Tarleton's Quarter

3eme Ligne

2012-01-18T13:10:00.005Z

The final battalion I needed for Bachelu's division in the French II Corps is the 3eme Ligne. In the "General de Brigade" orbat the battalion fields 30 figures and skirmishers. I have done what I always do for units of this strength: 5 companies of 6 figures and then the voltiguer company out on skirmish stands. All figures are the Perry plastic infantry save for most of the command stand, which are from the metal "Command in Greatcoats" pack (the drummer and officer I will save for the next battalion I paint). As I mentioned before, I sculpted some moustaches onto fusilier heads to provide more variety in the grenadier company. The Perry plastic box gives you lots of spare heads, but hardly any have moustaches. Rather than use the same old heads yet again I decided to convert some of the fusilier heads. It's interesting to see that once you add a moustache the character of the face changes completely - I suppose that may be one reason why people grow moustaches! I admit that I found this a bit of a challenge; the trickiest parts were ensuring equal growth on each side of the nose and retaining the nose itself. I'm not sure if I've executed these conversions particularly well, but at least I have some different faces in the grenadiers' ranks. I have a couple of other figures left over which look rather better.

I decided to give this unit a more uniform look by painting all the greatcoats and shako covers the same colours (respectively, Foundry palettes "Slate Grey 32" and "Palomino 56"). I also corrected a mistake I've made on all my other Napoleonic French infantry and did not add red edges to the coat turn-backs (which I gather was dropped around 1812/13). Otherwise, these were painted pretty much as all my previous French.

I'm working on some First Carlist War units at the moment (3 are "in the can" awaiting photographs) but the next Napoleonic work will be on brigade and divisional command stands and artillery. For the latter, I'm still undecided on what paints to use for French artillery woodwork. I wasn't satisfied with my earlier effort (using the specific Foundry triad), so if anyone has any tried and tested acrylic recipes I'd be most grateful to hear them.

36 figures. Painted November/December 2011. Flag from GMB.

King's German Legion, 5th Line Battalion

2012-01-12T09:01:00.010Z

The 5th was raised in 1805. In 1815 it was brigaded with the 1st and 2nd Light Battalions and the 8th Line Battalion in the KGL 2nd Brigade under the command of Colonel von Ompteda. The brigade was part of Lieutenant-General Charles Alten's 3rd Division. The brigade was positioned to the rear of La Haye Sainte, just to the right of the main Brussells road. At some stage in the afternoon the light company of the 5th was sent to reinforce Baring's garrison at the farmhouse. The battalion was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Linsingen and comprised 6 companies. KGL line battalions had seen their complement reduced by the removal of troops to stiffen new Hanoverian units. As a result, the number of companies was reduced from 10 companies to 6.

When La Haye Sainte finally fell around 6pm, the battalion was annihilated in a futile attempt to assist the garrison as it ran back toasted the Allied lines. When the garrison had finally be forced to leave the farmhouse, it found itself pursued and generally harassed by French infantry. The Prince of Orange ordered Lieutenant-General Charles Alten to send some infantry to assist them. Alten had two brigades in his 3rd Division, the second of which was the KGL brigade that included La Haye Sainte's 2nd Light Battalion. Alten ordered Colonel von Ompteda to advance. Von Ompteda queried the order on the grounds of having seen cavalry to his front. However, the battalion moved forward and after engaging some French infantry was set upon by cuirassiers and cut to pieces.

These figures are Perry plastics, which require you to do rather more gluing that is required for the French and Prussian sets. But you have plenty of variety and, as is no expected with Perry sets, lots of spare heads. Given that the light company was sent off to La Haye Sainte, I based it on two bases with 2 figures each. The smaller number of figures required for the KGL battalions means that I used up all the flank company arms. The KGL had a couple of uniform differences from British line units. The backpacks were dark blue rather than black. The unit insignia was written in red on the sides of the packs - I gave this a go but it looked messy and to be in scale the writing has to be very small indeed; so I decided not to bother. For the same reason I decided not to add any insignia to the light blue water bottles. (I think you might be able to buy transfers for this sort of thing, which might work.) Otherwise, though, these are painted up as per British infantry.

I have now painted all the 3 currently available sets of Perry plastic Napoleonic infantry. I still like the French figures the most - there is just something very satifying about both the figures themselves and the painting of them. These KGL figures were reasonably quick to paint, although I found the faces tricky to do. As with the Prussian infantry, I find that the hardest part to get right is the trousers; I wonder whether "less is more" when it comes to highlighting mid-grey trousers/breeches.

Obviously I've now found somewhere to take photos. I need to experiment a bit with the light and which part of the garden works best, but taking photos inside isn't an option so it will have to be some part of the garden from now onwards. Anyway, next week I'll have the 3eme Ligne for Waterloo and after that more Carlist War stuff.

20 figures. Painted October/November 2011. Flags by GMB.

Fifth year anniversary

2012-01-04T13:11:00.004Z

I always post a review of the year on the anniversary of this blog's commencement. "Why bother?" I suspect many readers will ask, given that this blog has been dozing in winter quarters for large parts of the year, most recently over the past couple of months (when even I have been appalled at the poor number of posts). It's been a year of considerable upheaval, to be honest. Not just a large house move and very stressful sale of the old place, but various other personal stuff I won't bore you with. Suffice to say that the Kiwi and I won't miss 2011, although 2012 will bring its own challenges, I'm sure. Usually at this time of year the January gloom is warmed by the thought of our annual trip to New Zealand (and occasionally Australia), but we are not taking Hugo anywhere near a long haul flight after the poor lad's experience last March. So the next trip will be Christmas 2013, which is a long time to wait. I've been surprised to realise how much I will miss visiting NZ this year; it's beginning to feel like a second home already.

In wargaming terms it has been a lean year: not a single game, only 1 show attended and far less painting time than I had anticipated. The year's painting tally, set out below, is pretty shocking when compare to the heady BHE days ("Before Hugo Era"). I like to think that I'm pretty adept at squeezing every ounce of painting time out of the day, but I need to make a better effort. I have already found myself cutting the odd corner to speed things up, like using base colour and 1 highlight instead of 2 (especially on things like musket stocks and bayonet scabbards. But a key reason why posts have been scarce the past few months is that my concentration on Napoleonics and resulted in the painting of large units which just take much longer to do. My last 5 painted units have have respective strengths of 26, 24, 18, 30 and 46 figures. That's 130 painted figures but only 5 posts' worth (I haven't yet posted on the most recent two, the 3eme Ligne and 5th KGL Battalion). 130 infantry figures in AWI terms would be 7 or 8 posts' worth. There are plenty of "small unit" options in my principal areas of interest, so I'm going to try to maintain a steady flow of those to ensure more regular posting.

2011 tally, all 25mm unless specified:

- AWI: 86 foot, 7 cavalry and 3 guns.

- 1815: 178 foot.

- First Carlist War: 40 foot and 1 gun.

- NZ Wars: 42 foot and 1 gun.

- Liberators (15mm): 24 foot.

- Other: 8 foot.

Counting 15mm figures as half a point each, that gives me 385 points, which is actually an improvement on last year's total of 340. Again it equates to just over 7 figures a week. I'm actually painting in batches of 8 now, rather than 6, but sometimes that takes longer than 1 week to finish.

Highlights of the year (aside from watching Hugo's Santa impression, which is hilarious) were the publication of the deluxe edition of the "British Grenadier!" AWI rules (which contains many photos of my collection), visiting Eureka Miniatures in Melbourne, finally taking the plunge with the Liberators! 15mm range, spending a month painting the Empress Miniatures NZ Wars figures and seeing my 1815 collection expand . I have now painted all 3 of the Perry plastic 1815 infantry sets and I am convinced that hard plastic is the future of 25mm wargaming in this period.

Plans for 2012? More of the same, really. I expect I will paint more AWI and First Carlist War and fewer Napoleonics. I want to spend some more time on the Liberators! project and I've also promised Eclaireur that I will work on some more ECW. To be honest, the main reason the AWI has been on the back-burner recently is that I'm waiting for the Perry plastic figures to come out before deciding where to go with the British and American forces; that's also why I've only painted French infantry this year. But there is the cavalry too, and I will press on with the Eureka dragoons. No doubt some other things will catch my eye as the year progresses.

I have two games to post about shortly. The first, Freeman's Farm (top-right), took place in December 2010 and the second, Austerlitz (top-left), earlier this week. The reason why Freeman's Farm hasn't been posted about earlier is because I took photos primarily for inclusion in the new edition of "British Grenadier!". Now that has been out for some time, I feel there's no harm in posting some of the same pics on this blog.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Movember

2011-12-09T21:29:00.007Z

I've had the 5th KGL Line ready for photographing for a couple of weeks but the light here has been awful. Hopefully soon I'll be able to take some photos this weekend. In the meantime, here are some wip photos of what I'm working on now - the 3rd Ligne for 1815. I've said in previous French infantry posts that I feel the Perry plastic box lacks moustached head variants for grenadiers and voltiguers. Sometimes I'm a bit dim, and the solution only occurred to me recently - just sculpt some moustaches onto centre company heads. What caused this epiphany? Two things - (1) working on the Perry plastic Prussians I read how for fusilier figures you'd need to paint on moutaches; in 25 mm I think moustaches really need to be sculpted on, otherwise you have a look halfway between Eroll Flynn and Hitler. (2) I worked on these figures last month and I was inspired by the "Movember" movement at work to add some moustaches. For those who don't know, the Movember movement is designed to increase awareness of men's health issues. To show support you grow a moustache. This was all the rage in the office, but I declined to grow one myself. (I have grown facial hair in the past and it was awful. I recall our dog Lucy being rather wary of me when I had a beard.)

Anyway, here are photos of the original heads and the converted heads side by side, with a couple of extras. It's odd how facial hair completely changes a face...

King's German Legion, 2nd Light Battalion

2011-11-15T22:28:00.010Z

I confess that I painted these ages ago but failed to prepare a post. The 2nd KGL Light Battalion needs little introduction. It was in Colonel Baron Ompteda's 2nd KBL Brigade and formed the core of the La Haye Sainte garrison at Waterloo. The KGL battalions were understrength in the 1815 campaign because experienced troops had been stripped out to join newly raised Hanoverian units. This resulted in KGL battalions having 6 companies rather than 10 - 4 centre companies and the standard 2 flank ones. The line battalions had a couple of uniform distinctions from their regular British counterparts, which I will discuss when I post about the 5th Line Battalion. The 2 light battalions had similar uniforms, but with different headgear and a few other distinctions.

Major Baring's 2nd Light Battalion, 463 officers and men, was stationed in the farmhouse (so about 23 figures at 1:20). It was reinforced by companies from the KGL 1st Light Battalion and 5th Line Battalion and the 2nd Nassau Regiment. The story of the La Haye Sainte defence is too well known to warrant comment here. Suffice to say that the battle was hard fought and the battalion lost half its number. It was after 6pm, when the men had run out of ammunition, that the garrison was forced to abandon its position. Major Baring was one of the last men out of the farmhouse and related how those left behind received short thrift from the French, who were keen to avenge the losses they had suffered trying to invest the position. It was to assist the fleeing garrison that the Prince of Orange and the divisional commander Sir Charles Alten ordered Ompteda to march the 5th and 8th KGL Line Regiments in line towards La Haye Sainte, with disasterous consequences.

These three Perry Miniatures packs give you 18 figures, a few less than the 1:20 requirement. I did think about buying another pack to make up numbers, but decided that it probably would be difficult on the tabletop to squeeze 23 figures into a scale model of La Haye Sainte. Centre companies had muskets whilst the flank companies carried rifles. The Perries give you 1 pack of firing line figures with muskets and 1 pack of skirmishing figures with rifles. The command pack has 2 officers and then buglers and NCOs who all have rifles - you don't, therefore, have any command figures suitable for the centre companies other than the officers. My unit consequently has too many rifle-carrying figures; I should really add another pack of musket-armed infantry but as stated above I think 24 figures would be too many for the scale size of the position (especially once you add the Nassauers and other reinforcements). With that position in mind, I decided to base all the "skirmishing" figures on single bases and the centre company musket-men on standard 2-figure skirmish bases. The uniforms are similar to those of the 95th Rifles, albeit with different headgear. I used the Foundry "French Chasseur a Cheval Green 71" palette for the tunics, with sparing use of the final highlight to ensure the uniform remained quite dark. One uniform distinction I found in Mike Chappell's excellent Osprey MAA books on the KGL is that the musicians had red collars and cuffs. (Incidentally, I also have the very old Otto Von Pivka MAA book on the KGL in a rare hardcover binding, which includes a long passage quoted from Baring's recollections of the La Haye Sainte battle.) These are nice figures, quite fiddly to paint but pretty dynamic and with interesting uniforms. Perry have just released a pack of mounted light infantry officers which includes a KGL figure; I am awaiting receipt of that and will paint the KGL chap as soon as it arrives. I have the light company of the 5th KGL line already finished and I'm tempted to paint up a couple of Nassauers. Then all I will need is a model of La Haye Sainte itself!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts of late, simply a result of too much other stuff to do. My painting time has shrunk and I'm not sure that weekly posts will be possible in the future, but we'll see. I'm trying to complete 8 figures a week but that is going to be a struggle. I'm currently working on the KGL 5th Line Battalion and have some AWI and Carlist War units half-finished. I'll try to expedite the completion of those, following which there are more French Napoleonics and AWI cavalry to do. And what's this I see...plastic Zulus?

18 figures. Painted September-October 2011.

Still here...

2011-10-24T12:08:00.004Z

...but very busy dealing with our house move. We now reside in north Chelmsford, Essex and today was my first day back in the office since the move. Despite having had a week and a half off work, I haven't picked up any brushes for the past 2 weeks and in fact only found my brushes again last night! Unpacking is taking much effort and work on "my room" has now halted until I have various bookcases and shelves fixed to the walls. Hugo is in a new nursery and refusing to settle - his daily cries of "no, mummy, no" when dropped off in the morning are very sad to hear; hopefully he will be better after a couple of weeks. This morning's commute took an hour and three quarters in total, but then I took the wrong train and got confused when changing onto the Underground at Stratford. Anyway, at least the stress of the house sale and purchase is over (that stress being caused almost entirely by our buyers, whose unreasonable and, quite frankly, dishonest behaviour was appalling) and, more importantly, all my wine survived the move! Hopefully normal blogging service will be resumed shortly. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of what's next. Also, I haven't had any internet access for the past 2 weeks whilst at home, so apologies for not viewing/commenting on readers' own sites during that period.

2nd (Dutch) Line Infantry

2011-10-07T12:51:00.006Z

This is the 2nd Line Infantry regiment of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. The 2nd was a Dutch regiment, as opposed to a Belgian one. It was in the 1st Brigade (Ditmers) of Chasse's 3rd Netherlands Division. This division, which contained newly-raised and untested troops, was posted on the extreme right of Wellington's line at Braine l'Alleud. Chasse himself had been a general in the French army prior to the country's creation. At around 3pm the division was ordered west to occupy a position in the centre of Wellington's line. The regiment joined in the attack on the Imperial Guard late in the day, bayonet-charging the 3rd Grenadiers. The General de Brigade rules orbat requires 24 figures, organised into 4 centre companies and 2 flank ones.

Something I hadn't realised until researching this unit was how few Netherlands line infantry regiment were present in the battle. If you look at the orbat for the 2nd and 3rd Netherlands Divisions (the 1st remained north of the battlefield, at Hal) you see that many of the non-Nassau units are either jaeger or militia battalions. The General de Brigade orbat (which I think leaves out some units from the 3rd Division) has the 7th (Belgian) Line in Bylandt's brigade, the 2nd (Dutch) line in Ditmer's brigade and then the 3rd (Belgian) and 13 (Dutch) in Aubremme's brigade, the second brigade in Chasse's 3rd Division. That's only 4 line regiments, which surprised me at any rate.

As I mentioned before, I had intended to add to some existing figures that I painted a few years ago when the Perries first released their Dutch-Belgian range. However, I decided that I had painted those figures's tunics in a blue that was not right. Adkin reports of "friendly fire" incidents when Chasse's division appeared on the field late in the afternoon and the troops on the ridge thought they were being outflanked by French infantry. I suppose in the heat of battle one shade of blue looks quite similar to another, but I decided I wanted my Dutch-Belgian infantry to wear the same blue coats as my French infantry to reflect how easily they could be confused for one another. So whilst I previously used Foundry's "Night Sky 62", this time around I used "French Blue 65" highlighted with "Deep Blue 20B". I used "Stone 57" for the trousers. I painted an extra 4 light company figures on skirmish bases and then decided I might as well paint the other 2 in the pack. They can migrate to the 13 (Dutch) Line in due course. Why did I paint this regiment? Simply because I had the figures in the leadpile and, to be honest, I like painting these slightly out-of-the-ordinary regiments for the Waterloo campaign. Next up is the 2nd Light Battalion of the King's German Legion!

30 figures. Painted September 2011. Flag by GMB.

10th "1st Silesian" Infantry Regiment (1)

2011-09-14T11:43:00.009Z

This is the completed first battalion of musketeers of the Prussian 10th Infantry Regiment for 1815. As I understand it, the regular line regiments each had 3 battalions, of which 2 comprised musketeers and the third fusiliers. A detahments of volunteers jaegers is also attached to the battalion. The 10th formed part of von Hacke's 13th Brigade in Bulow's IV Corps. Bulow's troops did not fight at Ligny as they didn't arrive in time, but they were the first substantuial body of Prussians to arrive on the field of Waterloo and were heavily engaged in the battle for Plancenoit.

The General de Brigade order of battle that I use for my 1815 units lists most Prussian infantry units at 32 figures. Full strength would be 40 figures, but allowance is made for the loss of numbers as the Waterloo campaign progressed. However, on the GdB forum Eclaireur suggested that the 32-figure Prussian battalion may be a bit of a myth and that most infantry units at the start of the 1815 campaign would most likely be close to full strength, albeit then deserving of a reduction as a result of battle casualties at Ligny. However, since the 13th Brigade was not at Ligny I decided that it made sense to keep the 10th Infantry at and full strength and 40 figures. With 4 companies of 10 figures each I had to order some extra-large bases from ERM, which Tony delivered with his customary efficiency. The flag is the one that came with the box. It's a bit thicker than GMB flags and I would suggest using PVA rather than Pritt Stick when gluing it together.

The musketeer figures come in 3 parts: the main body, the backpack with half of the greatcoat roll, and the head. I still have the reservations about assembly that I mentioned a while ago when I first started painting these figures. Unless I am doing something wrong, it seems to me that backpack section doesn't quite join the body properly, so that there is a clear gap between the figure's back and the pack. The separate heads are a good idea though, as there are a decent number in the box and you can pose them at different angles to create a lot of variety (which you need in a unit of 40 similarly-posed figures). The jaegers for 10th Infantry require green caps, of which there is 1 head in the box. This is rather limiting for 6 figures, but with different positioning of the heads and eyes looking in different directions you can create a bit of variety; although ultimately they do look rather the same. The only other problem worth mentioning is that the unit bases provided are the usual mix of sizes which don't really meet the requirements of the box. The complete box envisages 4 companies of 10 figures, as I have done; but my origami skills were insufficient to work out how the bases might combine together to support 40 figures in close order.

I found these figures very quick and easy to paint. The Prussian musketeer's uniform is fairly "minimalist" compared to many other Napoleonic uniforms - no long coat tails, lace or fancy braid, for example. As with the Perries' plastic French infantry, I found that these figures took paint very well and, indeed, they Almost Paint Themselves. The trickiest parts for me were painting the breeches and the faces. For the musketeers I used the Foundry "Prussian Blue 66" palette with an additionan highlight of "Deep Blue 20 B". The jaegers' coats were painted with the "French Dragoon Green 70" palette (I think) and for the grey breeches/trousers and blanket rolls I used "Stone 57". I know next to nothing about the Prussian army of 1815 so I'm sure there plenty of minor mistakes, for which I apologise.

All together I am very pleased with these figures. They are cheap and quick to finish, which is exactly what is needed for Napoleonic infantry. Strongly recommended.

46 figures. Painted July and August 2011.

Liberators!

2011-09-01T09:25:00.008Z

I mentioned a while back that I had been painting some 15mm figures, but then didn't post about them. That was because I was trying to think of the best way to do so, and in fact I may yet start a separate blog about this project. For those who don't know, "Liberators!" is the name of a series of sourcebooks and associated figures designed for wargaming the wars of liberation fought by the Spanish colonies in Latin America between 1810 and 1830. This drive to increase wargamers' awareness of a rather obscure period of history is almost entirely the work of John Fletcher (I say "almost entirely" because the figures are sculpted by Alan Marsh). John runs a blog and a yahoo group as well as the Grenadier Productions website that sell "Liberators!" products. The reason for this post is that John is running a 25% sale over the next few days, so now is a perfect time to jump into this period.

My first serious wargaming began with 15mm Napoleonics, first Essex and Tabletop Games figures and then Battle Honours when they came out in the late 1980s. Whilst I painted a fair few 15mm Napoleonics over the years I realised that I much preferred 25mm figures and my 15mm collection never progressed much beyond a handful of painted figures and a reasonably large lead-pile. John's original "Liberators!" sourcebook came out a few years ago and since then I have periodically thought about investigating further as the period is exactly the sort of thing I look for: colourful uniforms, foreign auxiliary forces, small numbers of troops, exotic locations, larger-than-life personalities (e.g. Bolivar and San Martin) and something that's a little bit different. Most important of all, there is the Grenadier range of figures and excellent support on the blog and yahoo group, the latter of which receives contributions from a large number of enthusiasts (such as the chaps who put on the rather cool Maipo demo game at Salute a few years back: see here).

I won't go into any historical background now; as I say, I'm trying to think of the best way to take this project forward. But here are some photos of the first unit I painted up, the First Chilean Infantry Regiment, circa 1818 (a patriot regiment). I'll post better photos in due course. These are based for the "General de Brigade" Napoleonic rules. It's worth also mentioning that Simon at Parkfield Miniatures is sculpting a 25mm line that is shaping up very nicely.

