Has a fiction book or film inspired you to start a new period.

[Malbork]

A re-read of Lewis Crassic Gibbon's Spartacus last year pushed me into finally ordering a slave army to do battle with either my late Republican Romans or Early Imperial ones.

i'm not really going to invest in a caesarian force to face them, am I? Am I?

[lowlylowlycook]

A re-read of Lewis Crassic Gibbon's Spartacus last year pushed me into finally ordering a slave army to do battle with either my late Republican Romans or Early Imperial ones.

i'm not really going to invest in a caesarian force to face them, am I? Am I?

Hmmmm, does anyone do 10mm crosses?

[fsn]

Just realised all my responses were (to a greater or lesser extent) fact, not fiction, so here's a proper attempt to answer the question.

"The Ship" by CS Forrester. Naval action in the Med in 1940.

Returning to the early Biggles stories ("Biggles Learns to Fly" and "The Camels are Coming") for WWI in the air.

"The Way Ahead" is always a good stiff upper lip job for the Desert War.

"The Duellists", and it's origin "The Duel" by Joseph Conrad gets the Napoleonic blood flowing (in more ways than one.)

Sharpe and Hornblower, "Death to the French" and "The Gun" (made into the lamentable "The Pride and the Passion") ditto.

The first two actually got me into buying lead. The rest sort of keep me going. 

[fsn]

Oi bin finking.

Finking about films about ancient and dark age and medieval warfare. One of the things that put me off is they all shout "shield wall!" and form a remarkably fine shield wall ... then everything dissolves into one-to-one combats. 


"Henry V" - the 1944 Larry Olivier version of course, not that wannabe Branagh.
"The War Lord" - Charlton Heston as a gloomy Norman ... well ... War Lord in a lonely keep. 

[Raider4]

Finking about films about ancient and dark age and medieval warfare. One of the things that put me off is they all shout "shield wall!" and form a remarkably fine shield wall ... then everything dissolves into one-to-one combats. 

Yes, one of my personal bugbears. There's a particularly fine example in one episode of Vikings, where the English take up an excellent defensive position in the narrow gap between two buildings, hold there for a second or two, and then charge the attacking Norsemen. And of course get completely slaughtered . . .

[FierceKitty]

Olivier looks good,but he's no actor; if you pay attention, it's clear he doesn't understand the lines half the time.

[flamingpig0]

'The Flashing Blade' shown on  70sBBC kids tv Saturday morning and of course '300 Spartans'

[fsn]

This'll get the theme stuck in your head 

[Heedless Horseman]

Too many to mention in teens/early 20's...in later years, often begun but not finished!  
However...SOME that have not been started...Yet....  
Book: 'Eagle In The Snow', Wallace Breem...the end of the Rhine frontier and Rome. Still thinking...and hope to keep on 'just thinking' !!!
Books: Conn Iggulden's Mongolian series. Too many figures!!!
That 1970's TV mini series about a shipwrecked Brit in Shogunate Japan...was it 'Shogun'? Too much detail to paint Samurai, (but in my teens, Lady Mariko was a 'Wow'!).  
Books: George MacDonald Fraser: 'The Candlemass Road'...skirmish in the Borders. (This actually re-started my interest in wargaming stuff, post 'Smoking Ban'    as I remembered that I had a couple of boxes of Revell 1/72 GNW/Conquistador figs that 'might' be converted/painted up? (Never done!)   ...which led to ...ECW 20mm, 10mm... and an ENORMOUS load of cash on just about everything!!!    )
Ditto GMF 'Flashman' for Crimea and Indian Mutiny.
Etc.
Just remembered,  Books: Colin Wingate:' Submarine/Frigate/Carrier'...Cold War Naval early 80's...need BIG table!!! 
It would be nice to actually finish a project...but, (I suspect)...that I might just 'shut down' on completion!!!  

[Heedless Horseman]

'The Flashing Blade' shown on  70sBBC kids tv Saturday morning and of course '300 Spartans'

Oh dear...here it comes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KYWOFo6SFM

[flamingpig0]

Oh dear...here it comes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KYWOFo6SFM

It was the  theme tune that got me as a kid.

erm - bet the BBC wouldn't show this now

https://youtu.be/Q22FxOdEYLc

[FierceKitty]

Wot, no footcloths?

[Leman]

Back in the late 60s The Charge of the Light Brigade encouraged me to do the Crimea in 25mm - about 10 years later I sold the figures as too impractical. At about the same time I saw Prince of Foxes on TV and vowed that one day I would get into the Italian Renaissance - which I have now done in four scales! The only other sour to action of this nature was Bernard Cornwell's Winter King trilogy which finally got me into Post-Roman Britain. All other films/novels have come along after I've started that aspect of Wargaming.

[T13A]

Hi

Anybody remember the novels by Ronald Welch about the Carey family? I remember getting them from the 'young adult' section of the library back in the late sixties. A whole series of military themed novels covering, if I remember correctly, from the Crusades right up to the First World War. I read every book in the series several times and they certainly helped stimulate my interest in all (well most anyway) things military.

Cheers Paul

[Malbork]

Absolutely Paul. 

Our school library had about half of them and I was was always frustrated that Airfix didn't have the right boxes of troops to replay the book I'd just read.  The whole series was recently republished (well, between 2014 and 2017 I think) and I treated myself to the full set.  They are little formulaic but still a damned good read.  The company also published an unfinished novel that he wrote about Waterloo.

He and GA Henty were my inspiration back in the day

[Dannyboy]

Christmas Day 1976, I think. Combination of Granada TV showing the Christmas film "Waterloo" and receiving the Airfix Waterloo battle set proved too much, "poor little might" never stood a chance! Benn hooked on ever since....