Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I have always wanted to start a collection of them and am finally going to do it. I am a complete klutz and am not going to attempt to paint them myself. Can anyone offer any advice on purchasing pre-painted Napoleonic figures? I have been looking at the Del Prado, Napoleon at War series because they look very detailed and also come with an Osprey booklet about the featured soldier. My emphasis is on accuracy and availability of representative soldiers of different armies and times. [:D]

Brigadier General Ed Blackburn
Commanding Second Div, II Corps, AAA
3rd Bn / 1st Regiment of Foot Guards

There are several painting services out there. Dermot Quigley was running a miniatures painting service last time I checked. If you need his email address let me know.

Its can be quite pricey. I hope you have LOTS of money to lay out.

What scale are you looking to collect? 15mm, 25mm, larger?

Bill Peters
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

I'm not a "collector", but I do play miniatures and from that I can offer a few comments.

I'm not sure what "size" soldiers you are interested in.

If it's larger 54mm figures, that would be used for individual displays, I've seen some great looking figures from a company called something like "St Petersburg". My recollection is there figures cost around $200 each mounted on an eloborate base. I'm sure there are other compaines with products in this so called "toy soldier" range. There is also a group of "toy soldier" collectors that hold shows throughout the US, and a local one might provide an opportunity to see a number of products.

I think a number of people use 25mm table top gaming figures for diorama type displays or parade ground displays. These figures tend to the at the upper size range of what people table top game with. There are numerous individuals and companies that paint figures. Most of the time their customers are buying "units" of perhaps 10 to 25 figures, but the individuals who do this will paint anything you want. For purchases of "units", I think you would typically find the better painted figures for around $5 apiece - but $20 for a mounted General would not surprise me. Whether it is the qulatiy you want is an individual decison. You can find a number of painters on the web, including companies in India that do mail order business. There is an annual weekend miniatures gaming weekend in Lancaster, Pa, usually the third weekend of July. It's called Historicon and the sponsor is HMGS. At this event are a few hundred dealers, I would guess at least 25 figure painters. Note: other popular sizes for gaming are smaller 6mm and 15mm figures so a good percentage of the painters displays are of that size. I have found most painters routinely research the uniforms of the figures they paint, I think even the companies from India will paint to a specific Osprey reference. I tend to buy my gaming figures at the flea marker where quantity is usually emphasized over quality.

I have six ACW figurines of famous officers from one of the decorative "plate" companies - there about 6" high on a horse - I've never seen them offer Napoleonic figures, but I suspect that would not be popular enough in the USA to generate enough business, perhaps there are some European "plate" companies that do this. I think those figures were around $50-75 apiece.

Major General Sir Bob Breen KT

1st (The King's) Dragoon Guards
Commanding 71st Highlanders
Commandant, RMA

The Del Prado figures are 54MM. I would not be looking for anything smaller than 25MM. The convention sounds like a great idea.

Brigadier General Ed Blackburn
Commanding Second Div, II Corps, AAA
3rd Bn / 1st Regiment of Foot Guards

Michigan Toy Soldier Company at http://www.michtoy.com/

offers an extremely large number of different manufacturers in varying sizes and quality. Would be a good place to start your research.

Good luck, but are you sure you don't want to take up drugs instead? I understand that there are numerous support groups for coming off drug addiction, but no so many for toy soldier collecting. [;)]


BTW, one of my favorite web sites is all about painting and playing minatures: Larry Leadhead @ http://www.larryleadhead.org/


One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,

Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Graswich
<font color="red">11th Light Dragoons
4th Cavalry Brigade
Anglo-Allied Cavalry Corps
H.Q. Staff & Army / KMA Webmaster</font id="red">



<font color="blue">Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)
<i>Honi soit qui mal y pense</i></font id="blue">

Great link Jon, thanks. That's about the pricing I have seen.[:D]
I hope the addiction is not fatal.

Brigadier General Ed Blackburn
Commanding Second Div, II Corps, AAA
3rd Bn / 1st Regiment of Foot Guards

Hi Ed,

I have one of the biggest collections of 1:72 plastics in the world (around 47.000 soldiers, of which 28.000 painted) ...so if you have any questions or like to have an overvieuw of all possible boxes ever released...just let me know.

You can also go to:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/

which has pictures of almost every soldier!

greetings,
GMaj Marco Bijl
Allied army[;)]

Very impressive Marco, did you do the painting yourself?

Brigadier General Ed Blackburn
Commanding Second Div, II Corps, AAA
3rd Bn / 1st Regiment of Foot Guards

Just remembered this link:

http://www.toysoldiergallery.us/

My good friend Norm runs this store and is a great guy. He opened up a hobby store in Burbank, CA which he sold some years ago but which is still in operation. He lives in PA now and has painted figures for years for folks.

Bill Peters
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]