The Dining Table Napoleon

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  • Hobby update – October 2025: mainly Custoza

    This bottle of Custoza wine was as close as I got to the battlefield during my recent holiday on Lake Garda.

    I’ve decided to do things a bit differently on this blog. I’m not posting stuff often enough. This isn’t helping me to get engagement with other hobbyists. The problem is that I haven’t been posting until I feel I have something to say – which usually means finishing a project – or perhaps exploring an issue in (like mixing paints), which takes quite a long time to write about. But my life, even though I’m retired, has quite a few other things in it other than the hobby. We go on holidays; we have people to stay; I’m chair of governors at the local primary school; I’m on a number of online committees; sometimes I just like to go for a walk or see something with my wife; and there’s the garden. The hobby has to squeeze into this agenda, and often involves a number of parallel activities which take time to resolve. There a quite long stretches when I don’t finish something, or don’t feel I have time to write a long blog piece.

    But often people just like to know what you are up to. My plan is to do regular hobby updates – at least one a month. These may not take long to write (though this one is quite long) – but should be enough for any followers to have an idea about what I’m doing. This is the first and I’ll cover what I have up to since the last post, in July, following my rather unsuccessful game for the Battle of Medenine (1943) in June, featuring innovative game mechanisms.

    Games

    I have played just one miniatures game in the period – an Arab-Israeli scenario from the 1967 war, using Cold War Commander. This was with my regular London group of players (mainly from my ex-club of South London Warlords). This was entertaining but a bit one-sided (to the Israelis) – though John, who put the game on, didn’t think it was unrealistic. We used John’s 6mm miniatures – I particularly liked the way he used colour flashes on the back of the base to denote unit ID, without the use of labels. The rules I was a bit less impressed with. I had used the very similar Blitzkrieg Commander before, with a similar reaction.

    After this the London group has met a couple of times, but playing a board game – Here I Stand – representing the Reformation in Europe. We played it quite a bit a few years ago – it’s an excellent game but no miniatures! We have one more round to go, in November.

    Meanwhile my commitments conspired against my regular club’s days. I haven’t been able to play there since March. Thankfully I’ll be back on 2 November. We haven’t decided on a game yet.

    Projects

    The Medinine game was a bit of a downer for me. I am a long way from having a decent system for brigade level games in 1943, after having devoted to quite a bit time to trying, and getting things ready. And as for my attempt to create sangars from modelling clay and bits of model railway ballast – I really don’t want to relive that. I decided to give 1943 a long rest. I have plenty else I want to do.

    So I have returned to the battle of Custoza in June 1866 in the Third War of Italian Unification (there was also a battle there in the First War in 1848), using home-produced rules. This has been interesting on a number of levels.

    Custoza was the main land battle in that war. Taking advantage of Prussia’s attack on Austria, the Italian army attacked the Austrian-occupied province of Venezia. It ran into the Austrian army near Custoza, just southeast of Lake Garda and southwest of Verona. The Austrians were outnumbered but won, forcing the Italians to retreat across the Mincio. However the outcome of the war was soon decided by the Prussians at Koniggratz a few days later, and the Austrians gave up Venezia. The Italians also suffered a naval catastrophe at Lissa.

    The battle looks as if it would make a great close-fought and evenly balanced war-game. It is especially interesting because the Austrians used their system of stosstaktik, which proved so disastrous against the Prussians, and is usually written off as being utterly stupid. The Austrian infantry formed into close columns (in divisions of two companies, in contrast with the more typical Napoleonic battalion columns), and went as quickly as possible for the enemy in a bayonet charge. It was no disaster at Custoza, but the Austrians suffered heavily casualties (more than the Italians), so the evidence isn’t conclusive. But it should create an interesting dynamic on the tabletop.

    I started this project in 2023 (here and here), and painted up my first batches of figures then, using Pendraken’s 10mm figures. I did one batch each of Italians and Austrians. I also started work on some rules – named Forge of Nations.

    Miniatures

    I cleared up the considerable mess from the Medenine game from the Studio – the hobby room I have above the garage, nominally shared with my wife, though she has almost never used it. And I then did practically nothing until last week. I picked up the Italians from my last order from Pendraken, featuring all arms and generals. After basing and priming the complete batch, I decided to focus on the infantry – 9 bases of 10 line infantry, and three of 5 bersigelieri. After three sessions these are now ready for finishing (wash/glaze with a dark shade; flocking the bases).

