Shock and Horror! We staged a Napoleonics game using unpainted 20mm plastic figures. Before you choke on your single-malt whisky and let your fine Havana drop to the ground, let me assure you we have not lowered our standards. After all, the moto of our gaming society still is ‘Visual Appeal is everything!’.

However, there are times where ‘perfect is the enemy of good’. One of our illustrous gentlemen members is busy collecting and painting Napoleonic figures at an alarming rate. In the mean time, we already want to try out some battles - hence the stand-ins in the form of the old faithful 20mm plastics.

Now, I don’t have a strong objection against using unpainted plastics. They provide a sort of childish pleasure, almost a throwback to times when wargaming was much simpler and cheaper. I still remember my first wargaming experiments, using plastic romans as substitutes for Orcs and Elves, and using chalk to draw the battlefield on top of my study table. Fun was had by all, and I still have loads of cheap plastic figures lying around. The visitors to my wargaming garage can testify this.

About our Napoleonic battle then. The rules we use are based on the divisional level wargame found in ‘Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun’ by the late Paddy Griffith. As is usual in our gaming group, we amend and iterate over any ruleset till we have found a workable set of rules that fancies all players in the group. Moreover, I actually did some decent research on this one, reading up on Napoleonic battle tactics and translating my findings into the rules proper. Although is some work, it has produced a very nice result.

The pictures show our game, played on a 8 by 6 feet gaming table. Such a large table definitely adds appeal to the game, and lets you move and manouvre your troops as you see fit.

So it seems it’s been a while since the last post again. Oh well, these things happen in blogging, so let’s not dwell on reasons :)

Anyway, I thought I’d give a quick round up of where I’m at project wise. First up is the GNW project, whose big showing — Crisis 2010 — is coming up with astoundingly alarming alacrity. Thanks to Alan who (re)painted (there’s a long story in those parentheses in the previous word) a boatload of Russians, the project currently stands at:

* 10 battalions of Russian infantry
* 4 squadrons of Russian cavalry
* 7 battalions of Swedish infantry, with no. 8 in the last stretches on my painting table
* 2 squadrons of Swedish infantry
* 2 guns

Apart from an increase in the cavalry and artillery, I think that I’m almost there figure wise. So, next months will see me focusing on cavalry, vignettes and terrain. Pictures of painted stuff to follow as and when.

I’m also in the delightful preparation phases for next year’s project, which I’ve decided will be the 1809 Danube campaign, and specifically the part before Aspern-Essling. This has sprung out of my painting up some Bavarian infantry, and has since somehow transformed into a plan to collect / paint Bavarians, French and Austrians. The initial idea is to base my armies around the battles of Teugen-Hausen and Abensberg, which will give me choices from Davout’s III corps, most of the Bavarian army and all and sundry Austrians. I’m currently reading up on the campaign (John H. Gill’s Thunder on the Danube trilogy, which I recommend strongly) and planning the armies. Funnily enough, I already have most of the figures, both through taking advantage of various discounts at various manufacturers and through scoring Ebay for Austrians (I hate painting white), but there is still plenty to paint.

I’m planning on using big battalions - 36 figures for a French and Bavarian battalion which means 48 for an Austrian and a whopping 60 for an Austrian Hungarian recruited one (ouch - good thing I don’t plan on painting the Austrian infantry myself). Rules will have to be determined — we’re looking at home built rules (by our very own rule writer Phil), Black Powder and Lasalle. I also own a copy of Republic to Empire, but I don’t think I can ‘sell’ that to the group.

Anyway — lot’s going on, as you see :).

… little girls grow up to paint SYW teddy bears:

These are two Eureka Miniatures SYW teddy bears, one of which is painted by me, one by my 6 year old daughter. For those with deep memories, she painted a pink horse quite some time ago and, although she selected the colours on these bears, only the facings turned out to be pink.

Anyway, the idea is to let her paint a few of these at her own pace and see what transpires.

I still need to matt varnish them, but here are the next addition to the Romani Plasticii:

12 Wargames Factory Romans (well, slightly civilised Celts more probably) on horses, for your viewing pleasure.