Category: Historical

Absolute Emperor: Sacile (1809)

To Napoleon’s surprise, the Austrians decided in early 1809 that Italy belonged to them.  In April of that year Archduke John launched an attack against the northern reaches of Italy, hoping to catch the French forces flat-footed.  He succeeded, but his counterpart, Napoleon’s adopted step-son Eugene opted to give...

Absolute Emperor: Mincio River Scenario (1814)

My efforts to branch out from skirmish wargaming into larger scale battles has borne some pretty tasty fruit.  Osprey’s “Absolute Emperor” has proven to be as easy to play as it is easy to handle.  Large divisions sweep across the field, unwieldy but powerful, and with a minimum of...

Yo Ho Ho

These pirate figures are available from rebelminis.com. they are a joy to paint, full of character, great scopes, who could ask for more? Instead of going with the normal trend of making figures Brown and dirty flat colorless, I went with more of a 1930s Hollywood feel. This look...

So Much For That Idea

Having shuttered War In A Box to streamline my blogging, my very next project is to… Start a new blog. At least this one is something of a one-off.  I’ve always loved the idea of map based wargame campaigns.  There’s something much deeper and richer in the experience.  Instead...

GADD About Miniature Wargames

Hi, everyone.  My name is Jon, and I suffer from Gamer ADD. Well, not so much ‘suffer from’, as ‘revel in’. How can you not, when we have the pleasure of being born in the right time and at the right place to enjoy this late-stage golden-age of the...

A Pirate Looks at Wasted Years

On its surface, Osprey’s “Fighting Sail” is a simple bucket-o-dice pool game, with a breezy little wind-gauge mechanic.  I’m finding that the simplifications necessary to allow for fleet actions turn the chore of managing the wind into a real pleasure.  This game plays so fast and easy that I...

Clever Scenario Design

Wargaming videos make a fine soundtrack for painting sessions, and every once in a while you stumble across a bit of genius you can’t wait to steal.  This wonderful battle report from House of Hengist Comics Wargaming Channel struck me as a novel sort of game, and one of...

More Napoleonic Eye Candy

As promised, a quick comparison of Eureka and Irregular.  As you can see, the former are a full head taller than the latter.  The really mean it when they talk about 18mm vs. 15mm, don’t they?  C’est la vie, they pass the arm’s length test. These three objective markers...

Bit By Napoleon

 It finally happened. Reading through some old Featherstone books, I’ve been bit by the Napoleonics bug.  Maybe it’s age and the fear of not getting to the things I always meant to get to, but whatever the reason, I’m eyeing horse, foot, and guns.  More than eyeing, I’ve been...

New Era, Who Dis?

 Sometimes it do be like dis: Yeah, I made the mistake of re-watching Master and Commander. Naturally, that means I need to get into a new era and scale of wargaming. Happens all the time. I’m going with 1:2400 scale figures and that means tumblingDice.co.uk.  as a complete noob,...