Colonial Air Force posted:

Are you doing 1 to 1?

lilljonas posted:

I honestly think that 2-3 boxes of Perry/Victrix/whatever per side is enough to get started with Napoleonics. Add a box or two of cavalry and some artillery too, and you have plenty of toys to play around with. Either way it will take a lot of time to paint up so many 28mm miniatures, even just assembling the plastics will take a considerable time if you buy too many of them. Don't fall into the trap of buying ten boxes of line infantry that are doomed to remain unopened in an attic somewhere.

Perry's have a French army deal with 4 boxes of infantry, 3 boxes of cavalry, two packs of artillery and some officers. That is the absolutely the biggest sized army I'd start out with (almost 200 miniatures!). If you are several people it's easier though. Have one player paint British infantry, another doing all the artillery pieces etc., until someone gets fed up with the job, and then switch assignments. Painting 200 identical line infantry on your own can easily become a chore.

2-3 boxes of plastic infantry and a box of artillery or cavalry should run you around £60-80, depending on how good you are at resisting buying additional officers and other cool stuff. You can get them cheaper if you use some of the multi-box deals that Perry Miniatures or Victrix have available, or use a discount online store.

lilljonas posted:

Fantasy is similar in that they have block regiments, but there's just fewer things you can do with your regiments in Fantasy. So coming from fantasy, 3-4 units per side might sound small. But in a good Napoleonics game, there's just way more tactics in how you use your regiments, arranging them in lines or attack columns or squares, etc..

Black Powder adds the posibility of quite daring moves, so it's not the same "shuffle forward exactly 8 inches per turn" as you have in Fantasy. So there's quite a bit of head scratching even with a small number of units. If you find that you like it you can of course fight larger battles, but you're better of waiting with that investment until you find out if you like wargaming in the period.

Scratch Monkey posted:

Sure but I always saw the appeal of that era being in commanding ranks upon ranks of troops so you can pretend you're Napoleon pushing regiments and divisions around austerlitz. There are entry of other settings where company sized skirmish games make more sense, to least to me.

Colonial Air Force posted:

I'm not familiar with battles where 100,000+ men were on the field, but even so, I find abstraction to be the worse offense of the two. gently caress your ratios, I want 1:1 or I'm going home.

As far as this idea that 6mm can't be painted up well, I'm not sure where you've been looking, but it certainly hasn't been this thread. Serotonin's work alone should shame you in your opinions.

Serotonin posted:

http://towton-2011.blogspot.co.uk/


1 to 1 scale of the largest battle on UK soil. 50000 soldiers. Saw it at Salute 2011, it was incredible.

Colonial Air Force posted:

But you shouldn't be discounting 6mm as stupid, like you've basically been doing in here, just because it isn't what you want to play.

Scratch Monkey posted:

Napoleonic/big regiment historical minis in anything above 6mm never made much sense to me. Since massed formations was the essence of warfare back then you're never going to capture that with s handful of 28mm figures.

Cessna posted:

Here's my WWI German army. 28mm scale. They're a mix of Renegade and Great War miniatures. They're "Late War," intended to represent the army at about the time of the 1918 Spring Offensive.

I initially intended to flock the bases, but I may leave them bare mud.

And, yes, I have a larger British army nearing completion.

Swagger Dagger posted:

You could buy a box of victrix plastic infantry and get a shitload, since they don't seem to sell individual sprues anymore.

muggins posted:

I put up some thoughts again on my progress with Bolt Action. I signed up to be a Sarge, basically their version of press ganger or street team. I demo the game and if I do enough I get 25% off orders with Warlord. I wouldn't do it just for the discount, I really want to get friends into the game. You also get a demo assault on Normandy kit.

http://freshcoastgaming.blogspot.com/2014/06/bolt-action-promoted-to-sarge.html?m=1

Serotonin posted:

I ain't fighting. I'm not even sure why this guy keeps having a pop at me then deleting it. Let's just move on and talk about playing with our toy soldiers.


I'm tempted with Colonial stuff. I aborted a 28mm Sudan project after painting a unit of Perry Sudan Brita (lovely figures). Would be tempted with 6mm though, Baccus so some lovely stuff for that period. I've also got all the Empress Miniatures Zulu movie character packs, but they are sat unloved in my cupboard. Shame coz I love that film so much and I've never seen a convincing way to wargame Rorkes Drift.

No Pun Intended posted:

Has anyone used Wayland games? I am looking into getting the Great War box sets and using Wayland games saves me $20 over directly ordering from Battlefront themselves (they both ship from England anyways).

Southern Heel posted:

I've been looking through CoC and BA rules while we've been having this discussion and I'm having a hard time working out how the melee rules work when the rubber hits the road for BA: the combination of remove-all-pins and 'you roll dice and one side dies' seems quite both quite arbitrary and lethal.

Southern Heel posted:

I'm looking at seeing if I can cobble together lists which would work for CoC and BA, I'm looking at the 1939 Poland/German lists. The Polish force has a +5 rating and the German Wehrmacht has a +1 rating. So, unless I'm totally mistaken - this means that the Germans will get a +4 bonus to their support roll for a given scenario and the Poles nothing? I'm trying to flesh this out a little further, so please bear with me and let me know if I'm mistaking anything. The majority of scenarios have 2d6+modifier for defender and half of that roll for attacker, so...