More wip

2011-08-30T09:13:00.005Z

Apologies again - I've hit one of those occasional basing back-logs. I currently have 54 finished figures going through the basing process, including the completed first musketeer battalion of the Prussian 10th Infantry Regiment, more AWI French chasseurs and the Dutch 2nd Line Infantry for 1815. All these are rather large units and that has created a squeeze on basing and finishing the units off. I had intended to blog about the 6 volunteer jaeger figures that come in the Perry Prussian infantry box, but the pictures I took the other day are pretty rubbish (see left) so I need to take some more. I decided in the end to paint all the Prussian figures and so the battalion is 40-figures strong. As that means 10 figures for each company I have had to buy larger bases, which haven't arrived yet. The Dutch infantry battalion is something I have been meaning to do for ages. I painted 6 figures a few years ago and then moved on without painting any more. Whilst sorting stuff out in advance of my impending house move I found the rest of the unit and thought it was high time I finished it off. As it happens, I have now decided not to use the original 6 figures and so I am building the 24-figure unit from scratch; I'll explain why in due course. Hopefully the Dutch will be finished in a week or so and then the French chasseurs will be finished. After that I suspect there will be more Eureka AWI dragoons, as it's high time I returned to those.

Now I've finished the Perry Prussians box I don't intend to paint any more Prussians any time soon. I think my 1815 cravings will be met by concentration on Bachelu's division, the Middle Guard, the Dutch-Belgians and (as yet a mere twinkle) the KGL.

French chasseurs (2)

2011-08-15T10:06:00.007Z

Here are the further Eureka Miniatures figures that I mentioned a short while back. These are from the Revolutionary French range. I am not sure what codes they are exactly, as I picked them out at Eureka HQ in Melbourne (with help from John Baxter and Mark Spackman - hi guys!), but they are all actually "grenadiers" rather than "chasseurs". I have no idea how the 1790's uniforms of the two flank companies differed, but the uniform on these figures is certainly very close to that of the Perry Miniatures chasseurs. Leaving aside the headgear for a moment, these Eureka figures have the standard flank company accoutrements of moustaches, epaulettes and swords. The coat tails are long, but that is in keeping with the 1779 regulations and the Chartrand Osprey refers to some units having tails that were even longer than the regulations required. So it's only really the hats that are a problem, in that they are clearly proper bicornes and much larger than their Perry equivalents. I decided not to remove the pompoms, because some of the illustrations in the Chartrand and Mollo books show these on flank company soldiers. I did, however, file off the grenade emblems on the catridge boxes.

I like these Eureka figures. They have style and when painted up in white I think they do pass muster as AWI figures. As I said before, I think it is unlikely that the Perry French range will include skirmishers (but you never know). The Eureka figures are larger than the Perry ones, about 30mm from toe to top of head; the hats then add anything up to another 4mm in height. The two regiments represented here are the Soissonnais (in the crimson facings) and Touraine (in pink). I chose these regiments simply because I liked the facing colours! The way I paint the white coats is as follows. I undercoat with Army Painter "Uniform Grey" spray, an almost exact match with Coat d'arms "Uniform Grey 525" which I use for touching up. This undercoat acts as the base coat. The highlights are then Foundry "Arctic Grey 33A", Coat d'arms "Light Grey 211", Coat d'arms "Tank Light Grey 526" and then finally pure white (any brand will do).

I would also like to mention that Christopher "Axebreaker" has posted a review of the new edition of the "British Grenadier!" rules that I use on his superb blog. He kindly mentions the large number of photos of my AWI collection that illustrate the book (which is why I haven't blogged on it myself!) and then comments on the book and the mechanics of the rules. The new edition is pricey, and follows the current trend of new rules being glossy, highly-polished hardback books. Personally I didn't hesitate in buying this new edition because "British Grenadier!" are the only AWI rules I will ever use. Those who find the game slow or frustrating for an attacking player will find new rules in this edition that speed up movement and make charges a tad more likely to succeed - so anyone who has dropped the rules on either count may like to give them another try. And with Perry Miniatures releasing plastic AWI infantry at some stage (perhaps in time for Salute next year?) and a remake of "The Patriot" in the works it's a great time to get into the period!

(Ok, I made up that bit about "The Patriot"...)

8 figures. Painted June 2011.

Current wip

2011-08-08T09:06:00.004Z

I have some AWI French skirmishers to post about in a couple of days, but in the meantime I thought I'd post a couple of photos of the other large unit I am currently working on (i.e. in addition to the 24-figure AWI French chasseur unit, which is now three quarters finished). I bought a box of Perry plastic Napoleonic Prussian infantry at Salute and, having painted a couple of test figures back in April, decided last month to push on with the rest of the box. I will provide a proper review when I have the regiment finished, but my overall reaction is very favourably - the figures are dead easy to paint (like the plastic French infantry) and easy to put together. My only concern is how the backpack fits onto the figures, which doesn't quite seem to work as neatly as on the plastic French infantry.

The unit I am building is the 1st musketeer battalion of the 10th Regiment ("1st Silesian"), in Hacke's 13th Brigade. I chose this regiment simply because I liked the yellow facings and the 1st battalion's flag comes with the box. I think the regiment was involved in the fight at Plancenoit, but my research is ingoing. However, one issue I need to consider now is the number of figures. The Waterloo orbat on the "General de Brigade" website has Prussian infantry battalions at 32 figures mostly, with a few at 24 figures. I know that at full strength a battalion would be close to 800 men, or 40 figures at 1:20 (which is what you get in the Perry box, plus 6 jaeger). I'm assuming that the GdB orbat takes account of casualties incurred in the various battles preceding 18th June itself. However, I don't think Hack's 13th Brigade was present at Ligny and therefore I wonder whether the units in this force should not be closer to 40 figures rather than 32. I note comments on the GdB forum that whilst the 32-figure Prussian battalion is pretty standard in wargaming it may also be something of a "received wisdom", and that units at the beginning of a campaign or which have not yet seen action (like the 10th) would probably be close to full strength.

Like any sensible wargamer, I prefer smaller units (and so less painting) whenever possible and when tackling something like Waterloo a certain amount of "shrinkage" is required for space reasons anyway; but any thoughts from readers more versed than I in the Prussian army of 1815 would be welcome!

Regiment Gatinais

2011-08-02T16:31:00.007Z

In addition to the Regiment Dillon, the Savannah scenario (in the second "British Grenadier!" scenario book) requires composite fusilier battalions of 16 and 18 figures respectively. This reflects the way in which elements from various regiments were formed together into ad hoc detachments. The notes to the Savannah scenario state that these detachments contained troops from the Cambresis, Champagne, Agenois, Gatinais and Auxerrois regiments. Therefore, when modelling these units you could paint up 1 or more stands from each of these regiments to recreate what happened in practice, or ignore that and field units of identically uniformed figures. I decided that for various reasons I wanted my collection to have several full regiments of French fusiliers, essentially to keep a large degree of flexibility in how I could field them. I intend to paint up 3-4 of the regiments mentioned above and then use various bases from those to form the composite untis required for Savannah (and other scenarios). I can then use the full regiments for "what if" games or larger scenarios.

So here is a battalion from the Gatinais regiment. The flag is the more colourful second battalion flag. I understand that the regiment had been stationed in the Caribbean since 1775 and a detachment went to America in 1779 with d'Estaing. The chasseur company in particular distinguished itself at Savannah, with most of its officers becoming casualties. The remainder of the regiment arrived in 1781 with Saint-Simon. The regiment again distinguished itself in the attack on Redoubt 9 at Yorktown, which the regiment's grenadiers captured with men from the Royal Deux-Points regiment. Apparently, Washington expressed his admiration of and gratitude to the French units by presenting the two regiments with the cannon which they had captured from the redoubt.

The flag is from GMB. I have seen references to the Gatinais flag being black and violet rather than the black and blue as shown here. I gather that Richardson in his Standards and Colors of the American Revolution states that the colours were black and marine blue, and presumably GMB followed this source. The figures are in the 1779 ordonnance uniforms, which is certainly wrong for Savannah and probably still wrong for Yorktown. However, Perry Miniatures only offer standing figures in the 1776 dress and I wanted more active poses for Savannah and Yorktown.

18 figures. Painted February-May 2011. Flag from GMB.

French chasseurs (1)

2011-07-16T18:16:00.006Z

I promise to make more of an effort with this blog, which I have neglected of late. As an hors d'oeuvre to some more substantial posts on AWI French units I offer this trio of figures from Eureka Miniatures' Revolutionary Wars range. I think this range is useful to the 25mm AWI gamer, although there are issues with the uniforms, principally the shape of the hats and the absence of water bottles. The coats of the figures are long, but that suits the 1779 ordinance and Chartrand in his Osprey refers to the "ample and generous" cut of the 1779 coats; so this point isn't too much of a worry. The hats are another thing, although I think the hats here are ok and I will shortly post about some chasseur skirmishers which really do require a leap of faith re their headgear.

The two officer figures here are listed in the Eureka range as "officer encouraging skirmishers" (the chap brandishing the sword) and "artillery officer" (the chap with the brace of pistols). I think they are very characterful sculpts and look pretty good in AWI white rather than 1790s blue. I am working on a 24-figure unit of chasseurs which will have 4 bases of 6 figures, all of which will be rank and file (for reasons I'll explain when I do a post on the unit itself). The purpose of the two Eureka officer figures is to provide some visual command for this 24-figure unit, which otherwise will lack any command figures. I expect I'll place them in front of the unit or one figure at each end. They can also act as command for the 8-figure chasseur skirmish unit I've just finished. The chap waving the sword is from the Armagnac regiment and the other is from the Viennois regiment (in 1779 dress).

The looter vignette took some time to plan. My original idea was to have a Hessian plundering a Frenchman - as the plunderer has a moustache I couldn't paint him as a British soldier or an American. But then it occured to me that the uniform was wrong and it wouldn't make sense for a Hessian to be outside the lines (of, say, Savannah or Yorktown) nicking stuff off a dead Frenchman. But is also seemed odd that a French soldier, probably recently arrived, would be as badly dressed as the looter is here. In the end, I decided that the looter was a deserter in search of extra provisions, who is still wearing his uniform coat (from the Auxerrois regiment) but has found local trousers and is in search of other items. The dead grenadier is from the Armagnac regiment again. I filed off the grenade on the ammunition box but left the chain on the bearskin, simply not painting it black.

4 figures. Painted June 2011.

A street in New England...

2011-07-12T21:58:00.005Z

...or is it? Actually, this is the street around the corner from the house which we are hoping to buy. On Saturday we accepted an offer on our place in Wapping, east London, and had an offer accepted on the house we want to buy in Chelmsford (further east, about 1.25 hours' drive from London). This domestic hooray wouldn't merit a post if it wasn't for the fact that the house we are buying (if all goes well) has been built in the "New England style". When I first saw the area I thought "this looks a bit familiar" and I asked the estate agent whether it was just me or had the houses been built with a New England vibe in mind. He replied that indeed this part of the development was supposed to have a New England, clapboard look and that the house we are now buying was built "to the Stockbridge design". I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds pretty American to me.

British readers won't be surprised by anything that happens in Essex, but I like to think that we've managed to buy a house that's almost an AWI house. Even better, my new painting room looks large enough to accommodate a gaming table (as per photos below), which will mean that for the first time I will be able to have a permanent set-up. The road from offer to completion is fraught with difficulties, but we are slowly moving along it and I'll have to ensure I maximise painting time before the move.

Apologies...

2011-07-04T12:35:00.003Z

...for the lack of posts recently. I've been hit by the joint effect of a very busy period at work and the need to empty the house prior to it being put on the market. That has now happened and each weekend is now spent travelling around Essex looking at houses, so eroding further on painting and posting time. Tidying-up the house led to the decision about what to do with all my painting stuff: do I put it away completely, or have the essentials only, or stand proud and keep everything out? I realised that I could empty the drawers of my desk and stick most of my paints in them - no longer are they standing on the floor and window-sills in a variety of grubby boxes and I'm much happier for it. Most of the lead-pile is now in storage, and much else besides. Sorting through heaps of boxes filled with figures and various bits and bobs was also wuite cathartic. I have found figures that have been half or part-painted for years and I'm going to finish these off over the next few weeks. I once tried to include at least one such figure in each painting batch but that plan didn't survive more than a week or so. This time I will try harder. Anyway, viewers of the house can't mind my residual painting stuff too much since we had out first offer today, and the house only went on the market last Thursday.

Above is a wip shot of the AWI French chasseur unit I am slowly working on. I'm exactly half-way through, with 12 figures completed. This week I'm painting 8 Eureka Revolutionary Wars French figures as chasseur skirmishers. The Gatinois regiment has now been photographed and I'll try to post on that later this week, together with the 15mm stuff. Below are "before and after" photos of my painting desk!

Finally - a big "Happy 4th of July" to all my American friends, followers and readers!

4th Chasseurs

2011-06-10T10:19:00.007Z

I painted these figures a while ago but forgot to post pictures. This unit represents the 4th Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard and utilises the 2 special packs of figures that Perry Miniatures released for the 3rd and 4th regiment of Grenadiers and Chasseurs. These Middle Guard units were hastily raised in 1815 and apparently suffered from supply issues - hence the lack of bearskins and the variety of headgear. The 4th Chasseurs formed part of the final attack on the centre of Wellington's line at Waterloo. Losing heavily from artillery fire and volleys from the British Guards, the 4th appears to have been pretty much wiped out.

In the "General de Brigade" orbat I'm using for 1815, the 4th Chasseurs appear as a 24 figure unit in Michel's brigade, with 2 battalions of the 3rd Chasseurs. Perry Miniatures do a very nice Michel personality figure, so it is tempting to work up the rest of the brigade at some point. Perry give you several options for the Guard Chasseurs: standing in full dress, standing in greatcoats, advancing in full dress, advancing in greatcoats, and advancing in greatcoats and funny hats, as used here. For the Waterloo orbat you need 6 battalions of Chasseurs, 2 each for the 2nd and 3rd and then one apiece for the 1st and 4th. I'm thinking that having started with the 4th I could work backwards and progressively "smarten up" each regiment. So whilst the 4th Chasseurs use just the special "ragged" figures, the 3rd Chasseurs' battalions would consist of a mix of hats and a few bearskins. One battalion of the 2nd would have greatcoats and bearskins and then the other and the 1st Chasseurs would be in full dress. That way I could use all the various packs produced by the Perries! I did think about making the 4th ultra scruffy by painting the greatcoats in a variety of different colours, but decided that I want my Guard units to look like the Guard and so all greatcoats will be painted dark blue (I used the Foundry "French Blue 65" palette with some extra highlights of "Deep Blue 20"). However, I did decide to mix up the trousers a little.

On the workbench at the moment is more AWI - French infantry and some civilians. Next week I'll post about my newly-completed 15mm regiment, being the star of a new period!

Blogger update: I still can't post comments on other blogs, it seems, despite fiddling around with cookies, settings and other things. I hope Blogger sort this out because it's getting to be very annoying. I'm very much enjoying what other followers are doing at the moment and it's frustrating not being able to say so!

24 figures. Painted February and March 2011.

Count Casimir Pulaski

2011-06-03T11:40:00.004Z

Pulaski was born in Poland in 1745 into a well-known noble family. His soldiering began in his early twenties when he joined the Polish groups opposing Russian influence and intervention in their country. That opposition quickly led to armed conflict and Pulaski proved himself to be an excellent commander of men. Outlawed by the Russians in 1771 and accused of trying to kidnap the Polish king, he fled to Turkey and then Paris. There in 1777 he met Benjamin Franklin and Lafayette and agreed to join the struggle for independence, no doubt keen to support another country trying to win its freedom. Franklin introduced Pulaski to George Washington, who appears to have given Pulaski some sort of staff or advisory role. Pulaski's first engagement of the war was at Brandywine, where he led the scouting party that discovered the British flanking movement which threatened the American escape route. He collected whatever cavalry he could and bought time for the American army to withdraw.

Congress rewarded Pulaski with a commission as brigadier general and command of all American cavalry. He spent the winter of 1777-8 training and outfitting the cavalry units but in March he resigned his command due to difficulties with his officers (who appear to have disliked being ordered about by a foreigner who had not mastered English). Pulaski suggested to Washington that he form an independent legion of cavalry and light infantry. This idea was approved by Congress and Pulaski's Legion was born, which became the model for other legions such as Lee's and Armand's. Many of the recruits were German deserters and British PoWs, officered by Polish and French expatriates (apparently thirteen Polish officers served under Pulaski in the legion). In 1779 the legion , then only about 120 men strong, was sent to the south and Pulaski was instrumental is lifting the siege of Charleston. The Americans then moved onto their own siege of Savannah. By this time French forces had arrived and on 9 October 1779 the allies made their disasterous attack on the town. Seeing the French infantry falter, Pulaski galloped forward with his legion to rally the men but was mortally wounded by cannon shot. He died two days later, on 15 October 1779, and was buried at sea. He was 34 years old.

The Pulaski here is the "Baron Munchausen" figure from Eureka Miniatures. This was a kind freebie from Eureka. There is another variant of this set which has the Baron mounted on only half a horse that is drinking from a fountain (see here for an explanation). At first I thought about painting the figure as a German officer or a French cavalry commander but then I realised that it would make a perfect Pulaski. The uniform is light cavalry in style and suitably, while the sabretache has a design that looks vaguely like the white eagle that is emblem of the Polish coat of arms. I took my lead from the painting above, "The Death of General Casimir Pulaski" by S. Batowksi, and you can see that Pulaski's uniform in the painting (admittedly painted in 1932!) is not far off from that of Munchausen. The hat is a bit tall, perhaps (although see the troopers to the left of Pulaski in the painting), but is in keeping with the flamboyant look which seems appropriate for such a larger-than-life character. Following Batowksi, I painted the uniform and horse furniture in the standard Polish colours of crimson and dark blue.

Painted May 2011.

Auckland

2011-06-01T21:05:00.004Z

As a coda to my Flagstaff War posts I thought I would post about the other military exhibits I saw in NZ in February. I first visited the Auckland War Memorial Museum a couple of years ago but I forgot my camera. This time I had a morning to spend wandering around whilst the Kiwi caught up with friends in the park outside. The top floor of the museum is concerned with the country's military history, from the 1820s to modern deployments. The quality of the displays is very high and there are also research areas which have always been busy when I have visited. someone asked about the model of Ruapekapeka I featured in an earlier post. That model is in this museum.

Some WW1 propaganda stuff:

The NZ Mounted Rifles in Palestine and a Hotchkiss machine gun:

"Pelorus Jack" was the mascot of HMS New Zealand during WW1. The ship was built by New Zealand for service in the Royal Navy in defence of the Empire, and was present at Jutland. Unfortunately Pelorus Jack fell down the forward funnel one day and was declared dead from the navy on 24 April 1916. His will requested that his successor be "a bull pup of honest parentage, clean habits and moral tendencies." His will further requested that "no Dachshund or other dog of Teutonic extraction" be allowed on board". On the right is a WW1 4.5 inch howitzer.

Two exhibits from the WW2 Crete display. On the right are "Cretan winged daggers".

A 25-pounder used at Cassino and the inner workings of a Spitfire:

Finally, Hugo conveys his thoughts on the exhibits and some Maori weapons:

On a side note, Blogger seems to be malfunctioning again and I can't leave comments on other blogs. From perusing other sites it appears that I'm not alone. So apologies to all those who have posted recently and on whose blogs I haven't posted comments - please blame Blogger.

NZ Wars - Auckland Militia

2011-05-25T22:07:00.005Z

After the battle of Ruapekepeka, both sides appear to have wanted peace. Kawiti and Heke considered that they had worsted the British whilst the British, in the form of Governor Grey, liked to boast that the evacuation of a pa again indicated British victory. In reality, both sides were over-egging their positions, and the economic and physical cost of the conflict led them to broker a peace. Arguably, the most important factor in driving the Maori to cease hostilities was the effect of pro-government Maori attacks on Kawiti's and Heke's territory. British authority was maintained in theory, but it was the loyal Maori chiefs who acted as a buffer against the (unconquered) forces of Kawiti and Heke. One suspects that both sides knew that the end of the war signified a truce and not a peace, a fact perhaps demonstrated by Heke marching a large force into Russell at the end of 1846 - he removed the remains of the men killed in the attack on 11 March 1845 and then retired. Perhaps his aim was to demonstrate that he could go where he chose - hardly an indication of a British victory. Furthermore, the flagstaff at Russell remained broken and had been left where it lay when Heke cut it down on 11 March 1845. The Maori were far from defeated and this, arguably, made further conflict inevitable.

The figures shown here represent the Auckland Militia. I understand that they wore military clothing provided by the British regulars, so I have painted the trousers in the same way as the 58th Foot and given them blue-grey army shirts. Of the Empress Miniatures first release I still have some Maori chiefs to paint - when I have finished those I will add some information about the Taranaki and Wellington campaigns of 1846-47 (i.e. the fighting at the middle/bottom of North Island).

I hope readers have enjoyed this series of posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them. For me, this has been an opportunity to read up about this period and think again about areas of NZ that I have visited. Those who have little interest in this conflict may like to know that there are more 1815 and AWI posts on the horizon, specifically those French Old Guard I finished ages ago and Court Pulaski for the AWI. On the workbench are some Eureka Miniatures civilians and lost of AWI French. Oh, and I'm looking forward to painting my first 15mm figures in about 12 years...

NZ Wars - Maori (2)

2011-05-18T21:07:00.007Z

Grey, the new governor, was ambitious and young. Aged only 33 (in contrast to Colonel Despard, who was 60), Grey was determined to bring the colony to heel and issued an ultimatum to Heke and Kawiti which they could never accept. Grey then marshalled the forces available throughout the country and received reinforcements that had been sent from as far afield as India. His army grew to some 800 regular infantry, a naval brigade of 400, 450 friendly Maori and a dozen cannon of various calibres. He ordered Despard to attack the new pa at Ruapekapeka. Dragging heavy artillery through the bush required a huge effort and the force took 3 weeks to reach the pa. The bombardment began on New Year's Eve, 1845. At some stage Heke managed to sneak into the pa with 60 warriors.

By 10 January 1846 the guns had created a breach in the pa's outer palisade. The next day, Despard's Maori scouts reported that the pa had been abandoned and British troops moved to take possession. Whilst Kawiti and a dozen warriors were still in the pa, the majority were outside and the British were attacked by Maori firing from the bush (it's unclear whether this was a pre-meditated ambush, or whether the garrison were outside at prayer) and after a 3-hour fire-fight both sides withdrew. The abandonment by the Maori of Ruapekapeka again led the British to claim a substantial victory. But Grey knew that again a convincing military success had again eluded the British, and it appears that Maori casualties were lower than those of the British (which were about 45). Moreover, Heke and Kawiti were still at large. Belich believes that the Maori plan was to lure the British into an ambush, where hidden Maori could catch their enemy in the open. This is interesting given the slaughter of the attack on Ohaeawai, but the Maori strategy may have been to wear down the British by making them attack inland pas in difficult terrain. Captain Collinson of the Royal Engineers wrote: "1100 men were occupied a full month in advancing 15 miles and in getting possession of a pa from which the enemy escaped at the last moment, and escaped with the satisfaction to him of a drawn battle. The question is, was it worthwhile to go through all that laborious march to obtain such a result?" (Nowadays, driving through West Auckland prompts much the same feeling.)

