The Beard Bunker

Today’s post will be a break from the grim dark future to take a look at the grim dark past. Last November I starting on building up a collection of 6mm Napoleonic (mini) miniatures. I had done some 28mm but wanted to capture the truly epic scope of that period in warfare and not need a cricket pitch size space to game on. The only way to do that is to go with smaller models. I ordered a starter bundle from Baccus6mm and got stuck in.  I’ve been doing the 6mm stuff in between Admech units just to break things up and keep it all fresh. Since I can turn out a battalion in about 45 minutes (personal best was 34 minutes for a cavalry unit) it was ideal for those shorter hobby sessions. Only have a couple of hours after work, hammer out a couple of units and get the satisfaction of completion.    I have finally got the point where I have managed to finish two roughly equal forces, one British and one French. I also have added a few buildings and a gaming mat into the mix. My i...

 Not a massive amount to say this week, so I've taken a lot of photos instead.  I've managed to find a bit of time off work and threw myself into finishing off my Napoleonics to-do pile. In a week I chunked through two half finished light infantry units, and a full battalion of line.  This brings me up to having the bare minimum for playing some Black Powder! Yes, Black Powder, and Napoleonics in general is massive in scale and the forces used where huge. Which looks amazing on the tabletop but is a daunting task to paint.  To add a little perspective what I have here is an Infantry brigade of four battalions + command. It also has an attached artillery battery and some Hussars (for giggles). This amounts to about 250pts. To quote the Black Powder rulebook "in a typical encounter battle, we’ll have three players on each side with each player controlling a brigade. A brigade might typically be four infantry battalions, a gun, and two cavalry regiments together with a...

Any long term readers will have probably noticed the odd historical post cropping up from time to time. Mostly 1940's flavoured Bolt Action posts involving a lot of tanks and things. It is no secret that Jeff, Emma, and I are history nerds, amongst other things. With the seemingly never ending pandemic lockdown isolating Emma and I in our own home with nothing more than a Sharpe dvd boxset and Assassins Creed: Valhalla we started to stray into more historical pastures for our gaming needs. This was probably was also influenced by yet another new edition of 40k with yet another level of complexity being added to an already convoluted system. A system that I, personally, am finding harder and harder to maintain a grip of and keep an interest in. However, this is a rant for another time, this time it's all about one of my favourite things to do: line up little plastic soldiers in neat lines and roll dice at them. Napoleonic wargaming is possibly the ultimate in lining up little pl...