Because my hobby budget is fairly limited, I can't afford to buy many research books about the wargames armies I am painting at any particular time. So, besides the public library, I rely a lot on internet sites for my research.

In the course of painting this Napoleonic French army, I've come across several excellent websites, which I wish to share with you here:

NEW on 3 January 2005! After a much-too-long absence from our screens, the League of Augsburg website is back. These fantastic painters have always inspired me, and it is great to see them back. The thing I particularly like about their style is their use of "vignettes". It was the old League web-site that prodded me to make similar (though nowhere as good) types of vignettes for my armies. This new site shows many of the League's vignettes in great detail. And look at their trademark flags - really cloth, hand-painted! Even their WW2 stuff (which is not a period which normally draws me) is fantastic - I especially like their Poles. All in all, a very inspiring site.

NEW on 20 Nov 2004! I always thought my 24-man units looked much better than the 12-man units I often have often seen around. But it wasn't till I came across this Swiss site with its 480-man Voltigeur of the Imperial Guard unit that I realised that even 24-man units look totally unrealistic. Take a look at these pics, and see how huge a real battalion looked. This is nearly enough to make me start collecting 15mm figures!

Kapiti Fusiliers Historic Gaming Club - my own club's website. This site features some great galleries, including my own pictures of my British and Spanish figures to fight my French!

Napoleonics Gallery - this site is an assembly of galleries depicting beautifully painted Napoleonic wargaming armies. Also of particular note is the reappearance of the Napoleonic figure reviews from the now-defunct 'Spanner and the Yank' website.

Spencer Keen - Model Painter - Spencer paints some of the same Front Rank miniatures as I do - but, I have to admit, he does them much better! His site also features a series of articles showing how he does his painting.

Napoleonische Kriege - Christian Wolske's German website for wargamers, historians and enthusiasts of the napoleonic period (in English as well).

Napoleon & Uniformes is a very promising site about the Napoleonic era (in French). Even with the small amount completed so far, there is TONS of great information, including lots of lovely artwork and music files. There is also a sister site, Napoleon & Figurines.

Whilst not specifically about Napoleonics, the website of the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp (a Belgian wargames club) is well worth a look for the professionalism they give to the hobby. The club has its own clubrooms (even with a bar!).

The 3rd Cuirassiers website is about a reeenacting unit that portrays one of Napoleon's cuirassier regiments. There is plenty of information about uniforms, not only of cuirassiers, but also other French cavalry units.

Les Uniformes de l'Armée Française contains a marvellous collection of images of French uniforms through the years by Lienhart and Humbert. These are really good enough to print out and frame! The site is in German, but don't let that bother you if you don't speak the language (the only word you need to know is "Zurück", which means "Back").

Histofig is a French site that covers many Napoleonic armies. It has a growing selection of very detailled uniform plates, including France.

Historex are a manufacturer of 54mm figures, mainly French. This site includes lots of useful uniform information in the photos of painted models.

The French Napoleonic Hussar Uniforms site has details of .... well ... French Napoleonic hussar uniforms!

Don't be put off by the fact that the Klub Pøátel Francouzské Revoluce a Prvního Císaøství website is in Czech - it is a Napoleonic reenactment site that has some great pictures of uniforms of the 18th Regiment de Ligne.

Something a little different - Le Ra des Champs is a website containing sound files of French drums in action! Great background music!

The Napoleon Series is an indispensible guide to anything Napoleonic. Their forum is also well worth visiting.

One of the most useful sites I found was Uniform 1812. It contains some good painting reference material.

Another unofficial Historex site, Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars, has wonderful reproductions of the colour plates that were included with these models in the 1970s.

No wargames research can be complete without visits to Warflag and Napflags. I get all my flags from these sites - and they're free, too!

I must also mention the website where you find out more about the wonderful Front Rank figures that feature in my army.

Visit some of my other wargaming and military history websites: