photo. I came up with three heights (10mm, 40mm and an intervening one I forget right now as it isn't in this picture), and produced six feet or so for each height. These aren't the only hedges, mind you.

Next, an unsuccessful river experiment. I cut up a rubber doormat as a base, and gave it banks and texture with some squeezy acrylic goop from a tube. I painted over the top, and painted some cheap varnish over that. The idea was that the rubber would let it conform to terrain. As it turned out, the varnish still hasn't entirely set over a month later. I don't know if it's a problem with that cheap varnish or what. I may experiment further this year.

Third, 1/72 Polish, French and Prussian cavalry for the failed attempt at a wargaming do back in the summer. When that fell though I understandably lost the impetus to get the models done, so large numbers of models are stuck to painting sticks literally gathering dust.

Last of all are two pieces of scatter terrain. The former has been finished about nine years or so on from its creation. A simple bit of light cover is all it is. The other is made of "granny grating" and some of those till rolls I have mentioned in previous posts. I envisage it as part of a larger complex, which has fallen into disrepair.

Quasi-Scientific Endeavours

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up! Witness the wonder of the modern age! Behold the incredible discoveries wrought in the name of Science!

Apologies to any real scientists reading this. I haven't a large enough sample pool, and my selection criteria are probably way off base. Anyway, I attempted two experiments lately, and wanted to share the results with you. First, I was inspired by Nicholas Lloyd, Lindybeige on Youtube, whose blog mentions coating 1/72 soft plastic figures in undiluted PVA (Elmer's glue a l'américaine) prior to painting, as it doesn't obscure detail too much, and stops the paint flaking off - especially from flimsy bits such as swords and bayonets. I have had some success with that. It's worked very well on British and French models, but less well on some Revell Prussians. I neglected to inspect them closely, so they may just have been less sharply defined in the first place.

Anyway, I wondered if that would work on bendy drinking straws. Years ago I tried to use these in club terrain projects, and the inevitable consequence was that they shed paint like it was going out of fashion. In short, it doesn't work. I took two such straws, covering one with undiluted PVA, and left it to dry. Once dry, I undercoated both with Halford's grey car primer, and then painted them with some GW metallics. Once they were both done I left them for a few days so they had a chance to set. Afterwards, I subjected them to a severe stress test: rolling them harshly in my palms. The glue didn't help at all. As you can see from the photograph, they were both rendered equally bald. A major difference between bendy drinking straws and soft plastic soldiers is that the former are hollow, so I may follow up this experiment. For now it's still a no to bendy drinking straws.

I conducted a second experiment over the past day, again inspired by Lindybeige and another Youtuber (apologies for forgetting who! If I remember or somebody lets me know, I'll edit the name in). I popped into Hobbycraft the other day, and picked up a packet of 80 of those giant lollipop sticks (tongue depressors, are they?) to use as bases for hedges (that was what the nameless Youtuber had done. Lindybeige comes in as one of his recommendations is to apply cheap UHU glue as a base to the top of cardboard to prevent warping.

Since I have eighty of the things, I thought I would actually bother performing a test for once. I took three sticks, coating one with UHU, a second with undiluted PVA, and a third with a diluted PVA mix (something like 50-50 PVA and water). After drying, I compared them with an untreated stick. The untreated stick was flat. The UHU stick was slightly warped, the diluted PVA stick slightly more, and the pure PVA one is noticeably concave (or convex if you flip it). I presume the explanation is that the UHU doesn't really penetrate the wood, while the PVA does. The deeper penetration or the weaker strength of the diluted PVA could both explain its lesser impact on the curve of the wood. Truth be told, while the curvature is noteworthy in person, it doesn't photograph at all well. Successful experiment says: use UHU like Lindybeige already said.

Anyway, have a few photos of my scientific foray.

Return to Napoleonics

Come the end of August, I have arranged for some old friends to visit for the weekend for a spot of gaming. As part of my preparations for that, I've been pulling miniatures long abandoned, and getting them ready for a battle or two. A load of Napoleonic troops are currently on the desk. Some of them received a very basic paintjob back in the day - and I don't even intend to try to get them repainted for the summer. I just mean to base them, pop a spot of protective varnish on, and then they should be good enough for gaming. Some infantrymen who never had any work done on them have had a coat of undiluted PVA, as I understand this should help them retain their paint. Wish them and me luck!

Playing Favourites

Following in the stead of two very fine bloggers, Big Lee and Admiral Drax, I am minded to join in with the fun!

Wargames Period - Probably Napoleonics. There's nowt so fine as a beautiful, extravagantly-tailored uniform. After that would follow quite closely the ACW. I think I'm probably a good choice for a real-life ACW general: y'see, I tend to do dreadfully and I have always liked the Union (nothing moral about it in childhood - I simply liked John Wayne in blue!).

Scale - I find myself a bit torn here. I started with 1/72 plastics. I moved onward to GW's 25/28mm stuff. In the last decade or so I have acquired sizeable 15mm and 6mm forces, which I want to like. I do find the 6mm stuff a bit small for me at my advanced age (31 as of this moment), but I love the 1:2500 (or is it 2400?) Star Trek stuff. the 25/28mm stuff is really nicest for skirmishing and so on, but I am more of a fan of smaller bits and bobs for larger games.

