Tuesday 31 October 2017

(Lead) Mountain Musings - "Napoleonics" Mo'Vember 2017

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
This month's themed attempt to try and reduce my ever-increasing horde of metal, plastic and resin models has been directly influenced by my desire to dedicate part of my hobby time towards miniatures of a 'beardy' nature (in celebration of Mo'Vember), as well as my recent acquisition of Bob Cordery's "The Portable Wargame" and sudden desire to play some Napoleonics. Indeed, my yearning to fill a tabletop with some splendidly coloured 28mm forces from 1803-1815 has led to my purchasing an old hardback copy of "Grand Battery" by Jonathan Sutherland & Diane Canwell and "Song Of Drum And Shakos" by "Gamesha Games".

Fortunately, I am not about to embark upon such a time-consuming adventure completely from scratch, having actually tried to paint some "Victrix" French six years ago for a 'Battle of Marengo' project. That naive undertaking was perhaps always destined to fail, but it did cause me to purchase a considerable number of plastic Napoleonic infantry and cavalry, as well as actually paint sixteen Frenchmen up; albeit I don't seem to have applied any flags to their command stand... 
"Victrix" Napoleonic French WIPs - All of the soldiers' trousers have been painted
As I plan on getting to grips with the rule-set's basics by simply deploying just eight musket-armed infantry units (8 @ 4 SP each = 32 SP; Rated Average), and a Commander (1 @ 6 SP each = 6 SP), this means I already own almost half of the foot-soldiers needed for my first foray into "The Portable Wargame". Of course though, that still means I need to paint another twenty of Napoleon's finest, 'picking out' all their straps, cuffs, water bottles and stowage... and I haven't even mentioned their similarly sized Austrian opposition yet.


Realistically therefore, considering all the other painting projects and models I want to pigment over the next few months, I've decided to set a relatively low-bar of completing just four figures per month, and hope that before my enthusiasm for the project wanes too much I manage to finish enough soldiers off to at least start a few straightforward skirmishes; something which as a rule ordinarily helps reinvigorate my mojo. In addition, once I've completed these initial four Frenchmen I plan to start work on a few of their "oldest and, next to the English, the most persistent" of their "foemen", the white-coated Austrians.
Ronnie Salvage WIPs - The dwarf has had his boots and leg tassels 'picked out'
Sticking with 'beardy' miniatures for Mo'Vember, I have also been slapping a lick of paint onto one of my favourite miniatures from "Rumbleslam" by "TTCombat". Arguably, "the showiest, flashiest and most charismatic dwarf you are ever going to see! Ronnie Salvage is one of the superstars" of the Cornwall-based company's fantasy wrestling rule-set and has clearly been inspired by the late Macho Man Randy Savage.

As a huge fan of the old "World Wrestling Federation", and Randy Mario Poffo in particular, I have been picking up a number of this "fast paced high action" tabletop game's plastic figures since I first bought the "Rumbleslam" Starter Box towards the start of the year; the majority of which have clearly been modelled upon old-time professional wrestlers. So don't be at all surprised to see a few crop up over the next few weeks as I look to (re)assemble The Mega-Powers, The Bushwhackers and Legion Of Doom... 

32 comments:

  1. Well I didn't see the Napoleonics coming, but what better theme for the month.

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    1. Thanks Michael. I do try and keep my historical leanings in check, but simply can't help myself sometimes and find myself irresistibly led to Napoleonics ;-)

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  2. Napoleonics isn't my thing but the models are looking good Simon, Macho Man is looking good, was always a fan of the LOD should be very interesting seeing you do Hawks face paint !

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    1. Cheers Dave. LOD are tentacled/crab-clawed mutants in "Rumbleslam", so they should prove a lot of fun to paint :-)

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  3. Never pegged you for a Napoleonic gamer Simon, but good luck. I have a copy of Grand Battery and it did inspire to get back into the genre.

    As a fan of the old school WWE you had to love the Macho Man and the Ultimate Warrior. I love the dwarf mate

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    1. Thanks Andy. I'm hoping a simple goal will ease me back into Napoleonics. As for "WWF", well "TTCombat" have just released an Ultimate Warrior character, and he's been ordered immediately :-)

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  4. Good luck with the napoleonics! You are already further in than my aborted attempt!

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    1. Cheers Paul. Perhaps its a project I can encourage you to return to? ;-)

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  5. Napoleonics? It must be something to do with the long dark nights or something, but it's about this time of year that I always think about "traditional historicals" ;-)
    Completely unexpected Simon, but I love your theme for the month - and when the Austrians have had their white primer applied, they're almost finished! ;-)

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    1. Thanks Greg. You're so right about winter and historicals, and the Austrians being all-white!! I figure if I'm ever going to own a painted French Nap force now is probably the last time I'm going to be able to try; it'll be a 3-4 year project!!

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  6. This blog sure does have a diverse subject matter! The battlefield pictures of your soldiers at the top look really good and almost make me want to paint some Napoleonics. I stress almost as I don't think I could cope with them to be honest. I look forward to see what you come up with in this genre. The dwarf from Rumbleslam looks hugely characterful and I can't wait to see how he turns out I have to admit. The models in the range look very interesting and I would be interested in your views on the quality of them and also the game? Also it is nice to see the Boromite tracker up to 14 as well. A very interesting read as always and you have inspired me to a bit of painting so I am off to slap some paint on metal!

