20mm Sharp Practice Napoleonic AAR

[Counterpane]

I'm reminding myself how to play Sharp Practice 2 having only played one game several months ago.  My latest solo AAR is up on my blog:

http://thelandofcounterpane.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/action-at-convent-garden-take-2.html

Richard

[zippyfusenet]

I like the way you're using 1/72 figures. I've always thought that 15mm figs are too small for skirmish gaming; I lose them in the terrain, find them after the game is over. 20mm are big enough to see, but take up less space than 28mm. Four or five boxes of different troop types provides plenty of figures in a variety of poses.

I don't think there are many 1/72 early modern buildings commercially available, other than the old Airfix La Haye Sainte set, maybe a Dorset cut-n-assemble book. Did you scratch build these?

[Counterpane]

The two problems with doing Napoleonic skirmish in 20mm are suitable buildings and figures in civilian dress. 

I have a couple of ready-made Spanish-style houses I picked up at Triples in Sheffield many years ago.  The trader is no longer around.

The barn in this game I made myself out of foamcore, balsa wood, bamboo skewers, and Wills pantile-pattern plastic card.  The walls are by Hovels I think.  They were originally Japanese but they don't look out of place.

Finally I've also got one of the Italeri houses and a small resin cast house that might also be Hovels.

Richard

[zippyfusenet]

The Imex Pilgrims and American Pioneers sets might provide some usable civilians, especially women and children:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=805

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=490

[Counterpane]

Yeah, I've got the Pioneers set and I guess the Pilgrims might be useful. 

The problem, though, is that in the Napoleonic period women's dress has a very particular silhouette; the high-waisted "Empire style". Figures in the style of dress just twenty or thirty years either way just don't cut it.

I'd love for some manufacturer to produce models of the various female characters who appeared in the Sharpe TV series. A selection of officer's and soldiers wives, guerilleras, and women of negotiable affection would be great.  Throw in a couple of protestant missionaries, a foppish war artist and the odd Irish horse-dealer and I'll be as happy as a pig in mud.