The figures shown here are further Maori sculpts from Empress Miniatures, plus Heke again. Unfortunately, there will be a gap in posts until Saturday as work requires me to leave London for a couple of days.

NZ Wars - Sources

2011-05-17T12:01:00.007Z

I haven't quite finished off the bases of my latest Flagstaff War figures, so I thought I'd just do a short post on sources, as a couple of people have asked in the comments. I also need to thank Roly (Arteis) and Pat (Mericanach) for drawing my attention to books I wasn't previously aware of. Anyone coming fresh to this period and wanting to find suitable books will probably find that the most recommended titles are hard to track down cheaply. I've bought most of my books during my trips to New Zealand (and wish I'd listened to my inner wargaming voice and bought more books when I was at the Russell Museum last year), although second hand markets look potentially quite fruitful. That said, there is a mass of information on the internet, and helpful fora. I list below some information sources that I've found most useful.

Books

"Maori Fortifications" by Ian Knight - Osprey. I reviewed this book for Battlegames a few issues ago and recommend it highly. Easy to get hold of and the author is a reliable guide on Victorian warfare. Excellent illustrations and invaluable for anyone who has any pretensions to model a pa. Whilst the text jumps around in chronological terms, the book provides a short narrative of the entire New Zealand Wars.

"Victoria's Enemies (4)" by Ian Knight - Osprey. This has a good section on the Maori and two decent colour plates, one of which also shows the uniform of a 58th Foot private from the Flagstaff War.

"The British Army on Campaign (1)" by Michael Barthorp - Osprey. This only has a small section on the NZ campaigns but is useful nonetheless.

"The New Zealand Wars" by James Belich - Penguin. This is the only single volume detailed narrative of the entire period that I have found. There appears to be a DVD series that is connected to the book. Belich is a revisionist who objects to much received wisdom and, I think (as I have only read the early chapters so far), considers the idea of a British victory to be much more equivocal.

"Battlefields of the New Zealand Wars: A Visitor's Guide" by David Green - Penguin. This is what it says, namely a gazetteer, but it includes full descriptions of the sites it refers to and contains much useful information and photos. The introduction has a good summary of the historiography of the period. This book has been published only very recently and I really wish I'd had it when in the Bay of Islands last year!

"The Colonial New Zealand Wars" by Ryan and Parham - Granthan House. This is the one book that people in the know recommend. I can't find it for anything less than £60 and I'm not sure it's actually still in print. I gather that the second, 2002, edition is the one to have as it includes many more illustrations than the first.

"To Face the Daring Maoris: Soldiers' impressions of the First Maori War 1845-47" by Michael Barthorp - Hodder & Stoughton. I have just ordered this on Pat's and Roly's recommendation. Amazon have a couple of second hand copies.

Websites

http://history-nz.org/wars.html - good basic information.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h16/1 - the DNZB's page on Hone Heke.

http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/events/2010/june/goldie-and-lindauer-approaching-portraiture - a link to the Auckland Art Gallery's exhibition of portraits by Lindauer and Goldie, which I saw in March this year. Useful Maori skin and tattoo pictures.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jray/gordon/moir/war-pics.htm - a collection of the contemporary drawings and watercolours made by John Williams and Cyprian Bridge, both soldiers in the 58th Foot.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jray/gordon/moir/news1.htm#12th: a collection of contemporary newspaper articles, government announcements and despatches.

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Cow01NewZ.html - volume 1 of Cowan's "The New Zealand Wars" which covers the Flagstaff War. Well found by Pat!

Wargaming

http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Flagstaff-War-Scenario.pdf - Roly Hermans' Sharpe Practice scenario for the attack on Russell.

http://www.wargamesillustrated.net/Default.aspx?tabid=292&art_id=2166 - articles from WI274 on the Flagstaff War.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaoriWars/?yguid=47512666 - the Maori Wars yahoo group.

NZ Wars - Maori (1)

2011-05-16T09:02:00.004Z

Colonel Despard continued to shell Ohaeawai, until on 8 July 1845 it was discovered that the pa had been abandoned overnight. Despard then destroyed it which enabled the British to claim a victory, despite their shattering losses of the 1 July attack. The Governor of New Zealand, Robert FitzRoy (the captain of HMS Beagle on Darwin's voyage, a descendant of Charles II and the future inventor of the weather forecast), saw the need for grandiose propaganda claims but knew that the British had achieved nothing near a victory in the field and lacked the resources for doing so. He therefore commenced peace negotiations, first with Heke and then, reluctantly, with Kawiti, whilst simultaneously puffing up the British attacks over the past few months. The stumbling block in the negotiations was the cession of some Maori land, over which neither Heke nor Kawiti appeared to claim title and so was designed to give FitzRoy another propaganda "victory". However, Kawiti prevaricated, knowing full well that the British were hardly negotiating from a position of strength, and the British offer of terms lapsed in September when FitzRoy was replaced by the redoubtable Captain George Grey. Grey had some sympathy for FitzRoy two-pronged propaganda and peace strategy, but realised that a peace settlement at this time would be tantamount to the British accepting defeat. So there would be more bloodshed before the Flagstaff War came to an end.

These photos show musket-armed Maori from 3 different packs in the Empress Miniatures range. My interpretation of the Empress Maori figures has caused some disagreement in the Allison household. If you google for colour photographs of Maori you will find people who look more "red" than "black", with skin tones that are more Polynesian than Aboriginal. Now I know from my visits to NZ that Maori skin tones are not uniform and the Kiwi made the point to me that Maori in the 1840s would have been darker than they are now. She thinks my Maori are too "red" and should be darker. Fair point and I'm sure she is correct, although if you look at the Maori portraits painted by Goldie and Lindauer in the closing years of the 19th century their subjects don't look all that "dark". However, getting skin tones right on 25mm non-Caucasians is tricky and everyone has their own idea of how differently they think such figures should be painted (with my AWI Indians, for example, I used the same flesh paints that I use for the Europeans). My approach to painting Maori skin was to find something that looked different to the paheka figures, but which was noticeably more "Pacific" than "Darkest Africa". I settled on the Foundry palette "South American Flesh 119", which seemed the most suitable of all the Foundry flesh palettes and at least is the closest in geographical terms. This look may not be the most historically accurate, but I'm pleased with it.

Another reason for choosing a slightly lighter skin colour was to ensure that the tattoos stood out better. These I painted with a dark blue colour rather than black (using Foundry "French Blue 65A"), which I think is more authentic anyway but also just looked a bit better. I decided that a "less is more" approach with ta moko was best. If you look at pictures of tattooed Maori from the 19th century you see that their entire faces were often covered with intricate tattoos, but obviously that would be very difficult to replicate in 25mm and probably look a complete mess anyway. So I've gone for reasonably simple geometric and swirl designs and made sure that those figures wearing shorter skirts had tattoos on their thighs and buttocks. In the 1840s Maori were still wearing traditional, rather than Western, clothes, and in fact these figures are probably wearing more clothes than they would have done in battle. I decided to follow a browns and beiges colour scheme to tie the warriors together.

6 figures. Painted April 2011.

NZ Wars - the Royal Navy

2011-05-15T15:21:00.009Z

The defeat of Honi Heke by "loyal" Maori at Te Ahuahu gave the British an excellent opportunity to move against Chief Kawiti, the other ringleader of Maori resistance, at his pa at Ohaeawai. By this time, Colonel Hulme had been replaced as c-in-c of all British troops in New Zealand by Colonel Henry Despard of the 99th Foot. The British arrived at Ohaeawai on 24 June 1840 and Despard, with a force of 615 men and 4 cannon, immediately commenced a bombardment with his artillery in an attempt to create a breach in the pa's walls. 6 days later his 6- and 12-pounders had failed to have any impact, so Despard ordered up a 32-pounder from the ships standing by offshore. When the gun opened fire Kawiti launched a Sally against one of the artillery batteries and Despard responded by sending 250 men to assault the pa itself. These men consisted of flank companies from the 58th Foot and the 99th Foot, plus some sailors, Auckland Militia and other volunteers. 100 Maori were in the pa at the time, but the British were hurled back with heavy loss. The British managed to advance close to the pa under cover and then "50 paces" away charged. At that point the Maori fired a devastating volley, described by one soldier as "the opening of the doors of a monstrous furnace". Struggling to pull down the fences that formed the pa's outer defences, the British then took fire from all sides from Maori who the soldiers couldn't even see. Eventually, after about 10 minutes, the retreat was sounded. Almost half the assault party was killed or wounded in the attack.

Major Cyprian Bridge, who having witnessed the action at Puketutu should have been aware of Maori confidence in battle, wrote that after the assault the men were "tired and dispirited and disgusted beyond expression at having been defeated by a mob of savages and with such fearful cost too." Despard had assaulted a well-fortified pa without waiting for his artillery to create a clear breach, and that was clearly a grave mistake (apparently various officers objected to his plan to launch a frontal assault, many of whom subsequently died in the attempt). However, what he probably had not fully appreciated was just how skilfully the Maori had prepared the pa for defence, which included various innovations. The two palisades provided obstacles which would hold up attacking infantry, and behind that was a trench in which Maori musketmen could fire from cover. Flanking-angles were built into the trench system to ensure that attackers would be caught in fire from as many sides as possible; those British soldiers who made it through the first palisade found themselves in enfilade fire and didn't get much further. The garrison was protected from artillery bombardment by underground pits and bunkers. Despard had assumed that his artillery, which fired over 400 rounds, had pulverised and demoralised the Maori, but that assumption was completely wrong as the garrison was untouched. In fact, Maori losses for the entire battle are thought to have been fewer than 10 men. Ohaeawai was a disaster for the British and there was no further fighting for 5 months.

The figures here are a Royal Navy rocket and crew from Empress Miniatures and a pack of 4 sailors from Mutineer Miniatures' Indian Mutiny range. The latter are a bit chunkier than the former, but at present the Empress range has no seamen and the Mutineer figures make an acceptable stand-in and I have added a photo of a Mutineer figure next to an Empress one. The uniform of the sailors is defintely more India than Australasia - for example, the army did not provide neck shades for troops in service in NZ; but the navy may have done, I suppose - who knows? I suspect that sailors will feature in any new releases in this range, together with guns and crews. The rocket team is an excellent group of sculpts. I don't think that any rockets were deployed at Ohaeawai but they were present at Puketutu (as evidenced by the painting below by Cyprian Bridge). Heke's wife, Hariata, noted that the rockets made a lot of noise but ultimately didn't do much damage. I think I read that somewhere about British rockets in the Napoleonic Wars...

7 figures. Painted April 2011.

NZ Wars - Hone Heke

2011-05-13T21:11:00.008Z

From a British perspective, the villain of the piece so far in the Flagstaff War is Chief Hone Heke (c.1807 - 1850). After the sack of Russell, the aim of British expeditions against the Maori were intended, ultimately, to kill or capture Heke and his ally Chief Kawiti. Who was Heke and what were his objectives? To be honest, it's difficult to know and these are questions that have traditional answers and revisionist ones. It is clear that Heke objected to the imposition of British law when it conflicted with Maori law and customs. Then again, he enjoyed the economic benefits of coexistence with pakeha, which suggests that his anger was directed at the colonial government rather than the existence of the white settlers themselves. He certainly used the rhetoric of war of liberation when it suited him, accusing pakeha as wishing to treat Maori as slaves, for example. But the again, he appears to have wanted the white man to remain. In the words of "revisionist" James Belich , "he wished to regulate, not reject, European contact and settlement." Unfortunately, the British authorities could not give ground, especially after the sack of Russell.

We left Heke in a strong position. He had driven settlers out of Russell and had seen off Colonel Hulme's attack on Puketutu. However, at this point Heke came into conflict with neighbouring tribes who, if not "loyal" to the British at least had decided not to throw their lot in with Heke and Kawiti. Heke abandoned Puketutu and went to an older pa, Te Ahuahu. Whilst Heke was off searching for cattle one day, this pa was seized by a pro-government chief called Te Taonui. In the ensuing battle to reclaim his pa, Heke was badly wounded and appears to have lost a large number of men. This battle reminds us that the Maori themselves were divided between those who supported the British and those who did not (and the painting in the last post of the attack on Puketutu shows loyal Maori on the left of the painting). But Heke had a lot of support and once recovered from his wound was still in the game, so to speak, as we shall see.

This Empress Miniatures figures is quite clearly Hone Heke. The sculpt is taken from the illustration of Heke in the Osprey MAA "Queen Victoria's Enemies (4)", which shows him wearing "a short cape decorated with kiwi feathers over a longer flax coat, and a sea captain's cap which he habitually wore." The Osprey illustration doesn't show what he's wearing underneath the flax coat, and this requires painting on the Empress figure. I followed the Osprey and then painted the undergarment with a mosaic/tartan motif (in free-hand, Roly, not using a pen!). In the 1850s and 60s Maoris appear to have worn tartan-ish patterns on their clothes and it seems appropriate that chiefs would have pioneered this look earlier. I will explain my approach to Maori tattoos in a later post!

Lastly, just to say that Blogger royally screwed this blog (and many others) over the past 36 hours, which explains the disappearance of yesterday's post and the additions I had also made to Wednesday's post, which added more detail to the attack on Russell that kicked off the Flagstaff War. Hopefully those posts are now restored (at the expense of an evening's painting tonight). But I reckon I have about half a dozen more posts to go, so hopefully I can continue the one-post-a-day story of the First New Zealand War.

NZ Wars - 58th Foot

2011-05-13T18:33:00.006Z

Hone Heke's attack on Kororareka/Russell prompted an evacuation of its inhabitants to Auckland. While the Maoris sacked the town, the Royal Navy sloop HMS Hazard commenced a bombardment, which destroyed many of the town's buildings. Hone Heke realised that the British were likely to return in force and so began work on a new fortified pa, called Puketutu, on the shore of Lake Omapere, about 15 miles inland. Soon after the evacuation of Russell a punitive force of British regulars and seamen was landed in the Bay of Islands under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Hulme of the 96th Foot. Hulme had about 400 men, including 100 sailors, a naval rocket battery, elements of the 96th and some 200 soldiers from the 58th Foot. The 58th had recently arrived in New Zealand, having spent the previous 2 years on garrison duty in New South Wales. The force marched from the coast to Puketutu, through difficult terrain and heavy rain. The new pa had strong defences, with double and triple palisading in place on three sides. However, the rear of the pa was not completed and so was vulnerable to attack.

The British troops attacked on 8 May 1845. Colonel Hulme sent a main assault party of 216 men against the uncompleted rear of the pa and a skirmish line against the front. The main assault party took heavy fire not just from the pa itself but also from the bush. The British realised that an ambush had been set to protect the vulnerable side. 100 warriors charged out of the bush to attack the British assault from the rear. More Maori sallied out of the pa and fierce hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Eventually the Maori were all forced back inside the pa, but Hulme realised that he had to withdraw. The heavily fortified pa was easily able to withstand musket balls and the rocket battery had made little impact on its walls. Without heavier artillery Colonel Hulme had no choice but to retreat. Lessons had been learnt on both sides. The British appreciated the risks of frontal assault on fortified positions. The Maori realised that in a fire-fight in open ground the British regulars would most likely prevail. British casualties were 52 dead and wounded, with Maori losses thought to be about the same. Above is a watercolour of the battle that was painted by Major Cyprian Bridge of the 58th.

The figures here consist of two complete packs of rank-and-file and then an officer and a NCO from the command pack there are 2 other figures from the command pack which I have not yet painted, as I may transfer them to Carlist War duty. I can't immediately see any reason why these figures should not be used for the British Auxiliary Legion in the First Carlist War. There are slight differences in uniform between these and the Perry figures that also wear forage caps - the Empress figures don't wear backpacks and the shoulder tabs are different, but otherwise pretty much look the same. A problem which arises if you intend to paint up the figures for service in both conflicts is that the facing colours don't quite match up. For example, there is no BAL unit that wears the black facings of the 58th. When painting these figures I followed the illustration of a 58th Foot officer in the Osprey MAA "The British Army on Campaign (1)", which shows red shell-jacket and "Oxford mixture grey" trousers, which I've always regarded as a kind of dark blue-black. So for the trousers I used the Foundry palette "British Royal Blue 74" with an extra highlight of "Deep Blue 20B".

10 figures. Painted April 2011.

NZ Wars - civilians

2011-05-11T22:14:00.009Z

The Treaty of Waitangi of February 1840 created New Zealand as a British colony. Designed to alleviate tensions between the Maori and white settlers (or pakeha), the treaty was interpreted differently by the two sides and friction between Maori and settlers increased in the years following its signing. The central issue was the settlers' desire for land and the Maori's reluctance to accommodate that desire. Within a few years conflict broke out, with the first blood being shed in Nelson at the top of South Island. The first prolonged period of fighting, however, took place in the Bay of Islands, to the north of Auckland in North Island; the First New Zealand War, or "Flagstaff War" or "Northern War", broke out in January 1845 and continued until January 1846.

Local chiefs of the Ngapuhi tride in the Bay of Islands area, Kawiti and Hone Heke (the nephew of Hongi Hika who we met in the previous post) objected to British rule, although part of this appears to have been frustration at the economic consequences of the authorities' decision to transfer the capital of New Zealand from the town of Kororareka (renamed Russell soon afterwards) to Auckland. The Maori demonstrated their anger by cutting down the Union Jack flag pole at Kororareka, the symbol of British sovereignty. On 11 March 1845 Maori under Hone Heka and his ally Kawiti attacked Kororareka, a battle which Roly Hermans has recently worked into a Sharpe Practice scenario.

The attack was a disaster for the British. The forces in the town consisted of 140-odd soldiers from the 96th Foot, sailors from the sloop HMS Hazard and marines. The townsfolk contributed some 200 armed men to this force. The Maoris are thought to have fielded between 500 and 600 warriors. Defences around the town included 2 blockhouses and a stockade. These were taken by the Maori and the British garrison was put to flight. The soldiers and civilians both sought refuge in the ships lying at anchor in the harbour and Kororareka, the 5th largest town in New Zealand, was abandoned.

As they were the first combatants against the Maori, before British forces became involved, I thought I'd start with the settlers. These 4 figures form one pack in the Empress Miniatures rage. I was originally unsure about the top hats. I appreciate that people did wear them in the 1840s, but when going into battle....? Also, spectacles on a figure seem to be a Paul Hicks trademark - neat, but a pain to paint! Anyway, the range could usefully do with another couple of packs of civilians and hopefully they may be forthcoming. In the meantime, I'll be looking at other ranges, particularly the Perry ACW rioter figures. Below are a couple of photos of the area today. On the left is the harbour at Russell. The picture on the right shows the Bay of Islands from the Waitangi treaty grounds.

4 figures. Painted April 2011.

New Zealand Week

2011-05-10T12:35:00.007Z

It's New Zealand Week at Tarleton's Quarter. I took advantage of the recent bank holidays to paint the packs of Empress Miniatures' New Zealand Wars figures, and a few others, that I bought at Salute. Each day this week I will post pictures of a different set of figures and, hopefully, some notes about the Flagstaff War of 1845-6 for which these figures were designed. There are British regulars, civilians, Auckland militia, the Naval Brigade and, of course, lots of heavily-tattooed Maori - that should provide a post a day until Sunday!

To kick things off, I thought I'd post some photos of "Maoriana" that I took when in NZ a couple of months ago. These exhibits are mainly in the Auckland War Memorial Museum and one or two photos (I confess I can't identify which) are from Wellington's Te Papa museum. Above is a photo of a contemporary model of Ruapekapeka pa, together with a photo of the 'net of what the site looks like today. Ruapekapeka was built by the Maori chiefs Hone Heke and Te Ruki Kawhiti in 1845 and was one of the largest and most complex Maori fortifications. The name means "the bats' nest" and refers to how the Maori warriors lived in underground dug-outs and shelters, like bats. The British stormed the pa in January 1846 after a 2 week bombardment, only to find that the Maori had sneaked out the back. This model was made by Captain Henry Balneavis, commander of the 58th Foot's light company which took part in the attack on Ruapekapeka and who was keenly interested in Maori fortifications. The weapons are, hopefully, self-explanatory. The armour in the first photo below was a gift to Chief Hongi Hika from King George IV, when the former visited England in 1820. Apparently the Chief was presented with many other gifts, but sold them and bought muskets instead which he then used to subjugate his neighbours upon his return to New Zealand.

Incidentally, another aspect of New Zealand Week is the need to polish off various bottles of NZ pinot noir that have accumulated in my house. Last year I signed up with PureNoir, a supplier of "boutique" NZ pinot noir who provide you with a case of different wines every 3 months. The next case is arriving next week and I have a bit of a back log, caused by insufficiently rapid consumption of my previous 3 cases.

Stylish Blogger Award

2011-05-04T13:11:00.008Z

I have been nominated by a couple of other bloggers for this award, doing the rounds across the bloggosphere. The rules require me to thank the bloggers concerned, so many thanks to Axebreaker, Clarence Harrison, Legatus Hedlius and Steve. I am next required to share 7 things about myself. In no particular order, 7 memorable incidents from my life to date are:

- At school I performed a chemistry experiment in front of the Queen and Prince Phillip.

- The first time I went to the Edinburgh Festival I spent 2 hours in the back of a police car. (I have to say that the Borders and Lothian Police are the friendliest coppers you'll ever find; especially since the first thing I said to them was "I'm English, but please don't hurt me; and I'm a lawyer, so please don't arrest me.")

- On a stag do in Brighton I managed to lock myself out of my hotel room stark naked. (The worst part wasn't having to go down to reception to get a spare key. The worst part was the fact that I was utterly desperate for a pee, couldn't find a loo and had to, er, "hold" myself appropriately.)

- I once threw up in the late Susannah York's garden.

- I have read a lesson in Westminster Abbey.

- My grandfather's last words to me were "I think you should go and chase some skirt." (My then girlfriend was sitting next to me at the time.)

- My first ever paid job was playing the piano in a bar in Chelsea.

