'Valeur et Discipline' - valour and discipline. These words proudly emblazoned on their flags, the soldiers of Napoleon's Grande Armée marched and fought their way right across Europe in a series of bloody wars during the first decades of the nineteenth century.

A few years ago I commenced painting my own miniature Grande Armée for playing wargames. This website is designed to display my army as it is completed bit by bit.

My miniature 28mm soldiers are mainly manufactured by the British companies Front Rank and Foundry. I use Vallejo, Derivan and Games Workshop paints for the figures and artist's oils for the horses.

Are my figures completely accurate? Well, although my philosophy is to get them as close to accurate as possible, there are limits imposed by the actual castings and the small amount of reference material I have available. But bear in mind that an infantry battalion of only 24 men is not accurate in itself, so other small errors pale into insignificance in comparison!

I don't actually get to use these figures in many wargames, but when I do, the rules we use are either Piquet or General de Brigade. My figures have not been specifically based for either set of rules, but instead use base-sizes that I find visually pleasing: 35mm x 55mm for infantry, 50mm x 65mm for cavalry, and 55mm x 85mm for artillery.

One last point - it is notoriously difficult to photograph the colour blue accurately. The colour of the uniform coats in the photographs on this site varies from picture to picture, and often looks much lighter than on the actual figures themselves. So please do not rush to email me to tell me my shade of blue is wrong!

Roly Hermans
Paraparaumu, New Zealand

(Yes, that is me on the left, posing as one of my own miniatures, an ADC to Marshal Berthier! Click here to see the original photo that I converted to make this self-portrait)

Visit some of my other wargaming and military history websites: