It's funny what gets you started on a particular period. Me, I've always had a strange fascination for bicornes. I remember as a child staring for hours at Detaille's famous painting of Revolutionary French infantry pushing an artillery piece forward, noting the expressions on the soldiers' faces and the different ways they all wore that same bicorne. I even remember a dream I used to have over and over again as a child, in which I am a French soldier desperately fighting with my comrades up the stairs of some unknown citadel. Guess what kind of headgear I was wearing in the dream? French soldiers with bicornes were the first thing I looked for when I started with toy soldiers, but alas, everything available wore shakoes.
All of these memories came roaring back one sunny aftemoon at Historicon 91, when I chanced upon Jim Purky's Napoleonic garne. Jim, a Wargaming Brutha Extraordinaire, had a circa 1805 Prussian-French action going on that was eye-catching in the extreme. Hundreds of well-painted soldiers graced a table complimented with buildings by the famous lan Weekley. Of importance to my jaded wargaming self was the fact that I had never seen any of these figures before and had no idea who the manufacturer could be. I don't think I have to bore you by mentioning what type of headgear the French forces were wearing.
Within micro-seconds I'd decided Jim was a Wargaming God and I had to be his disciple. Please may I hover about the table, I asked. Easy-going Jim replied in the affimmative. Who makes these I begged. The objects of my affection were 25mm offerings of Old Glory's limited edition French infantry, available with two choices of headgear, shakoes or bicomes. Yes, I'd heard of them, having read reviews in MWAN, but the significance hadn't struck me at the time, as I recall the ads mentioned pre-1805 and post-1805 headgear. Hit me with a club, it takes a bit for some things to sink in, eh? Anyway, I knew immediately a bicomed French ammy would be my next project.
Now despite all the interest mentioned earlier, I knew next to nothing about Napoleonics. Truthfully, the idea of gaming the period had left me cold. Games I'd seen previously seemed ponderous with their rules, and articles I'd read seemed overly scholarly or downright pompous. I really didn't think I knew enough to game Napoleonics.
Gratitude
Here is where I owe a debt of gratitude to Jim Purky. Jim single-handedly educated me into the realm of Napoleonics. We quickly started up a correspondence in which Jim would send me volumes of neatly printed information on the era, the uniforms, the unit tables of organization and the like. I copied his unit sizes, his basing sizes - I used all his ideas, 'cause they were good. Jim explained to me his army was built along the lines of the famous French 1805 formations, and he suggested I work towards creating Davout's III Corps for that era. (Once I realized Davout was bald-headed, near-sighted, and cranky, I was hooked, because I'm bald-headed, near-sighted and cranky). Jim and I had both discovered we were equal megalomaniacs, willing to buy and paint vast amounts of lead to form large units and large armies. It was after all, as Jim had said, the look of the thing.
Davout
Thus the idea to recreate DaVout's III Corps was born. Jim already had the other corps needed for that period. Our grand plan at the time was that if I did get this idea off the ground and actually painted what I said I would do, we would someday wargame the battle of Austerlitz.
Whoa, I hear you say. Aren't you creating a French army, and doesn't Jim just have Prussians to fight? Well, I said we were meglomaniacs. You see, I knew I'd need somebody to oppose, but I really thought the Prussians sucked. Jim was getting ready to start painting Russians for the era recently available from Elite Miniatures, and me, I'd always kinda liked those white Austrian uniforms.......
Thus the idea to recreate an entire Austrian army for the 1805 era was born as well. I was starting to sweat. Like crack cocaine, I was getting deeply into this thing quickly. I'd made a decision to paint two armies that would equal the total amount of painted troops I currently had on hand for all eras. I wondered how long it would take. I wondered how much it would cost.
We both liked large units, and the size for each foot regiment was 60 men, with each horse regiment being twenty men. There were three divisions in DaVout's III Corps, one with five regiments, the other two with four regiments each. While I didn't want to create exactly all the support cavalry, the look of the thing remained important, so l decided 8 cavalry regiments would do the trick. (Hey, if you're looking for a scholarly approach to all this, go read something else). Regarding artillery, as they say, do the math. I didn't know exactly what the historical breakdown was, but with around 800 troops on the table, I figured about 21 guns would look right.
When considering the Austrians, I didn't feel like spending a lot of time with historical research, but I did want more Austrians than French. I decided to build four divisions of foot rather than the three for the French. Artillery and cavalry would be comparable to the French. While I insured my French organization was close to historically correct, I just took regimental names available from the Osprey Campaign Series booklet on Austerlitz for the Austrians and didn't bother with the official organizations of the larger formations.
So now I knew I needed around 2000 painted troops before I was ready to have a game. Nothing to it.
Where was I going to get all these troops? How could I possibly afford it? These were the immediate burning questions. As noted before, the Old Glory line definitely had to be the foundation for the French army, but each limited edition boxed set cost $150 and I needed at least six of them. Old Glory had no cavalry I wanted, so l would need to use the lines available from Elite and Hinchliffe. I was looking at spending at least $3.50 per cavalryman, and I needed 160 cavalry. We haven't got around to talking about the Austrians or the artillery yet. Lucky I am not, so counting on winning the lottery was out of the question. I'm married, so becoming a gigolo to a rich older woman wasn't feasible. However, my good friend Ray Bramer will tell you I am a painting whore, and that is true. I will happily drop what I am painting in a minute to paint for others, so I can make a buck. With that in mind, I picked up the phone and called Russ Dunaway, the good-natured and competent owner of Old Glory - a few days after I'd sent him some painted samples. We exchanged pleasantries, I discovered he'd liked the samples, and yes, he did need some painting work done.
Meglomaniac
Matter of fact, Russ was a megalomaniac as well. What was "some" figures to him, would be a whole lotta figures to somebody else. I now had a large amount of my French army paid for and on it's way, but I also had a large painting obligation to meet first.
No problem. I got started. He sent me about four hundred American Civil war figures and I knocked them out in record time. Flushed with success and newly found confidence, I sought out more painting commissions and found them. Soon I could justify sending several hundred dollars for my French and Austrian cavalry to Elite Miniatures. Two good things happened as I was starting to build my armies.
First, Russ had recently released 25mm Napoleonic Austrian infantry in helments and Elite had started an Austrian range as well. The fates appeared to be with me. I sought out more commissions in order to buy the Austrians. Mind you I hadn't got around to painting anything for myself yet. I did have a good dose of the Napoleonic bug, however. A lucky purchase of Hinchliffe French at a flea market gave me the last of my needed cavalry, and selective purchases from other ranges like Front Rank gave me diversity in my command stands.
By now it was almost ten months from the time I'd first set eyes on Jim's figures. I had managed to be busy in some other areas, as my wife was now pregnant with my beautiful daughter, Dana. While the rest of you might think me a maggot, my state job allowed me the option of taking up to four months p~ud sick leave in conjunction with her pregnancy. Now I've been working in a prison for twenty years, so I jumped at the chance. What better time was there to start this painting journey of a thousand miles?
I based and primed and built soldiers, becawe the Old Glory French came headless and in some cases, armless. This was a bit tedious and fiddly, but oooh, does it give beautiful results. From this construction was bom the idea to make all my figure stands into mini-dioramas. Call me arrogant, but I wanted these to be more than armies for gaming. I wanted this to be a collection, awesome to behold. The diversity of the Old Glory figuecs really assisted this goal, and as I grew inspired by the results, I started hacking at arms and heads of other figuecs to create as remarkable a collection as was possible. It became important to have every command stand unique, with differently posed figures on each.
Started
When I started painting, I soon reamed that the Awtrians were going to go a whole lot faster than the French. Matter of fact, I can now say from experience that anything you could paint, even eyeballs on flies, would go a lot faster than French. I paint assembly line style, in this case wually 30-60 figures at a crack. In this manner the French have 28 different colors that need to be applied to each uniform, including all those nasty little lines on the collars and cuffs, as well as the buttons, and the exploding grenade on the tumbacks, and don't forget the tri-color. I hate the man that invented the French uniform.
If nothing else, it became quickly apparent all of this painting was going to be an excellent exercise in self-discipline. To pace myself, I broke the painting into stages. In that first four months, there was a pleasant routine of feed baby, paint while she naps. I soon had one French and one Austrian foot division complete. That summer I knocked out the French cavalry. In the fall, I completed all the artillery. (I scoffed at the ease with which I accompished that. I was getting to be a good, fast painter). The winter was spent with another Austrian division and a couple more French regiments. At this point mass burn-out set in. With the approaching Spring and good weather, I decided to base all these guys and give a game a try.
Now basing sizes were not difficult, because as mentioned, I was copying Jim's sizes. Terrain on the bases was another issue. I've always admired the terrain placed on bases by Kevin Dallimore, of the British-based painting team known as Special Forces. If you read Wargames Illustrated or Practical Wargamer, you've seen his work in the ads and hobby photographs for both. Good English acquaintance John Treadaway once sent me a Franco-Prussian gun crew painted and based by Kevin, and nothing else I've ever seen surpasses what he does. Like anything else I do in this hobby, I decided to plagarize his technique. I came very close, and every time I play the Napoleonic game in public several people will ask how the basing was done.
How it's Done
First off, the important thing is contrast. The sand colored mixture contrasts with the green colored static grass. The static grass and the sand colored mixture contrast with the uniform colors of the figures you painted. Contrast is pleasing to the eye and also makes the colors jump out, so your figures are not drab and boring. What the hell do I mean by all this? Okay, I sent Hal a picture of the troops on a base so you'll see what I'm talking about. Again, I refer you to those glossy magazines. Kevin is the guy that does that neat thing with figures' knuckles. Find the figures whose knuckles stick out and look at the bases.
For those of you more concrete, take white glue and pour a bunch in a bowl. Add muddy brown paint, but not much. Take one of those Dulcote bottles of thick paint you gd from the crafts sections of department stores. Turn it upside down, and watch it go glop-glop twice. That's enough. Now add birdcage sand or fine railroad ballast from Woodland Scenics, about twice to three times as much white glue as you put in.
Finally, add water, but again, not much. I suggest to add a little and stir, until you get a soup-like concoction. Now it will pour on the buea, or spread easily with a small knife or similar object. Once you're used to this and foel daring, add coarse railroad ballast in the initial mixture, as this makes the stuff lump up into more interesting terrain. Now walk away for one to three days until the stuff is rock hard. You should be left with a muddy brown mixture that looks like cheap dried concrete. Now you want to highlight the brown with some creamy off-white or tan color.
After that, touches of static grass in strategic locations accent the terrrain you've just created. I take white glue lightly thinned with water and dab the glue where I want the grass to go, stick the base in the grass, then sit it uide to dry. Shake off the excess grass before spraying with fixative. Now you know all I know about basing.
Back to the Project
So anyway, I spent the Spring basing Sgures. This was no small project as I easily had around 1000 figures by then. The results exceeded expectations, and also fulfilled the secondary goal, further inspiring me to paint still more figures. I decided to spend that Summer and Autumn painting Austrian cavalry and a couple more French regiments. For painting guides I used all the usual sources available in the hobby, but drew mostly from Funcken and Osprey publications, as well as the valuable detail information sent by Jim Purkey.
By now this monster project was well seated in reality, considering all the finished troops on hand. It was time to start thinking seriously about the accessories. For me, that meant rules and buildings.
I planned on buying my buildings, and there are only two places I buy my buildings from - Herb Gundt of H. G. Walls, and Tom Milmore of Milmore Models. Both of these guys are talented craftsmen in the extreme and I shalom before their collective expertise. Painting and terraining I can do, but why mess around with a building when I can describe the idea of a structure I want to Tom, and he'll send me exactly what I dreamed of, and probably more? For both of these men buildings are a labor of love, and your wargames table will never look better than when you grace it with one or two structures created by them. Both have had photographs of their work published in English glossiest I think the work of either of them put the famous Ian Weekley to shame.
