I recently set a challenge for myself regarding the creation of a set-up dedicated solely to a multi-player LPE campaign. My parameters were as follows:

• It had to be cheap, meaning plastic figures would be used, preferably stuff I had on hand already.
• had to do-able fairly quickly, as I already had too many long-term projects tugging at my sleeve.
• It had to be in a scale I hadn't worked in before, preferably on a subject I hadn't explored previously.

Various ideas came and went without exciting me much, until I rediscovered my copy of the Osprey book by Terry Hooker on the Armies of Bolivar and San Martin. I noticed that regardless of a unit's title and the army it belonged to, almost all of the troops that fought in South America from 1814 to 1822 wore the French Napoleonic shako (or a close approximation). I recalled also that the figures in the latest version of Risk all wear that headwear. Inasmuch as the figures are 10mm scale, something I had never indulged in, and I had purchased a copy of the game at a Goodwill store for $1.49, giving me 360 figures for a pittance, my parameters were met.

Figures needed: one copy of Risk will create three LPE (or in this case LPL) armies by combining two coloured sets per army. Each army will consist of:

• 1 leader (cavalry) stand
• 11 cavalry stands (2 figs each)
• 16 infantry stands (4 figs each)
• 4 light infantry stands (2 figs each)
• 4 artillery stands (1 gun, 2 figs each)

To accommodate the smaller figures, I use 1" square stands.

Leaving aside the leader and artillery, the 31 stands of troops provide some flexibility in making up an army, but not a whole lot; I have not worked out minimums or maximums for that reason, except that no more than 1 stand each of cavalry and infantry may be elite. Research indicates that the South American armies were at times unusually well-blessed in cavalry, sometimes making up 40% or more of the whole, but that their composition was otherwise pretty ordinary by Napoleonic standards.

My three contestants are Gran Colombia (Bolivar), Chile (San Martin), and Spain (the Viceroy). For added historical flavor, I gave each stand in each of my 3 armies a name, although this is probably not accurate in terms of which units fought where or when:

Gran Columbia

Leader Bolivar + Guard of Honor (mounted)

Chile

Spain

Back to Liberation!