"What got you into Napoleonics ?" Topic

It is fair to say that Naps aren't the most popular period in wargaming but they are still up there with the likes of WW2 and Ancients if the surveys are correct . My first love if you like is WW2 because I am a bit of a tread head. However I also like cavalry and enjoy painting horses .

This for me was the main draw for Naps as I believe this was peak for cavalry and coupled with some beautiful uniforms. So I was very happy when I drew Austria out of the hat for our Naps project in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of Waterloo.

But I appreciate there are many other reasons for liking Naps and would like to share your views on this and maybe I could adopt another reason myself .

Thanks guys

The film Waterloo, a visit to Belgium the year after, and the Airfix figures that came out soon after. I was only 10/11. I was captivated by the visual spectacle, the uniforms, and the information available to help me get them right. Being bought the French language editions of Funcken gave me a bit of extra motivation to get my head round the language at school.

Have fun with Austrians. A load of easy to paint line infantry, but splashes of colour in other units. And much more info available in English than we had years back.

Airfix magazine did a series on converting their plastic ACW into something like Waterloo figures. So I worked tirelessly for a year or two, only then they released the Highlanders, then the Cuirassiers etc……

50 years on, nothing has changed. I converted figures into Gendarmes d'Elite, Polish Guard lancers in cloaks and Ewart and Stiles with their eagles, Ponsonby and ADCs. No sooner finished than Perrys release proper ones, far better……..sob.

I read 'The Romance of War or the Highlanders in Spain' by James Grant. That was 40yrs ago but I'm still hooked.

I book I read in the school library on the life of Wellington had a spiffing account of Waterloo in it, and some great maps.

After that it was Airfix soldiers, Charles Grant senior articles in iirc Battle mag, and G. W. Jeffries rules.

1. Rod Steiger
2. Airfix figures
and
3. George Jeffrey`s "Tactics & Grand Tactics"

Airfix French cuirassiers

War and Peace on the Beeb back in the 70's, plus the Waterloo film. Then seeing painted Hinchliffe 25mm in a local shop. Hooked for life…

A lifelong fascination with Napoleon for as long as I can remember and living close to the battlefield of Waterloo.

When Arifix first came out with some of the plastics, the Waterloo movie, a Hobby shop in the area that carried 20mm metal Naps, and a friends brother that gamed Naps with well painted 54mm Historex figures.

The Bridge At Lodi.

1. Rod Steiger
2. Airfix figures

I got over it.

Just seeing the title – even before the page opened – my answer was Airfix, the film Waterloo, Funcken's 2 volumes and WRG's old rules …

I chuckled as I scrolled down to make the comment … give or take the rules (the ones with flinching in them ) it seems I am far from unique …

Phil

It started with the film Waterloo. It grew worse when I read John Howarths 'A Near Run Thing', and then discovery of the Tricolor rules turned it into a life long obsession.

'Recollections of Rifleman Harris', 'Death to the French' and 'The Gun' by CS Forester (and the film version of the latter, 'The Pride and The Passion' with Sophia Loren) set me off on this perilous road…

I´m another convert from War and Peace and Waterloo, and strangely enough from Woody Allen´s Love and Death. It was those green Russian uniforms that so amazed me in War and Peace and Love and Death, along with that great aerial shot in Waterloo of the French cavalry attacking the British squares. Beautiful!

Airfix figures, the film Waterloo, and then seeing Hinchcliffe figures at a Model Engineer exhibition. Love at first sight.

Airfix

Then I realized that my life and sanity wasn't worth obsessing about the exact shade of dust filter the 17 3/4th Pagravanian Light Water Hussars had at 4PM Monday the 23rd of Octember 1803 at the battle of Klabbenzakken-Piepelom when the March 17th to March 19 1801 regulation purple with pink and orange facings was briefly back in service until 8PM that day and then replaced by the Franco-Topponian tartelon inverted shako with blaise trim and worn for the 3rd retreat to Pocklingbakken until quarter to ten the next day to be replaced by the Spogovianic Busby and Furry Kilt for a whole 7 minutes upon which they reverted to a mix of 1639, 1799 and 1801 French regulation dress with pale octarine facings.