    The Italian infantry are ready for finishing. The cavalry, artillery and generals are primed in the background

    Research

    As it happened we went on holiday to Lake Garda a couple of weeks ago. We stayed at Salo on the western shore, but were taken bus to Verona on two occasions. The route crossed the northern edge of the Custoza battle site (from which the Austrians advanced), but it was difficult to see much. The modern motorway was a corridor of ugly modern engineering and the view across country was often obscured. This is the best I could do:

    View from our coach. I think this is looking towards the village of Custoza itself. The vineyards in the foreground are doubtless modern, but this provides some indication of elevation and tree cover.

    It was interesting to get a general feel for the terrain. The hills dominate the battlefield, but were surprising gentle. This is an area of morainal hills sitting between the mountainous pre-Alps and the flat plain of the Po River. The land is agricultural, and there are a lot of vineyards (the produce of which we sampled, see above), and trees, especially on field boundaries. This limits line of sight, though artillery still played an important role in this battle – doubtless because there were elevated spots with better visibility. It will also be interesting to consider how to present the table visually. The miniatures are relatively boring in appearance (both sides fought in greatcoats, notwithstanding the heat) – so good looking terrain will help. It would be quite nice to take the game to a show but that’s a long shot.

    Interestingly, the coach also passed San Martino, at the northern end of the battlefield of Solferino (1859), from the Second War of Unification). I played the Piedmontese (Italians) in a beautiful recreation of this battle hosted by Bruce Weigle at Newbury. The road went right through where my troops were operating. There’s a monument to the battle, which is seen as a glorious Italian victory.

    Rules

    I have probably spent more time on this activity than anything else. I can do this from the study in the main house, meaning that it’s easier to do short sessions between other activities.

    Forge of Nations is designed to cover 1866, including the Austro-Prussian war and 1859. This is but the hors d’oeuvres to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71, of course – but that is still a distant prospect.

    I had produced a first draft in my first pass at the rules in 2023. This copied quite a bit from my Carolus Rex Great Northern War rules. However, I moved away from the randomised activation of different commands to a more conventional I go/you go system, which is easier to run in multiplayer games. But I wanted to use the card system described in my previous post – with a Move deck to regulate movement, and a Cohesion deck to evaluate combat and rallying.

    I think the Move deck is a sound idea, and I want to persist with it. But I have been reflecting on the feedback I received on the Cohesion deck. It replaces dice throws, but comes over as a bit of a black box. Gamers have an intuitive idea about dice odds – and seeing how they land is part of the entertainment. Game design is a careful blend of innovation and conservatism, so I thought I would create a dice system that largely replicates what the cards were meant to do.

    My idea is to have one distinctive die to reflect unit quality (D6 for D class, D8 for C, and so on, and then one D6 in place of each card in the old system, which reflect the attacker’s circumstances, such as weapon and range. You add each D6 result to the unit quality die – and see whether it meets a target number – which is adjusted to the unit circumstances. Each fail is a hit. A high score might an Elan result. We’ll see if it works.

    Philisophical reflection

    It is quite common to design a rules system based on one campaign or period, and then extend it into others. It is interesting to understand how this starting point influences the system. I am hoping to extend my 1866 rules into not just the 1870 war, but back into the Napoleonic and Revolutionary wars, and even into the next version of Carolus Rex, my Great Northern War system.

    This is evident from the two different rule systems that I have used that have this battle in scope. One is Bruce Weigle’s 1866 – which is a development of his 1870 system. An interesting feature of this is that it makes extensive use of a “suppression” result for firing. 1870 was probably the first major war where troops often went to ground when fired on – as breech-loading weapons could be fired from the prone position. It is one reason why, in spite of a huge advance in the lethality of firearms, casualties did not escalate (or so I read – casualities in the FPW were still high). This doesn’t seem to have been a feature of the 1866 wars – perhaps the last in history where this applies. The Prussians had breech-loaders, but since their opponents didn’t, they don’t seem to have gone to ground. Still “suppression” could still reflect a hesitancy to move when under fire, and doubtless that is why bruce retained it.

