Sieges: More recruits for the "Cast of Hundreds"

 For the last two days I've been working on rescuing figures from the Painted Spares boxes to assemble some of the 3-man infantry companies I need for my WSS siege games.

Apart from their much-envied ability to stand on a narrow walkway behind the walls or in a trench, these fellows are needed to carry out trench raids, to perform guard duties for sapper teams and (in the case of the garrison) for policing duties, to control the excesses of a hostile civilian population. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, the emphasis here is on retouching pre-painted figures, mounting them on slimline 50mm x 20mm bases (a new size for me), and trying to make them as versatile as possible.

I have now knocked together 5 "battalions" of 4 companies each thus far - I'm pleased with them - I might need a couple more. They aren't going to win many prizes, but they will only get out to play every now and then, and it beats the bejesus out of leaving them to fester away in the spares boxes.

Here's what I've finished off this afternoon. The figures are all Les Higgins castings of considerable age, and they were all owned and painted by other collectors before they came to me!

 

The 5 battalions of siege companies; from the rear, there are 2 rows of French, 1 of Austrian grenadiers and 2 of British grenadiers

 

 

Some of the British grenadiers; synchronised throwing of grenades always reminds me of Dad's Army, and such an activity might be a bit old-fashioned anyway by the time of the WSS, but in a siege a grenade might be just the thing to chuck over a wall or into a trench. Very shiny fellows indeed

 

 

Some very nicely painted Austrian grenadiers I picked up on eBay when I was still an occasional shopper there. It really doesn't matter, but I challenge anyone to come up with an Imperial infantry unit with green facings in this period. It's OK - sleepless nights reading and searching online have turned up a suitable identity, which I find quite gratifying. In fact there were two such - both from the Fränkische Kreis (Würzburg area) - one of which wasn't raised until 1711, which is a bit late, but one is right on the money; the 3rd Franconian Circle regiment was present at 1st Höchstädt, Donauworth, and the siege of Landau, green facings and everything. It's original commander resigned when he inherited the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1703 (as one would, of course). He was replaced by one Johann Friedrich Mohr von Wald, who sadly only lasted a year before he was mortally wounded at the Schellenberg in 1704, so the colonelcy then passed to Georg Philipp von Boyneburg (you must remember Georg Philipp? - his mother used to wash our stairs...). Anyway, you've been introduced

 

These are from the more faded end of Eric Knowles' French army - I've used most of the good ones already for line regiments, but these guys cleaned up well enough for this siege job. They are especially useful, since they can also stand in very nicely for Dutch, Austrian, Danish, and a whole stack of German principalities, many of which I haven't even heard of

I've still to put the magnetic sheet under all these; oh yes - may I please give an appreciative shout-out to the lads at Warbases, who got the new 50x20 bases to me in 24 hours.

Sieges: Some more progress - after a few months off!

 Yesterday I picked up my brushes for the first time since May; very easy session, enjoyed it.

I completed some more of the siege-bits pile for WSS, right through to varnishing and basing. I also sorted out more of the "cast of hundreds" figures destined to play the part of assorted siege-gunners and engineering types. These figures are all previously painted, some came with the odds and ends from Eric Knowles' WSS hoard (very usefully, Eric specialised in odds and ends), some came as loose change in various eBay hits, and in historic purchases from Soldiers of Rye, some were kindly donated by friends - thanks to Jim Walkley, to Benjamin, to Albannach, to Serious Michael (in Derbyshire), to Old John, to Clive and to Goya (for hunting things down for me at bring'n'buy stalls in various countries). Thanks also to anyone I've forgotten to mention.

 

WSS Siege Bits box - what's been did: thus far we have 3 brass siege cannons (the one with dolphins is Minifigs, the others Hinchliffe), 3 iron 24pdrs (Hinchliffe), 4 heavy "fortress" guns on garrison carriages (also Hinchliffe), mortars in 2 sizes (Lancer Miniatures) and a crowd of crewmen and helpers (Les Higgins). For any keen types who identify that some of the iron ordnance pieces look a bit like Blomefields, and might be happier in a slightly later war, I can only plead that they are near enough for me, and that this little park also is to provide the siege equipment for my Napoleonic Spanish army!

 

These little fellows are from my pool of Eric Knowles conversions which have been called back to service after retirement. The source figure for each is the "fat officer" from the Les Higgins Malburian range - one has been altered to be doffing his hat, appropriate to the Age of Elegance, while the other is struggling with a tin-foil map. The paintwork is Eric's, preserved as far as possible. What the uniforms represent I neither know nor care - I like them, and these guys look senior enough to wear what they want!

The "cast of hundreds" approach is useful; thus far I have gone for the easy stuff - figures which only really needed some chip-repair - if they also looked a bit faded then a quick exposure to Army Painter's "Quickshade" is a big help - then fresh varnish and new bases. If they look a little pre-owned then that is just what they are - they are working antiques, so appropriate respect will be welcome. If there seems to be a lack of direction in the uniforms, that's OK - some of these chaps might well be British, or a bit French, but if they are not then they are probably Dutch, or a garrison battalion, or Walloons, or from assorted German states - they may even be in civilian dress - who knows?

I still have some more figures to add to this army of extras - the next lot will require more touch-up work. At the moment I have run out of 20mm bases, and to be honest I am not yet sure just how many more I will need. I'll come back to this.

On the weapons front, I have another 3 bronze-barrelled siege cannons to finish off, one extra-large mortar and a few little Coehorns. Getting there.

