Errol Flynn charging the
Russian guns in "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
Wargamers are an odd bunch. Tribal, querulous and deeply opinionated, but I think one thing we all agree on is that we love films. While a lot of us have rather high opinion of ourselves as "historians", we often demonstrate as a tribe a deep love of battles on film, no matter how inaccurate or wonky. Zulu, for all its faults, launched a thousand wargamers. I still get chills whenever I hear men of Harlech...or the coming thunder that "sounds like a train in the distance".
Films must be films. They are required to make a crust for those who make and them and entertain those who care not a fig for the the correct facing colours on the Chasseurs in the second scene. That said, having seen Hollywood horribly mangle police work (something I actually know something about), I think there's an argument to be made that they often get quite a lot right.
With that in mind, I offer to you, my own list of top ten movies with black powder battles. It is highly subjective, intensely personal and was not, I hasten to add, picked on artistic merit. What I have picked is films that I think demonstrate some aspects of blackpowder warfare.
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