Passing this along…
For a quarter century Napoleon's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was one of the premier gaming stores in the United States and a focal point of gaming in the Midwest. Fritz Buchholtz was the Oz behind the curtain, the driving force, founder and owner of Napoleon's. Fritz passed away Tuesday.
Fritz opened Napoleon's in 1979. Prior to Napoleon's, Fritz had worn many hats from concert promoter, salesman, stakes in various taverns and restaurants and owner of a famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) shop, Sanctum Regnum, in Milwaukee. But from 1979 forward, he took a beloved hobby and turned it into a thriving business and in the process, created an iconic gaming store in Milwaukee that attracted gamers from far and wide.
Napoelon's was a gamer's game store. If you pictured in your mind's eye what a game store should look like, Napoleon's would have surpassed it. Regimental flags and military artwork covered the walls, suits of armor and the weapons of war from bronze-age swords to WWII machine guns filled all of the nooks and crannies. 4000 square feet of products from Ancients to moderns, fantasy to sci-fi in every scale filled the walls from floor to ceilings (often requiring step ladders or crouching on your knees to see it all).
If you had an interest…wargaming, role-play, chess, military books, boardgames…Napoleon's could scratch that itch. On any given weekend, one might see a dozen different games of all genres and periods being played.
A trip to Napoleon's always included a stop in the man himself's office. The wafting smoke of a meerschaum pipe usually greeted you first. A prominent bust of Napoleon stood in front of a huge customer-created copy of Antoine-Jean Gros' Battle of the Pyramids that completely covered one wall. Behind an ancient desk piled high with military books and maps and rules for the latest campaign, sat Fritz. Inside the office you could join conversations about politics, history and of course gaming that included people of all walks of life from high school students to construction workers and from business men to college professors or local police officers. And always at the center of it all was Fritz.
Fritz was the writer of "Grand Tactics" a corps level set of Napoleonic Wargame rules for 28mm figures at a 30-1 scale. At its height, the Napoleonic gaming club he started in Milwaukee had more than 50 members playing campaigns that would span years. The group had players traveling regularly from surrounding states to play day-long games with 1500 figures on each side of a 30 x 8 foot gaming table…and each game was only a portion of the larger campaign.
Sadly, Napoleon's closed its doors in 2005. After Napoleon's closed, Fritz owned and managed a bar and restaurant until ultimately retiring a few years ago.
Few people in the Midwest who game…anything…do not have many fond memories of Napoleon's. I spent much of my free time there from my pre-teen to adult years. And of those fond memories, almost all of them involve Fritz.
paints some fast cats.
