Newbie questions

[Ithoriel]

Wot? Vicky and her cousin Vinny? Vinny, Vedi and Vicky who wrote "La tragedia di Giulio Cesare" first produced in La Scalectrix in Mile End? 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Thanks Mollinary, those are the chaps (post changed to match)

Wasn't Vinnie and Vicky's second opera 'The Pirates of Plymouth', didn't really take off due to the ship being boarded in the first act by HM customs and excise?

[sebigboss79]

cheers both!

I will be playing a few games with my mates soon from different periods. I know they have recently bought and now play with Vietnam sets.

I understand what you are saying but Napoleonics still "float my boat" as i have a fair bit of knowledge thanks to my living history and i find the period really interesting and i just love the tactics, uniforms / style etc

Paul

As stated before. Join a club. Most clubs invite guest for an evening or two for free so you can get a feel.

10mm means you will be expanding fairly quickly to other eras than Napoleonics. Concerning Basing and painting I recommend to look at Nik's pages on how to paint small scales and how to prep minis. It helped me a lot. For practice I recomend getting various scales and settings (just a few samples) and work your way down from the largest to smallest.

Then you should visit Wargame shows (seeing the Pendrakens in person) and possibly look around.

Welcome to the forum, leave sanity at the doorstep and DO ask fsn about Centurions

[brummie76]

Thanks SEBIGBOSS79 for getting this topic back on track....i got lost there for a bit!

Roll on crimbo and hope to have some spare cash!

Asi i said before Naps is still calling me and possibly AWI. Both look awesome!

Time to read my Sharpe collection again!!

[Hertsblue]

To recap on another point, bear in mind that if you're not going to paint what your mates are using you will need to paint both sides. This is not such a problem in 10mm, cost-wise, but it does mean that you will not get them on the table as soon as you might like. I would also echo everyone else's advice to play the field (quite literally) as far as periods are concerned.

[Last Hussar]

I would say if you go Napoleonic DON'T do Brits.

I love Nap Brits - the facings, the flags the line of red...

However...

You are stuck in the Peninsula, and I am one of those who thinks that is a difficult period for rules to get right, because Wellington's tactics were so different, you end up with the dreaded "+2 for being British" to try and make things work (which it won't).  I'd say go Russian or Austrian

Have you thought about Seven Years War? (and I would like to take this opportunity to once again blame Sunjester for the reason I have hundreds of WSS in the garage, rather than SYW!)  There is a really good Wiki for it

http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=Main_Page

I would second the suggestion you play a few games before you splash the cash.  Also don't fixated on shiny before you are happy - there are free rules on the web

http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/ for example

and you can use counters for the first few games- basicallly the bases without the figures

[fsn]

You could try the War of 1812?

[brummie76]

Last Hussar - Thanks for that....SYW could be an option, i will look into that too!

Cheers

[FierceKitty]

I started on Naps, but bless the day I switched to SYW. Much more important conflict in its global effects, there are more exciting personalities, and all the big five can field decent armies. And the standard was generally higher.

[Hertsblue]

SYW has many advantages - pretty uniforms with recognisable facings, linear tactics and no clouds of skirmishers (well relatively few, anyway) and all the information you would want, in print or on the net.

[FierceKitty]

You can even play some music by Old Fritz while fighting.

[Rob]

Hi Paul and welcome,

You sound very similar to me when I started "ahem" years ago. I started by buying some airfix Brits and French Napoleonics, then looked for wargame rules, then played some games with some mates, then painted them when I realised what a good hobby it was, then bought some "proper" 25mm figures when the paint started to peel off the plastic, then when I had British and French armies decided to try ECW in 25mm, then discovered 15mm and bought some ancients (many actually), also built two Napoleonic corps of French and Bavarians in 15mm, then discovered 6mm WW2 ......... 

Although that journey is no where near finished (I every time I speak to Dave or Leon I feel the need to "encourage"  them to make a new model) every step has been an enjoyable one. The hobby for me is not just about collecting; it's more about the research and turning that research into a sort of living history on the table-top. It also is quite a cheap one because I paint so slowly the cost gets nicely spread.

Leon has said Pendraken will be producing both peninsular and Waterloo period British (feel free to jump in with a when Leon), so you are probably advised to wait for them. In the meantime there are plenty of French available to be getting on with.

For the other matters you asked about:
Figures to base and sizes should be covered in any rules you look at, look in wargame magazines.
Buy a book or two with titles such as "Armies of the Napoleonic Wars" to find out troop types and organisation.
Look at this web site as a starting point http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/index.html
Play a number of periods. In your case Vietnam sounds quite a good idea.
Enjoy yourself.

As a final warning I am now collecting, painting, and writing the rules for 10mm Napoleonics (my fourth Napoleonic army and third scale). It all seems very reasonable and logical to me  (or am I just sad, mad or both?).   

Cheers Rob 

[fsn]

I'm not so sure about Viet Nam. It's a difficult war to get the right feel of. Jungles and stealthy movement. Never had a satisfying Viet Nam game - except oddly enough when playing solo.

Ancients may be another way to go. A lot of ancients battles were fought on flat featureless ground and there are no real "long range" weapons to spoil the aesthetics.

Something slightly more up to date would be the Western Desert 1941. Lots of odd looking vehicles, plenty of background materials and iconic Generals.     

[brummie76]

So i think from all that has been said above i feel that the best way to go is to pick something you like the look of and have an good interest in....

I am not just doing this to play but also am looking forward to having a go at painting again so this therefore again points me in the direction of what i think i will like best.

In addition after reading all the posts and looking at the website i could easily afford two small armies so i can organise a game with someone if none of my friends have the figures i have.

Finally as regards rules.... well i see there are many sets out there and all appear to be adaptable in some way so yet again this issue appears to fit in with my idea of "buy what appeals"....

So now thanks to everyone above i now think its a toss up between naps or SYW? Hummm???

[Ithoriel]

So now thanks to everyone above i now think its a toss up between naps or SYW? Hummm???

My method of decision in such cases is to work out what I can afford, work out what I could get for each option given the limiited funds, decide which gives the best balance of usable forces and interesting stuff to paint ... then I spend twice what I can afford on each of the options