Lastly, I am required to nominate other worthy bloggers for their own stylish blog award. I nominate all those who left comments on my last post who haven't already been "styled", together with the invaluable AD, whose blog on largely lesser-known (at least to me) AWI actions is an invaluable source of inspiration, and my wine-trading pal Malcolm, whose valiantly wades through 15mm Naps.

The photos above and below show what I've been working on the past couple of weeks; a nice (and temporary) change from AWI and Naps, I'll happily admit. Better photos next week once I've finished the remaining figures in the release. Napoleon's Old Guard Chasseurs should be posted at the weekend.

Armand's Legion

2011-05-03T12:09:00.007Z

Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie (1751-1793), arrived in America from his native France in 1776 and was authorised by Washington to raise a unit of foreign volunteers to fight with the Continental army. Armand's Legion, containing cavalry and infantry elements, was officially formed on June 25, 1778 at Boston, having taken over and augmented a unit formed in 1777 by Baron Ottendorf. In 1782 it was renamed the 1st Partisan Corps, by which time it had absorbed the remnants of Pulaski's Legion. The Legion was present at Monmouth, Brandywine Camden, Guilford and Yorktown but its reputation was not the best and it appears to have suffered from ill-discipline. In 1783 Armand was promoted to brigadier general and returned to France later that year. In the "British Grenadier!" scenarios the cavalry element appears as a 6-figure unit at Camden.

These are of course the new Eureka Continental dragoon figures, which come in two poses: at rest and charging. The figure that I had picked out as an at-rest officer is actually a charging trooper, which explains why he is leaning forward a little and isn't uniformed any differently to the other figures! I have two illustrations of the cavalry element of Armand's Legion in my library - Mollo/McGregor shows Armand himself in a British Legion-style jacket and a horsehair helmet; Zlatich/Younghusband (Osprey) has a trooper in a waistcoat and coat with a side-plumed, brass Tarleton helmet. I chose to use the Eureka "jockey cap" for the headgear as that seemed a good compromise; the crest is a bit small but it has the side-plume. I stuck to the Osprey's colour scheme of dark-blue coats and waistcoats with buff breeches and turnbacks (which aren't visible in the Osprey illustration but I thought buff turnbacks would look better than white ones). I painted the coats in a darker blue than usual, using Foundry's "French Blue 65" palette with a couple of extra highlights from "Deep Blue 20". Both reference books show a red stock, which adds a nice splash of colour. I reversed the coat colours of the trumpeter, but I have no authority for that.

The flag is home made. Having found nothing online about the Legion's flag (or indeed whether it had a flag at all) I decided to make something that combined American and French motifs. A variant on the French revolutionary slogan seemed suitable. I swapped "fraternity" with "justice" as the former word always reminds me of raucous early 20-something American students (further to a particular episode in a Barcelona nightclub) and the latter word just seemed more appropriate anyway. For the American element I added the crossed sabres of the US Cavalry; anachronistic, perhaps, but it sort of works. So the design is pure invention, but I like to think is the sort of thing that Armand or one of his officers might have dreamt up. As it happened, once back in France Armand became an enthusiastic supporter of the republican cause and the Revolution. However, his initial support turned to disillusion and he was instrumental in forming the Breton Association in his native Brittany which ultimately came into armed conflict with the revolutionaries.

6 figures. Painted March/April 2011.

Salute 2011

2011-04-20T22:34:00.006Z

As usual, others have beaten me to it with reports and photos, but I thought I'd still post the pics I took of Salute last Saturday. The general consensus seemed to be that the standard of games was up and attendance a bit down. The latter perception may have esulted from an extra feeling of space - the amount of space occupied by re-enactors was less than in previous years and generally the show felt less cramped. Another plus was the absence of the r/c tanks and daleks that have plagued recent Salutes - I have enough difficulty evading other punters and their rucksacks without having to dodge things that are racing around the aisles. First impressions were not too good. Having bought an "advance ticket" I arrived to see a queue that was about 3 times longer than the "cash on the day" queue. After 30 minutes I watched the latter queue reduce to nothing whilst those of us who had paid in advance were still snaking round to the back of the hall. Very irritating (not least because people with advance tickets who arrived after 10.30 am seemed to just walk in through the cash door, which those of us in the queue were not permitted to do).

Still, once you're in Salute is a mega-show, and I wouldn't want the points above to detract from my appreciation of the huge amount of effort that the organisers put in to the show. As stated above, the "terraining" of the hall seemed well thought-out and the bag of goodies upon entry was fuller than usual. I found most of the items I wanted to buy, and plenty others that I hadn't intended to. Purchases included: the Perry plastic 1815 Prussian infantry box; the Empress Miniatures New Zealand Wars release; the 3rd AWI scenario book from Caliver; the re-launched English edition of WSS magazine; a renewed Wargames Illustrated sub; the Olley/Grant "Wargamers Annuals"; and finally the Perry/Snook book "Go Strong into the Desert", which I've had my eye on for a while. Items desired but resisted included the Mutineer Miniatures Indian Mutiny range (beautiful figures) and the Empress Zulu War range. Given all the Perry 3-ups on display, I suspect next year's show will see my budget blown almost entirely on Perry plastics...

Anyway, here are some photos, in no particular order; as you can see, the standard was very high this year. Apologies to those games I missed.

Loughton Strike Force's siege of Budapest, 1945:

Newark Irregulars' Abyssinia 1935:

GLC Games Club's Chickamauga, 1863:

Battlefront's astonishing Grand Manner-built Gallipoli:

Crewe and Nantwich's "Alternative" Siege of Worcester, 1651:

Gentlemen's Wargames Parlour's "Battle of Ambridge" VBCW:

Lance & Longbow's/Painterman's/Darrell Hindley's Verneuil 1424 (winner of best demo):

On the left, Lundy's Lane 1814 by the Wigmore Warriors and on the right, Operation Barras, Sierra Leone by Deal Wargames Society:

Warlord Games' Antonine Wall (scenery by Touching History):

South East Essex Military Society's Norton St Phillip, 1685:

la Constitution Regiment - 1st Battalion

2011-04-14T15:52:00.007Z

This is another battalion for the Isabelino side in the First Carlist War. They are all wearing caps and dressed in the standard winter uniform of greatcoats and grey trousers. I wanted this unit to look reasonably fresh and so there is none of the muddying that I applied to the Borbon regiment battalions. Line battalions had 6 centre companies and 2 flank companies, so the grenadiers and cazadores in this battalion are rather overstrength. There is no reason for this other than a need to use up flank company figures. I plan on doing a couple of battalions of light infantry in greatcoats and will then go back to the non-greatcoat/tunic look. I now have an Isabelino force of 6 army battalions and 3 militia ones, plus 4 units of BAL. A couple of weeks ago someone asked about the colours I use for the Isabelinos. For turqui tunics and the caps I use the Foundry "Deep Blue" palette. For the figures in this post I used Foundry "Slate Grey" for the greatcoats and "Stone" for the trousers. As I think I've said before, I use a "blend as you go" method on the greatcoats, as the contrasts between the 3 "Slate Grey" colours are quite wide and I prefer a smoother look. It takes more time to paint them this way but I hope the end result justifies the extra time. I have finished my unit Armand's Legion cavalry and will aim to post pictures early next week. Nic Robson has now circulated his email with full pictures of both ragged and non-ragged dragoons to 100 Club members, so I can now finalise my plans for the cavalry units I intend to do. On the workbench at the moment are the final 8 figures for the 4th Chasseurs of the Guard and Count Pulaski (another Eureka sculpt). After those are finished I will probably paint up some of the new Empress Miniatures New Zealand Wars figures which I will be collecting at Salute tomorrow and then some more AWI dragoons. 18 figures. Painted February 2011. Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

A day at Eureka

2011-04-10T21:42:00.005Z

I will remember Saturday, 12 March 2011 for two reasons. First, I visited the home of Eureka Miniatures in Melbourne. Heaven. Secondly, I lost my voice for the first time (that I remember). Bummer. That the two events coincided was a personal disaster - imagine spending months looking forward to meeting people and then when the time comes finding that you can't talk to them! It wasn't quite that bad, but conversation with the Eureka team was unfortunately limited and my voice gave out completely in the afternoon when Melbourne wargamer John Baxter took me out to wineries in the lovely Mornington Peninsular (although John was very good at "predictive text" conversation). I'd picked up a tongue and throat infection which the Kiwi had contracted earlier in the holiday; a course of antibiotics did the trick, but for 4 days I couldn't taste red wine - a disasterous state of affairs for an Allison on holiday.

Anyway, about Eureka. Visiting is to be presented with a real embarrassement de riches, the entire Eureka range available for perusal. On display are figures that have been beautifully painted by Nic's friends and colleagues - to name drop a couple of painters, the work of Mark Spackman, John Chadderton and John Baxter was particularly impressive. John C had worked up a terrific French Revolutionary infantry battalion, with no 2 figures the same (and with a couple of "ragged Continentals" thrown in as new recruits). In fact, seeing the 25mm Revolutionary Wars range in its totality made me realise just how extensive it is, with many figures and vignettes I don't recall being advertised. This is indeed a "signature" range for Eureka and one I intend to explore properly in due course - in the meantime I bought some figures for AWI French duties. But the main draw was the new AWI dragoon figures. Those who signed up to the 100 Club "ragged dragoon" figures will have received news of this range. Commissioned to make ragged cavalry to go with the ragged AWI infantry, Nic Robson decided to make "unragged" Continental dragoons as well. The result, in my view, is one of the key AWI releases of the past few years. Gamers now have the ability to model the whole gamut of AWI American cavalry, thanks to Eureka's method of releasing the figures with separate headgear and in ragged/unragged variants. Looking at these figures, and I saw some greens of the ragged troops, reminded me of the Don Troaini painting of Washington's cavalry at Cowpens. Now gamers can model a unit that looks just like the dragoons in this painting, in both coats and hunting shirts and with a mix of headgear.

Let me be quite clear up front: to my mind, this range is up there with the Perry campaign dress British infantry as being a revolution (excuse the pun) in AWI figures. I saw and bought the uniformed Continental cavalry, as the ragged figures had not been finished at the time. I gather than the ragged figures will consist of uniformed figures that have been "ragged-up" and hunting shirt types; I saw a few greens and they look fantastic. The uniformed figures are in two general poses - standing/walking and charging. The range includes officers and trumpeters for both poses. I was first struck by the horses, which are very well sculpted in animated poses (see photo below for the charging horses). There are 4 helmet variants: (1) brass helmet; (2) leather helmet; (3) jockey helmet; (4) turbaned helmet (or "tarleton"). These hats fit on the figure heads well, the heads having a plug on which the hats can be fixed. I found a bit of greenstuff was the best adhesive as you can then sculpt it around the head and cover off any gaps. the first unit I'm working on is Armand's Legion. I'm using the uniformed figures with (I think) the jockey helmet. A photo of these figures is below. As the comparison shot with a couple of Perry 17th Dragoons shows, the Eureka figures are a little bit smaller and thinner than the Perry figures. The next photos show variants of the two poses, and then the other 3 hats in the top row, with some of the "ragged" hats in the bottom row. When I've finished Armand's Legion I'll post some thoughts on dragoon uniforms using these figures. Incidentally, the photo above shows Nic doing his "we love metals and hate plastics" dance....

57th Foot

2011-04-06T12:38:00.008Z

The 57th Foot was originally raised in 1755 as the 59th Foot. The advance up the list of seniority occurred the following year when the 50th and 51th regiments were disbanded. The 57th acquired the county name of West Middlesex and is probably best known for it's bloody performance at Albuera in 1811. The call to the regiment by its commanding officer, Colonel Inglis, that it "die hard" provided the regimental nickname of "the Die Hards". Apparently at that battle the regiment suffered some 442 casualties out of a complement of 600. In 1881 the regiment was amalgamated with the 77th Foot to form the Middlesex Regiment, which in turn was amalgamated with other regiments in 1966 to form the Queen's Regiment. The 57th Foot lives on today in the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment. The 57th does not appear to have done a huge amount in the AWI. It appears just once in the "British Grenadier!" scenarios, as a 12-figure unit for Long Island.

I painted this unit in November last year and forgot to post pics. Ideally for the Long Island scenario you would have Brits in charging and marching poses, but I wanted to use up my remaining Foundry firing line figures and I had just enough for a 12-figure battalion. The Long Island scenario is in the newly-published 3rd "British Grenadier" scenario book, available from Caliver Books. I gather that photos of our 2008 recreation of Long Island feature in the new scenario book. He's a link to my post on the game to whet your appetite. I am sorry for the silence over the past 2 weeks. As so often, both work and family life intervened and conspired to reduce my available time for hobby-related activities. On the painting front I am close to finishing the 4th Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard for 1815 and Armand's Legion cavalry for the AWI. I have some completed Carlist War infantry who just need a flag and they should make an appearance soon.

12 figures. Painted November 2010. Flags by GMB.

Back home...

2011-03-22T14:55:00.006Z

...with a suitcase full of goodies from Eureka Miniatures that I will write about in a couple of days, as soon as I have finished some research on AWI cavalry uniforms and gathered my photos together. I also have some photos from the Auckland Museum and the recreated gold-rush town of Sovereign Hill in Victoria, Australia, to post and write up. I hope readers will forgive these holiday excursions while I finish off the units I am currently working on. Posted here are a few pics of Antipodean scenery (in fact all are of Victoria), a couple of which feature the 15-month old scamp who, when he feels like it, answers to the name of Hugo. We spent a week in New Zealand, a few days in Auckland and then a trip down the west coast of North Island to Wellington; then flew to Melbourne for a week in the city suburbs with my sister-in-law and family, before driving out west to the Pyrenees and Grampians wine regions, then finishing up east of Melbourne with 2 days in the beautiful Yarra Valley.

Little Hugo did his best on the long journey there and back (26 hours in the air and up to 7 hours in transit in each direction) but he hates being cooped up and finally had a complete meltdown on the last flights on the way home, refusing to sleep or take a bottle and simply wailing for long periods. This prompted several "dirty looks" from our fellow passengers and at least one then complained to the cabin crew on the final Dubai to London leg. I'll happily admit that a crying baby is never a pleasant experience, but I've found that recently I've become rather millitant and unforgiving towards those people who find children an irritation and who object to their presence. Until airlines take a policy decision to ban children from their flights (which will never happen) or create special "family" cabins (which might), infants and kids of all ages have just as much right to be on a plane as anyone else and all passengers play the same lottery of whether they have to end up sitting near a child. We also had to deal with the idea, which is a hot debate in the UK at the moment, that it's somehow wrong to bring a child into the Business Class cabin. We dug into our savings to fly Business largely in order to enable Hugo to sleep on us in a fully reclined position and have at least a bit of space to move around and play in. I appreciate that others in the cabin would have been on their way to work meetings and wanted to sleep and relax in a peaceful environment, but the lottery point still stands - if you don't want to be around children then stay at home. Moreover, I'm sure many of our fellow passengers didn't actually have to pay for their own tickets......Anyway, rant over and, if I'm honest, I wouldn't recommend travelling from one end of the world to the other with a 1-year old.

As usual with our holidays we spent a decent amount of time as wine tourists. We had learnt our lessons from last year's trip and ensured that we planned winery touring routes that accommodated Hugo's 50-minute naps at 10am and 3pm. One common feature of Australasian cellar doors is that they are spacious and usually have a fenced outdoor deck, sometimes even children's play areas, which helps entertain little ones. We didn't visit any wineries in New Zealand, but drank a fair few wines while we were there. The new kid on the Kiwi block is sparkling sauvignon blanc.; it's an interesting drop and obviously a great way to use up all those surplus sauvignon blanc grapes. After our stay in Melbourne we headed west to the Pyrenees, Macedon Ranges and Grampians regions in Victoria. These areas contained many acclaimed wineries that I have read about but whose wines are unavailable in the UK. Initially I felt it was difficult to get a feel for these regions, as the vineyards are very spread out and the range of wines made differed from winery to winery. However, it is clear that shiraz/syrah and chardonnay rule in these cooler climate regions, with cabernet doing respectably too and pinot noir enabling the production of some decent sparklers. The sauvignon blancs and rieslings I found a bit hit and miss. We then drove back through Melbourne to Yarra Valley, a more well-known Victoria wine region and home to some of the country's best pinot noir and chardonnay. That region's Big New Thing appears to be sangiovese, barbera and other "Italian" varieties, to give customers something a bit different. All these regions have had a tough time recently due to a combination of above-average rainfall and high humidity. The Pyrenees seemed hardest hit - one producer told us that 90% of their crop would be lost to mildew and rot. Incidentally, another Pyranees winery-owner incurred our wrath by proudly proclaiming that "New Zealand is far too cold to produce decent wine" - a truly bizarre statement, taking protectionism too far I think. I also squeezed in an afternoon visiting 3 wineries in the beautiful Mornington Peninsular, in the company of Melbourne wargamer (and ace painter) John Baxter. In total I managed to visit 28 wineries this holiday.

So for those who are interested in such matters, wine highlights were as follows. In New Zealand: Seifried Gewurtztraminer 2010; Saint Clair Wairau Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2010; Stonyridge "Larose" 1999; Te Kairanga "Runholder" Pinot Noir 2007; Jules Taylor Rose 2010; Hunter's Chardonnay 2009; Man O'War Chardonnay 2008; anything by Villa Maria. In Australia: Witchmount Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2003; Tahbilk Riesling 2009; Granite Hills Knight Riesling 2010; Guilford Reserve Shiraz 2008; Mount Avoca Shiraz 2008; Warrenmang Estate Chardonnay 2008; Blue Pyranees "Richardson" Cabernet Sauvignon 2004; Seppelt Drumborg Chardonnay 2008; Redbank "Sally's Paddock" 2007.

No more posts for a while...

2011-02-26T11:21:00.003Z

...because it's that time of the year when we head off to New Zealand to catch up with friends and family. This trip is particularly needed as the whole country has been affected by the disaster in Christchurch, and the Kiwi is feeling very far from home at the moment. All of our friends in the city are safe but there are very few New Zealanders who won't know someone affected by what has happened.

I'm sorry about the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks. Real life has intervened and I didn't manage to finish off a report on the Freeman's Farm game that Eclaireur and I played last December. That game was undertaken ostensibly for us to take photos for the forthcoming second edition of Eclaireur's "British Grenadier!" rules, although I confess that we got carried away with the game and probably didn't take as many photos as we should have done! Anyhow, the photos above show current wip - the French Gatinois regiment for the AWI and my first Old Guard unit for 1815 (specifically the 4th Regiment of Chasseurs). I have also been finishing off and basing some of my Dixon ACW figures, a large number of which I painted in the summer of 2000. Those will appear when I return in March.

We are spending a week in New Zealand, mainly in Auckland and then on the west coast of North Island where we will be attending a wedding in Taranaki. We then head off for 2 weeks in Melbourne, where the Kiwi's sister lives. For me that will involve a meeting with the Eureka Miniatures mob and visits to as many of the surrounding wineries as I can fit in. We then head off to the countryside for more wineries and the opportunity for Hugo to run around in the sun. The poor chap has seen very little sunshine over the past few months and feeling green grass beneath his feet will also be a novel experience for him.

Bombardiers de la marine

2011-02-09T11:12:00.006Z

With two French infantry battalions completed it was time for a vignette! The bombardiers de la marine formed a navy unit created in the early 1680s to provide experienced sailors who could also handle the mortars in the bomb ketches that the French had developed to bombard port towns on the Barbary coast. In 1692 two companies were officially formed, situated in Brest and Toulon and comprising 50 men each. A few years later a third company was raised to be stationed in Rochefort. The three companies were part of the Artillerie de Mer and so remained under navy rather than army control, although there was a short period where the two branches of artillery were combined. In 1764 the companies were reorganised into two brigades, of around 100 men each; however the old 3 company organisation seems to have been reinstated 10 years later. I have not been able to find detailed information about the campaigns that the bombardiers participated in, but assume that they were deployed wherever the French navy operated and they certainly arrived in America at some stage.

Followers of the Perry Miniatures range may recall that the French grenadier figures that were in the first release of French troops were sculpted with bags hanging off their bearskins. Alan Perry then said that this was a mistake and he was remastering the figures so they didn't have the bags. By this time I had already bought some of these figures and decided I wouldn't send them back to be replaced if I could find a use for them. The Osprey MAA has an illustration of the bombadiers which clearly shows a bag on the bearkin. So I decided to make a small vignette of the bombadiers guarding some stores or ammunition. This was also a way of using up the 2 grenadier figures from the standing infantry command pack that also had bags on their bearskins. The only part of the uniform that I suspect may be wrong for the bombadiers is the plume on the bearskin - this isn't present in the Osprey illustration. But, frankly, who cares and I quickly decided I couldn't be bothered to carve the plumes off. Out of the possible colours I thought red would look best, and to be honest I think the red plumes give the figures a bit of a "lift" anyway. I had no sources of information for the drummer, but thought it best to keep him in the dark blue coat and add the standard drummer's lace. The blue paints used were Foundry's "Napoleonic French Blue 65" palette, with an final subtle highlight of Foundry "Deep Blue 20 C". The woodwork on the barrels was painted with a base coat of GW "Scorched Brown" given a wash of Winsor & Newton dark brown ink, then highlights of Foundry "Spearshaft 13 A and B".

The crates and barrels are from Warlord, save for the larger barrel which is Renedra. The Renedra barrel looks ok now it's painted, but I found the two plastic halves didn't fit together properly. The Warlord crates are resin - you get a variety of sizes in the pack. Only one of the crates seems to have anything resembling a lock (the silver bit on the topmost crate), although I suppose that may just be a bit of surplus resin. The round base is a drinks coaster that I bought with Peter Haldezos in Wellington! I have 4 of the standing grenadiers left over - if anyone can think of another use for them then please let me know, otherwise I'll just paint them up as more bombardiers!

4 figures. Painted January 2011.

American artillery (6)

2011-02-06T19:20:00.007Z

These are the last American artillery crews I will paint for some time. They are the 2 "standard" Continental artillery packs from Perry Miniatures (the other Perry packs can be found elsewhere in the "Artillery" label', save for the Rhode Island pack which in will worry about some other time). The figures are based on the same "dollies" that are used for the British SAratoga crews and so largely wearing gaiter trousers and carry bayonets. I thought the latter was a bit strange on American artillerymen - I'd be interested to know what readers think. None of the Foundry American artillery figures carry bayonets, incidentally. I painted the gunners themselves in standard artillery blue-faced-red coats with yellow lace on their hats. I gave a couple of the figures some buff and brown trousers to suggest that campaign dress look.

