Wednesday 13 May 2015

At last: 17thC and 18thC in 3mm!

Pikemen
The recent expansion of Magister Militum's 3mm figures into the pike-and-shot and horse-and-musket eras has greatly advanced the probability of my starting two new projects: Seven Years War armies for Maurice and Thirty Years War armies.

I will probably get some sample figures to see how they base up, but a few more troop types (e.g. grenadiers and cavalry in hats respectively) will be needed before I can do complete armies. Richard at MM has confirmed these are planned, with the grenadiers coming rather sooner. I suspect that some other missing troop types (e.g. grenzers) might be recruited from the Oddzial Osmy Napoleonic range.

Artillery in tricorne
I use the word 'figures' because these are figures and not blocks, although cast in a strip. I don't have any idea yet of how much detail I will be able or want to paint on them, but I like the sculpted detail and regularity to be there even if I can't see it. These are not 'lumps of lead' or 'grains of rice', accusations that have been leveled at 2mm!

For Maurice I'm planning to mount two strips on 20mm square bases. I recently played a game using 25mm bases which I didn't find at all fiddly, so I decided that 20mm bases would probably be alright. I understand the strips might need very slight clipping on the edges.

Musketeers in hats
For TYW I've been discussing basing options with Steven Thomas over on his blog here. I will probably use 80mm x 80mm (or two 80mm x 40mm bases) for each brigade. This will give me enough flexibility for a number of rules options including my own Hexon-based rules which I've begun to map out.

Magister Militum 3mm

5 comments:

  1. Wow. You will get a lot of 3mm figures on a 80x40mm base. It'll be impressive.

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    1. Hi Steven, and welcome.

      3mm opens up entirely new possibilities for wargaming megalomania, but I wasn't necessarily planning to put them edge to edge. I was thinking of two battalions, one behind the other if using a single 80mm x 80mm base. Each battalion would have shot-pikes-shot, but I haven't decided on how many ranks yet. This is all more-or-less dictated by the strips being 20mm wide.

      If I ever do 3mm Ancients - to replace the blocks in 'Command & Colours' perhaps - I probably would go for the edge-to-edge look but on much smaller bases!

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  2. I have my first three regiments painted for Maurice and they should be going up on my blog this week. Like you, I am doing 20mm square with two strips.

    I am a bit disappointed with the artillery, though. :(

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    1. Hi Thaddeus

      I look forward to seeing that! But which blog?

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    2. OK. Worked it out: http://leadnobleed.blogspot.co.uk/

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