Thursday, May 23, 2019

Wargaming the War of 1812

    Before I had access to the internet, for several years my main interest was the American War of 1812. Recently I read a biography of the American general, Jacob Brown. He was commander of the American army that invaded the Canadian side of the Niagara area in 1814. He was the most successful American general during the war, but is largely  forgotten today. Reading of the 1814 campaign has renewed my interest in the war.

    Right now my big decision is which figures will be used.
Some of the figures I'm thinking of using; 15mm Minifigs 1st generation British Napoleonics(for both sides), 15mm Heritage Napoleonics, 20mm Frying Pan and Blanket Amalgamated War of 1812 figures, and 40mm Homecast Prince August and Zinnbrigade figures.

Some of the figures I started painting for inspiration.

Two other options are using Old Glory 10mm or Historfigs N gauge Scrubys. These are some Old Glory Napoleonics that were painted for a different War of 1812 project that I was working on.

Old Glory British infantry painted as Americans for the above mentioned project.

A Zinnbride figure converted for use as a early American infantryman. I got the idea for this figure from Ross Macfarland's Battle of the Month blog. In one of his War of 1812 games, I saw such a converted figure and liked the pose.

Two Zinnbrigade conversions. The  painted Zinnbrigade figure was converted to a march attack  figure. The musket is simply a piece of garden wire. Besides deciding on figures, I'm thinking of different rules from the usual Battle Cry or C&C rules. My wife and I are going camping next week. I plan to bring several War of 1812 books to reread for inspiration. Hopefully at the end of the vacation I'll have a better idea of where this project is going.

8 comments:

  1. The old glory guys look just the thing. I look forward to seeing how the project proceeds...

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    1. It would be an easy thing to get going using the Old Glory figures, as I have almost enough infantry painted to start gaming.

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  2. The Old Glory 10s are great little figures.

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    1. When I first got Old Glory figures, the ease of painting them sold me on them. While looking for my FP&BA militia, I found more OG British infantry, which might be enough to make two armies.

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  3. Scruby N-Gauge figures are the only ones I'm familiar with. I can attest that they are inexpensive, paint up extremely quickly, and have a very nice "Old School" look. I haven't seen the current artillery models; Scruby's originals were dreadful, so I went with 12mm guns. FWIW, Scruby's "N-Gauge", theoretically 9mm, is actually closer to 12mm; which may enable you to use figures from certain other manufacturers to fill in any gaps.

    Best regards,

    Chris Johnson

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    1. I am strongly thinking of using Scruby's after getting the SYW armies.I see what you mean about the guns; I would use old Heritage artillery pieces that came with SPI wargaming sets in place of the Scruby guns.

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  4. 1812 is a great period for wargaming, small armies and we balanced with victories for both sides.

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  5. I think that's one reason I have been interested it it. Not too many wats do lower grade officers become such an important part of the war's history.

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