But enough accolades for the lads. Good work is always expensive, so I approached purchases from them as I did buying all the figures. Once again I was back to painting for others in order to raise cash. I wanted a small village of stucco and tile buildings, including a church, a walled farm complex, three or four other buildings and some walls for effect. Since the buildings would be a major investment, I wanted the buildings as versatile as possible, going with my Franco-Prussian and WW II periods as well. It took about two years of carefully planned purchases, but in the end, I had everything I was looking for. Again, patience and self-discipline was important here. A limited pocket-book helped a lot with patience and self-discipline, by the way.
Finally, there was the issue of rules. You'd think after copying Jim on everything else, I would have just snapped up his rules. Alas, this could not be the case. Jim you see, uses Rusty's Rules.
Now I have met Dennis Smail, who I understand is the major force behind Rusty's Rules. A pleasant, personable human he is and I will so declare for the record, but I don't like his rules at all. I've played them with Jim and I've played them with Bob Marshall. Both of these fine men seem to comprehend the complexities that are Rusty's Rules, but for me, they're like algebra and geometry all rolled into one. There's too many tables and too much math. I also don't think the rules make a lot of sense, but that's a debate for another time. Finally, they went way too slo-o-w. For games with hundreds of figures, they wouldn't work. I wanted a set of rules that would provide for a fast game and an entertaining game. I wanted rules that were easy to leam and remember, wouldn't require much math, and wouldn't require more than quick reference to the tables in the rules. From these objectives, the rules War Ain't Fair were born.
War Ain't Fair Rules
I've always thought miniature wargames rules were way too fair, considering they're about war. Matter of fact, we go out of our way to insure that every little possibility is considered and put into the rules because, by gosh, that's fair. We might even get lucky and have rules that are "realistic" when we're done. Naturally this never happens. The more we try to provide for every possibilty, the further away we get from reality and the more opportunities we provide for rules lawyers looking for loopholes. Now war seems to me to be an exercise that is decidedly unfair. Everything I've read or heard shows you try to surprise your opponent to create an opportunity. Once you've gained that opportunity, you not only knock him down, you kick him good and hard while he's down. Not very fair, but you want to win, you see.
Unfair
I've always wanted a set of rules that focused on the unfaimess of war. When thinking about how to do it, I considered another game I've always felt was fun and challenging - paintball. In paintball, there's not a whole lot of rules. Shoot the other guy with a paint pellet. Don't get shot yourself. Capture the flag.
That about covers it. The rest is up to you and your mates. You devise the stategy and tactics and employ them against any problems you encounter. The game can be challenging and you're thinking all the time. It's a heckuva lotta fim, yet there's not many rules to it.
Now if you're following me on this, so far I wanted a game that could be grossly unfair, didn't have a lot of written rules, and yet could be enjoyable, challenging and rewarding. I know that sounds a lot like playing the stock market, but remember, we're on the hobby topic here.
With these thoughts in the back of my mind, I happened to read an issue of Wally Simon's PW Review. Wally's short newsletter is one of the classics of wargaming. It reads well, is always entertaining and funny, and tends to be very enlightening as well. Wally frequently tries new rules sets and a variety of homegrown rules provided by his talented gaming buddies. Usually he writes on both the good points and bad points of these rules, and it is from here the enlightenment comes. In the issue in question Wally was expoundimg on a set of rules that used the traditional deck of cards, but in a new way. The cards played generated actions for the tiny troops, and the type of card - ace, face, joker - dictated the number of actions.
I liked that idea a whole bunch. I figured each army would get a card for each unit in the army. Therefore an army with eight regiments of foot, one regiment of cavalry and one gun battery would get ten cards. The cards would be given to the players, and they would be played when it was their turn, the turn sequence being you go - I go. As Wally dictated, each card would have an action power, depending on it's type. If it was a joker it had four actions, an ace three actions, a face card two actions and a number card one action. Since this was for multi-player convention games, I decided that each player should play one card each turn, regardless of how many cards were available per side. Thus if there were five players on the Austrian side, five cards would be played, and if there were four players on the French side, four would be played. This process would be repeated until each side's cards were exhausted. Pretty simple stuff.
After that, I created only the basic physics kinds of rules. You know, the gun can shoot so far. The unit can march this far in one turn. Morale is decided by certain happenings, and melee works a certain way. And that was pretty much it.
No kidding. It blows people away at first when I tell them, you're the general, what do you want to do? The actions on the card gives you the freedom to work towards your goals, so use your actions. By the way, a multiple action card doesn't have to be played on just one unit. It can be used on multiple units. Here's how it could work. In this game the enemy could play an ace, giving him three actions. He's got three regiments of cavalry near each other, staring at your artillery. He decides to take two of his actions and move his two flank cavalry regiments directly behind the center regiment.
On his third action, he charges your artillery with this mass of sixty cavalry. Things are looking tense for those lonely gunners, but hark! Their commander has a joker, wortb four actions. Smugly he plays his joker in the hole, and begins to punish the charging riders with artillery volleys, using the modifiers against dense columns and allowing for cannister fire on that last round. Ranks depleted by fire, there's a chance the cavalry will fail it's morale and be forced to turn away. Tbere's an equal chance the riders will take heart and ride down the guns, forcing the gunners to break away. If that's the case, the cavalry will spend a face card next turn, using an action to spike the guns and another action to ride on.
That's one of the ways to use the rules. Obviously there's much more that can be accomplished. A lot depends on tbe player's "feeling the force", if you will. As I said, it kinda shocks people when I tell them to do what they want. Many stick to the kind of plodding they're used to from stock rules sets, and spend the game frittering away their opportunities, mostly because they're too timid to take a chance - or unbelieveably, aren't ruthless enough to beat their opponent too bad. With a few others you see them get a "team in their eye as they comprehend, and then the game allows some exciting examples of generalship. People have massed cavalry on the flanks and ended the game in a turn.
Others have put their infantry in dense columns one behind the other and drove a hole through the center. Still others have performed classic "Watch my fist" manuevers that set the enemy up for a fight on one flank, only to slam into their open-mouthed competition on the other flank. I coutd go on, and I have, but I think you have an idea tbat I feel this is a cool set of rules that achieved all the goals I was looking for. It can be quick - one game was over in an hour and a half - and it's always decisive, you're never lefl wondering who won. With over two thousand figures on the table, a result is always gained in three to four hours, making it an excellent set of convention rules.
What's Left?
Well, not much. As I was first producing the rules, I still had several hundred figures left to paint. I managed to eventually have a game, which was well accepted, as noted above, and I continued to paint. I still do to this day, with at least a division each of Austrians and French to go. Mind you, I finished my set goals about two years ago, but that's why this article is called "The Black Hole of Wargaming," you can never have enough Napoleonic figures. What would I do different? I don't think I would change anything.
As much as anything, I think I'm most proud of actually fimishing the project. To show the duration of time spent, remember my daughter was just born when I started to paint these armies. When I was fnally ready for a game with all the buildings, rules and most of the figures complete, she was four years old and helping me terrain the felt cloth we would be gaming on. Remember the old Oriental expression, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Step." I am no different than you. so if I can paint for that long, you can too.
So how about the game? I'm happy with the results. The game looks good on the table. Many of my stands are made up into tiny dioramas as was planned, making for a visual treat for the observer. The rules play easily. and most participating gamers ask for a copy of the rules once the game is over, which is always a good sign. The entire project was a worthwhile experience that brought me into contact with many people I would otherwise have had no reason to meet. Finally, I have to once again thank Jim Purkey, because without his inspiration, encouragement and instruction. I'd still be deep int hat black hole of wargaming, wondering how to get started. Now Jim, about that Austerlitz project...
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© Copyright 1998 Hal Thinglum
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