    The second system is Chris Pringle’s Bloody Big Battles (BBB). Chris also developed this originally for the FPW, so far as I can tell. But it is based on the Fire & Fury system used for the American Civil War. Going to ground wasn’t a feature of that war either. This is a more abstract system than the 1870 series, with a higher level of scaling (typically a base represents double the number of troops) – so doubtless Chris felt that representing suppression specifically was a needless complication: he has been ruthless in keeping the mechanisms as simple as possible, which is one of the great strengths of the system. However, the European wars of 1859-1871 were not the ACW, even though they are contemporary with it. The weapon systems (for the Prussians in 1866 and both sides in 1870-71) were different and this played a critical role in tactics – but BBB does a careful job of representing this. The use of cavalry was different too – the Europeans clung to the romance of the Napoleonic era, insisting that the charge into close combat was the most important cavalry tactic, and retaining pretty uniforms in many cases, while largely neglecting firearms. The Americans were much more flexible, often deploying cavalry on foot, using firearms – which proved to be the way of the future. BBB retains this approach, with cavalry being very similar to infantry in the way it is represented. Cavalry didn’t play a big role in the European wars, so this doesn’t matter that much. But if you start on the European side of the Atlantic with your system, you would try a bit harder to reflect the possibilities of the grand charge – as the Weigle rules do.

    My rules use much the same scaling as BBB, but the base articulation of 1866. Bases move individually, and are not organised into rigid units. Cavalry have a more Napoleonic feel. If I take them into 1870, I will need to reflect suppression in some way, but for now I’m ignoring it.

    What BBB and 1866 share, with very different mechanisms, is strong command friction. Command and control is heavily devolved – the direct influence of corps and army commanders is limited – and subject to heavy activation tests. This clearly reflects how things worked in this period – and it is one of the reasons that I find that BBB does not translate so easily into the Napoleonic era – when the action was much more centrally directed, but subject to less friction. This will be interesting to reflect in my rules.

  • 1866 Austrians

    Back to the 1866 project. September and October were largely taken up by holidays and gardening, and figure painting took a back seat. The result was that this second batch of 1866 troops was a bit protracted. It will be a while before I’m ready to refight Custoza.

    The figures are 10mm from Pendraken, whose range from this period is unmatched. In appearance and detailing they are closer to larger 6mm (such as from Baccus and Adler) than they are to 15/18mm. They need to be deployed en masse and not a great deal of attention needs to be paid to details. They are providing pretty much what I hoped for to recreate the big battles in the age of Bismarck. I have already introduced this project here with my first batch of Italians. Those figures were more appropriate to 1859 (Solferino, etc) than 1866. These, on the other hand, are very much on period. The infantry are in greatcoats, and the cavalry have updated uniforms.

    Like the previous batch, this is a three arms package – though not using Pendraken’s army pack this time. The infantry was a mix of Germans and Hungarians (not that it is easy to tell the difference) – enough for 12 bases of line infantry and three of jagers. The cavalry were hussars (4 bases). The artillery were 4 pdr rifled guns, with one limber (there are two to pack, but I only painted one this time). In addition I painted up three generals (from a pack of 5). I bought laser-cut mdf bases from Pendraken: 30mm by 20mm for the infantry and cavalry; 25mm square for the artillery; I already had plenty of 20mm squares for the generals. This is enough for one three-brigade corps (as was the organisation of the Austrian Army of the South – the main army had four-brigades corps) under the system that I am developing.

    Here is a closer look at the infantry:

    And even closer:

    The troops are in the regulation greatcoat which the troops had to wear even in the heat that June. Funnily enough the Italians used the same system, making the troops remarkably similar in appearance; both sides suffered from the heat. The most distinctive feature of the Austrians was the blue trousers (visible because the front skirts of the greatcoats were buttoned back – as with the French and Italian practice) – contrasting with the bluish grey of the Italian uniform trousers. At least the hats are slightly different. One more distinctive feature of the Austrians was that their webbing was pipeclayed white, rather than left dark. However the pose for these figures has the arms and musket in front of the body concealing this. With figures so small it is not worth trying to represent this, apart from the drummer. That at least makes them quite simple to paint. The jagers also wore the greatcoat – though not always, apparently – so I might do some without – perhaps to represent the elite Kaiserjäger. I painted the generals in their grey field uniform. They all came in the same pose, which means that they won’t look right if paired up to represent more senior commands. There don’t seem to be any good figures to represent ADCs, and a charging hussar (I have some spares) won’t look right either. I think will have to use infantry officers.

