TMP: "Best Campaign/Year to Collect" Topic

Why the Peninsula War?

 Someone asked on The Miniatures Page:

I am looking at collecting 2 armies but undecided which to collect.

Most colorful units so the army is not all the same is the main thing, but also an interesting campaign.

 My Answer:

The Peninsula war!  Nearly every unit from the French Empire shows up (Including Napoleon at his height!) vs Spanish, Portuguese, Guerrillas, British, Scottish, Irish (on both sides!), Royal Americans and Militia in every type of uniform or lack there of and lasting years.

And you can start simple with 2 armies and work from there (with one of them being the French vs lots of choices).

The campaign goes back and forth with both sides winning and losing (even Wellington has multiple retreats and reverses!) with all sides winning and losing battles, campaigns and events. Heroes, Villains and Varied Terrain! EPIC sieges lasting months that are Stalingrad level of intensity to multi-corp army battles lasting several days to small skirmishers between small units on all sides that can be done on a 1-1 scale.

The battles vary from basic attack and defend to envelopment, mass cavalry charges, artillery barrages and the day being saved by reinforcements arriving just in the nick of time.

And of course there's Bernard Cornwall's series on Sharpe and his adventures that got made into two dozen movies, rather than OTHER campaigns that merely get a single movie about them.

Being the English get to play a big role there are masses of books and places to read about it on the Internet and many manufacturers have figures in every scale for any sizes game from 2mm up.