Vive l'empereur!

The order has been placed, money has changed hands, and 144 enthusiastic Frenchmen are now rallying around the Eagles anxious to put Matt's redcoats (not to mention greencoats and blackcoats!) in their place...

We've ordered a brigade's worth of French infantry- plastic Perry figures- from Mabuhay Miniature Painting Service in the Philippines in an effort to beef up the French forces for our Black Powder Napoleonic games.  Being a club purchase, the idea is also to have some units available for those who wish to participate in our games and who do not yet have any miniatures painted for it (although they would certainly be encouraged to paint units of their own should they get hooked on the period!).

Fons at MMPS has been very quick and helpful in responding to our enquiries, and we hope to see the new contingent come off the transports here in Tokyo sometime around the middle of July or so.

When they get here, I'll just have to base them and add the flags, and then they'll be ready to go.  Just for Giovanni, I think I'll give one battalion a flag for a regiment raised in Torino (although at that time a part of France).  That's so those southerners from the Kingdom of Naples don't reap all the tabletop honours for Italy.

Rumour has it that Brian has finally been overcome with enthusiasm pour l'empereur, and that he too is now raising a contingent to help liberate Europe from itself.  Perhaps we will put on a training scenario for him at our next game.

*****

As Giovanni mentioned,  we had an exciting game of Saga last week, and it was really a lot of fun.  An interesting- and I think, successful- blend of miniatures and board game mechanisms, which gave a game that felt like a Dark Ages bash should have been like!

 

Rod painted this fantastic Viking warlord and  attendant beserkers!
Gripping Beast miniatures.

"I'll be back!"

"Save my sorry ass, men!"

The Vikings found themselves ultimately frustrated by a stubborn Anglo-Saxon defence that saw Giovanni's Housecarls hurl themselves in front of his kickass warlord, saving him from the fury of our elite Úlfhéðnar beserkers at the heavy cost of many of his finest retainers- a cost, it must be said, that Giovanni had no hesitation in paying.

It was fun using my old, now vertically-challenged Perry-designed Citadel Vikings again.  The last time they saw action was 1987!

A great game, and one I'd like to play again in the future.

And happy holidays to Giovanni!  

-Robert

News and a few thoughts

HI All,

I hope the typhoon of last night wasn't too bad for all of you, I was stuck in the train for 3 hours, but being seated and having my I pod I managed to enjoy some movies. I finished watching the Dirty Dozen and I started the Big Red 1, good movies and with the carriage being shaken by the strong wind it was almost like being on the battlefield.

This morning I payed for the room for our session in August on the 19th. Thanks Brian for booking the room, it is great to have your help.

The next 2 events then, are on the 15th of July and on the 19th of August, there is plenty of time before the events, but I would strongly suggest to start planning for your next game, contacting people and painting figures (for those who do).

Last weekend we met at my apartment (wife and kids are in Italy right now!) and we gave a try to the Saga Rules from Gripping beast. There where some fantastic miniatures from Rod's collection of superbly painted Vikings, some hyper old (mouth watering) Vikings from Robert, you can see some photos here)
Least but not last my Heroic-Bad ass-Super hard core Anglo Saxons.

The game went really well and it was a lot of fun, the vikings were attacking a village and the Saxons had to defend and repel the pagan menace, we also threw in some civilian figures to give that litle extra realism to the game.
Soon I will be able to post some pictures please bear with me.

I would also like to thank all the blogger that have been posting their comments and I would like to encourage them to keep writing us! Thank you lads.

The Battlefield in a Box river sections ended being a very low level gaming product, poorly manufactured.
The retailer I bought it from said that all other stock they have is in the same condition as what I bought and that they would refund me if I ship at my expenses those peices back. Well that's not gonna happen! in the end I will glue those sections on woode boards and we will repaind them.

The question I asked myself is what was the point of buying prepainted terrain pieces?
I ame to teh conclusion and confirmation of my thoughts about wargaming that it is a work of love and passion, when you try to make it a sort of supermarket-like product it looses its quality and credibility. That's sad!
This is about it, I will be away untli mid July in my home town of Turin enjoying friends, family and the occasional giant Italian style party with tons o' food and wine.

See you soon

Giovanni

Some thoughts about miniatures and life

Hi All,

Today while thinking about life and employment, a lightning struck me with an idea for a poll, or better an exchange of opinions. As you all know in the last few years the internet has helped the war-gaming community enormously, not least us in Japan! Thanks to blogs, I had the chance to find other war-gamers and thanks to this blog some war-gamers have found us with the great result of allowing us to enjoy what seemed impossible to do in Japan (war-gaming). So the point I was roaming about is about time management, and figure painting. I didn’t include gaming as it is not something we can manage ourselves, we always need a mate to play. The idea came by looking a different blogs of people with huge collections of painted miniatures, and people doing historical re-enactment while war-gaming and painting. I am jealous! Of course I would love to do all those things, but family, work and worst of all commuting puts my painting time to a merely 1 hour a day, but only when I can do it. There are some days in fact where I am so tired that I can only watch TV as it is a passive past time, while painting is not.

Still I am one of the lucky guys that can paint in the evening, other people can only paint at weekends, and some other can only do that some times!



A solid week of painting from Saturday to the following week's Sunday



The question then raises, to all those people with fully painted armies, historical re-enactment costumes, gaming rooms, families and jobs, how do you manage?



My heavy Italian artillery



Is it for example that people living in the west have shorter working hours and very short commuting time?

Please enlighten me and the other members of the club!

Cheers

Giovanni