Wargaming involves some form(s) and level(s) of obsession.  One of mine is the tendency to develop a fixation on certain games, usually due to period, regardless of playability and availability.

E-Bay has taken care of the latter, but the former remains problematic with some of my choices.

I’ve had a strange and troubling fixation on System 7 Napoleonics for a long time.  This is a hybrid of miniatures and board gaming.  And, if you read the Boardgamegeek comments, others find the system troubling, as well.

When I started gaming with miniatures, many of my wargame-friends were into 15mm Napoleonics.  Huge games, hundreds and hundreds of figures, manic painting.  No Thank You.  OK….not exactly….there were the 15mm Ottomans, but that’s another story.

Starting in 1978, System 7 offered the opportunity to play big games on the cheap, without the time and effort of painting.  I was intrigued, but drifted off into another fixation.

I re-encountered System 7 while scanning E-Bay, eventually picking up several sets at significant discounts.  That was a slippery slope.  First the super cheap Spanish, then German States….but how can they fight, so I need French, and hey, those Russians seem pretty inexpensive…..You know how that goes.

The critical difference between then and now was the opportunity to use Squad Leader boards for terrain.  The scale is roughly the same, so one hex represents one inch of movement.  No rulers needed!  And, the visual effect isn’t all that bad and a little less incongruous than mixing cardboard counters with miniatures terrain pieces.

One lingering problem was the rules.  Hard to find, and expensive.  However, I found a bare-boned set of the rules on the net.

So now, I’ve started breaking down the rules and pushing counters.  It’s a start.