I still enjoy the period from afar as long as other people handle the heavy lifting (and have their heads kicked in for daring to be half a shade of a fraction of a tone off on the volcanic quartz dust accumulated on a French uniform at 11AM on the dusty plains of Salalagorvamadricelona de Trezillas y Quatuor y Torres Vengtoch)

Are they not one of the most popular?? I was under the impression they were.
Anyway for me it was "The Charterhouse of Parma", then Imperial Sunset by RF Delderfeld and the boardgame Wellington's Victory when I was in college. The Sharp series has reignited it ten years later.

Because a lot of Naps was played at the local store. My brother and I couldn't afford 25s, so we went with 15s.

David Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon.

By the time the film "Waterloo" was released, I was already firmly committed to the extent that I walked three miles to a theater one night to see it.
Rick

I'd bought a good number of model soldiers as a kid, but the very first wargame rules I came across – as a thirteen year old, were napoleonic rules in an old Airfix magazine. I was hooked. The look of a battlefield splashed with colour helped too!

David Howarth's "A Near Run Thing".

That & the romance & colour of the uniforms.

So given that Howarth's book is, by modern standards, quite flawed & that the full dress uniforms probably only existed on parade grounds means I was falsely seduced into the period.

Oh, well. It keeps me off the streets.

When I started wargaming, in my teens, my friends and I went to our local games club with our indifferently painted Airfix and Matchbox WW2 tanks and troops but then we looked over at the grown ups table next to us and saw lines and lines of beautifully painted Napoleonic armies. The games looked amazing.

Add to that the old Airfix Waterloo Wargame (remember that?), the movie and frequent trips to the National Army Museum lit the flame that has never died.

Always played with WW2 toy soldiers as a kid, but I met a guy down the street whose Dad went to West Point (44, 46?). Dad had kept his textbook, "Napoleon as a General," by Count Yorck von Wartenburg and (more importantly), the accompanying Atlas. That was fascinating to watch the arrows ebb and flow. He eventually gave me the books and I still have the Atlas after all these years.

I got into it twice because everybody else was doing it and dropped out twice and sold out because it bored me.

I don't remember. In the beginning I dabbled in everything from Ancient Rome to WWII.

If I had to answer, probably McFarlane's run at Miniature Wargames, and then at Wargames Illustrated, – that was the ultimate arbiter – those pics of In the Grand Manner games at the WHC, the majesty, the spectacle, the rows of glittering bayonets. Maybe the last time Glory and Honour drowned out the realities of warfare, before cynicism became predominant.

A board-gaming buddy sucked me in at college. He had some Hinchliffe 25mm British on display in his apartment and I was hooked when he mentioned you could actually play a game with them. I bought some French to fight them which sucked me into researching the uniforms and the period in general. Over 30 years later its still one of my favorite periods to study and collect.

Dave

There is no clear answer for me…I just think the whole spectacle of a Napoleonic battle is pretty cool….!

On a trip to the Compleat Strategist in NYC back in 1979. I saw several guys in the back room playing a game using 25mm figures. Totally stunning when up to that point I had seen very little miniatures gaming, and had yet to see any Nappies. There was also a Sports Illustrated article about a lineman from the Houston Oilers who got his teammates to play Nappies on the floor of his home. Great photos.
Within the next year or two I went to a game day or one of the first HAVOCs in southeastern Mass and played a Column, Line, and Square game as well as getting totally lost in a Empire III game. Total immersion in one day.
My buddies and I went back to UMass and decided to do Napoleonics and we drew for what countries we would purchase and paint. My draw was for the Brits. I still have those chaps.

Mike

See "Footslogger" above.
Novices were easily sucked in that year.

Duke Seifried, aka "Uncle Duke" and his painted 30mm Scrubys back about 1959 or 60.

For many years it was the most popular period. It was not easy back then.

For just about anything other than French or British uniforms, you needed to be able to deal with Der Hanbuch der Uniformkunde (sp?) by Knotel. German text, of course. I could drive 50 miles to the Cincinnati library which had a complete set of Knotel uniform prints. Non- circulating, of course.The illustrations were just black and white line drawings.