On the usual 2D6+modifer roll, it means Germans will on average get a support roll of 11 (7+4) defending, and 7 attacking ((7/2)+4), - so something like a Panzer IV + Sniper Team + mortar battery (depending on attack/defend). Translated to BA points that's a lieutenantwith riflemen adjutants (116), 3 infantry section with MG34s (123*3), sniper (50) Panzer IV (210), Mortar (50) - 795pts.

The Poles will get an average support roll of 7 defending (since no bonus) or 3 attacking (7/2). So a Mortar Team + Barbed wire + 7TP (again depending on attack/defend). Roughly translated to BA that's a HQ/AT Team/Mortar Team (158pts) plus three infantry sections with BARs (165pts each) plus a 7TP and another Mortar team (165pts) - for a total of 820pts.

Is this roughly accurate? Here are the two lists I'm using: http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Poland-Infantry-1939.pdf and http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Germany-Infantry-19391.pdf For Bolt-Action I'm guesstimating using the points values here http://store.warlordgames.com/products/1000pts-blitzkrieg-german-army and http://store.warlordgames.com/products/1000pts-polish-army/

SquadronROE posted:

I've started getting into Bolt Action - it seems to be the right scale for me. I can actually pull together a French army that would be somewhat competitive (if only vs. Early war opponents). Aside from Warlord's site and Warlord minis, what's a good place to get minis from?

muggins posted:

I'm going to do a whole blog post, but I wanted to share this here: http://imgur.com/a/PU5Q3

I painted up two squadrons of Societ tanks for our Rostov 1942 scenario tomorrow. I experimented with color modulation, weathering with MIG washes, streaking grime, and oil spots. I really really like how they came out =D

Throbbing blob posted:

Polikarpov posted:

The local historical gaming group runs some seriously good-looking scenario games.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124196980@N02/albums/with/72157662528462562

Polikarpov posted:

http://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/bolt-action/products/empires-in-flames-the-pacific-and-the-far-east-bolt-action-theatre-book

INinja132 posted:

Just that their D-Day starter kit thing is like £70 and doesn't get you that many actual guys. Just buying a full army is also £70 or so plus all the rulebooks, dice, terrain etc. I think their minis are really cool and they look great, but if I can get them for a respectable amount cheaper at 1/72 instead then it seems like that's a better move. Unless 1/72 is significantly worse in sculpt quality and it screws with the distances etc.

Yvonmukluk posted:

Man, I'm pretty much made up to buy into Bolt Action (my FLGS is making a pretty great value offer for preordering, considering the discount plus throwing in a box of Infantry), but I'm kind of debating whether or not to get a US infantry box or to grab instead a box of British (that I might be using as Canadians instead). I don't suppose anyone could help sway me one way or another.

Enentol posted:

Looking great!

And since this page already has some good pictures, I'll post some more! Had a buddy in town last weekend for some Bolt Action as a send-off to 1st Ed:

xutech posted:

Thanks for the link, but I mean is there common wisdom about making army building choices? I'm a bit overwhelmed and even with 1500 points as a guide I don't get all the stuff I want. Veterans seem to be great but then my experimental lists look a little scarce.

Enentol posted:

In all of the games of BA I've played so far, I'm really not impressed with mortars. Sure, they're iconic, and when they hit, they can hit hard, but over the course of a game, I'm convinced that a squad of infantry of equivalent points will do just as much damage as well as be mobile enough to capture points and be able to respond to other threats.

Snipers are ok and can be VERY effective some games. Even when they're not, they make your opponent think twice about placement/movement for officers and weapon teams.

That being said, anyone have any luck with light mortars? I'll be taking one in a Canadian platoon I'm building (mostly for the sake of historical accuracy), but I'm not expecting much beyond some mobile smoke.

spectralent posted:

also there are tank platoons.

CoC has amazingly bullshit penetration mechanics, though. If you want the experience of firing a 37mm gun and managing to clip the hull MG port, killing the driver and prompting the crew to bail out, CoC will satisfy you

Springfield Fatts posted:

Eh, spacing the photos out would have been nice, but it was a fine review. I appreciated the matter-of-fact approach, too many blogs and especially nerd blogs try to add patter or whimsy without pulling it off as entertaining. This is why I can't watch Beasts of War videos because I'm constantly yelling "shut up and tell me about the game!"

No one has brought it up so I assume it's a no, but does 2nd edition incorporate the experimental rules from first edition like expanded aircraft rules, night fighting, airborne insertion, etc.?

muggins posted:

If you pre-ordered it from WLG you got Patton

Yvonmukluk posted:

Got a M4 Sherman for relatively cheap for my Armoured Doughs, since my LGS is breaking up a few of the old starter sets and selling off the components at a discount. Quick question: do you guys think investing in a pintle mounted MG is a good idea?

Also, would mixing in a single sprue of US marines among my infantry to be feasible? i was thinking of using them to break up the monotony of poses or to represent veteran infantry. Would the uniforms be similar enough that I could get away with it?