As these are my last American artillery pieces I thought I would get all the others out and see what they looked like all set up together (apologies for the unsophisticated nature of the pics). They just about fitted on the kitchen table, although I had to put the two Eureka "Molly Pitcher" guns along the flank. I have 17 artillery crews in all on the American side - this is way more than you need for most AWI engagements and, I expect, may exceed the total number of guns that were actually present in one or two of those engagements...Anyway, below are photos of my entire Continental artillery collection. Most of the guns/crew were painted a few years ago, when I first started out with the AWI; the crews are the various Foundry packs mixed together. Those earlier guns need some work and the crews are a bit glossy. But en masse I think the set-up looks ok. The Perry "add-ons", like dragrope men and the ammunition carts etc do bring the battery to life. There are a couple of Old Glory fogures too, on the battery commander command stand in the centre.

8 figures and 2 guns. Painted January 2011.

Regiment Dillon

2011-01-28T13:35:00.009Z

The Dillon Regiment was first raised by Viscount Dillon in 1688 to fight in Ireland for the Jacobite cause. The regiment transferred to French service 3 years later and formed a brigade with the other "Wild Geese" regiments. These Irish regiments served at virtually every major land battle fought by the French between 1690 and 1789, perhaps most notably at Fontenoy where they captured the colours of Coldstream Guards. The Dillon merged with two other Irish regiments, de Lally in 1762 and de Bulkeley in 1775. From 1779 to 1782 the regiment was present in the Caribbean and America: it fought at the capture of Grenada in 1779 and then at Savannah later that year. I'll say more about the Dillon's involvement at Savannah in a short while. When King Louis fell to the French Revolution the regiment, which had remained loyal to the king, lost the Dillon name and was absorbed into the French regular line. Apparently the last colonel of the regiment, Arthur Dillon, was guillotined in 1794. Ironically, given the circumstances surrounding the regiment's foundation, the Dillon name lived on in British "emigre" regiments that were raised from the Irish Brigade's former officers.

I have always had a soft spot for the Wild Geese. On my father's side I come from Protestant Ulster stock and so these fellows and I would have little in common politically, but they were brave and dashing fighters united by their hatred of the English (or at least that's their image) and one has to admire them for that. Also, the very first Osprey book I owned was the one on the Wild Geese, which I bought about 25 years ago at a bookshop in Belfast. I felt a bit guilty that having praised the Perry Miniature French releases I then painting only one battalion, so I was keen to paint up some more. Happily I'm now stuck-in to the French so expect some more over the next couple of months.

The Dillon only appears once in the published "British Grenadier" scenarios, as a 12-figure unit for Savannah; small, perhaps, but the the chasseur and grenadier companies are detached into combined formations. I opted to go for the 1779 ordonnance uniform, even though it's almost certain that the regiment would have worn the 1776 ordonnance, or a variant of it, for the Savannah campaign. I came to this decision for two reasons. First, I wanted the regiment in march-attack poses, and the Perry figures in 1776 dress are only in standing poses. Secondly, I saw the illustration by Eugene Leliepvre that shows the men in rather longer coats than one would expect for 1776 dress; the 1779 coat is a similar cut to that shown in the picture. That illustration also shows a drummer in the same scarlet coat as the rank-and-file rather than the standard royal livery, a point confirmed by the Chartrand Osprey on French troops in the AWI. Due to the red coats I undercoated these figures in black rather than mid-grey, but then used the same grey/white combination for the waistcoats, breeches etc as I used on the Armanac Regiment.

I also decided to apply the "second battalion" colour rather than the white colonel's first battalion colour, because it's just so much more colourful and the black and red cross is a pretty iconic Wild Geese image. Many thanks to John Ray and "Mericanach" for their advice on and help with the uniform and "look" of this regiment. I think these turned out ok and I really enjoyed painting them.

12 figures. Painted January 2011. Flag by GMB.

61me Ligne (2)

2011-01-24T11:58:00.007Z

This is the first battalion of the 61me Ligne for Bachelu's division of 1815. I now just have the 3me Ligne to go and the division is finished! That won't appear on the workbench for a while, though, as I have plenty of AWI and First Carlist War stuff to plough through first. As usual, the figures are mainly Perry plastics, with a handful of metal figures (the officer, NCO, drummer amd kneeling skirmiser, plus one or two others in the ranks). Also as usual, the Perry plastic infantry were a dream to paint. Most of the front row have utilised the extra heads that appear in the box. I've realised that there are only 2 or 3 of those additional heads that sport moustaches, and so the flank companies have less "head variety" than the fusiliers ones as it seems wrong to have grenadiers without moustaches.

I painted half the battalion in August and finished it off over Christmas. The building is a farmhouse made for me by Paul at Touching History, to go with the two barns I bought a while ago. It's a very nice model with some walling (I believe made by Hovels) to finish things off. As noted before, a GMB flag does not fit on the eagle as supplied with the Perry plastic set so I had to extend the eagle a bit (hiding the join within the flag). As I've said before, there is something I find very satisfying about painting these figures, so it won't be long before I paint the 3me Ligne. Next up: lots more AWI. Currently on the painting table: AWI French bombadiers de marine and First Carlist War Isabelino light infantry.

28 figures. Painted August and December 2010. Flag by GMB.

American artillery (5)

2011-01-14T15:34:00.004Z

Here is the second Foundry Continental 6-pounder that I recently finished, together with a small American artillery command stand. I put this crew in the standard blue faced red coats, but gave a couple of them non-regulation breeches to suggest a bit of campaign wear and tear. The command vignette was inspired by Bernard Cornwell's latest novel "The Fort", which describes the Penobscot Campaign of 1779. Various historical characters do not come out of the novel particularly well, one such being Paul Revere who commanded the American expedition's artillery. Revere as painted by Cornwell is disobedient and unhelpful, more concerned with having a good breakfast than obeying orders. The situation envisaged in this vignette is that an infantry corporal has been despatched to discover why his battalion is not receiving the artillery support it needs. "Sir, you are supposed to be assisting us and we have been forced to move to a new position over there!" "Corporal, my orders are to fire in the opposite direction and so that is what I intend to do. Good-day!" I painted the corporal (as evidenced by the green epaulette) in a brown faced buff coat to contrast with the artillery officer's blue and red.

6 figures. Painted December 2010.

Isabelino skirmishers (1)

2011-01-10T11:28:00.007Z

I thought I'd jump ahead in my painting chronology to give the blog a short rest from AWI artillery. This is one of the two Perry Miniatures packs of skimishing Isabelino flank company infantry. I have painted all these as grenadiers, rather than a mix of grenadiers and cazadores. I haven't really given much thought to how my First Carlist War battalions will operate under whichever rules I end up using (current thoughts are the General de Brigade variant "There are your guns"), but I'm assuming plenty of skirmishers will be needed. It is clear from my reading on the war that both sides made extensive use of troops in skirmish and open order, partly as a result of the difficult terrain in the north of Spain. So I'll probably be painting quite a few more skirmishers in the fullness of time. I admit to finding the faces on these figures quite difficult to paint, particularly the eyes (hence the lack of close-ups!), but I like the figures and their sense of movement.

The building is a fortified Spanish house from Touching History. I picked this up from Paul Darnell last year and it is a very nice model indeed - it's quite large and the ground floor has boarded-up windows and a reinforced door, while the walls have a couple of firing steps, as shown in the photo below. I think Paul made it with the Peninsular War in mind, but I see no reason why an 1830s Basque villager aware of marauding troops in the area would not take precautions to protect his house. I reckon I now have enough Spanish-style buildings for a couple of villages, one made from Touching History models and the other from Tablescape ones. I just need some decent terrain board now...

6 figures. Painted January 2011.

Fourth year anniversary

2011-01-04T09:50:00.007Z

When I started this blog in January 2007 I had no idea how long it would last, and so I would like to thank all those who read, follow and comment on this blog as the interest you show is very much appreciated. I can't really do a "review of the year" post as I haven't done much this year apart from painting figures. I only managed one show and one game (pathetic, I know), but then I realised a long time ago that the parts of the hobby that I enjoy most are painting and collecting figures and then discussing the hobby with like-minded people. Like many others, I suspect, the lack of a permanent gaming table is one reason why I don't actually game much (and the lack of any club affiliation is another). But I assume that will be remedied at some stage in the future and consequently I haven't stopped buying up pieces of terrain this year - some lovely buildings from Paul Darnell for my First Carlist War, Sudan and 1815 projects and the two Tablescape buildings for the AWI. I have not succumbed to any "shiny-itis" impulse buys this year, apart from a few packs from the North Star colonial Africa range. I bought the Perry plastic Napoleonic French hussars box at Salute and still have not decided what to do with them. An early idea was to paint a few as Diemar's Black Hussars for the AWI, but having researched the uniform I don't think these figures will work (unless I concoct something that is half plastic hussar and half Queen's Rangers hussar); so I may just paint them up for 1815.

Painting totals for this year are (all 25mm):

- AWI: 122 foot, 12 cavalry and 5 guns;

- 1815: 81 foot, 17 cavalry and 1 gun;

- First Carlist War: 44 foot and 1 gun;

- Darkest Africa: 19 foot;

- First Crusade: 7 foot and 1 cavalry.

That makes 340 pieces or "points" (i.e. counting cavalry as 2), which is a significant, albeit expected, reduction on last year's production of 524 points. Still, a weekly average of 7.8 figures isn't that bad. Looking at the figures I am surprised at how few Carlist War figures I painted - that was the AWI's gain but I will need to spend more time on the former period this year.

I am still unsure where the ECW, First Crusade, Sudan and Darkest Africa projects are going. I suspect for each of those periods it will be a question of painting something up as and when the mood grabs me. I should make an effort to at least finish off the Crusades units I have half-finished and some ECW command stands. For 1815 I had intended to continue to paint at least one brigade of infantry a year, but I can see that target slipping. So instead I will just paint the 3me Ligne, which will then finish off Bachelu's division. After that I will paint up the remaining brigade and divisional command stands and then work on some foot artillery. The AWI this year will see more French, British infantry battalions, British Legion cavalry and hopefully some American militia cavalry if Eureka make/release them. In the First Carlist War leadpile are line battalions for both sides, the French Foreign Legion and British lancers.

All that depends of course on finding painting time, and I fear that will be squeezed further this year. The Kiwi is determined to move house by the end of the year and as that will mean moving out of central London (we have no idea where to) I will have to start serious commuting to work. Whilst that won't impact much on morning painting time (because that vanished when Hugo was born), it will on my current evening painting hour of 7.30-8.30pm. Putting the house on the market may also necessitate packing my painting stuff away completely. Ho hum.

I hope readers had a good Christmas break. My brother worked out yesterday that over the past 2 weeks he had drunk 35 different wines, and I suspect my tally was similar. Personal wine highlights included: Chateaux Calon-Segur 96, Leoville-Barton 95 and d'Yquem 97 on Christmas Day; Puriri Hills "The Pope" 2005, Hugel Alsace Pinot Gris 1989 and Graham's 1977 port on Boxing Day; Jeanneret Clare Valley Riesling 2003 and Pol Roger 1999 on New Year's Eve; Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2009 and d'Arenberg "The Sticks and Stones" 2002 on New Year's Day; and Bollinger Grand Annee 2000 throughout the festive period. Hic.

Next up: more British line and American artillery for the AWI, Isabellino skirmishers and the 61me Ligne. The photo above is of Eclaireur's and my recent refight of Freeman's Farm - more on that anon.

American artillery (4)

2011-01-02T19:35:00.009Z

I would normally post artillery crews in pairs but the companion to this piece is the same Foundry pack so I'll post that in a few days with an artillery command vignette. I have had two of these packs in the lead pile for a good few years and in fact it was these packs that prompted me to spend a bit of time focusing on artillery for both sides. I already have 2 or 3 of this firing crew in my collection so decided to paint one of the new packs in the buff facings of Lamb's New York company of 1775. I appreciate that this uniform is not really "correct" for anything outside of the invasion of Canada (during which campaign Lamb's company was all but wiped out), but it makes a nice change from blue coats with red facings.

I painted the gun in a completely different way. All my other American guns are in a natural wood colour. For the 4 new American guns I am working on I decided to paint the guns themselves in the reddish-brown colour that I have read about on TMP and other fora. Apparently Continental gun carriages were sometimes painted in a red oxide colour, which was also commonly used on farm and other buildings - see the picture of the Neilson House on the Saratoga battlefield here. For the gun carriage I used the Foundry "Terracotta" palette and then "Blackened Barrel" for the metal work. The buff facings on the artillerymen were painted with the Foundry "Buff" palette with a final highlight of Coat d'Arms "Bone".

4 figures. Painted December 2010.

12th Continental Regiment

2010-12-30T19:26:00.006Z

The name I have given to this unit is quite random. I had some Eureka Miniatures "Marbleheaders" left over from when I painted the 14th Continentals three years ago. That unit was in firing line poses and Eureka also make a charging figure. I had a few of these in the leadpile and decided to combine them with figures from the Foundry charging Continentals pack to made another 1776 Continental Army regiment. Due to the Eureka figures' dress of sailors trousers I needed to find a regiment that recruited from coastal communities. Perusing Mollo I found the 6th Continentals which fitted the bill perfectly.....apart from the fact that I'd forgotten that I painted them back in April last year. As I'd already painted a few of the figures by the time I realised this, I needed to find another Massachusetts regiment that was also thought to have been uniformed in brown faced red coats - hence the 12th Continentals. In fact, I didn't look very far as the 12th are illustrated on the same page of Mollo as the 6th.

For the flag I have used one from "Flag Dude", which I understand is based on a flag captured at the battle of Long Island. If correct, the flag seems suitable for a 1776 regiment and in any event I thought the red and yellow colours blended in well with the regiment's uniforms. The Eureka figures are clearly more slender than the Foundry ones; the faces in particular are more angular. But I think the two lines fit well together and I'm pleased to have found a use for the Marbleheader figures beyond the 14th Continentals.

18 figures. Painted November/December 2010. Flag by "Flag Dude".

British artillery (5)

2010-12-28T22:42:00.007Z

This is my second batch of Saratoga campaign British artillery. This gives me 3 gun crews and the command stand shown here. The Royal Artllery crews engaged at Freemans Farm suffered at the hands of American riflemen. Lieutenant Hadden's detachment of 6-pounders was caught in open ground. Of the 22 men in the detachment only Hadden and 3 others remained unknotted by the time reinforcements under Captain Thomas Jones arrived. Jones and the 11 men who had arrived with him were soon casualties and the remnants of Hadden's battery had to retire, leaving the guns themselves to the Americans. Had den himself carried Jones to a log hut that was full of wounded, but Jones had been mortally wounded and died shortly thereafter. The officer and drummer are taken from the Perry standing Saratoga line command pack.

At the recent Freemans Farm game I played with Eclaireur we used a rule that prevented Hadden's battery from rallying off disruption points by virtue of remaining stationary in a game turn. The point behind this was to replicate the conditions in which the battery found itself on the day. Sure enough, the battery quickly took casualties from Morgan's riflemen without causing much damage itself. The deliberate targeting by the Americans of officers and specialists is something that rules should take account of. If British regulars receive plus modifiers on bayonet charges and firing etc, there seems no reason why they should not be disadvantaged by American targeting...

6 figures. Painted December 2010.

A house in Salem

2010-12-21T15:48:00.005Z

This is the second building recently completed for me by Tablescape. The design of the house is taken from a house I photographed in Salem and is a pretty basic clapboard style. Many of the houses I saw in Salem and its surroundings are painted in the very dark brown/black colour you see in the photo. I thought this looked rather drab and so decided to haver it painted in a simple white colour. This also brought the house more into line with the buildings you see around Lexington common (as in the pic at bottom right below). This model isn't nearly as big as the church and, although a tad larger than your average Hovels AWI building, is far closer to a normal tabletop size, I think.

Once again I'm sorry about the lack of posts recently. For various reasons I'm finding it difficult to find the time to photgraph things at the moment. I have plenty of figures sitting on the kitchen table waiting for a suitable moment (5 posts' worth, actually!), but that moment is proving elusive. It's very dark again in London so taking photos early in the morning before I leave for nursery and then on to work isn't really feasible, but I'll see what I can do over the next couple of days. I now have 3 lots of artillery and 2 infantry battalions ready to go. On the workbench are more American artillery, some Carlist Wars infantry and the rest of the 61me Ligne for 1815. I then want to paint up another couple of AWI British line battalions.

55th Foot

2010-12-02T17:16:00.004Z

The regiment was raised in Scotland in 1755, initially as the 57th Foot. It was re-numbered the 55th in 1757. It was sent to Halifax in 1757 and saw extensive service in the F&IW. Lord George Augustus Viscount Howe was appointed Colonel of the regiment in September that year and proceeded to train the regiment in light infantry tactics, skills that Howe had studied with Robert Rogers. Howe, described by General Wolfe as "the best officer in the British army", was one of the older brothers of the AWI's Billy Howe. In 1758 the regiment took part in Abercrombie's attack at Ticonderoga, during the course of which Howe was killed in a skirmish. The regiment continued to fight until the French surrender in 1760. The regiment then remained in America on garrison duty. A detachment suffered badly in the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's rebellion.

In 1763 the regiment's men were drafted into various other regiments while the officers went to Ireland to raise a new battalion. The 55th next appeared in American in December 1775. It was present at the battles of Long Island, Brandywine and Gremantown. In November 1778 the battalion left America for duty in the West Indies.

This is another older unit that I have recently added to. The 55th was one of the first British regiments I painted, back in 2004. I only painted 12 figures because that was what was required for the Brandywine and Germantown orbats. When I was going through the leadpile recently I found two dozen firing line figures of Brits in 1768 warrant dress. After a perusal of the various "British Grenadier!" scenario books I decided to add another 4 figures to the 55th Foot and then paint the 57th Foot from scratch. The 55th increases to 16 figures for the Long Island scenario so I thought I might as well use up some of these spare figures getting the battalion up to full strength. Completely co-incidentally, I noticed that Steve Jones had recently done the same thing on his rather excellent blog.

16 figures. Painted 2004 and November 2010. Flags by GMB.

Christ Church, Cambridge

2010-11-26T17:01:00.010Z

I recent took delivery of a large box of models from Tablescape. This is the main item - a model of Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, located on Cambridge Common just down the road from Harvard University. I visited this church during my trip to Boston and South Carolina in March 2008. Having taken plenty of photos of it I thought it would make a good basis for a church model to add to my collection of buildings.

Work on the church started in 1759, supervised by it's first minister the Reverend East Apthorp. The church was designed by Peter Harrison, the architect who had designed the King's Chapel in Boston. Apthorp, his successor and much of the congregation were loyalists and many of them left Cambridge and fled further north or to England when the war broke out. Continental soldiers were billeted in the church for a time and it is thought that the Washingtons attended service on New Year's Eve, 1775. However, the church suffered from damage caused by patriots protesting against its former congregation's Tory leanings and its organ was melted down to make bullets. As a result, the church was closed until 1790 but it was eventually restored and in 1857 it was expanded to accommodate its increasing congregation.

As a fully "in-scale" model, the church would have been huge; so it's been scaled down a bit and the length reduced to take account of the 1857 enlargement. The picture below, which I understand is a watercolour painted in 1793, shows 5 windows but we decided to reduce that to 4. The apse was also dispensed with, although I don't know when that was built and it could have been a later addition anyway. The print on the right shows Cambridge Common in the early 1800s.

Here are a couple more photos of what it looks like today. I took a number of close-up pics when I was there, so Tablescape had clear images of the architectural detail from which to work.

The chaps at Tablescape put a lot of time and effort into this model, and I think it shows. The frieze work around the top of the sides is particularly effective, I think. It's a large model, certainly considerably bigger than the Hovels church you tend to see, but hopefully not too large for the tabletop. The height of the tower is what makes it look big, but that couldn't be reduced any firther without the overall proportions being looking out of symmetry. I'd be interested in what readers think.

British artillery (4)

2010-11-23T10:13:00.008Z

This is the first of two posts featuring British artillery for the 1777 Saratoga campaign. These Perry Miniatures figures show the crews in the modified uniforms that were worn on (and are unique to) this campaign - shortened coats, gaiter trousers and caps with red horsehair crests. I think it's correct to say that only Perry make Royal Artillery in this uniform. I have painted 3 of these sets and a small battery commander vignette which will feature in a second post. The 6-pounder you see here with the aiming crew is actually from Foundry; the pack's 6-pounder strayed to the 3rd crew I painted (whose own 3-pounder I lost somehow). The guns are painted in my usual British blue-grey palette, which I appreciate is more "blue" than "grey" but it's what all the other guns are painted with so I wanted to maintain consistency. The three colours used are GW "Shadow Grey", first highlight of Foundry "French Hussar Sky Blue 76B" (replacing GW "Hideous Blue" which has apparently been discountinued), then second highlight of GW "Space Wolves Grey". If I was starting from scratch I'd probably use Foundry's "British Gun Grey 108" palette. The gunners' coats were painted with Foundry "Deep Blue 20", my default dark blue for AWI figures.

The Royal Artillery had a hard time of it during the Saratoga campaign. I'll elaborate on this in my second post. I appreciate that these photos are a bit rubbish. For the past couple of weeks the weather in London has been grey, miserable and very photo-unfriendly. If this year is like 2009 it will remain grey and miserable until next March...So I've had to rely on artificial, overhead lighting; hence the yellow glow. The good news is that I hve several posts' worth of stuff now, so blogging should be more regular in future. An advantage of painting artillery is that they are quick to do.

I was surprised to see on checking this blog's archives that I last painted up some artillery over 3 years ago. I am making an effort to polish off all the artillery I might need for the British and Americans over the next couple of months (I don't require any more Hessian crews so that will only leave the French). With the completion of 3 Saratoga crews the British are now essentially finished - I suppose I could do with some larger guns perhaps, but will only buy and paint those when they are specifically required. Another couple of limbers might be useful, but again are not a priority. The British total is therefore 12 crews - 5 in "full dress", 2 in "northern campaign dress", 2 in "southern campaign dress" and 3 in the Saratoga uniform. I'm not particularly fussed about mixing these figures up; if I did Freeman's Farm, for example, which requires 6 guns on the British side, I'd use the 3 Saratoga crews and then 3 of the others.

8 figures and 2 guns. Painted November 2010.