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    1. Cheers Undercoat. "Diverse" is undoubtedly my middle name, whilst yours is probably "Flitter"? ;-P I do recall you considering doing the British when I first voiced my desire for a 28mm Napoleonic campaign six years ago, but that could be age playing tricks on me.

      "Rumbleslam" seems to have suddenly started making a blog breakthrough, and there's been a few posts cropping up on wargamer sites over the past few weeks; perhaps the latest wave of minis has really caught the imagination?

      The Boromite tally tracker will be momentarily taking a breather, but not for long, as I'm determined to get those alien miners finished before 2017 is over :-)

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  7. An "Oh yeah!" from Macho, and a quick "Woooooo!" from the Nature Boy for good measure. Though I was more of a Bret Hart fan myself, back in the day. I only get to watch the free-to-view (TNA) Impact nowadays, so I don't know if you'd follow any reference to the 'Demon Assassin' and 'Leader of the Hive' Rosemary that I made? (I'd love to see a figure of Rosemary in all her face-paint and shambling pose)

    I didn't expect to see you painting Napoleonics. I'm thinking I might just need to start a 28mm historical project, and Naps is always going to be a sensible choice. Only wish I hadn't sold off the majority of my uniform books :(

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    1. Ah... I too thought the Hitman was the best wrestler ever, Roy, and was always disappointed that him winning the WWF belt off of Ric Flair was never part of a tournament, and thus hard to track down and watch on VHS.

      Hopefully some Napoleonics will become somewhat commonplace on this blog for a few months to come, as I slowly work my well through my collection. Fortunately, I didn't sell off my books, and have simply dusted them down ready to help me get those cuff-link colours just right, or not ;-)

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  8. excellent and eclectic post Simon.

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  9. Napoleonics is where I started back in the very late 60`s (its how I first got to know Don Featherstone in fact). Even now my heart quickens a pace when I see a magazine article, or a blog article about this amazing piece of history. I game in this era using 8mm (Perry Miniatures) and terrain.. which allows me to do anything from Marengo to Waterloo all on the space of a 2 or 3 foot game area; and oh BOY oh boy does it look stunning in this `grand old scale`.

    Best of luck with your fighting 28`s Simon. Second I spied this post it bought a happy smile to my face.

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    1. i'm delighted you enjoyed this one, Steve, and was thinking about your "Perry Miniatures" as I typed it. 8mm certainly does appear a good scale for such a 'grande armee'. However, I thought I'd give 28mm a go first and see where it takes me :-)

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  10. I, too, never pegged you for a Napoleonic gamer, but if that's your bag then go for it.

    Of far more interest to me is Ronnie Salvage as I'm about to start a series of "Rumbleslam" posts on my blog. I was also a big fan of the WWF as it was then called, and then the WWE.

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    1. There seems to be a few people suddenly posting about "Rumbleslam", Bryan, so its clearly taken off in some areas, and considering how cool the "WWF" imitation models are I can see why. Expect plenty of "WWF" references and memories over the next few weeks as I pick off a couple of my favourite models - the entire model collection for that game is quite staggering already!!

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  11. I think like everyone starting in wargaming Napoleonics was the go to period - it was for me. It wasn't long though that I decided any attempt at Napoleonics old lead ot eventual madness, everyone changes uniformas, the armies are huge and the major battles even more so. Good luck with anything you do involving Napoleonics and beware the madness setting in!

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    1. Cheers Joe, that's sound advice Ref madness, hence I only plan to dabble with four minis a month, and see where that takes me.

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  12. Good luck with the latest project/project continuation. :)

    I briefly contemplated Nappies 25 years ago, but ultimately not the path for me.

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    1. Thanks Leon. I suppose like so many of my projects time will eventually tell how I do. Enthusiasm is high currently though :-)

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  13. I've been looking into Rumbleslam and it says the miniatures are resin - is that right? And if so, what did you do the figures before undercoating - did you have to wash them or anything?

    Only ever attempted to paint a resin figure once. It was a failure, with the undercoat paint evaporating off the material so I just gave up and have never tried another resin since.

    I'll go and ask Bryan Scott, over on his Rumbleslam post, then I can get a couple of blogger's opinions.

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    1. Hi Roy. Tbh they're far closer to plastic than resin imho; probably a superior version of restic - nowhere near as poor as "Mantic Games" "Dreadball" stuff. I simply undercoat them as normal and then paint away. I've had no problems so far using "Vallejo" and "Citadel" paints.

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    2. Thanks for the reply. It was a Black Scorpion resin miniature that I attempted to paint, that went wrong. Obviously everyone else can paint resin figures, so it must be me doing something wrong. Cheers.

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    3. Just spotted there's a .pdf over on the TTC. website showing painting methods for the figures, and it all looks straight forward. Army Painter/Citadel/Vallejo paints are shown to be used, so I should be able to work it all out :)

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    4. No worries Roy. I've not had any problems with "Black Scorpion" resin miniatures; albeit I've only got their Old West Terrors and their Tombstone: Earps, so have primed them simply black.

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    5. Interesting Roy, I'd not seen that PDF before. I actually pin my "Rumbleslam" minis together, as I found the plastic to be very easy to drill and secure. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing some of your painted wrestlers :-)

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  14. What a RUSH! LoD was m fav tagteam from the 80's and 90's. Can't wait to see your verions.

    Napoleonics!? Are you insane!? :) They do look smashing though. Those uniforms were splendid affairs.

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    1. Thanks Dai. LOD have arrived and joined my painting queue. Plenty of Naps to come over the next few months - I hope :-)

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