As regards 10mm lead, I have a little experience. I've got about 1,500 each in Marlburian and Second Empire, and perhaps half that in Wars of the Roses. I like them. If I could do it by magic, all my pre-1600 forces would be that scale, and they'd replace my 5mm SYW, my 30mm AWl flats and my 6mm Napoleonics. In real life, conversions are a bit more complicated, I'm afraid.

First, the good points:

1) They're a lot less space and weight than 15mm, and you can put more of them on a 40mm stand. (I like DBA, but I have troubles with a 2 or 4-casting "unit." So most of my armies from the EC W back are standard WRG frontages with larger numbers of smaller castings on them.)

2) They're a lot more visible than 5/6mm. I must be getting old. I can remember someone praising 30mm in much these terms as a good compromise between 20mm and 54mm!

3) They paint up just fine. I generally black-prime them, then damp brush white with a broad Testor's brush. After that, the colors flow on, and the shading is built in. An idle day will do well over a hundred, depending on the complexity of the uniforms. They work out best when the armies are wearing nice bright uniforms--i.e., somewhere between 1700 and 1871. (Of course, that's the period I mostly prefer to play with miniatures anyway. What's the point in doing a nice job painting a person or vehicle when the point of the uniform or paint job was not to be seen? As for pre-uniform wars, I don't know about you, but I have a terrible time hearing my little fellows screaming their "field word," and sashes and cockades are a bit much in the smaller scales, besides not always being used.)

I do have some advice for those approaching from the larger scales:

Advice

1) Keep the sides clear

In 30mm I have no problem having Prussians in KGL uniforms or a red-coated Hanoverian Legion among my French. But all my Marlburian French 10mm infantry are in gray with white cross flags, and all my British in red with flags having a red cross or a white St Andrew's cross for Scots. My Bavarians, Spanish and Austrians follow the same pattern. In the Second Empire, my Prussians wear pikelhaube, my French kepis (red whenever possible) my Austrians white with Shako and my Bavarians light blue with Raupenhelm. (When the Saxons come, they'll also be in light blue, but in field caps. It was the best I could do.) From a distance, troops are distinguished mainly by color of coat, shape of headgear and standard. Try to keep those distinct for each side. Yes, you do miss some of the variety of the period, but I think the sacrifice is worth it so that you can tell the sides apart. Wars of the Roses figures are in livery coats--three liveries to a side, giving me 6 WOR armies. Armored figures are a problem. Any suggestions?

2) Don't let the bases get too small

Everything has a 1" frontage on my usual 3/32" base. That's four formed infantry, two skirmishers, three formed or two skirmisher horse, or one cannon with crew (limbers to match). When I get the WOR figures back out of storage after Korea, though, I'm rebasing them on 40mm DBA stands. I'd intended a reduced-scale DBM army, but decided that six DBA armies made more sense. For big battles, it's easy enough to play 3 to a side, each one being one "battle" or a WOR force. As with 5-6mm, you can shrink stand size until you have too many to play with and too small to handle,

3) Don't paint detail no one can see.

Scales under 15mm are for mass effect. Stop to paint buttons, and you'll never have the mass. You are a general watching your troops: look at coat color for nationality and facing for regiment. Color should be in musicians and in officer's distinctives, not in the piping on the enlisted coats.

4) Don't let the basing and the organization lock you in

I try to work in terms of 12 - 16-casting battalions, but each army has a minimum of 32 or 36 castings in similar pose and paint job. Volley and Bayonet wasn't out when I started this project, but when I get back to the US and a normal table size I can drop 24 Marlburian infantry on a piece of card 3 1/4" by 1 1/4" to create V&B regiments. 48 will make a V&B brigade for 1866 or 1870, with a 1" filler between the two lines. (Why the 1/4"? A matchstick border to lock in the castings. A matchstick is just about exactly the height of my 3/32" stands, and about 1/8" wide. I can use the same card "frames" for my 15mm castings, naturally. The skirmisher and artillery stands will be exact V&B dimensions, with a slightly wider border on the inside to accommodate my I " wide stands.)