Major-General Trip

2010-11-15T13:51:00.006Z

I'd forgotten that I took a couple of photos of this command base during my last session with the camera. London has been very dark the last couple of weeks, and I've been unable to take photos of any of my new AWI things (2 commissioned buildings from Tablescape, the 55th and 57th Foot, Saratoga artillery). I'm hoping to have some more posts shortly, but in the meantime here is

Albert Dominicus Trip van Zoudtlandt (1776-1835) joined the army of the Dutch Republic in 1791. He was originally posted to the infantry but at some stage he transferred to the cavalry. Upon his country's annexation by France in 1810, his regiment was incorporated into the French army as the 14th Cuirassiers. He saw action in Napoleon's invasion of Russia and then at Leipzig. He transferred back into Dutch service after Napoleon's abdication and in April 1815 was promoted to Major-General. He was then given command of a heavy cavalry brigade that consisted of the 1st and 3rd Dutch and 2nd Belgian carabinier regiments. His brigade was heavily engaged at both Quatre Bras and Waterloo. In the latter battle it successfully charged French cuirassiers with the Household Brigade.

I painted this figure when working on Merlen's light cavalry brigade for Loughton Strike Force's Waterloo demo game of a few years back. This Trip figure wasn't needed for the game and so lay painted but unbased until the other week, when I decided to touch it up and base him with a French casualty (from the Perry plastic heavy cavalry box). Also posted are photos of the Perry Young Guard 1st Voltiguers that I painted last year, but this time with their flag attached.

As I said earlier, I will hopefully have some more posts soon. I am having a bit of an artillery thing at the moment - I have finished 3 guns and crews of British in their Saratoga uniforms and am about to start on some more American artillery. After than I might do some more Hessians or another American regiment. Incidentally, a reliable source has stated that Perry Miniatures will increase their prices in the New Year, to take account of not just the increase in the UK's VAT rate but also the rising cost of raw materials.

2 figures. Painted January 2007 and October 2010. Barns by Touching History.

4th Cuirassiers

2010-11-01T11:03:00.006Z

In the Waterloo campaign the 4th regiment of cuirassiers was brigaded with the 1st in the 13th Division in Milhaud's IV Cavalry Corps. The regiment mustered some 314 officers and men in 3 squadrons, under the command of Colonel Habert. At a ratio of 1:20 that equates to 16 figures. The regiment fought with distinction at Ligny and then was badly damaged during Ney's charges at Waterloo.

Working my way through these figures was a pleasant, if time-consuming, experience. I found that my initial misgivings disappeared once I worked out that it is more satisfying to paint the horses and riders separately (this makes it much easier to do the detail around the riders' coat tails). The horses come in two halves so there are many different ways you can put the horses together; with the whole unit finished you can see the sense of motion and dynamism that can be achieved by this ability to mix 'n match. The rank and file have 3 different heads (2 with moustaches, the third clean-shaven). If you go for the "charging" right arm rather than the "at rest" one, you can therefore ensure that no two figures in a unit are exactly the same. Overall, I think the result is a unit of cavalry that captures the mid-charge look (whether the cuirassiers at Waterloo did actually advance any quicker than at a canter is another story).

The figures are based on the green Renedra bases that come with the set (the edges painted with GW "Bestial Brown"): as I noted a few posts ago, the selection of bases is pretty limited, trying to cater for all basing combinations but not really covering any of them. However, for 16 figures the bases as provided do actually work - I used the four 3-figure bases and the two 2-figure ones. The Renedra bases are not as deep as my standard General de Brigade cavalry bases, so you need to exercise some care to ensure the two ranks don't collide with each other.

There are a couple of "negatives" with these figures. You can see from the photos that the left hands end up quite a distance from the reins. I suppose this could be dealt with with some putty to create additional reins to reach the hands, but I doubt most people would want to bother with that. The joins of the 2 horse components sometimes leaves a bit of a gap around the neck - again, something that green-stuff etc could deal with and perhaps this is a more worthwhile exercise. More of a concern is that the mould lines often come right down the middle of the riders' heads, which makes them difficult to scrape out without damaging the facial detail. Now that they are all based, I've also noticed that some of the figures are quite wobbly - I don't know whether this is a result of using superglue or Citadel "polystyrene cement"; I used both and so have no idea which one doesn't work properly! My final gripe is that the standard as moulded onto the standard bearer is too small to accommodate a GMB flag - there isn't sufficient space between the fist and the eagle (this problem also arises with the plastic French infantry eagle-bearer figure). Adding a bit of metal rod to increase the flagpole's length was fiddly, but it seems secure enough now.

But those niggles aside, I heartily recommend these figures. They provide the ease of painting that Perry plastics provide (probably all plastics, I expect) and I do like the variety of horses and rider poses. The inclusion of infantry casualties is a nice touch and the sprues generally seem carefully thought out. These figures substantially reduce the cost of building up reserve heavy cavalry divisions, but of course the other problems of storage and painting-time will remain. Anyway, I hope you like the pics. On the painting table: 55th and 57th Foot and Saratoga artillery for the AWI.

16 figures. Painted September/October 2010.

Général de Brigade Baron Campi

2010-10-22T15:51:00.004Z

Campi commanded the 2nd Brigade of 5th Division in Reille's II Corps. I've tried to find out something about this chap but have drawn a blank. There may well be something in Digby Smith's "Napoleonic Wars Databook", but I can't find my copy so can't check at the moment. Anyway, this chap led his brigade through the atack at Quatre Bras and, I think, was then wounded at Waterloo. This figure is a Perry Miniatures personality figure, and the casualty is from the Perry plastic heavy cavalry box set. The barn in the background is by Paul Darnell of Touching History. In close-up Campi's face looks a bit messy, but he looks ok from a distance...

2 figures. Painted September 2010.

Apologies...

2010-10-20T10:03:00.003Z

...for the lack of posts. Work is horrendous at the moment and has gobbled up most of my painting time over the past couple of weeks. The 4th cuirassiers are, however, now finished as are two brigade command stands for, respectively, my 1815 French and Dutch forces. Hopefully the latter will be up on the blog within a few days. The cuirassiers are flag-less at the moment, as I need to find a way to attach a lengthened flagpole to the standard bearer figure. But again, hopefully that will resolve itself by the end of the week so that I can have photos posted at the weekend. En masse I think the regiment looks quite good.

I'm switching back to the AWI for a while. I've missed it and I want to clear some of my AIW leadpile before buying more figures in advance of January's VAT rise. So I'm increasing the 55th Foot from 12 figures to 16 (this was one of the very first AWI units I painted, back in 2004) and am painting the 57th Foot from scratch. I haven't given the AWI serious attention for so long now that I've forgotten what I have left to do - I know there are British Legion cavalry and a few Hessians somewhere, and enough Americans for a couple of battalions.

French line artillery (1)

2010-09-30T16:54:00.004Z

I meant to post these pics ages ago, but completely forgot to do so. I painted this Foundry gun and crew over a couple of days in August. The sculpts are by the Perries, but in their former Foundry style and are quite different to the figures they produce today. The poses are typically imaginative and the faces are full of character, but the figures' proportions are a bit "gnome-like" in the way that infuriates some wargamers. To be honest I found these figures fun and easy to paint, but it will be interesting to compare them to some of the newer artillery packs from Perry Miniatures. The crew pack comes with a few implements and the covered barrel and pile of cannonballs you can see in the photos - I suspect these may be more 17th century rather than 18th century. I detached 2 figures onto separate bases as I like to have 4 figures per crew for medium sized guns.

As for the paints used, I wanted to have a darker blue for the artillerymen's uniforms than I've used for the line infantry. For troops such as light infantry and the artillery where both jackets and trousers are dark blue I have decided to use a more "realistic" dark French blue colour than the deliberately lightened blue I used on line infantry and cavalry. So I used the Foundry "French Blue 65" and then mixed in some "Deep Blue 20" for final highlights. The gun itself was painted with the Foundry "authentic" "French Gun Olive Green 109". I'm not convinced, personally - it looks far too "apple-y" and not sufficiently "olive-y". It's certailny nothing like the old Humbrol authentic colour for French artillery, which really was a green ochre colour. I may need to find something else for next time, or not bother with the "C" highlight.

6 figures and a gun. Painted August 2010.

Plastic fantastic

2010-09-13T22:28:00.006Z

I had intended to move onto some more Carlist Wars figures, but having made inroads into my plastic infantry pile I thought it only right to open one of the cavalry boxes that I picked up at Salute in April. I painted up two cuirassiers to see how they'd look, then started on 4 more....now I have 8 being based and I'm hoping to have the 7th Cuirassiers finished by the end of the month (16 figures).

The new and forthcoming Napoleonic releases from Perry Miniatures and Warlord Games have prompted a lot of "plastics talk" of late. In some quarters this had led to a polarisation of opinion and some unecessary aggravation - I had a rather unpleasant encounter with a loon on TMP a couple of weeks ago. I also used to be sceptical about plastic figures, and it is certainly true that for some people (myself included, initially) plastics seem a retrograde step back from the use of "grown-up" metal figures. Others seem to be rather defensive about either their own (much-loved and patiently-amassed) existing collections or particular metal ranges. But looking around the hobby it seems pretty clear for many people hard plastics are becoming the figures of choice for Napoleonic rank-and-file, as recent demo games at shows seem to suggest. My own view is that the Perry plastic French infantry are some of the finest 25mm figures available for the period. It's not just cost - these figures are life-like and easy to paint, in my view easily eclipsing many metal equivalents. They are not to all tastes and I accept that - those brought up with the Gilder-esque school may well think that realistically-posed figures "lack animation". But that's progress for you...

And so to Perry Miniatures' plastic cuirassiers. Having been accused by some of being a "Perry this, Perry that fan-boy", I shall try to give an honest opinion of these figures. The horses come in two halves and so you can create several different poses, although the joins are not always exact and you may well need some putty to fill them in. Presumably as a result of the moulding process, some of the horses have plastic ridges between the ears - you can of course carve this out but it's quite fiddly to do so without breaking off the ears (I stopped bothering after almost doing exactly that). It has been noted that the horses look a bit small compared to the riders. Then again, they are bigger than some of the other Perry metal figures - see the photo of a cuirassier behind General Campi below - and match the metal cuirassiers well. The riders are nicely sculpted, with a choice of "swords shouldered" or "swords at charge". Their carbines and scabbards are separate and attaching them to the figures is probably the most difficult part of the entire process (you have to use super-glue). Also, the painting sheet doesn't really help in showing you how to attach the carbine - it advises to attach it to the horse furniture rather than the trooper, but the only illustration of this on a real figure is very dark and it's hard to see how this works. I had to examine the metal figures, but their carbines are suspended rather differently.

I've found that my preferred way of painting these figures is to paint the trooper and horse separately (as I would normally do) and glue them together afterwards. I painted my first 2 figures fully-assembled and I found it a nightmare to reach all parts of the figures. Another painting problem is that mould-lines run straight down the middle of a couple of the troopers' heads, which results in a lack of definition and makes they hard to paint (and I haven't yet made up my mind whether to paint the eyes or leave them in shadow; I've tried both and am not satisfied with either). A further gripe is the plastic "unit bases" - you get a mix of 1-, 2- and 3-figure bases which make it pretty much impossible to base an entire box either on Warhammer-esque individual bases or on larger-scale unit bases - I've based this 16-figure unit by empl0ying the four 3-figure bases and the two 2-figure bases, but I can see how the bases supplied won't work for everyone.

In summary, I have found these figures tricky to put together and paint, but I'm hoping they will look good en masse. The cost is certainly an important factor in going plastic for Napoleonic cavalry, and I suspect the problems identified above will largely disappear with practice, once I work out how to deal with them. Also below is a wip shot of the 61st Ligne's first battalion, well on the way to completion. Once the cuirassiers are finished it's back to the AWI!

61me Ligne (1)

2010-08-29T18:30:00.004Z

I'm having the same experience with Husson's brigade and I did with Campi's - I misread the General de Brigade orbat and have given the 61st Ligne two battalions and the 3rd Ligne only 1 (it should be the other way around), and I've painted the 61st backwards. This is the second battalion officially; in fact it has a third battalion fanion, simply because GMB sell these fanions in packs containing one second battalion flag and one for the third battalion - given that there were only a handful of French regiments at Waterloo which fielded 3 battalions I will end up with lots of redundant red fanions unless I put them to use.

As with my other French battalions, this one is a mix of Perry plastics and metals. There are more of the former than the latter and the plastic figures incorporate several of the spare heads that are included in the box. This is an excellent idea and I hope the forthcoming plastic Prussian sets from Perry and Warlord have plenty of spare heads too. Ideally I'd have liked another couple of flank company heads (i.e. with moustaches), as my grenadier and voltiguer companies always seem to look the same. Anyway, the front rank of this unit mostly have head swaps. I was worried that the drummer's new head might make him look older than the stereotypical "drummer boy", but I think it's turned out ok and in any event I confess I have no idea about the average age of Napoleon's infantry drummers - I suspect it wasn't quite as young as one might think. The skirmishing voltiguers are based on the bases that come with the Perry box, only with the green edges painted mid-brown.

I've started the 61me's first battalion, but won't finish it until later in the year. Last night I put together a couple of Perry plastic cuirassiers and and tempted to paint those up to see how they look. I'm aware that a unit of 18 French cavalry will take most, if not all, of September to do, so I'm not sure that I'll manage a whole regiment, but you never know. Next up will be some foot artillery and Baron Campi.

28 figures. Painted August 2010. Fanion by GMB.

Current wip

2010-08-23T10:47:00.005Z

Apologies for the lack of posts. There is quite a lot on the basing table, as the photo shows. This should all be coming in for photographing over the next couple of days. Also completed is the Baron Campi figure as brigade commander for my first completed 1815 French brigade. The second brigade is underway - one battalion finished (above) and another started last week.

I thought I might take a month-by-month approach with my various periods and see how it goes. August has been an 1815 month and next month will be either First Carlist War or AWI - I need to see what's in the leadpile for both periods; cavalry mainly, I suspect. Despite the Perries releasing tempting goodies every month (for the AWI it was French artillery in August and Lauzun's Legion in September) I am trying to refrain from buying any new figures until the lead and plastic piles are reduced. Some of my AWI leadpile, specifically a few militia packs, is in hibernation while I wait to see if Alan Perry produces anything else to go with them (such as the "northern" militia figures I saw a couple of years ago). In the meantime there is plenty to be getting on with.

108th Ligne

2010-08-06T10:24:00.004Z

This unit represents the 108th Line regiment at Waterloo and completes Campi's brigade in Bachelu's division of Reille's II Corps. I have been following the order of battle available on the General de Brigade website, but mixed up the 72nd and 108th Line regiments - I gave the former two battalions and the larger only one, when in fact it's the 108th that has the two battalions. Idiotically, I've just make the same mistake with the two regiments in Husson's brigade...Anyway, the orbat has the battalion at 30 figures. The brigade skirmishers number 12 figures and I have divided those equally between the 72nd and 108th (in fact I gave each battalion of the 72nd 4 skirmishers, to I have 2 left over). This means that the 108th does actually have 36 figures, a "full strength" French line battalion.

As I said a couple of posts ago, I had a sudden urge a couple of weeks ago to paint some more French infantry for 1815. I painted two 6-figure stands of the Perry metal French infantry years ago when the figures first came out, and it seemed sensible to add to those and make a full battalion. Those earlier figures were painted in a rather different style (the faces in particular) and I add to continue a couple of "mistakes" in the uniform to ensure consistency - so, for example, there are no "N"s on the cartridge case flaps. The command stand comprises the figures from the metal regimental command pack, save for the standard bearer which is from the plastic box. A problem I had not appreciated would arise is that the plastic eagle pole is too short to accommodate a GMB flag. The metal eagle in the metal command pack is fine, but for some reason the plastic one is shorter; I've no idea why this is the case and it's a bit annoying as it means you have to increase the pole if you want to use GMB flags (which are larger that the freebies that come in the Perry box). I foolishly tried to attach a bit of steel rod by cellotape and it looks rubbish, so I'll need to change that at some stage.

As I've said before, the Perry plastics are wonderful figures to paint - very easy to do, with excellent detail and good, natural poses. There are a couple of metals on the skirmish stands (the bases of which are from the Perry box). I'm just over half way through the next unit, the second battalion of the 61st Ligne. When that's finished I might paint Campi himself and an artillery crew and then return to the AWI or Carlists for a bit.

36 figures. Painted January 2007 and July 2010.

Guipúzcoa infantry - 1st battalion

2010-08-02T09:09:00.006Z

These troops are my first formed unit of Carlist troops, supporters of Don Carlos and opponents of the Christino/Isabelino regime. In contract to the Isabelino troops which included most of the Spanish regular army, Don Carlos' supporters were volunteers, largely recruited in the northern provinces of Spain. These are painted as a battalion of Guipúzcoa infantry from the Army of the North. Guipúzcoa is a province at the very north of Spain on the Bay of Biscay. The Basque country generally was a Carlist heartland and saw much heavy fighting - the British Legion operated in this area around San Sebastian and Hernani, so painting up some Guipúzcoa regiments seems a logical place to start with the Carlists. I intend to do 4 such units - 2 marching and 2 firing. As with my Isabelino regular army battalions, Carlist units will comprise 20 figures. I have seen some references to Carlist battalions being larger than their Isabelino counterparts, but given the absence of easily-accessible combatant numbers for the battles of this conflict I decided at the outset to standardise unit numbers at 20 figures, save for those units that are known to have been of a particular size (e.g. the Isabelino militia units).

I decided to use the same colour scheme that I used for me trial Carlist skirmishers earlier in the year. So the greatcoats were painted with Foundry's "German Late Field Grey 78" palette, the berets with "Deep Blue 20" and the trousers with a variety of reds and browns. I kept these figures looking quite smart - other Carlists units will have lots of parches, worn clothes and stubble. The buildings in the background are by Touching History. I picked up a box-load of generic Mediterranean buildings a few months ago; useful for Spain, Italy and probably a few other places as well. I note that Tablescape have released some more items in their ready-painted Mediterranean series, which I will pick up at some stage. I will then have enough buildings for two villages/towns, which will be sufficient for most Carlist War engagements. The flag, as usual, is from Adolfo Ramos (obtainable in the UK from North Star). The Ramos range is expanding into lots of other periods and the quality of the flags is getting better and better.

I am trying to speed-up my painting at the moment. I confess I have been seduced by Napoleonics and am having great fun with the Perry plastic French infantry. As I've said before, when you get a sudden urge to paint a particular period, you just have to give in and go for it - you never know when that urge will return (I last painted Napoleonics in 2008!). My rule of not being able to buy any more Carlist War figures until I have completed the ones in the leadpile means that the next Carlist War offerings will have to be British Legion cavalry or more Isabelino infantry. If readers have a preference, then please let me know as I'm having trouble deciding!

20 figures. Painted June/July 2010. Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

A christening at the Temple

2010-07-19T11:14:00.006Z

It was Hugo's christening yesterday, which gives me an excuse to post a couple of pictures of both the little fellow and the church and surroundings of the Temple in London. Nowadays, the Temple is best known as the collective noun for the Inner Temple and Middle Temple, two of England's four "Inns of Court" which, in practical terms, are collections of lawyers (specifically, barristers rather than solicitors). Lawyers set up shop in the area early in the 14th century, but the Temple began life as the English headquarters of the Knights Templar. Temple Church was consecrated in 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem in the presence of Henry II. The "Round Church", to which the rectangular Chancel was added some years later, was designed to be a replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulcre in Jerusalem. It was in the Round that Hugo was baptised and the church's Master (the priest of the church still bears the title of the head of the military order) explained how difficult it is for us today to imagine how people in the 12th century would have felt being in a near-replica of the place where Jesus was buried - it was the closest to being in Jerusalem that many would ever achieve. When the Templers fell in 1307 the Church and its adjoining monastic buildings were appropriated by King Edward II who then handed the Temple over to the Knights Hospitaller. The Hospitallers in turn rented out some of the area to the lawyers whose successors have remained ever since.

After the christening we stayed for the service of mattins and then held a reception for our guests in the rooms of Middle Temple Hall. The Hall was built between 1562 and 1573. It hosted the first performance of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" in 1602 and provides the dining rooms for members of the Middle Temple. After lunch we went out into the gardens to enjoy the sunshine and I found some displays of renaissance arms and armour at the foot of the main staircase.

We all had a most enjoyable time and it was a privilege to spend the day in such historic surroundings. The Temple Church in fact has a strong connection to my family, as my parents were married there and my brother and I were both christened in it as well. My father practiced in the Middle Temple for many years and is now a Bencher. Hugo did very well yesterday, although he didn't care much for his 100 year-old family christening gown and we had to remove him from the Church when he started blowing raspberries during the Lord's Prayer at mattins. I imagine I behaved in similar fashion when in the same church 37 years ago...

On the painting front, I'm pleased to say that the Carlists are finally finished and going through the basing process. The 108th Ligne has 5 companies completed and should be finished this week. Not sure what to do next - perhaps some French artillery. I'm feeling a bit of an itch to paint some more AWI British line, although that would necessitate an order to Messrs Perry.

Current wip

2010-07-09T10:37:00.005Z

. .
Apologies for the lack of post of late. Work and Hugo have both intervened heavily to prevent painting, and whilst I do have some photos of recent stuff I am not satisfied with them and need to take some more. Here are a couple of pics of what I am working on - Carlist infantry and French 1815 infantry. I find that sometimes I suddenly experience a burning desire to do something and last weekend I decided I wanted to paint more Napoleonic infantry. I have no idea where this came from, but when this sort of thing happens you just have to go with it....Perhaps at the back of my mind was the realisation that now there is a plastics pile alongside my leadpile and that I need to begin to seriously grapple with both. Perhaps I just fancied a change of scene. Production has certainly picked up as I painted the 6 French figures above in 5 days and should have the grenadier company finished by the end of the weekend - this will be the first time since Hugo was born that I have returned to my old 12 figures a week pace! I'm sure that much of the reason for that is the quality of the Perry plastic figures; as I've said before, they almost paint themselves. As the Carlists and Frenchies are in quite large units I will not have them finished for another week or so. I'm tempted to mount another Fourth of July parade tomorrow if I can find some time in the garden - perhaps early war Americans or even a review of my Isabelino force for the First Carlist War.