Then Bill Murray came out with his book on Russian uniforms, but it was only the infantry.

How easy it is today. Like being spoon fed.

Tom

A masochistic personality.

1977 visited Wales from my duty station in Athens Greece. In Pontypridd there was a toy store… I bought the Airfix Waterloo game. Still have it. I guess it was 1979 when Steiger graced us with Waterloo. I was hooked…

It was the only thing ther local club played in 1969 when I got interested in wargames so no choice. Bought a load of Hinton Hunt Brunswickers because they wre the only ones I thought I could maybe paint and that was it. Still got the Brumswickers with their largely guessed-at uniforms details – there wasn't too much info available on them in England then.

The thinking at that time was that Napoleonics gave the best balance between infantry, cavalry and artillery of all the "horse and musket" periods.

Doug

Something worth trying,in my case.

The best I've ever been able to muster towards Napoleonics is indifference. I might play a game if there was nothing else available, but the period interests me not at all. I have always been a bit baffled by how much interest this period generates among wargamers, so it's interesting to read what sparked people's love of gaming Napoleon (even if I'm still immune to the bug myself).

Like most boys I had plenty of plastic toy soldiers that would keep me entertained for hours – but it was most definitely the movie Waterloo that seemed to coincide beautifully with the release of the Airfix Waterloo figures, and a gorgeous picture book on Waterloo that I'd loaned from the library, all of which was then crowned by seeing Siborne's Waterloo model for the first time. These events transformed my simple boyhood game of soldiers to a passion for the period, and a desire to wargame the battles themselves.

In 1970s read first the Campaigns of Napoleon, that I ordered through the Military Book Club, then I read Pericoli's book Waterloo.
Started with Hinchliffe 25mm Napoleons, painting 12 men.
Played Empire II in garage with a good friend in Alief TX, who then hired me to paint his minis which let me support my habit.

Um, not sure – I guess it was my Father's Stadden and later Hinchcliffe figures,then Military Modelling (which I used to get from a colleague of my Father's when he had finished with them) – which led quickly to the Recollections of Rifleman Harris read under the blankets by torchlight and Airfix figures first in 1/32 then HO/OO – Got the Airfix Waterloo Assault set for Christmas when I was 9/10 and off I went.

Sharpe and Lasalle, with maybe a touch of Hornblower thrown in.

Ironically given that it was Sharpe in the Peninsula I have no troops for that theatre.

I now have French and Austrians for Lasalle and those only because I find it an enjoyable game to play. Napoleonics are far from a period I am really "into".

The old Bath Wargames Society. Napoelonics was the most popular period when I jointed back in 1971 and I was interested in the Horse and Musket period.

The guys with the white coats and bicorne hats collected this rabbit too many years ago. Still in the locked cell, paint brush in hand and too many nice uniform books within easy reach.

My mom bought a box of romance novels, one was… Sharpe's Eagle. She started reading it, realized she didn't like it, asked me if I wanted to read it… the cover looked like a romance genre (they were marketed that way at one time… I can't even find an online image of those covers), but it was great to read. She found Sharpe's Gold at the bottom of the box, so I read that one too.

Bought some Minifigs, and carried on :) Sharpe saved the day once more!

Chalfant

A local gamer knew I was playing a lot of boardgames in grad school, and had dabbled in ancients miniatures in high school. He invited me over and put on a *huge* French vs Austrians game with 2nd Gen 15mm Minifigs, on a custom built Gettysburg table, using Empire II. I was hooked!

I was drugged and taken hostage!

Life magazine, June 11, 1965:
link
Bob

Going to a school founded by Wellington. It was all around me. Couldn't help but be inspired.

That Airfix set of La Haye Sainte. It was around 1978, there was a wrapped box about the right size under the Christmas tree and I can't remember being more excited.

Patrick R, I think you'll find the blaise trim was only worn by NCOs.

Participating in a Black Powder demo at my LGS and then watching Sharpe's Rifles on youtube. That led to buying all the books, movies and figures I could find.