Rules - Shako, incontestably. I drift back to uni, when I used to game against two or three good mates, and one of us would invariably get hammered by the others. They were excellent games.

Boardgame - Imperial Governor is my poison of choice. It was languishing in a cupboard in Greece when I found it. Having drawn it forth, I withdrew with it to England, then sallied off to uni in Wales, whereat I played it with a trio (usually) of good men. It was an interminable game, and I don't think we managed to finish it more than once or twice in several years' time. I would like to be able to say that nobody who played it when I was at uni has died, and happily I can do that. One chap nearly went blind, but that wasn't related to the game. Another fella was a wee bit Irish, but he had that affliction afore the game. Actually, so did I, but I was less Irish. Bloody good game, and I must get everyone back together again for a rematch which we all will lose!

Figure manufacturer - Copplestone has been my favourite fella for years. Those 28mm skirmish lads have just been grand. Musketeer Miniatures have a lovely selection of slender Great War era minis that deserve a solid second place.

Metal/Hard Plastic - I have been a plastic lover (oo-er?) since at least 2000, because the blamed stuff can be glued together with poly cement, while metal requires superglue, which clings tight on my fingertips. Villainy!

Club - I suppose the one to nominate here is my old uni club, Lampeter (which is now St. David's College, University of Wales or somesuch). I have meant for three weeks now to go to the GW one in Macclesfield or to the Macclesfield one which meets in the local 'Spoons, but there hasn't been a good opportunity.

Opponent - Christian, who is, aside from Dad, just about the only fella I have fought in the last many, many years. I think in about '08 I had a game with mark, but it's been Mr C whenever he has been back from abroad in the far-off wilds of Korea. I accidentally gave myself a huge advantage once, playing him at 40K, and he still made a creditable showing. I tend to roll terrible dice, so you can decide whether I was unlucky or he fortunate!

Film - Zulu is probably the leader here, followed by A Bridge Too Far.

Book - Featherstone's Complete Wargaming has long been my wargaming Bible. Even to this day I will go back to it and consider this piece of advice or that suggestion. More important than these modern things, it is the first book I ever owned on the subject, and the first that provided me some wargaming rules (for the ACW, which I dimly recall playing).

Art - I am terrible when it comes to art. I'd like to say that guy who does those gorgeous ACW pictures or the fella who does those beautiful Napoleonic pictures, but you will get what most entrances me, and that's nowt from wargames at all. Pick any picture you like of Audrey Hepburn.

The Interweb - This is tricky, but the place which has given the most to me lately is indubitably Front Line Gamer.

The trumpet calls us to the breach!

I think I have mentioned that I'm trundling through our film library. I've fallen happily on Branagh's Henry V, which is something of a surprise, given how unhappily I was smothered by Shakespeare's seeming tedium in school. Perhaps you presume I was bored by those tedious classroom readings when disinterested teenagers stumble through forgotten and unknown words. In fairness, who doesn't blink the first time they read floccinaucinihilipilification? No, that was not all. We had a few school trips to unedifying plays, too. I do not damn all plays as worthless. Some foolish opinion I read on IMDB the other day said they were good for nothing other than training actors for the screen. Anyway, this is a very pleasant business, although I have just sat in mute bafflement through a scene of McEwan and Thompson addressing one another almost solely in French rather too swiftly for my mind to comprehend, so distanced is it from the days of GCSE French.

On the wargaming front, I have two avenues of progress to report. First, I have been at work still on those 1/72 ACW chaps, Confederate and Union both. The Rebels have received a varied appearance, perhaps too much so. You may judge below. They've had a variety of colours and then a variety of washes served on them. Still none is yet finished, but much is done on about 85 models, half for either side, so conflict may soon be joined to restore the Union or, if you're so inclined, fight for the Bonny Blue Flag. I think Westerns as a child inclined me much toward the Union: dark blue jackets and pale blue trousers: why it's John Wayne in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon! Of course, one later on picks up rather more details - that whole reprehensible slavery business, for instance.

Second, and on a lighter note, I've also been at work on Arachnids. Years and years ago, I invested in the Starship Troopers game, but owing to an accident never got anywhere with the assembly. Two problems presented themselves: I lacked both superglue and the will to invest in it, the plastic being no lover of polystyrene cement. Next, I sat down with a friend to poke at the box, and he attempted to help me. Unfortunately, we had opposite approaches to these things. He detached everything from the sprues for ease of assembly. My face was a picture of horror when I saw it. I didn't and don't attach blame to him for doing it. Everyone has their different way of doing things. Because mine's different, the poor models ended up living in my attic until just the other day. Very little has gone missing from the monsters: just the lower jaw of an Arachnid. Nineteen of the twenty in the set are whole, though.

I did undercoat everything in black years ago, which was a silly idea. I couldn't paint yellow atop it, and gave up. Given everything was falling apart because poly cement was ineffective on that plastic, this was probably for the best! So tomorrow I shall venture forth and fetch myself some yellow paint from Halford's, so I can just paint the black and red atop it. Much more sensible a plan! Until then, dear readers, have a gander!

