Napoleonics, Kiwi Style

Over the last few months, I've been putting up pictures of some of my old buildings, models and miniatures that I have been working on, having brought them back with me to Tokyo from Vancouver when I visited the family last summer.

In a comment he made on one of my posts, Paul (of the popular Napoleonics in Miniature blog) asked me- presumably in jest!- the following question: 

 "You didn't happen to find any 15mm AB Naps you want to get rid of when you were back home ;0) " 

Well...in fact, yes!  

While burrowing through my old closet at my parents home, I came across a weighty cardboard box full to bursting with 15mm Napoleonics.  

These were Russians, Austrians and Prussians, including at least some AB Russian dragoons for sure. There were also some Russian Minifigs, but most of them were from the Men-at-Arms range of Napoleonic 15's from a company in New Zealand, Military Miniatures.  

These look very much like Minifigs; enough so that I believe that there was some stink or other over copyright, but I really don't know much about it.

MAA Austrian types; line officer and infantryman, jager bugler and officer.  Got my doubts about that tall plume on the line officer, though!

The figures were okay, the worst feature being the cast-on flags and a rather limited choice of poses.  But this was the 1980's,  when the popularity of (much-missed) 2nd-generation Minifigs was at its height, so they fit the bill nicely.  

Military Miniatures are still around in Auckland, although they do not do 15mm Napoleonics any more.  They now go by the name of Battlefront Miniatures, a name which may be familiar to most of you!

I bought a whole load of these when the local retailer, Sentry Box West, was clearing out the line.  They were very reasonably priced at the time, and on top of that I got them at 50% off.  That's 50% off on top of the sticker price you see here, which means this Prussian 6pdr. gun cost me about 62 cents Canadian!

I didn't have the time while I was there to take anything like a proper inventory, but if memory serves there are Russian infantry, artillery + limbers, crews, cossacks, dragoons, Austrian infantry, grenadiers and cuirassiers, and Prussian artillery.  Most are stil in their packs. 

I ended up with a lot of command packs, and where I needed more infantry, gun crews, cavalry and the like I had intended to flesh the collection out with Minifigs. 

However, as is the way of things, our group drifted from 15mm Napoleonics to 25mm SYW, and my 15mm Naps have remained in their box- along with some 15mm terrain pieces- to this day.

They are still in Vancouver, too, as I didn't send them over this time.  I was already smarting from having spent $500.00 on posting other stuff over here, and had to draw the line somewhere.  We are not currently gaming 15mm Naps, and are unlikely to do so, so back to the closet they went, although this time packed and labelled properly!   

I did manage to bring a few samples over with me out of interest, and these are the ones you see here.  The next time I go back, I'll throw the box with the rest of the miniatures into my suitcase for the return trip.  Once they are here, I'll decide what I want to do with them all.

Finally, here they are again in front of what is bound to be a familiar building!  No, I'm not getting into colonials, but after some architectural wizardry with plastic card, foam board and filler, this  kit I had lying around of Airfix's venerable Fort Sahara will be turned into some kind of monastery or chapel in time for our next Peninsular War game.