Will the appearance of Mini-Minifigs (5mm figures) open up a new field in wargaming in the same way as the appearance of the Rose 20mm metal figures or the Airfix 20mm plastic figures? It might well do so if the eyes of wargamers can stand the strain of painting them. I find that my own ageing eyes manage to cope if I use an 000 brush in a good light. The groups of little figures are too small to paint facings on, but it is quite possible to show plastrons or crossbelts or even epaulettes.
The figures are moulded in groups of 24 infantry (in 2 or 3 ranks), 8 cavalry (in line) or a gun (on a stand). dhen painted and set in formation on a table they are distinctly reminiscent of the views of formations in Simeon Fort's contemporary watercolour panoramas of Napoleonic battles and scenes. I have always thought that with 20mm figures it is only possible to fight small actions as wargames, but these small figures should make it possible to fight battles with one or more army corps to each side.
Personally I prefer to use the two-deep group for infantry, as the three-deep group seems to me to give too deep formations unless one operates practically at a scale of 1 figure = 1 man. A French battalion can be represented by 6 groups (one for each company), thus giving a scale of approximately 1 figure = 4 men. This suggests that a cavalry squadron should be represented by 3 or 4 groups. Calculating from the front of a battalion in line, this gives a ground scale of about 1 inch = 30 yards or 1/1000. At this scale the stands of three guns placed together give about the right length of front for a 6-gun battery in line.
Movement stands for the infantry can be made to accommodate a whole battalion. One stand can serve for both column and square, but an additional long, narrow stand is required for the battalion in line. Even a certain amount of conversion is possible. Two files can be cut off the infantry group and attached to the stand on both sides of a gun to represent the crew.
To represent horse teams pairs of horsemen can be cut off the cavalry group and the man removed from the off-side horse. Of course it is to be hoped that horse teams with limbers (and caissons) will eventually be produced. An infantry group in open order is needed and an infantry group wearing bearskins would be useful, as it could be adapted to almost any type of grenadiers. The present cavalry group will serve for any type of light cavalry, but a heavy cavalry group with slightly larger horses and wearing helmets is needed and also a lancer group (though it would no doubt be difficult to mould).
Terrain at this scale presents some problems. Hills can easily be modified and trees can be improvised from the top part of 20mm-scale trees. But even the houses for N-gauge model railways are too big, though they might serve when the walls are cut down in height. However, a diligent search of toyshops might produce very small wooden houses. The Bellona stream will correspond to a decent-sized river and roads and streams can always be chalked onto the wargame table.
Most people's rules will require some modification to be used at this scale. Obviously half-minute moves will no longer be practicable, but there are plenty of known ways of coping with moves of longer duration. The greatly reduced ranges on the table will allow more manoeuvring out of range - even out of effective artillery range. It will only be possible to remove casualties a group at a time, but a note can always be kept of any losses amounting to less than a group. Even I, by the way, do not propose to try to produce casualty figures at this scale, though it might be possible to cut two infantry ranks apart and lay the front rank - or sections of it - on their backs and the rear rank on their faces.
Now, I must get back to Dr. Herbert Schwarz's invaluable book on fighting formations of infantry - to read the hitherto-neglected chapter on Larger Formations. It's brigades and divisions that matter now, not just battalions.
One lesson the British Army had learned in the Crimea was that the range of smooth-bore field guns was very little more than that of the infantrymen's new rifle so that the artilleryman was equally as vulnerable as the infantry he was attempting to blast from the front of his position. Perhaps more than any other battle it was that of Inkerman in 1854 that showed the need for light guns with a much longer range.
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© Copyright 1972 by Donald Featherstone.
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