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!

The lasagna, which I made on Sunday, went well. I'm not sure how others will take to it - vegan cheese, like Scotch, is an acquired taste. Who was it said that an acquired taste is one not worth acquiring? Untrue, untrue! How could one have a taste for Ovid without a little acquisition of knowledge? However, whether the non-cheese would be universally appreciated or not, the appearance of the dish is unquestionably pleasing to the eye.

As well as this successful culinary expedition, I have thrust myself back into going through our film catalogue. Yesterday was the turn of Kiss the Girls,
a flick about Morgan Freeman hunting down a serial kidnapper-cum-rapist-cum-murderer. The ending is rather predictable, and yet one can be denied that small pleasure if one looks the film up on IMDB and their featured quotation reveals the mysterious monster's identity. Tsk-tsk! It was interesting to see the chap who played Doctor Emmett Meridian in Dexter turn up in something else. Today I've put myself through Outrageous Fortune, which was pleasant, but not worth wasting your time over, unless you like seeing George Carlin in small roles. As well as that, I exposed myself to Barbarella. The most peculiar part of the film is that the music seems so often totally divorced from everything else. It's a rather peculiar pile of events, unified only by a skimpy plot and a youthful and scantily clad Jane Fonda leaping on everything in sight. Aside from her amorous adventures, the most memorable scene for me was when she was sentenced to death by being sealed in a cage with hundreds of small birds - budgies and the like.

I dug through an old computer the other day, and ran across an account of a pre-Apocalypse-era battle I GM'd (badly) at uni. I can date the report to 2003/4 thanks to internal evidence. Oh, cunning of me, eh? Not really too interesting to you, though, so I shan't recount it all at length. The main points of the battle were as follows. We used an area 12' by 8', divided into two 12' by 4' strips. We had a designated attacker and defender, and the defender's had an HQ located in a fort my Granddad built for my brother, and which I had borrowed for the occasion. He still has it in his room: it's about 20" long on either side, although the gates aren't really quite wide enough for Chimera models and such, it made an impressive sight.

The events of the game suggest just why the chaps at GW formed the Apoc rules as they did. Our defenders didn't bother to occupy a network of defensive bunkers (and possibly not even the fort besides a single minor special character), and sallied forth to glorious combat. One wing of the attackers advanced so slowly that they took forever to get into combat. Only one player paid any heed to his objectives or to the cohesion and safety of his force. He ended the game on the verge of turfing the scant defenders of the fort out of their positions, so was probably a bit miffed! The fella representing critical reserves for the defender ambled off after turn 2, and the game stalled about turn five after six or seven hours of play. Heh! Then I seem to have gone off to console my then-fiancée who was upset about her post-graduate degree in Cultural Heritage Management. Two battles lost in one day! :-D

I must see if I can dig up some pictures from that battle. I know there are some extant from the era. Pictures of what I've been working on these last few days are right to hand, happily. First of all, there's a delightful Scotch from the Isle of Jura, Superstition, which by some happenstance, I bought for myself at the same time that my friend's sister bought it to congratulate him on passing his degree. So I feel I should congratulate him, too, and feel a bit abashed at buying myself Scotch. I'm sure we're both enjoying this stuff, as it's very "moreish", as the portion I have poured myself shows!

"Why, that's enough sippin' whiskey to bathe a man!" As well as noting that this Scotch is less ruddy than these pictures suggest (does Scotch get "red-eye"?), I'd also like to draw your attention to a friend's blog. He recently had an inspired idea, combining a beloved children's TV character with his Ogre army. I challenge you not to delight in the idea and in his skill with Greenstuff. Here, meanwhile, I have been distracting myself by fiddling about with some 1/72 plastics. I have a large box of these fellas, sat securely on a shelf over my sink, covering many periods. I can remember Romans and Gauls, Mediaeval Knights, Conquistadors and Aztecs, Seven Years War Austrians and Prussians, all sorts of Napoleonics (although mainly French and British), a fair whack of WWII vehicles and infantry, including several jeeps I purchased, intending to run a game based on that Michael Caine film all of you will recognise if I mention these clues: Winston Churchill, paratroopers.

But what I have been working on has been the ACW infantry I have here. I haven't decided what to do with these models yet. Well, I mean to use them for skirmish gaming, as I have only Johnny Reb and Billy Yank infantry. Nary a gun nor horseman is to be seen. I have elected to give Johnny Reb a variegated look, while Billy Yank is getting a somewhat uniform, er, uniform. I started off giving the Bluebellies an Ultramarine Blue jacket, but it struck me as a bit bright, so I have switched now to the Foundation Paint Fenris Grey. Pop some Leviathan Purple or Asurmen Blue Wash over that, and it's just about right. The trousers are Lightning or Ice Blue, I think. I don't intend to throw too many hours into producing these guys, and I always seem to produce somewhat manky-looking 1/72 stuff, no matter how hard I try, so these guys will just get some basic coats of paint then a few washes to tie everything together. Here's how they look so far. Until next time, dear reader!