    Moving on to the cavalry:

    These are hussars. My system is to represent a regiment (4 squadrons) in two bases. One pair of bases is painted up as the 1st Hussars, which were at Custoza, and the other as either the 4th or 6th regiment – neither of which were in Italy, but which provided a nice contrast, with their light blue uniforms and scarlet cap bags (compared to dark blue and green). The uniforms were much simplified from the Napoleonic era, and not much detail was possible at this scale.

    Moving on the artillery:

    These are rifled 4-pounders. The trail seat on these Pendraken figures is a bit clumsy though. I may try cutting it down in future. I have put four crew figures on each base (as opposed to three for the Italians) as the Austrians had 8 guns to a battery rather than the usual 6. The mounting is a bit too tight for this though – in future I think 30mm by 25mm would be better. Looking ahead, I want to have some heavy 8-pounders as well. Pendraken don’t make these, so this might be a bit of a challenge. The woodwork was apparently not painted, unlike in the Napoleonic era – but I haven’t seen any clear colour representations of how it looked. As far as I can see it was a bit redder than than the ochre paint used beforehand – which suggests it was stained or varnished in some way – otherwise it would soon start looking a dull grey. I opted for a slight orange-brown, though I can’t say this screams “unpainted wood” to me.

    How did I get the raw metal figures ready for the table? The first stage was to mount them on the bases (10 to a base for line infantry, 6 for jagers), set in a matrix of acrylic medium with a mix of white and raw umber paint. I didn’t mix any textural material (such as sand or model railway ballast) in as I do for larger figures, as I thought this would make the basing a bit trickier and slower, with the grains getting between the base of the figures and the mdf mounting. I had previously tried plaster filler, but this proved even trickier. I can’t say I have found the ideal basing matrix – but mounting such individual small figures in dense formation (6mm figures are usually come in strips) is quite tricky. I hoped I could just squish the figures into blob of matrix, but wasn’t that easy. After the matrix had hardened I painted the whole assembly, base included, in white gesso mixed in with Raw Umber paint to create a dry earth colour. After that came the main job of painting, using my usual artist’s acrylic paint. Obviously it was tricky to reach lots of places on the infantry bases, with the figures so close together – but if you can’t see it there’s no point in painting it. This was much rougher and readier than my normal 18mm painting. There was very little in the way of striking high contrast detail to lift the figures (such as white cross-belts, facings, plumes or hat pompons). It still took a few sessions. There really is no good way to speed this up. I used oil paints on the horses, mimicking the technique I use on 18mm – but it was messy and it was hard to overpaint reins, etc. With little positive benefit (the figures are bit small for the wiping technique to create high/low lights) – so I won’t be doing that again. Given that these are armies assembled in peacetime I made the horses on each pair of bases look similar with only small variations (and grey for the trumpeter).

    These figures needed a wash or glaze with a thin dark colour particularly badly to bring out the moulded detail that could not be picked out in paint. Like my Italians I used a glaze made with a supposedly fast drying oil medium, mixed with a little brown oil paint. This did an excellent job of distributing the dark pigment to the lowlights, but the finish was too glossy: I wasn’t looking for ultra-flat, but there are limits. After giving it 24 hours to cure I started to apply the basing material – flock or “turf”. This was a big mistake as the basing material stuck to the touch-dry but still slightly-sticky glaze, and I had to abandon it. I then decided to apply matt varnish (which I had done for my Italians) – using some old Winsor & Newton varnish designed for oil paintings. This is nasty, sticky stuff where the flatting agent tends to separate out in the bottle and is very hard to mix back in. I had to take out a quantity of the runny stuff and the some of the gunky flatting agent to mix together in a small batch. Thankfully the result was the right off-matt finish. It was only after this was thoroughly dry that I went back to applying the basing material – just flock this time, as I decided that the turf didn’t look as good (though I used it for all my Italians). Applying flock to the tightly-packed infantry bases was still pretty hard to do with it sticking to the figures themselves. This is hard enough in 18mm! I frequently had to use a large brush and water to clean up the figures. For my 6mm I don’t bother with flocking at all, though I use a textured basing matrix. But that leaves the smooth metal bases visible and didn’t want to do that for the larger figures.

