Miyazaki's Napoleon of Nottinghill & Clothing Worn in the London Battles

 I came across this book cover on the Man of Lead blog. Miyazaki. the author, is the same creator of Howl's Moving Castle. apparently, he made an illustrated version of The Napoleon of Nottinghill. I would love to have a copy of the book but haven't traced one.

  Having looked at a number of page covers for Chesterton's novel, most have pictures of Napoleon or Napoleonic soldiers, which is completely inaccurate. Reference to napoleon is simply to suggest the skills of Scott Wayne (although ably assisted by Turnbull, his general, the toy shop owner).

  Miyazaki's cover is the most true to the novel.

  I just finished reading the novel which I last read many years ago. Most of the leaders, with a couple of exceptions, wore Edwardian garb of frock coats and top hats but with sashes in the colors of their boroughs. Wayne and one other, who I have forgotten, wore more Renaissance garb as did most of their troops, with halberds being the favorite weapon.

  Wayne heroically won about three or four battles, with his enemies, Buck and barker attempting to overwhelm his Nottinghill forces with superior numbers, often six to one. This was foiled each time. The first attack was carried on at night, but the lights were turned off causing the attackers to accidentally fight each other. They also got lost in the maze of streets. The next time they carried lanterns but even this was not enough as Wayne had blocked off with barricades, the streets. The last battle before Wayne's total victory he used mounted men to apparently retreat but who secured the water tower. just as Wayne's men appeared to be overwhelmed, he sent forth surrender conditions to the enemy. refusal would have meant they would be flooded out by the contents of the water tower.

  Things then settled down with the 'Nottinghill Empire until twenty years later the other boroughs rebelled and defeated Wayne in an epic last battle which took many times the numbers of Nottinghill troops to defeat them .Incidentally, the jokester King, who told Wayne it had just been meant as a joke, finally took part in battle himself, on the Nottinghill side and only after Wayne told him that this time they would lose. he died alongside Wayne and Turnbull. That was a kind of heroism which reminded me of Red Butler in 'Gone with the Wind' who became a combatant for the Confederacy only after it was losing; before that he had ridiculed the war effort and was cynically involved in supplying the CSA for his profit. 

 However, even in the other boroughs' apparent victory, Wayne had 'won' as the other boroughs were now suffused with the same patriotic local fervor.

  The games I set up with Mat, unintentionally gave the attackers an advantage of armor as in assembling figures the Nottinghill Beefeaters lacked armor and the other side was largely recruited from medieval figures who did have armor. In my game few of the defenders had armor. I am going to change this in the next game by reducing armor values of the attackers. The Nottinghill catapults, which I read about somewhere but don't actually recall in the novel, were also too powerful. Next battle they will be guess range, bigger scatter and have a much smaller burst radius. My game use of firearms was also not something mentioned in the book and archery only very briefly.

  In the story there is mention of 'cabs' and 'omnibuses'. I was considering bringing out my Airfix omnibuses and a few vintage cars. How jolly it would be to have them full of halberd men! But then, on a more detailed read, I realized they are HORSE DRAWN that ferried leaders around.

  Of course, there is no reason I have to keep to the details in the novel but as it is the inspiration I'll keep it mainly so. In fact, some very interesting variations could be done, with greater variety of troop types. It can be seen as a British Civil War with less technological advancement. I could even incorporate the both, and it would be amusing to have early tanks or imagined steam tanks alongside British bear-skinned guards and troops in yellow, red, blue or green Renaissance attire.

  I have been doing a few more figure conversions that I'll be posting about, as well as another game report. After that Mat and I will be playing another type of SF game, suing Warhammer ruins, large robots, tanks etc. In a few weeks we will also be starting our new 18th century version of sword and sorcery, fantasy campaign.