Chris Salander is a good friend and I thoroughly enjoyed his article about 20mm lead Napoleonic figures in MWAN #90. 1 started playing wargames with 20mm Napoleonic figures back in high school and I still have hundreds (thousands?) of them in my collection.

For many years, Jack Scruby was practically the only source for 20mm Napoleonic lead figures. Whenever I learned of a company that manufactured 20mm figures of any kind I ordered sample figures to see if I could use them as Napoleonic figures (20mm Saracen Light Cavalry make excellent Russian Bashkir Light Cavalry, but that is another article).

I quickly discovered that different manufacturers had their own ideas as to what constituted a 20mm figure. The purpose of this article is supply the one missing piece of information about 20mm lead Napoleonic figures: exactly how big are they?

First of all, I had to make sure that I was comparing apples to apples. I therefore adopted the Toby Barrett measurement system, which is used by The Courier in all of their figure reviews. Under this system, a figure is measured from the top of its base (bottom of the foot) to eye level. Figures with different size headgear can therefore be compared to each other using this system.

Fortunately, over the years, I had collected sample figures from virtually every manufacturer listed in Chris' article. The figures fell into two main groups- "true" 20mm figures and larger (or English) 20mm figures. I selected figures that were standing up straight (infantrymen with slung rifle or artillerymen). Measuring each figure from the top of its base to eye level, I came up with the following measurements-.

True 20mm figures
RSM	20mm
Batallienfeur	21mm
Newline (UK)	20mm
The Complete Brigadier	20mm
Ultimate Miniatures (Scruby 20mm)	20mm
Large (English) 20mm figures
Hinton Hunt (Der Kriegspielers)	23mm
Kennington (UK)	23mm
Qualiticast (UK)	23mm
It Figures (UK)	21 mm
Ultimate Miniatures (Scruby 25mm)	23mm

In order to put these two different sizes in perspective, the larger 20mm figures are about a half a head taller than the true 20mm figures. They are also very compatible with Ral Partha's 25mm Colonial figures. Anyone who has seen figures produced in England and advertised as "25mm" (close to 30mm standards by US standards) will not be surprised that most of the English 20mm figures are also oversized.

As can be seen from the table above, Jack Scruby made two different sizes of Napoleonic figures, 20mm and 25mm. Those wishing to order true 20mm should order his 20mm figures. Those wishing to order "larger 20mm" figures should order his 25mm figures.

While the figures manufactured by appear to belong more with the true 20mm figures (based on their height), their heft and bulk puts them into the large 20mm category.

The final issue I want to address is how the two different types of figures look when placed on the board together. I've played games where most of the figures on the board were true 20mm but some of the figures were the larger Der Kriegspielers (Hinton Hunt). The figures look a little out of scale when placed right next to each other, but not enough to interfere with playing the game. Some players may wish to order the larger figures for just certain types of troops (eg. French Cuirassiers that are really "big brothers"!).

Lastly, an update about some of the manufacturers:

Newline figures are carried by The London War Room, 41 Beverly Hills Loop, Petal, MS 39465; 601/584-8533.

Qualiticast figures are carried by Brookhurst Hobbies, 12188 Brookhurst Street, Garden Grove, CA 92840; 714/636-3580.

RSM (Dayton Painting Consortium) has a new phone number: 937/667-1037.