Other bloggers have noted the sad death of Paddy Griffith a couple of weeks ago. I met Paddy a few times because he was my brother's godfather. Our families lost regular touch over the years, but I have fond memories of Paddy visiting us with his family when my brother and I were young. His gifts to my brother and I were always of a military nature, and I recall him umpiring a chariot race game on the living room carpet using some plastic Roman chariots that he had given us. I was fortunate that Paddy's realisation that I was far more interested in military history than my brother led to the occasional gift of a signed book. From what others have written, such generosity was very typical of Paddy. My schooling also benefited from his perceptive analysis of military history. I once asked him why the French lost at Waterloo. Expecting (and hoping for) a detailed exposition of the battle he said "it's simple - our men were better than theirs". I used that line when asked the same question at my secondary school interview a year or so later; it prompted a laugh and I like to think helped me secure my place. He was a lovely man and will be much missed.

Civilians (11)

2010-06-28T10:53:00.007Z

I thought I'd put these figures under the "Civilians" label but this is the first post of 3 on Eureka Miniatures' 18th century musicians and perhaps they deserve a separate label. Anyway, Eureka have done a fantastic job in releasing this string quartet and "personality" figures of Frederick the Great playing his flute and CPE Bach playing his keyboard (I've finished Frederick but haven't started Bach yet). These are all equisite figures and I recommend them to all 18th century gamers - you can never have enough musicians on the tabletop. The sculpting of the instruments and the way they are being played is very good. I was delighted to see that the viola (my own instrument) is noticeably a bit larger than the violins and I like the way that the players are leaning forward as they play. My only niggle is the positioning of the heads - only the cellist is actually looking at the music. But I suppose you could think of the others as (quite validly) either looking at their finger-work or at each other; on that basis I tried to position the figures so that they are looking at each other.

One option with these figures is to paint them all in the same outfits to represent a court or house band. Given that these are for use in 1770s America I decided against the livery look but tried to create some uniformity by giving each player a powdered wig and a blue coat. I wanted to suggest a group of professionals who are wearing their own clothes but are ensuring that they co-ordinate in some fashion. One of the two violin players has a more elaborate coat than the other and so I decided he should be the leading first violin. For the instruments themselves I found that the Foundry "Tan 14" palette was perfect. The seating of the figures is not quite right, which is a bit annoying because I did some research to see whether is was (and is) more common for the viola or cello to sit on the outside. There is no "correct" answer to that point and I put the viola player on the outside. However, in front of an audience the viola is supposed to be opposite the first violin with the other two forming a semi-circle behind them; this is so that none of the players' backs are presented to the audience. With my figures, even though there is a nice symmetry in the way they sit on the base the backs of two of the players will always be towards the audience. I'm not sure how that happened.... and perhaps it would have been better to have based each player separately, but never mind.

The quartet is playing the opening of Quintet No.6, Op.57 by Luigi Boccherini (the fifth part is piano). When painting the music I wanted to work from an actual score rather than just make up the annotation, and this was one of the few suitable pieces I could print off online. The quintet was probably composed in 1780 and it has a suitable nickname, "The Military Night Watch in Madrid". Trying to fit a full 10 staves on each page would have been ridiculous, so I settled for 4 staves per page and I did try to ensure that what I painted followed the music and thereby captured the various intruments' roles. So, for example, the music for the first violin is busier than for the other players and the viola player (as usual) has some long rests and a part that is not particularly exciting; hopefully the clefs look a bit different too. These figures are part of Eureka's "100 Club" system, whereby you put your name down for figures in advance of their being sculpted. Consequently I don't think they are on general release just yet.

Recordings of suitable period music are easy to find. Some of my favourites are Haydn's Op.17 quartets (1771), Boccherini's Op.19 flute quintets (1774-6) and Antonio Rosetti's Op.6 quartets (1787).

4 figures. Painted June 2010.

Pisa

2010-06-20T17:19:00.009Z

The whanau and I have just returned from a week in Tuscany. We spent a few days in Pisa and then a few more in a villa outside of the town of Lucca, which we shared with some of the Kiwi's friends. We had some lovely weather but also 3 days of heavy storms, the last of which caused a complete meltdown at Pisa aircraft as too many delayed planes arrived at once, producing scenes of chaos I haven't experienced since Athens airport in the mid-80s. Hugo attracted much attention from the bambino-loving Italians; one lunchtime he was passed around a resturant from one female admirer to another, which he much enjoyed being the awful flirt that he is. Whilst Lucca is a stunningly beautiful Tuscan town, I thought I would just post about Pisa as that is where we saw the most immediately "military" things. Pisa is not quite so appealing; it lacks the narrow cobbled streets and timelessness of Lucca.

Above are two photos of the famous "campo dei miracoli", where the leaning tower stands alongside the main cathedral, baptistry and other buildings. The tower is a bit like the London Assembly building (otherwise known as "the testicle") - to fully appreciate the lean you have to view it from a particular angle. The reason why the tower, and to a much lesser extent the other buildings, leans is the soggy mix of sand and silt on which they were built. The tower's final form was completed around 1350. Below are scenes from one of the sarcophagi in the "Camposanto", another building in the campo which is essentially a cloistered cemetary. No dates seemed to be provided for any of the stone objects in this building, but the guidebooks refer to "late Roman" sarcophagi and that seems to fit the bill for this one and its Romans v barbarians relief work.

The campo's museums have some interesting things. On the left is the "Pisa Cross", allegedly carried by the First Crusade's Pisan contingent. On the right are the cathedral's original bronze doors, made in 1180 and which depict the life of Christ in their various panels.

The city's walls date to the thirteenth century. Below are a view of the Fortezza Vecchia, which used to guard Pisa's harbour (long silted up) and a section of wall with one of the gates.

Lastly, some militaria from the Palazzon Reale, a grand house that belonged to the various ruling families of Pisa. The lack of exhibit information here was even more frustrating that in the Campsanto. I have no idea when the drums below date to or whether they are ceremonial or were carried in battle. Ditto for the suits of armour and costumes. I assume they are 16th or 17th century but have no further clarity than that. Pisa has a "push of war" event that dates back to the late 16th century called the "Gioco del Ponte" or "Joust of the Bridge", in which teams from either side of the River Arno that runs through the city competed for control of one of its bridges. It may be that the drums belong to various teams in that event rather than any "proper" military units. That said, I would certainly incorporate some of the motifs into drums for Italian Wars units...

On the waragming front I have just finished Eureka Miniatures' 18th century musicians and have started work on my first full Carlist unit for the FCW. More Sudan is also in the pipeline.

16th Light Dragoons (2)

2010-06-09T12:06:00.004Z

The 16th Light Dragoons was raised in 1759 by John Burgoyne (then a colonel). The regiment became a royal regiment in 1766 following its service against the Spanish. For a few years it was known as the Queen's Dragoons. The regiment was posted to Nova Scotia in October 1776 and immediately joined the main British army in New York. It fought throughout the New York and Philadelphia campaigns. By 1778 the regiment was badly understrength and its men were transferred into the 17th Light Dragoons, the officers returning home. The regiment's modern day successor is the Queen's Royal Lancers.

The 16th tends to appear en masse in the large northern theatre battles: Long Island (12 figures), Brandywine (14 - 6 in Knyphausen's sector and 8 in Cornwallis') and Monmouth (10). So the largest number of figure you need for the regiment is 14 for Brandywine, but in the event that I ever try to stage the whole of that battle myself I'll just add a couple of figures from the Perry skirmishing pack.

Most of these figures were painted in 2005. They appear now because I have been meaning for ages to add another 3 figures to bring the total unit strength up to 12 and finally managed to do so last month. I had planned to paint these extra figures for the 2008 Long Island game, but I ran out of time. My painting style had developed substantially since 2005 and there is much in these figures that I would do differently now; principally the faces (which had a yucky GW flesh wash) and the horses (which are dry-brushed). That said, from "normal wargaming distance" it is probably difficult to spot the new figures and I think the unit gels together ok. In the pics below, the new figures are in the bottom row. The light blue colour on the water bottles is something I took from the Perry Miniatures website. I have since been told that painting water canteens this colour was a Napoleonic practice and would not have been done at the time of the AWI - the canteens would mosy likely be of natural wood or covered with canvas to keep them cool. Another mistake on the Perry website is the dressing of the trumpeter in a coat with reversed colours. The 16th was a Royal regiment and so musicians' coats were not reversed in this way.

12 figures. Painted 2005 and May 2010.

17th Light Dragoons (2)

2010-06-01T09:55:00.003Z

My second unit of figures for the 17th is the Perry pack of dragoons "on picket duty". These are lovely figures, although to be honest probably of limited use for the kind of large battles I'm interested in. That said, I can see them patrolling the edges of the British lines, perhaps on duty in camp or even hovering around General Knyphausen who had a couple of dragoons attached to his staff (presumably as bodyguards or messengers). The figures' suitability for skirmish games is obvious and, to be honest,the figures are too nicely sculpted to be hidden away.

As these are "early war" troops I deliberately painted the horses in more traditional colours and not as palominos, tobianos or any of the more fanciful breeds that I enjoy doing. Paintings of dragoons in Mollo and on the Don Troiani website show the horses carrying white head bridles. These bridles have quite clearly been sculpted on most (if not all) of the Perry Miniatures cavalry, but I hadn't noticed until now; consequently, I painted white harnesses where applicable. Veterans of the Foundry and Perry Miniatures AWI ranges will know that throughout the packs are various figures that have faces very similar to that of Alan Perry. These figures are affectionately referred to by my London gaming companions as "Alans". A classic example can be seen in the close-up in the last pair below, although I would emphasise that I have never seen Alan looking so mean! This is a face that appears in each of the rank-and-file cavalry packs in the Perry range. I'm quite pleased with the way this figure turned out - as someone said elsewhere, he looks as if he's going to shoot every rebel he comes across.

3 figures. Painted May 2010.

Baluchis (1)

2010-05-26T12:50:00.006Z

I'm sure that many wargamers sometimes get the urge to set aside their current projects for a time and paint something completely different. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was up in the loft and started looking in the sets of drawers that house my "non-core" leadpile (i.e. all those figures that don't directly fit into the projects I have been working on over the past 2 years). I came across 3 packs of Foundry Baluchis and decided to paint them up over the next couple of weeks. At the back of my mind was the idea that I could use them as mercenaries or volunteers for the Sudan (although these figures are substantially larger and chunkier than those in the Perry Sudan range). I already have 2 packs painted up so eventually I will have a decent sized skirmish force.

I avidly collected the Darkest Africa figures that Mark Copplestone made for Foundry when they first came out, some 10 years ago. This was Foundry's golden age, when every month they released lovely sculpts from the hobby's best sculptors. You could sign up to a standing order system for their new ranges, whereby each month you'd receive a long box with between 6 and 8 packs at a 10% discount. I quickly signed up for the Caesarean Romans, Macedonians and Darkest Africa ranges (back in those days I wasn't the least bit interested in the AWI range, which was being released at the same time!). Of course Foundry then imploded, its sculptors left to start their own businesses and the rest is history. I managed to paint a good few packs of Darkest Africa figures but didn't base any of them. I began doing so a couple of years ago and one of my aims this year is to finish basing the remainder. In the meantime, several of the later packs have not been painted at all and I intend to paint a couple of them every now and then as a change of paint from horse and musket.

These figures form one old pack - nowadays the figures are split over a couple of packs, as Foundry meanly reduced the number of figures in their packs from 8 to 6 a few years ago (which was a disaster for the AWI range as it meant that the British command packs only had 1 standard bearer - useless!). The skin is painted with one of the newish Foundry flesh palettes - "Near Eastern Flesh 123". Painting people from Asia is always tricky; some are almost caucasian in colour whilst others can be quite dark. This palette seems to me to be a good compromise and I've also been using it for my First Crusade arabs. I'm currently painting a second pack of Baluchis so they should appear on the blog next week some time. The main building is a tomb from Hovels, bought ready painted and based at Salute. The walls and other bits are by Paul Darnell of Touching History.

8 figures. Painted May 2010.

17th Light Dragoons (1)

2010-05-23T19:21:00.004Z

The 17th Light Dragoons arrived in America in 1775 and remained until 1783. The death's head badge on the helmet is said to have commemorated the death of James Wolfe at Quebec, although an alternative idea is that the motif is modelled on the Prussian Army's Black Hussars. The regiment saw service throughout the war in the north. In 1779 the regiment was sent to serve with the British Legion in the Carolinas ("stiffen" the Legion is the word used by Stuart Reid in the "King George's Army (3)" Osprey). The troops were engaged in numerous raids and skirmishes. In the published "British Grenadier!" scenarios, the southern 17th appear only once, as a 6 figure unit at Cowpens.

I want to build up my AWI cavalry his year, and I'm going backwards with the 17th - starting with Perry figures for the later, southern theatre and I'll finish with a 12-figure unit in full dress for the early part of the war (via one or two other things). In the south, the 17th wore white linen smocks due to the heat, although I have seen references to these being worn either instead of or over the regulation uniform. I painted the smocks on these figures with Foundry's "Palomino 56" palette as I wanted a creamy rather than white look. The officer's coat shows a bit of artistic licence. I thought it would look a bit odd if the officer wore the same coloured coat as the men - it's clearly a well-tailored coat rather than a smock. I thought I could paint it a slightly different shade of cream (as shown on the Perry Miniatures website), but that seemed a bit too "civilian" and I wanted something that was clearly a uniform. The cut of the coat is not quite right for the 17th's regular uniform, so I decided to paint it in dark green as a nod to Tarleton's Legion. I have read that the 17th were very proud of their uniforms when serving with the Legion, but maybe this officer had agreed with a loyalist friend that he would wear a green coat for the day, or his own uniform was being mended and this is his "No.2 suit". It's not historically accurate, but the green adds some colour to what are otherwise fairly uninteresting uniforms.

Again, work has affected blogging over the past week or so. Coming up are some more 17th Dragoons and, er, 1880s Baluchis....

6 figures. Painted April 2010.

Regiment Armagnac, 1st battalion

2010-05-15T07:38:00.006Z

The Armagnac Regiment was part of the Comte d'Estaing's force, the first French troops to participate in the AWI and which arrived in America during summer 1778. After the failed attack on Rhode Island, the French force moved off to the Caribbean and attacked St Lucia, which had been captured by the British. The resulting battle of La Vigie is in the first "British Grenadier" scenario book, which requires two battalions of the Armagnac regiment at 18 figures each. They are in the earlier uniform. A wiki search reveals that a post AWI colonel was one Comte Alexandre Andrault de Langeron - this chap was an ardent royalist who left France when the revolution started and joined the Russian army, rising to the rank of General and commanding a corps in 1814.

As this is the first battalion, the flag used is the white colonel's colour; the more colourful drapeau d'ordonnance will go to the second battalion. The distinctive French finial and cravat was sourced from Front Rank, who sell these things in packs. Given the white uniforms of these troops, I used a grey undercoat rather than my usual black one, specifically Army Painter's grey spray which is an exact match with Coat d'Arms "525 Uniform Grey". I then used my usual Foundry and Coat d'Arms paints to build up to the final pure white highlight. I continued to use blacklining but for the white uniforms and gaiters I used Coat d'Arms "533 Slate Grey" instead of black to create a slightly softer look. Overall I'm happy with how these figures turned out (although the quality of photos still leaves much to be desired!).

I'm afraid work has intervened to prevent more regular posts. I have a load of stuff photographed, AWI (British cavalry) and Sudan, so hopefully next week will see more posts.

18 figures. Painted March/April 2010. Flag by GMB.

Revolting slaves

2010-05-04T10:57:00.005Z

Trent Miniatures have a couple of packs of "revolting slaves" in their Later French Revolutionary Wars range, available in the UK from North Star. The range covers the Caribbean as well as north Italy and Ireland. I am not entirely sure who sculpts for this range; Mark Copplestone makes the personality figures but the rank and file stuff is clearly the work of someone else. I saw the slave figures and thought they might come in handy for the wiser reaches of the AWI. There is one pack of slaves with firearms and a second one with "armes blanches", i.e. swords and improvised weapons. These figures are clearly from the first pack, which contains 8 different figures. The North Star website shows "5 of the available figures", which is interesting because only one of those figures was contained in my pack - there must be at least 12 different figures and presumably each pack has a random selection. I find this sort of thing a bit annoying, because you might be after particular figures and when ordering mail order without the chance to inspect each pack you simply don't know what you're going to receive.

Anyway, the figures are nicely sculpted and paint up well. They are well detailed and some of the figures even have scars on their backs. I'm not too sure about the top hats that a couple of the figures are wearing - I have no idea whether this is a Caribbean thing or symptomatic of the figures being intended for a later period than the AWI. The figures are all based on 25mm squares, this being the size for skirmish bases under the "British Grenadier!" rules. The flesh was painted with one of the new Foundry palettes, "African Flesh 126". The range gives you a choice of 3 African palettes; "North African", "Dark African" and this one. To be honest, I have no idea which peoples and tribes are more suited to which palette. The "Dark African" paints are almost black and I did wonder whether they would be more suitable. I will probably paint up the second pack of slaves at some point and will keep an eye on the Trent Miniatures range for anything else that might work for the AWI.

8 figures. Painted March 2010.

Salute 2010

2010-04-26T15:58:00.006Z

Others have beaten me to it, but below are some photos from London's Salute show held on Saturday. For reasons I can't quite pin down, I was a bit underwhelmed this year. Perhaps it was because I had to leave early at 2.30pm to meet the family, or because I couldn't find everything on my shopping list, or because I thought the standard of games was not as high as usual (something I have heard others say). But anyway, Salute always provides an entertaining day out and the South London Warlords' organisation was, as always, top class (the queues to get in were absolutely enormous, but they moved quickly once the doors opened). Purchases included 3 boxes of Perry plastic Napoleonic cavalry (2 cuirassier and 1 hussar boxes - the latter will be converted into some AWI Hessians); some random Perry metal figures from various ranges; the "Crusader" ancients/medieval rules for my First Crusade project; some Renedra plastic tents; and, as a total "impluse" buy, a ready painted 25mm mosque (every table should have one in these multi-cultural times...). Talking of plastics, I was impressed by Victrix's new British Napoleonic artillery and delighted to see that the next Perry boxes will be mahdists for the Sudan and zouaves for the ACW - a photo of the 3-ups is above. Anyway, enough waffle, here are the photos.

First up is a 25mm AWI game by Uxbridge Wargamers, using Old Glory figures:

Loughton Strike Force's Busaco game. The fantastic terrain made by Richard Jackson was a deserving winner of the best terrain award.

The Perries' Wars of the Roses game:

Gripping Beast had a Viking civil war game:

Richard Gillingham won a prize for his Seminole War game. Small, but perfectfully formed and very evocative.

Honnington Wargames Group's Pegasus Bridge. This won best demo game.

Muswell Militia's Zama game won the "most impressive troops" award.

Oshiro Modelterrain had their Samurai display again. Unlike last year, this game was actually being played - an excellent advert for their wares.

Chemins de Feu had a very nicely presented Russian in Afghanistan game, "Red Hawk Down":

A few other games:

Last, but not least, South East Essex Military Society's Franco-Belgian border WW1 games:

Hessian Commissary

2010-04-18T21:05:00.004Z

You can imagine the scene...

Commissary von Dumkopf: "Zis is very disappointing. You said you could supply ze Burgunder from Baden-Baden and now you say zis is not possible and I must do with some French nonsense instead?"

Mr Berry, purveyor of fine wines to the nobility and gentry: "Come on guv, don't you know there's a war on? You're lucky I managed to get anything past the Frenchies on blockage. Now my good friend Mr Gallo has managed to find me some excellent pinot noir from the south of France, the spiritual home of your Burgunder I believe. This is top notch stuff and as a gesture of goodwill I'll throw in a case of Louisiana Claret for no extra charge. Frankly, I'm robbing meself."

Von Dumkopf: "Vell, I suppose it will have to do. And to be honest, Colonel Rall will drink anything. I am sure he will enjoy Herr Gallo's wines at the Trenton garrison's Christmas Eve dinner."

These are the Voltaire and Frederick the Great figures from Eureka's latest 18th century civilians release. The story, linked above, of how US giant E&J Gallo had been duped into selling cheap French merlot as pinot noir provided the inspiration as to how to incorporate these figures into my AWI collection. The Frederick figure is painted as a commissary from the Hesse-Cassel corps. I could not find any information on the uniform of Hessian commissaries, so followed the Prussian uniform in the SYW, on the basis that the Hessians often followed Prussian practices and styles - it seemed a decent default option. A certain amount of artistic licence was necessary on the Frederick figure - this is clearly a very senior commissary. The barrels and crates are resin items are from Warlord Games.

2 figures. Painted March 2010.

Lee's Legion infantry

2010-04-12T16:28:00.004Z

Lee's Legion (raised by "Light Horse Harry" Lee, father of Robert E Lee) began life in June 1776 as a body of horsemen raised in Virginia and attached to the 1st Continental Light Dragoons. Within a couple of years Lee had been promoted and was asked by Congress to expand his unit into a "legion", comprising both cavalry and infantry elements. George Washington envisaged his Continental Army's legions, or partizan corps as they were also known, as being elite formations that could carry out reconnaisance and raids. Lee's Legion served with distinction in the Southern theatre. It was present at Guilford as well as several minor engagements and skirmishes. By 1781 the Legion seems to have mustered over 100 cavalry and 180 infantry. The Legion was disbanded in November 1783.

Uniform sources for Lee's Legion are minimal. There are references to the cavalry at least being mistaken for Tarleton's British Legion, so one assumes that they wore similar dark green jackets. The infantry may have worn something similar, although there are also references to "blue coats with red trim". However, the most well-known representation of the infantry is Don Troiani's painting of a soldier in a kind of purple outfit, and this is what I have followed for these figures (as did the painter for the figures on the Perry website). Where this comes from I am not too sure, but wiser heads than I have suggested that it may be faded blue. The officer figure here is in a different uniform to everyone else - a cut-down coat with lapels and facings. In keeping with the British Legion theme, I painted the coat dark green with black facings. I suppose I could have painted him blue with red facings, but this way he will match the cavalry element when I turn my attention to that. I think you could use these figures for the elusive British Legion foot as well - perhaps in a white uniform.

In the published "British Grenadier!" rules, Lee's Legion infantry appear only once - 10 figures at Eutaw Springs. I painted up both Perry packs, so I have 12 figures; at 1:20 that equates to 240 men which is probably more than actually served in the unit. Never mind. I toyed with the idea of basing them up on close order infantry bases; this would have been a nice look, but the figures are posed as skirmishers and reading about the Legion and it's activities I think on balance skirmish bases are most appropriate. I've been unsatisfied with my indoor photos for some time now so took these outside in the garden; hopefully the natural light improves them a bit.

