Napoleon

This army was designed for HOTTBAP 2004, a one day HOTT tournament at the Beer and Pretzels games weekend held annually in May. For 2004 the theme was 'England Invaded', I went for an easy option recalling that there was talk of Napoleon invading in the very late 1700s or early 1800s. I imagined quite a few might go for it but as it happened no one else did....perhaps there's a good reason. It was discussed on the HOTT yahoo list and Alan Saunders found a site about a Madame Blanchard who apparently became the first chief of an air force, let alone the first woman in charge of an airforce. Madame Blanchard was a keen baloonist and wife to another keen balloonist. Presumably in Parisien society she met Napoleon or his staff and they were impressed by the potential of hot air ballons; although as it happened it came to nothing, sadly she died after thinking that fireworks would liven up her balloon flight whilst demonstrating ballooning to the Paris crowd. It certainly livened things up as her balloon caught fire and then crash into the rooftops of Paris throwing her to the ground many feet below..

Anyway, with this gem the concept was born. Madame Blanchard had to be an airboat - slow, cumbersome but full of potential; she also was screaming to be the general no matter how much sanity cried the oppposite. I'm certainly not aware of any other Airboat generals. I wanted a second ballon to re-enforce the idea and keep some 'fantasy' angle. The rest of the army was a pretty basic translation of French Napoleonic armies; 2 artillery (as Napoleon was all for artillery), French infantry had to be spears, not in a million years could musketry be associated with dense and accurate missile firing - dense ? yes, accurate ? no. Then we had some Riders as the cavalry, although I could have gone for knights. I'd yet to include Napoleon so I decided he'd be part of the stronghold rather than in the front line battle. The Inn is one off those porcelain decorative items you find on your grandparent's mantlepiece. I'm sure Grandma & Grandad are please that I put theirs to good use. To fill out the stronghold some staff figures were added.

There was much discussion about having Marshal Ney as a Hero element but for me it did not fit the army I was trying to build. I might yet paint one up but life is too short to paint spares for an army that is done and dusted, so until other projects are allfinished it's likely to stay as is. Besides, it's not too bad - at HOTTBAP it won 2, lost2 out of 4 games. It's nemesis is armies full of Heroes or Paladins who can drag down the airboats. Airboats are only factor 3 vs mounted !! Hence the loss of 2 games very quickly at HOTTBAP. It's no killer army and difficult to control with 2 airboats, but so long as yo group the airboats and deploy well you have a chance.

The infantry are Freijkorps bought from ERM, the mounted and artillery are from Essex. Madame blanchard herself is a conversion from the ACW Mollies pack from Freijkorps, a bicorne and some milliput to accentuate the dress; any Napoleonic uniform police who spot her costume is out of period have a) patently never ballooned with her and b) just won a punch in the mouth - that'll be you first then Alan :-) !! Airballoons with spear wielding infantry seemed so much more appropriate than muskets.