Adventures in 3 mm

Welcome

This is a blog that tells the story of my adventures in building a miniature version of the Battle of Waterloo in scale 1:600 or 3mm.

The French cavalry charge at Waterloo

How I started

During the summer of 2018 I was enjoying a vacation under the Greek sun. While browsing away on my phone, I came across some sites that sell Napoleonic miniatures. As I did some 25 mm 30 years ago, and still remain interested in the Napoleonic area and wargaming, I started reading.

I saw the immense variety of scales that are available nowadays and was thrilled by the range from Warlordgames, especially the bigger packs with complete brigades or divisions. Drawback was that they are 28 mm with about 28 man to a battallion. I really like bigger units. Then I saw the smaller scales like 15 mm's and Baccus's 6 mm's and my enthousiasm increased. I started thinking about picking up that phantastic hobby of collecting miniatures, studying historical books and uniform descriptions, painting, modelling and enjoying the end result.

I almost had decided to go for the 6 mm's when I came across the even smaller scale of 3 mm's. They looked stunning: enough detail to recognize the different troop types, the low costs and the possibility to create real huge looking armies.

Of course I also saw 2 mm miniatures but they were almost inrecognisable as Napoleonic troops, so I skipped them right away.

The 3 mm's got my attention and in my mind I was already forming my armies. Back home I decided to order a few packs as sample to see what they looked like and how they handled.

That was the start of it all.

What my goals are

At work we say: "think big, start small" (very agile ;-) 

Small not only applies to the scale of the miniatures but also in what you do, small steps. Of course the ultimate wet dream would be a representation of the complete Battle of Waterloo, but even in 3 mm that would still be a huge challenge. Therefore I start with the western part of the field (west of the Charleroi-Bruxelles road, including Hougoumont, so no Prussians yet). First step is for the French side the 6th Infantry Division under Jerome Bonaparte and the 2nd Cavalry Division under Piré. Second step will be some allied troops like Nassau and British Guards.

I also plan on making a model of Hougoumont.

As far as wargaming is concerned, I have no intention yet to use the models for that, but might do so in the future. I might try to work out a ruleset for myself and make a neat Excel application (programming in VBA) to support that. But first things first.


My next post will report my first experience with the 3mm's.