12 figures. Painted February 2010.

Back home...

2010-04-06T13:13:00.006Z

...and feeling the strain of trying to turn a 4 month-old baby back from NZ time onto UK time. Little Hugo did very well on the long flights out and back, only seriously losing his rag a couple of times on each trip. I can't really recommend taking a baby on a 26-hour flight, but Hugo was far better behaved than we expected and drew admiring comments from both passengers and cabin crew for his almost-invisible presence. Mind you, the cost to his parents of keeping him quiet was almost total attention during the entire trip (especially from the Kiwi, bless her).

After the obligatory 10 days' stay with Hugo's grandparents in Tauranga (and we were touched that several other members of the whanau had travelled from remote parts of the country to meet their new relative) we headed up to the area north of Auckland, the first time either of us had visited this part of North Island. We worked our way through the wineries of Kumeu, Henderson and Matakana, slowly drove up the west coast through kauri forests and then spent a few days in the Bay of Islands. This part of NZ is arguably the most "historical", in that it saw the first European settlements and some of the heaviest fighting between Maori and pakeha. Unfortunately we didn't manage to vist any of the surviving pa in the area, but I will add a post on the things of interest that we did see in a day or two.

As always with any visit to New Zealand, the food and wine were excellent; a strict diet is now in force for the foreseeable future. We enjoyed drinking up some of the wine we had left maturing at the in-laws' during our previous trips and during the course of our vineyard visits we tasted NZ's only carmenere, it's most northerly-grown sauvignon blanc, it's only chambourcins and it's pinotages (I didn't even know NZ made pinotage). In total we visited 19 wineries and my tastings notebook tells me that I drank (as opposed to tasted, so I had at least one full glass of) 115 different wines during the holiday.

Unfortunately I have only one liver, so I'm going to be on the wagon for a wee while now. But for those who are interested in such things, wine highlights were as follows: Peregrine Riesling 2005; Nga Waka Pinot Noir 2006 (you have to be very careful how you pronounce "Nga Waka"); Te Mata "Coleraine" 2005; Clifford Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2008; Mills Reef "Elspeth" Chardonnay 2008; Trinity Hill Noble Viognier 2008 (thanks, Kerry!); Millton Opou Vineyard Chardonnay 2006; Morton Estate Brut 2000; Sacred Hill "Riflemans" Chardonnay 2006; Martinborough Vineyard Pinot Noir 2004; Cloudy Bay Pinot Gris 2008; West Brook Gewurztraminer 2009; Marsden "Black Rocks" Chardonnay 2008; Marsden Pinotage 2006; Seresin Chardonnay 2007; Lochiel Estate Chardonnay 2008; Cable Bay Reserve Pinot Noir 2007; Villa Maria Ihumatao Vineyard Verdelho 2008. Emirates Airlines deserve a mention for selecting the rather yummy Eroica Riesling 2007 from Washington state.

No more posts for a while...

2010-03-09T12:07:00.002Z

...as it's time for our yearly trip to New Zealand. How young Hugo will cope with 26 hours of flying is anyone's guess. He's now 12 weeks and a bit more predictable than he used to be, but it's going to be an experience...We are not venturing far this time - a few days in Auckland before heading down to Tauranga to introduce Hugo to his Kiwi grandparents, aunts and uncles. After a week or so we will hea back up north to spend a few days by ourselves around the Bay of Islands. It's apparently been a record summer in NZ so far - I hope the good weather lasts a couple of weeks longer.

A couple of wip pics are above. The 1st battalion of the Armagnac regiment is coming along nicely and over the weekend I managed to squeeze in 8 "revolting slaves", newly released by North Star Miniatures. I've finished basing a few other things and have just received a boxload of Spanish houses from Paul Darnell of Touching History to go with my First Carlist War collection. So lots to post about when I return.

Von Mirbach Musketeer Regiment

2010-03-07T21:11:00.002Z

Major-General Werner von Mirbach's regiment was in the first wave of Hessian troops to arrive in America and its experience followed the template for regiments in Howe's northern theatre army: Long Island, White Plains, Brandywine, Germantown, Fort Mercer, Monmouth and then garrison duty in New York. This list, however, illustrates how presence on a battlefield does not necessarily reflect active engagement. In his seminal work "The Hessians", Rodney Atwood uses von Mirbach's regiment as an example of how most Hessian regiments did very little fighting - apparently the regiment only saw action for the 40 minutes of the attack on Fort Mercer (in which it lost its colonel and 95 other soldiers dead and wounded). In other battles the regiment was a spectator, and this experience was common among the Hessian regiments in America. There were exceptions of course, notably the jaeger and grenadier battalions, and the Von Bose musketeers in the southern campaigns.

But many Hessian regiments appear in scenario orbats and so they need to be modelled, even if on the tabletop the Hessians often appear late in the day and add little to the British side. In the various "British Grenadier!" scenarios Von Mirbach are present at Long Island, Brandywine and Germantown, all in units of 24 figures. I recall commanding Stirn's Hessian brigade in the Knyphausen sector of Brandywine at the large National Army Museum game a few years ago - the brigade didn't arrive until the second day of play and by the time I moved them across the river the Americans were already well into their withdrawal.

I've already painted the Perry Miniatures marching and charging Hessian musketeers, so the firing figures were next on the list. I confess that I found these tricky to paint. Some of the faces lacked a bit of definition and the poses make it tricky to reach some of the torso areas. I corrected a couple of things I didn't do properly when I painted the Von Mirbach grenadier company for Von Linsing's battalion - here, the officers' lace is silver and I added white piping around the cuff buttons. The hat pompoms are red, although I have seen others paint them dark blue.

24 figures. Painted January-February 2010. Flags by GMB.

Indian chiefs (2)

2010-03-04T13:10:00.006Z

These are the Conquest Miniatures "personality" figures of Tecumseh (1768-1813) and his brother Tenskwatawa (1775-1836). As historical persons these two are out of period, but the sculpts themselves seem perfectly suitable for the AWI and I intend to use them as generic chief/leader figures (hence the round bases rather than 25mm squares). I bought these figures in the UK from North Star Miniatures. Conquest's figures are a good match for Perry Miniatures indians but are a fair bit slimmer, as the photo on the right shows.

Tecumseh was chief of the Shawnee tribe and is of course famous for his role in Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. Tenskwatawa, also known as "the Prophet" was a religious leader who believed in a return to the indians old ways and lifestyles. Their tribe lived in Ohio, Kentucky and Western Virginia and fought on various sides during the 18th century. Red Jacket was a Shawnee chief - he advocated support for the British in the AWI. Increasing pressure on the indians' homelands in Ohio led to the various tribes forming confederations to offer better resistance to white settlers. The Shawnee took part in Little Turtle's War (1785 to 1795). After initial successes, the confederacy was defeated by forces under "Mad" Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. As a result, large parts of the Ohio territory were ceded to the US.

The Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1809 saw further territory turned over to white settlers. Tecumseh, by this point the chief of the Shawnee, immediately advocated opposition to the treaty and encouraged resistance. Discussions with the governor of Indiana came to nothing and fighting broke out in 1811. An indian force under Tenskwatawa was defeated at the Battle of Tippicanoe in November. Tecumseh rallied his confederation and joined in the British attack on Detroit the following year. Tecumseh and his force remained on operations with the British in Canada under the chief was killed at the Battle of the Thames on 5 October 1813. The indian confederacy dissolved in the wake of Tecumseh's death. Tenskwatawa survived the Battle of the Thames and took many of the Shawnee to a new home on the site of present day Kansas City. He apparently had 20 children by 3 wives.

These figures were painted with another of the new Foundry flesh palettes, "Native American Flesh 120". I have never before bothered to paint native Americans any differently to "white" Americans, but I think this palette works reasonably well. Again, perhaps another highlight or two would be handy on large areas of flesh, but the paints give a nice darker hue to the overall look and I'm tempted to use these paints in the future on more indians.

2 figures. Painted February 2010.

7th Battalion, British Auxiliary Legion

2010-03-01T08:04:00.008Z

I had not intended to paint more BAL infantry so soon, but I received these figures for Christmas and so I thought I'd just jump straight in. I like these "running at trail" poses as they are quite easy to paint and look dynamic. Michael Perry clearly enjoys sculpting figures this way, as there are other running-at-trail figures in his Sudan range. Basing them is a bit of a pain, as the figures have to be angled in such a way as to ensure that the muskets are not sticking into the figures in front. That said, I used the same sized bases as usual for the FCW and I don't think these look too crowded. As with the 10th battalion I used one of the Adolfo Ramos flags for the 3rd battalion and painted over the number to add a "7".

The 7th completes the BAL's "Irish Brigade" in my collection. I gave these figures the white summer trousers as a bit of a change from the Oxford blue and campaign dress looks I used for the 9th and 10th battalions and also because there is one specific reference to the 7th in white trousers, at the battle of Ayete (see below). Some sources refer to all the Irish regiments having a green cap band, but I'm not convinced by this and simply decided to use the facing colour of each battalion. The 7th was named "the Irish Light Infantry" and so I gave the unit a bugler figure rather than a drummer.

As I've noted before, the BAL suffered dreadfully from sickness during its stay in Vitoria during the winter of 1835/6 (losses were so great that two battalions were disbanded). In the spring the Legion left Vitoria to march towards Santander and the coast. Eyewitnesses reported most favourably on the appearance of the Irish Brigade, whose soldiers seem to have best endured the hardships of winter and typhus. From Santander the Legion was taken by sea to San Sebastian with the intention of launching attacks on the Carlists' positions outside the town. The Carlists lacked the strength (and navy) to effectively besiege San Sebastian, but their presence tied down the Isabelino troops inside the town and for that reason the Crown needed the Carlists removed. So came about the battle of Ayete on 5 May 1836, the Legion's first major engagement and also its bloodiest. On the evening before the battle, Brigadier Charles Shaw, the commander of the Irish Brigade, wrote of his concerns about frontally assaulting entrenchments with untried troops. The Legion attacked the first line of positions at dawn, with orders not to fire but simply to charge with the bayonet. Many units failed to do this, being distracted by the amount of fire poured on them, but it was noted that the 7th obyed these orders and closed with the enemy very quickly. The fighting over the second line of Carlist defences was particularly bitter. The 7th and 9th battalions charged and were repulsed 3 times. Then the 10th managed to catch up with them the brigade's officers started to lead a new attack. Colonel Charles Fitzgerald of the 9th rallied the brigade with these words: "Irishmen! Tenth, Ninth, Seventh; Munster boys, bog-trotters, ragamuffins, come on with ould Charlie - I'll stand here by myself till I'm shot, if ye don't come." These words had the required effect and the second line was taken. The Carlists' next position, the fort of Lugariz, was carried by the 4th and 8th battalions and a Royal Marine battalion, which had just arrived by boat and which were supported by a well-aimed bombardment by the Royal Navy ships anchored off San Sebastian. By the close of the battle, the Irish Brigade had lost 27 officers and some 400 men. The Legion's losses were so heavy that The Times newspaper accused the BAL's commander, General Evans, of making "a Bunker Hill display". However, the Legion had acquitted itself very well and delivered an impressive victory to its Spanish paymasters.

20 figures. Painted January 2010.

Welcome the French

2010-02-24T11:12:00.011Z

I recall Eclaireur (author of the "British Grenadier!" AWI rules) mentioning to me a few years ago that he'd asked Alan Perry whether he intended to sculpt any French figures for the AWI. The answer was "not for about 5 years", and I believe EC told me this 4 or 5 years ago. This might give an indication of how much advance planning sculptors (or some of them at least) put into their ranges, or may suggest that the Perry Miniatures AWI range is a long-term venture which will see everything one could wish for released at some stage. I mention this conversation because the Perries took a bit of flack on the TMP forum when they announced the release of their AWI French. Most Perry news releases seem to be met with replies of "why didn't you release [my pet wants] instead?", but the reaction to the French was more focused. The arguments against are: (1) there are more obvious "gaps" in the range (e.g. American light infantry) and (2) there just aren't many gameable scenarios that involve the French. To be honest, both points are reasonably made and justified. But I'm sure everything will appear in time.

Personally I'm delighted to see these figures. I'm sure that for every person who wants to see light infantry in caps or Rhode Island negro troops there's another who wants to see the French. More importantly for me, having the French allows you to wander off the American continent and look at scenarios in the Caribbean, India and elsewhere and even consider "what ifs" involving large numbers of French and British infantry going head-to-head. Those types of scenarios won't be of interest to everyone, but I'm happy to be able to stretch the boundaries of the period and learn about what the French actually did in the field, whether in American or elswhere, to assist the American war effort (and of course further France's own ambitions). Anyway, the purpose of this post is to set down a few thoughts on how I intend to approach the French forces. I should add that as well as the new Perries I have been looking at the Eureka revolutionary wars range for suitable figures.

Organisation
Following the 1776 army reforms, each regiment had two battalions. According to Rene Chartrand's Osprey, Each battalion had 6 companies - 4 fusilier, 1 grenadier and 1 chasseur. Full strength seems to have been 107 for the grenadiers and 171 for all the other companies. In addition to these, there was an "auxiliary recruit company" that was "added in wartime". I've read elsewhere, however, that each battalion had either the chasseur company or the grenadier company - a result of the regiments formerly consisting of just one battalion. The flank companies, however, were apparently used on a regimental rather than battalion level, and often placed in composite ad-hoc battalions for particular battles.

There are currently only 2 published "British Grenadier!" scenarios that feature mainstream French troops (there is a third, Gloucester Point, but that only involves Lauzun's Legion). La Vigie is a Caribbean action from 1778 that requires 6 battalions of 18 figures each (Armagnac x 2, Auxerrois x 2, Viennois and a colonial battalion) and separate combined grenadier and chasseur units of 18 figures (the chasseurs appearing as 3 lots of 6-figure skirmish units). Savannah has more complex requirements: 2 named battalions of 12 figures each (Armagnac and Dillon); 2 composite fusilier units, of 16 and 18 figures; 3 combined grenadier units of 8 figures each; and more skirmishing chasseurs amounting to 24 figures. Savannah therefore reflects the practice of French commanders gathering together elements of several different regiments into composite field units; ideally for these units I'd want each stand to represent a different regiment. The Savannah scenario also allows the French player to add the grenadiers to the various fusilier units, so I need to ensure that the poses of these troops are the same. Therefore, the approach I'm going to adopt is to paint up the flank companies at the same time as the fusilier companies.

Uniforms
Most readers will know that the French army changed its uniforms during the course of the AWI. There are two relevant "ordonnances": 1776 and 1779. The latter uniform is distinguished from the former by longer coats tails and the replacement of grenadiers' bearskins with cocked hats (although it mnay have been the case that some troops still wore their bearskins). Troops stationed out in the West Indies are unlikely to have received the 1779 uniforms before the Savannah campaign in October of that year. Therefore, the figures required for the scenarios above should be in the 1776 uniform. Troops arriving with Rochambeau in 1780 and Saint-Simon the following year would probably have had the 1779 uniform.

Incidentally, Perry Miniatures are remodelling their grenadiers, to remove the bags on the bearskins - there is an announcement on the front-page of their website (scroll beneath the plastics announcement). I'm not too fussed - I shall use the figures I have already bought for bombardiers de la marine, which did have bags on their bearskins.

Flags
I was quite confused about flags until I asked around on various fora. It seems that as part of the 1776 reforms the number of flags carried by each regiment was 1 per battalion. The first battalion carried the "drapeau blanc", i.e. the white colonel's flag (which seems to have been the same for most regiments); the second battalion carried the more colourful and distinctive "d'ordonnance" flag. This is helpful for recreating the La Vigie orbat, as GMB don't currently have colours for the Armagnac and Auxerrois regiments - I can use the drapeaux blancs from other packs. French flags were topped by a distinctive finial - these can be bought from Front Rank.

The photo above is a wip pic of the Armagnac Regiment. These were painted using a mid-grey undercoat instead of my usual black one, and I'm happy with the overall look - quite crisp and snappy, I think. Lee's Legion and the Von Mirbach regiment are finished and going through the basing process; ditto more First Carlist War stuff. If the sun ever appears again in London (this has been the worst winter on record) I might even be able to take some decent photos...

Foundry flesh experiments (1)

2010-02-21T21:59:00.012Z

I posted this on Thursday, but Blogger managed to delete it....Anyway, I've reached another basing bottleneck and in order to maintain momentum I thought I'd post on some other stuff that I've been painting. Specifically, I have been experimenting recently with the new Foundry flesh palettes. I am an obsessive buyer of paints (in the same way that some people are obsessive buyers of rules) and when I saw Foundry advertise sets for various flesh tones I didn't hesitate to buy the complete set. That was also because recently I've found myself painting stuff that falls outside the core remit of this blog and which lends itself to these new paints. Most of the sets concern a particular ethnic flesh tone: "near eastern flesh"; "oriental flesh", "south american flesh" and so on.

So I'm going to post a few observations on my experiments with these paints in the hope that people might find them useful. I've set myself some rules: I'm allowed my usual dark brown ink wash on the faces and hands, but otherwise I have to use the paints "as is", straight from the pot without any mixing or blending. I've tried 3 palettes so far, with more to come shortly.

First up are some Perry Miniatures First Crusade "Azabaijani swordsmen", painted using the "Expert Flesh 127" palette. I confess that I can't find these troops in any of the First Crusade army lists I've been looking at, but I suppose they are essentially Turkish light infantry from the southern Caspian Sea area. The "Expert" palette is a double set of 6 paints, rather than the more usual 3 paints. Foundry helpfully label the dark "A" paint "Dark" and the lighter "E" paint "Light" in case you can't work out which end to start with... The "A" shade is darker (or rather, more orange) than the original "Flesh 5" palette. However, "Flesh 5A" is clearly "Expert Flesh 127B"; "Flesh 5B" is "Expert Flesh 127C" and "Flesh 5C" is "Expert Flesh 127E", so the original colours are incorporated into the set.

I found this set easy to use. The tones blend pretty well "out of the pot" and I was delighted to find that the consistency of the paints was thicker than other recent Foundry offerings - I have not been impressed with some recent Foundry purchases which show a reduction in the amount of pigment and a general watery-ness. Personally, I think that the entire palette is probably best used on larger areas of flesh and would be excessive on faces and hands (i.e. the standard flesh areas for 18th century figures). On bare torsos and the like, however, the ease of use of these 6 colours means that painting is quite straightforward, if a little "by numbers". The "F" colour is very light and you'd probably want to blend it in to the previous colour. I'm sure that the results will seem a little excessive for some, but I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome.

Lots of stuff is being based at the moment, for te AI and FCW. Here's some Lee's Legion infantry:

Iroquois (5)

2010-02-10T10:28:00.004Z

These are more figures from a couple of years ago, which I realised I forgot to post at the time. They are Perry Miniatures "woodland indians"; lovely sculpts which are full of character. As I've noted before, I base indians on 25mm x 25mm squares, this being the standard skirmish frontage in the "British Grenadier!" rules. There's no reason why you can't base them in twos or threes on larger bases; I decided to go with single bases to give me some flexibility for skirmish games as well as larger AWI engagements. I have some 60 indian figures in total now, so an inter-tribal or F&IW skirmish game is viable.

I never used to worry about "indian flesh" being different to "white flesh"; it seems to me that in this scale and on the tabletop there's unlikely to be much variation in colour between the red man and the white man and much of the flesh will be covered by markings and war-paint anyway. I imagine that different tribes from different parts of America no doubt varied in colour anyway. That said, I've seen very effective techniques for native Americans, particularly Apache and the like. Foundry have recently released a "native American flesh" palette and this post is also a prequel to my next post, which will feature two Conquest Minatures figures painted using this new Foundry palette. In fact, I've been trying out the various new Foundry flesh colours over the past few days and I'll post what I think of them over the next week or so.

The von Mirbach musketeers are currently on hold, 5 figures from the end, because I realised I didn't have their flags and so had to place an order with GMB (which usually takes a couple of weeks to arrive). Taking their place are the new Perry figures for Lee's Legion, which I'm pleased to find are quick and easy to paint (once you've bitten the bullet and decided that it's ok to paint them in bright purple...). I'm also going to be painting some French infantry, which will be a bit of a departure for me in that I'm going to use a grey undercoat for the first time and may see what happens if I ditch "black-lining".

6 figures. Painted May 2007.

British Auxiliary Legion Artillery (2)

2010-02-03T15:25:00.006Z

As stated in my previous post on British artillery in the First Carlist War, the prohibition on regular army units serving in Spain was relaxed in order to provide the British Auxiliary Legion with trained artillery and engineering specialists. The legion did raise its own artillery crews, but these were supplemented by men from the Royal Artillery and the Royal Marine Artillery. The figures here are the Perry Miniatures pack of a Royal Marine rocket troop.

The Royal Marine Artillery was formed in August 1804, allegedly as a result of legal proceedings which held that Army officers were not subject to the Navy's orders. Its immediate purpose was to serve in bomb-vessels and gun-/rocket-boats (previously functions of the Royal Artillery) and to teach other marines and sailors how to operate guns. However, the men soon found themselves deployed in action on land at sieges and other engagements. 3 companies were raised initially but a 5th was added at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The corps was reduced to 2 companies in the early 1830s but expanded significantly in the following decades due to the demands of the British Empire and the need for trained artillerists on ships of both the Royal Navy and the merchant navy. By 1859 the Royal Marine Artillery comprised 16 companies and was formed into a separate division. In addition to Spain in the 1830s, the artillery saw service in the Crimea, Canada, China , New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, the Sudan and Burma, usually as part of a naval brigade. The division was particularly heavily engaged in the 1882 Egyptian campaign and the Sudan. The marines seems to have specialised in capturing enemy guns and then turning them on their former owners - they did this at Kassassin and El Teb two years later. The Royal Marine Artillery's life as a separate division ended in 1923 when it was amalgamated with the rest of the Royal Marines.

These figures and equipment were painted the same way as before - Foundry "British Gun Grey 108" for the rocket launcher and "British Royal Blue 74" and "Deep Blue 20" for the crew. It seems that the men of the Royal Marine Artillery were called the "Blue Marines" because of their uniforms. I think this is an excellent set - certainly something you don't see on the tabletop that often and adds colour to the period. Again, I imagine that it's use is not limited to the FCW.

Painted January 2010.