This blog is about my adventures with what others in my family have described as "your little men". many years ago I amassed a sizeable collection of 1/72 scale plastic figures, mostly Airfix and Esci and covering such periods as WW2, Vietnam, ACW & of course Napoleonics.
My fascination with Napoleonic figures began during childhood and was due to two events that occurred in rapid succession. One was a trip to Dover Castle on a family holiday where there was (to my young eyes at least) a massive diorama of the Battle of Waterloo with thousands of tiny soldiers marching, charging and presumably shooting. the second was watching the 1970 film Waterloo on TV one Sunday afternoon.
Oh. My. Days.
I was blown away by the colourful uniforms, the sheer numbers of extras busily refighting the battle, and the epic cavalry charges.
Fast forwards some years and "the little men" sat in bags and boxes at the back of the wardrobe in the spare room, unplayed with and forever unpainted. Then COVID happened. All of a sudden I was furloughed from my job and had to supervise the home-schooling of my children. The school provided many online resources and we were fortunate enough to have enough old work laptops in the house for them to have one each to work on. Also my kids are academic (natch) and didn't need a lot of help, just someone to be there THE WHOLE TIME to keep them on track when their attention inevitably wandered.
It.
Was.
Soul-destroying.
I was desperate to find something, anything to do to keep me sane. Then I remembered "the little men".
Could that work? Could that be a thing?
That was May 2020. Now 1300 figures later and home-school having finished (Home-school? Completed it mate!) my insurance policy against boredom has become something of an obsession.
I'm keeping going. I'm continuing to paint, and suitably informed by the excellent www.plasticsoldierreview.com, I've been buying reinforcements to fill the gaps in my Napoleonic ranks.
Great armies have been raised and troops mustered. Scenery has been bodged together from unlikely sources. Generals have been appointed and plans formulated. Heroes will rise. There will be battles. Oh yes, there will be battles.
In this blog I'll be trying to record my Napoleonic armies and my solo wargaming endeavours.
Don't expect artful painting - my style can best be summed up as being somewhere between "at least he tried" and "what the £&*! is that supposed to be?" This is going to be cheap (hey, I'm on a budget) and hopefully cheerful. It is also most certain that my uniforms are incorrect and my units unhistorical. I'm just trying to have fun. Hopefully you will too.
Spike.