    The base flocking/turfing is good enough, without looking particularly good. I will stick with the flock in future, but with variations on the bases with large exposed areas. The main thing I need to change for the next batch is low-lighting glaze. I need to get it in done one coat, without the need for an extra coat of varnish. I have acquired some acrylic matting medium to try out. This is milky when wet but turns transparent when it dries. This will make it tricky to judge the right to amount of ink to mix in. A challenge for next time.

    The final step was the flags. For the infantry I used the Pendraken printed paper ones. The cavalry standard was moulded metal – which I did a rough and ready paint job on – which wrks OK at arms length. The flags are important for such relatively dull figures.

    I have ordered the next batch of miniatures. I will concentrate on doing a large batch of Italian infantry. This isn’t very exciting but I’m hoping to generate a bit of speed so that I have enough figures for a decent game as soon as possible..

  • 1866: my next project

    My new 10mm Italian troops all together

    I began 2023 determined to focus on completing projects already started, my Napoleonics in particular. This didn’t last long, as I worked on reviving my Great Northern War armies and developing a rule system to use them. That show is now done. I have now decided to start a brand new period in a brand new scale. What is going on?

    The main thing I hadn’t reckoned on was a revival of my actual gaming. I’m now part of a monthly “club” of half a dozen players from my old club, South London Warlords, that meet in the home of one us. I need games that are conducive to this format. I am also in the process of joining a more local club in Tunbridge Wells. Where that will lead I’m not sure – but that I will need material ready for the club game format. I can put on a game of Lasalle 2 readily enough with my Napoleonics – but these rules are unfamiliar to my fellow gamers. And I hesitate to suggest that they buy a rather pricey rules booklet. These published rules aren’t easy to scan to distribute, even if that was legal – and the clever activation system is a bit awkward in a multiplayer format.

    I have been eyeing European wars of 1859 to 1871 for some time. I have been buying Bruce Weigle’s rules, playing the odd game with my friend George, leading up to participating in an 1859 game (part of Solferino) led by Bruce himself at Newbury in 2019. I am also owner of Chris Pringle’s Bloody Big Battles rules for the period, and tried to adapt them to the Napoloenic era – and acquired his extended scenario book. In addition, I have wanted to try out 10mm miniatures. It then struck me how suited this period is to the multiplayer format. On the battlefield the army command function had comparatively little influence, with corps and divisional commanders playing a more decisive role on the day (the army commander doing more to set the day up). Historically it is a very interesting period, marking the transition from smoothbore to rifled to breech-loaded infantry weapons and artillery. The battles were mainly between well-trained regulars, and the short wars meant that there was comparatively little of the complexities of attrition (until 1871, anyway). This makes the wars cleaner than the overlapping American Civil War, as well as the armies being a bit more interesting to look at, including the continued use of shock cavalry.

    Three ideas converged. The first is that I wanted to play the battle of Custoza in June 1866. This was a close fought battle between the Austrian army and the Italians – and an interesting counterpoint to the disasters faced by the Austrians to the north against Prussian needle-guns. The second was that I wanted to try 10mm figures. My much loved 18mm Napoleonics are bigger than ideal for big battles, and I find 6mm (which I use for GNW) a bit wee. I wanted to see if I could get 10mm figures table-ready quickly by streamlining the painting process. Third I wanted to try basing figures 30mm by 20mm. My Napoleonics are on 25mm square bases, and my GNWs are on 20mm squares. These look fine when combined into multi-base units. Oblong bases look better when on their own – which they are for Bruce Weigle’s system, for example. This base size looks good for 6mm troops, and I thought they’d work well for 10mm too.