Meantime, my Marlburians can be used either for Saperson's "Rules for the Mid-Eighteenth Century" or the WRG Holiday Center Marlburian rules, substituting centimeters for inches. The Second Empire plays a 2/3 scale "Napoleon the Little" which was designed for 1 V2' frontages, and a full-scale "Bismarck and Napoleon the III". In this case, I substitute a 1" stand with four castings for BNIII's 1" stand with two 15mm castings. The troops look less like skirmishers, and I eliminate the V2 kill in the rules. The same trick works for Grande Battaile, Grande Victoire, but I can't practice it in Korea because my table's too narrow. For later periods, the 100:1 scale is easier because it shrinks the ground scale enough to keep the firing ranges on the table.

And a few ways to cheat:

1) A 10mm casting is 40% the frontage of a 25mm, and Icm is 40% of 1". Find rules for 25mm scaled in inches, play in cm and Bob's your uncle, as the English say. (Though my Uncle Bob never played miniatures. Perhaps they mean John Connor's "Uncle Bob" from Terminator 1I?) Remember to keep to simple rules, though: the table will still be crowded, and small distinctions hard to make out. Nor do you want a lot of very small markers on the table, or full-scale markers obscuring the terrain.

2) Speaking of terrain: I've got a few 10mm buildings, but Featherstone was right about the virtues of underscale terrain. I mostly use 5mm buildings--more readily available in greater variety, and look just fine.

3) Flags. Just in case anyone missed it, the era of color photocopying has put an end to any problems with flags and scale. Take your 15mm flag to the copiers, and have him do a 65% or 70% reproduction. Continue to buy originals. The commercial flag makers deserve our full support, and I do not advocate cheating them. I would suggest that in this scale simpler flag patterns look better. Stick to simple cross patterns and you may be able to do most of your own.

Now on to the problems

Mostly these amount to availability. This is improving, but if you have to have obscure units or armies, either go to 15 or 25 where almost everything is available (anyone seen a 1794 Hanoverian jaeger in 15mm? Reward!) or stick with 5mm where substitutions are easier. With Bellona gone, almost my entire 1866 Austrian line is in one pose, with one pose of jaeger on the skirmish line, and no musicians at all. I have only three mounted officers, and a single old Bellona unit of heavy cavalry. That's an extreme case.

For Marlburians the situation is pretty good. You can get mounted generals, and officers, standard bearers and musicians for line, and all the basic troop types. You can't always get officers, standard bearers and musicians for the more obscure troop types. Two manufacturers each make one Marlburian gun. You have to use one manufacturers's for light/medium and the other's for heavy. An inconvenience, but not a serious one. Personally, I like to have a variety of generals with aides, and this is tricky so far. I'm confident that it will improve with time and judicious lobbying. I'm really looking forward to the Guernesy Foundry SYW range and the AIM Napoleonic range, but where I'm short right now is Wars of the Roses. I have one pose of longbowman, one of crossbowman and so on pretty well down the line. I'd raid the Wargames South 100 Years' War range, but it seems to have vanished along with their Napoleonic Range. (Another word of advice: work out the minimum of a new period and scale you need to have a game. Don't buy until that much is available, then buy that much at once and expand later. This saves much heartache and incomplete armies where someone never finished a range.) Strangely enough, the "Celtic Fringe" seems generally poorly represented in this scale. Not only can't I get kerns and bonnachts for Wars of the Roses auxilliaries, but I can't get Scots of any sort for ECW, and those AIM ECW figures are calling to me! The AIM ancients are also tempting, though so far I'm holding out, waiting for command packs to come out. The castings I have seen from AIM are beautiful--some of the best in the scale.

That being said, every manufacturer in this scale I've ever dealt with has been friendly and generous to a fault. Without slighting excellent dealers like Pharaoh's Arms and Division after Division, both MWAN advertisers, Wargames South (Franco-Prussian) Conflict (ancient & Marlburian) and Pendragon (Marlburian and Second Empire) have all gone out of their way to provide me with lead and even sometimes to ask what I needed made. I haven't always gotten it, but surely with a few more of us buying? Come on, fellow MWANers. You need another scale and period. You know you do!