Napoleonic wargaming is very popular at NWA. There are usually several games in play during most meetings at the Croydon and Mitcham venues. Although the Cold Steel rules predominate at present, other rules such as Age of Eagles, Empire, Shako and others are also played, in 25mm, 15mm and 6mm.

	The Figure Gallery shows lots of great photos of Napoleonic troops in the service of the main protagonists. Go to this page and just click on the appropriate country on the map of Napoleonic Europe. Try it out and see if you can find all the countries in the figure gallery.
	Click the picture of the Age of Eagles rule book to go to the page about the rule set currently used by some members for extra wargaming outside club meetings.
	Click the picture of the Carnage & Glory II screen shot to go to the page about one of the computer moderated rules currently used by some of our members.
	Click the picture of the Cold Steel rule book to go to the page about the most popular rule set currently used at the club.
	Click the picture of the defense of Hougomont to go to the Iron Duke page about one of the computer moderated rules currently used by some of our members.
	The Iron Duke computer moderated rules were trialled at a NWA Mitcham club meeting. Click the picture or here for the Iron Duke battle report
	Battle of Waterloo in 25mm using Cold Steel rules (2008) Click here for the 2 page Battle Report (2008) Click here for the 2 pages of photo gallery (2008)
	Battle of Waterloo in 25mm using Cold Steel rules (2007) Click here for lots of photos of Part 1 (2007) Click here for lots of photos of Part 2 (2007)

A brief history of the Napoleonic Wars:

Napoleon aimed to rule the whole of Europe. In 1800, in his first major campaign as French ruler, his army crushed the Austrians at Marengo.

From 1805 to 1807 Napoleon inflicted shattering defeats on the great European powers; on Austria at Austerlitz in 1805, on Prussia at Jena in 1806, and on Russia at Friedland in 1807, although he failed to defeat the British who won the sea battle of Trafalgar in 1805. By 1809 his empire covered most of Europe.

In 1812, with an army of 675,000 men (The Grand Army) Napoleon invaded Russia and defeated Tsar Alexander I's forces at Borodino. He pressed on to Moscow, expecting to capture a wealthy city. Instead, he found that the Russians had set the city on fire and the population had fled.

After waiting in vain for the Russian's to surrender, Napoleon finally ordered his men to withdraw. Unfortunately for the French the Russian winter arrived early. The French army suffered terrible losses due to starvation, the intense cold and constant harassing attacks from the Cossacks.

The disastrous retreat from Moscow encouraged widespread European uprisings against the French. The Duke of Wellington drove the French out of Spain and by 1814 had crossed into France.

At Leipzig in 1813 Napoleon was defeated by the combined forces of Austria, Prussia and Russia. He abdicated in 1814 and was exiled to Elba.

A brother of Louis XVI became King, but was so unpopular that after three months Napoleon was able to leave Elba, gather an army and drive him out. Napoleon ruled again for about 100 days.

His rapid advance and clever strategy separated the allies. Let down by his subordinates and the weather he was unable to decisively defeat both armies in detail. Then near Mont St. Jean in Belgium on 18th June 1815, he suffered a decisive defeat. In what became known as the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was eventually routed in a "near run thing" by the British army under the Duke of Wellington aided by the Prussian army led by Marshal Blucher. Napoleon abdicated again and was exiled to the South Atlantic island, St Helena, where he died in 1821.

Wargaming the Napoleonic period

Rules

Many different rules are available for the Napoleonic Wars has always been one of the most popular historical periods within the wargaming hobby. Some of the popular rules throughout the hobby at the moment are :-

There is a keen group of Napoleonic wargamers at the club.

Scales Used

Wargaming often uses a strange mix of metric and imperial dimensions for scales. The dimension above refer to the height of a model figure which is representing a 6 foot high person.

So the figure scale of 25mm to 6 foot is approximately 1:72. This was the most popular scale many years ago because buildings and scenery readily available in this scale for 'OO' gauge model railways. Some manufacturers who make oversize figures so they can add more detail, spuriously claim that the above measurement is to eye level. So be careful, as not all 25mm figures (for example) will be the same height.

Massed produced casting techniques providing good detail on smaller scale figures was not economical. For many years this was the only scale available to the wargamer (apart from some 54mm figures).

The increasing popularity of wargaming, the increasing cost of metal casting and the improvements in finer scale metal casting has led to a change over the last 15 years. 15mm scale has taken over in popularity from 25mm (see the list of figure providers in the links pages).

15mm to 6 foot is 1:120 scale. This is larger than N gauge model railway scale (1:160) but careful choice of scenery and buildings allows their use. This is no longer a problem for those who are fussy about scale since there is now so much scenery available which has been made at this scale specifically for wargaming.

6mm is around 1:300 scale. Some people find this scale too small, but it allows a more massed look to a battle and can create a spectacular scene en masse.

In recent times 12mm and 10mm figures have also become available, but these are not yet as popular as the above scales.

A huge range in 2mm figures are available from Eureka Miniatures, but these are very much a niche offering.