    Perusing the Pendraken website, I saw that they did Italians for the period in 10mm. That tipped me over the edge and I made an order, to see how they looked. And I was off. There was a big psychological release being involved in a brand new project in a new period – one not weighed down by questionable decisions on scale and basing made long ago. I now understand why so many gamers do it so often, notwithstanding having failed to complete earlier projects. I have acquired a number of books, and I’m researching the history eagerly. My initial aim is to mount a game for Custoza. The starting point is the BBB scenario for the battle. BBB rules are perfectly workable (I think they work much better for this era than Napoleonics) – but they are still rules for smaller scales being made to work for big battles, with a rather artificial feel in that context. This criticism can’t be made of Bruce Weigle’s system (the 1871 rules adapted for earlier periods – which is what we used in Newbury) – which in particular allow bases to move individually without being forced into constrained base-to-base formations. But these rules aren’t really suitable for the sort of game format I’m planning – they’ll take too long. Besides they are designed for rather smaller battles (there is a Custoza scenario, but it doesn’t cover the whole field for the whole battle). So, fresh from success with my Carolus Rex GNW rules, I’m looking to make my own.

    How about the Italians? I bought a Pendraken “army pack” with 90 infantry figures, 30 command figures, 30 Bersaglieri, 15 cavalry and 3 guns. Unfortunately they sent me the 1849-59 version, not the 1859 to 1866. The infantry were in tunics rather than greatcoats, the cavalry were dragoons rather than light cavalry, and I had grenadiers in place of Bersaglieri. I decided I quite liked to the look of the earlier infantry, and the dragoons were nice, and perfectly usable, too. The grenadiers were the main problem – but Pendraken were happy to send me a pack of Bersaglieri (they offered to replace the whole order, of course). So what I have is more an 1859 army than an 1866 one. Since 1859 is on the more distant agenda, that’s not a worry.

    The next question was how many figures to put on a base? My first thought was 10 infantry or four cavalry. There is room. But then I thought I could get away with 8 and three respectively – since looser formations were starting to be used in this era. I mounted all the line infantry at 8 to base, except one flag base with 10, to see how it compared. For the Bersaglieri I put then five to a base. This is the result (with the 10-figure flag base):

    I made up three groups of four line infantry bases and one Bersaglieri, 15 infantry bases in all. Unfortunately I think the denser basing looks better – and illustrations from the era often show dense deployments. My plan is to mount my next batch, which will be Austrians, at 10 to base (or 5 or 6 jagers),and see how they look en masse. The Austrians particularly favoured dense formations anyway. The flags, incidentally, are from Pendraken. Given the general dullness of the troops (many wore greatcoats in the filed), the flags are an important feature. The Pendraken flags are quite basic, but do the job. They don’t do cavalry flags though, which might be a problem. Talking of cavalry, here they are:

    These represent “line cavalry” or dragoons – the nearest the Italians had to elite heavy cavalry, of which they had four regiments. I have representatives from two regiments. A denser basing would be justified here too – but the pack size is 15, one short of what I need for four bases. Since I will (probably) be operating the cavalry in brigades of two or four bases, life is going to be harder if I can’t get four bases out a pack. With three to a base I might even get and extra base. With the cavalry present only in small quantities, that proved decisive, and I will stick to three figures a base – the look is perfectly satisfactory. Here’s the artillery:

    These are 8-pounders, the typical Italian artillery piece, which were rifled in 1866 (but not in 1859). They look distinctly like Napoleonic smoothbores to me, but Leon from Pendraken assured me that he did research them, and I know no better. Reliable information on the Italian army of the era is hard to come by, and I’m very thankful that Leon took the job of producing this range on. I have found little consistent information on the line infantry. The Osprey, which covers the topic only briefly, has no pictures of standard line infantry of 1866 – or the Piedmontese army from before. Pendraken supply four crew figures for each piece but I didn’t like one of them. I thought I might reserve four crew figures for heavier weapons.

    I will leave description of how I have prepared these figures to another post, when my Austrians are done. My hope is that I can get these troops table-ready quickly. Much more quickly than my 18mm troops, and even the GNW 6mm ones. The jury is out on that. The uniforms are quite simple, and the figures small enough not to need much detailing. Piping and braid need not be attempted! Even the black facings on the Italian infantry present so little contrast to the dark blue coats that I didn’t attempt it. The Austrians wore their greatcoats in the field (removing the tunics underneath in warmer weather), which will be just as simple. This batch of 15 infantry bases, four cavalry and three artillery took a bit longer than I hoped though. I will need over 70 bases of Italians alone if I follow the BBB scenario. I think I will try bigger batches, but of one troop type. This will be pretty boring, but hopefully faster. For the first Austrians though I will do a similar mixed batch, though.