"Napoleon movie and Napoleonic Gaming?" Topic

I wonder if there will be an increase in Napoleonic gamers or figures being sold because of the movie? I don't know if there will be many new Napoleonic gamers per se, but maybe the dust will be blown off some old collections and put on the table. Thoughts?

I would think so. They did a poll awhile back that asked why did you get into a new period. The main answers was watching a movie and reading a book about the period.

Speaking of, did anybody catch the "hidden" artillery battery at Austerlitz in the Trailer?

I think most of us did with a surprised ‘Really?'. It is a bit fantastical and apparently Ridley Scot's reaction to the criticism was ‘Get a life. It's a drama not a documentary.' Oh well…

I'm expecting a ton of small inaccuracies to go along with the scenes we already have in the trailer (Battle of the Pyramids, Austerlitz, etc) but I'll still watch it as a movie and not a history lesson

Normally yes, I'd expect whole new armies. Not this time. Could be me. Could be Scott. But my gut feeling is that movies about battles work better for miniature wargaming than movies about lives. It's not the "small inaccuracies:" many of my favorite movies have large ones. It's that I don't expect this movie to be about the sort of choices miniature wargamers make, the way Waterloo or Zulu were. Mind you, I think that's appropriate for a life of Napoleon--just not the choice which gets castings on the table.

I'd be very happy to be wrong.

Impossible to tell, but the movie Midway had no appreciable effect on aerial gaming that I could discern. (Though it did have an effect on me personally.)

Either a movie's impact on miniatures gaming is dependent on the movie's cultural impact, or we are just not living in a world where movies impact gaming anymore.

What was the last movie you remember causing a change in the gaming environment?

- Ix

Quite possibly.

There's certainly be a huge bunch of new members joining the Test of Honour Facebook group following the release of the trailer for the Shōgun mini series redux starting in February.

I often say seeing the Russian version of War and Peace and Waterloo movies at a young age broubme here still nearly 50 years later. Planning to see it Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Interesting 14. With me it was the other way around. I was desperate at 12 to see Waterloo because I was already a devotee of the Napoleonic Wars. Catching War and Peace on video was just icing on the cake!

Watching European-made war movies like White Tiger changed how I depict certain terrain in my games. For example, Russian villages aren't "Towns', they're a few wooden shacks that tanks burst through without noticing.
Also, if 'Spartacus' didn't prompt you to get a Roman army, you're just not a wargamer.

I've been a miniature wargamer, rules and dice since 1968, Archon, and didn't build a Roman army until last year. News for you.

And only in a movie do you drive a tank through any sort of building. Will you bet your life there's no sunken floor or basement?

I don't think it will translate into more miniature gamers unless the film were really to get specific with units and tactics maybe

But also depends on the audience I guess, if a young mind sees the film and loves it the. That Might inspire them later to research the actual battle histories and fire there imagination that translates
into gaming

Personally it was never any movies that got me interested in napoleonics, it was the paintings from the period and the later 19th century academic painters that did it – it's the cavalry more than anything

I think that is a feeling I am not alone in either – it is the paintings of dragoons, Hussars and cuirassiers that do it

For me mostly books, specifically the Harper Crest Waterloo with the double page painting of the French heavies charging Scottish squares and that was in 1970. Minis ever since with a short layoff for some time in S.E. Asia in USMC

Having just seen Napoleon, I doubt it will inspire much gaming.