From MartijnN: The Enlightenment and Romance [Romance] (78 points)

As the Enlightment was followed by the Romance period, it seemed fitting to combine the two in today's entry. So, first I have the second batch of vessels for my Dystopian Wars Enlightenment fleet: three Lovelace Class cruisers and three more Merian Class frigates:

I stuck with my recipe, even though it is rather much work for the effect. I am, however, fairly happy how they came out eventually, and at least they stand out relatively well on the seascape.

Just to prove that I did paint three more frigates here's a picture of the fleet so far. Only the two large battleships to go, and then I can start on the Commonwealth (Russian) fleet.

For last year's Challenge I prepped some figures but did not get around painting them. However, I think they fit admirably into the Romance section of the Library. Here is a romantic couple, perhaps dancing at a Ball at Versailles during Louis XVI's reign, or going out for a stroll in the gardens. They are 3d printed Iain Lovelace figures. I do not really have any purpose for them, but they were nice to paint. Perhaps they will come in handy for a Pirate game or suchlike.

And just to show our Minion that I do in fact paint the backs of my figures:

I struggled a bit with this week's book recommendation, for war is seldom romantic. However, at the very end of the Romance Period there was a war that definitely had some romantic overtones to it. The French call it the Guerre d'Orient, but most people know it as the Crimean War. Fighting the Russians in the mysterious East, on behalf of the Turks, which were still ruled by an Ottoman Sultan with a harem, with soldiers wearing gorgeous colourful uniforms inspired by  Arabian dress, it definitely struck a romantic chord in Britain and France. It is a special interest of mine, but information was hard to come by in the days before the Internet. I was thus very pleased to discover this book in a branch of a now nearly defunct chain of second-hand and clearance books, De Slegte, as a schoolboy back in the 80's. It's Lawrence James' Crimea 1854-1855. The War with Russia from contemporary photographs.

There is something fascinating and melancholy about these early photos of war, even though for the most part they are very posed. In this book, James collected photographs mainly by Fenton and Robertson. Most are readily available on the Internet today, but is still nice to have some background information. There is also a very brief outline of the war itself, and of the history of photography up to that point (when it was of course a relatively new technology). I would not go out looking for this book, it will be long out of print I guess, but if you can pick it up on Ebay or in a second-hand bookshop for a good price it still is a nice addition to your library.

Time for the map:

As for points, the previous frigates scored 6. I have no idea about the cruisers, 10 perhaps? I'll be happy with whatever our minion decides.

2 x 28mm foot @ 5 = 10

3 x Merian frigates @ 6 = 18

3 x Lovelace cruisers @ 10 = 30

Romance library bonus = 20

Total of 78

TeemuL: I was about to my hair when I started reading this entry: first Bruce trying to get Romance bonus for guys in red and now Martijn claiming Romance points for "Lovelace class" cruisers... Well, I soon got corrected, and the Dystopian War was not connected to Romance at all. Martijn nicely shows, that he is not trying to claim points for the same ships again and even shows, that he has painted the backsides, too. The couple fits the Romance section perfectly, no questions asked. I'll score the cruisers as "frigates and other" category, which is exactly 10 points as you hoped for.

The Crimean War is almost local history here in Finland, even though it mainly happened elsewhere. But there was Åland War, which was linked to the action on Crimea: Åland War in Wikipedia. Finland was part of Russia back then (although autonomic country) and those pesky British decided to bombard Finnish islands and coast trying to destroy Russian ships located here and convince Sweden to join their alliance. Interesting side story (from my point of view) and perhaps not that common knowledge to all.