Beyond that, I need to paint up a lot more gabions, get started on some decent chevaux de frises, and sort out some separate (3-man) companies of troops to carry out trench raids, and to stand guard duty for sapper teams. This last exercise offers a chance to use up a small supply of pre-painted British grenadiers who will not get a gig otherwise.

One proposed terrain breakthrough has been a bit of a wrench; for Vauban-period warfare, I do have proper 3D (sloped) glacis pieces to go with the walls and bastions. The nicely-made glacis pieces can also be something of a nuisance, since they limit the fortress designs I can use unless I spend money and/or effort getting extra moulded pieces. I have decided to use flat glacis plates - just hex tiles painted in a special shade of green so they stand out, and use Fat Frank's standard "trench" pieces to represent the covered way at the top edge. I'll try some mock-ups with this idea in the next few weeks. What could possibly go wrong?

WSS: More Bavarian Cuirassiers Ready for Action

 I showed a glimpse of these chaps in the Refurb Box a week or so ago. I finished the painting a couple of nights back - they are now based and flagged, ready for duty

 

Costa

 

 

Wolframsdorf

 

These are ex-Eric Knowles figures, repainted and with new command. The officers and standard bearers are SHQ ECW castings, modded a little, the trumpeters are from the Irregular Marlburian range, the troopers and all the horses are by Les Higgins. They've been in the Refurb Queue since Nov 2019, though, since they were rather battered, they've been back down the queue a bit until recently.

I'm glad they are finished; this has been a fiddly refurb job, and on a few occasions I heartily wished I'd stripped them and started again, rather than trying to preserve their original (1970s) provenance. Happy with them now, anyway. They can go into the French OOB for my campaign, where they'll be balanced by the arrival of 2 new Hessian infantry battalions in the Allied line-up.

WSS: Back in the Toils of Refurb Work Again!

 ...and enjoying it enormously, to be honest!

And, of course, I am laughing at myself as yet again I make the amazing discovery that a simple refurb job expands beyond belief as you work on it. What started out as a 3-session touch-up job on some figures which were quite nicely painted (albeit 50-odd years ago) has grown before my eyes; after a week of evening sessions, I reckon I still have about 4 sessions to go to complete them.

Just freshen up the white paint, fix the chips, tidy up the horses, change facing colours, humanise the faces, varnish, rebase - fit new flags. Easy-peasy.

Yeah, right. I've gradually rejected almost all of the original work - it has become a re-paint, and as such is in many ways more laborious than a fresh-metal job from scratch. I have spent a lot of time working round existing paintwork that I subsequently replaced. All good fun, of course; in the time-honoured principle of the executioner's axe, these will still be Old Eric's original figures (Gawd bless 'em), though the laboratory would struggle to find any trace of Eric's 1970s paint.

So - one week in - here's a work-in-progress shot which is actually more satisfactory than it might look. I am now halfway through the black, which will be followed by white, blue officers' sashes, lots of leather straps and harness, gold, silver, a touch-up of the edges of the coat colour, then varnish. Maybe 3 more sessions, say 4, for traditions of Estimate Creep.

When they are based and ready I'll post a proper photo. These will be the Bavarian cuirassier units of Wolframsdorf and Costa. Figures are mostly Les Higgins, vintage 1970 or thereabouts, the officers and standard bearers are SHQ figures with some small tweaks, the trumpeters from Irregular's Malburian range; all the horses are Higgins. I did some work with Plastic Putty to add neckties, to try to update the ECW figures by half a century or so.

All good fun. I know all about diminishing returns, and how there is a very definite limit to how good a job I can do on these, but I also have this growing conviction that in a few years I will not remember how quickly I got them finished; the important criterion, in the end, is how much I like them. I'm working on it.

WSS: Another Refurbished Unit - Lobkowicz Cuirassiers

 I've been doing some refurb work in odd spare evenings, encouraged by the cooler weather. I bought in some pre-owned cavalry, added a couple of command figures, and here we have the Austrian Lobkowicz Cuirassiers, ready for action.

This is my fifth Austrian Cuirassier unit, all refurbs, and all the previous four have blackened armour, but I rather liked the appearance of the existing paintwork on this new unit, so kept them in the natural steel. I'd be embarrassed to try to justify this distinction, primarily because I'd be making it up, but in my reading I was interested to learn that Imperial cuirassiers units from the region of Lothringen [Lorraine] deliberately kept their armour unblackened. Not really relevant here, but it shows that there are options.

This particular regiment was raised in Silesia in 1682 by Count Veterani, was taken over in 1695 by Zanthe von Merl (who was from Luxembourg), after Veterani was beheaded by the Turks; by the time of Blenheim the inhaber was Prince Lobkowicz, who was a Czech. The point is merely that it is almost impossible to say where this unit came from! In the Imperial army, they were officially designated KR 17.

Figures are 20mm Les Higgins, as ever, the trumpeter is an SHQ man (from their 30YW range) mounted on a Higgins horse. 

WSS: Just One More, Then

 Time to tidy up my brushes and paint pots, and get my desk cleared ready to fettle some more figures for proper painting. The plan is to get another package of WSS soldiers away to Lee later this week. 

Since I was pleased with my work on generals over the last week or so, I did one more quickie before the tidying starts. This extra figure is one of Eric Knowles' veterans - a wash in warm water, a bit of freshening of colours and some minor chip repair, a coat of new varnish and we're done. Otherwise the figure is as it was when it arrived here 3 years ago. I have no idea what the uniform or the army is, but this period is great for randomly dressed officers. The number of minor principalities which took part, and the complicated (and sometimes fleeting) alliances, not to mention the vagaries of personal vanity and non-military garb, all mean that a General officer will never go to waste - there is plenty of scope for lending them out as need arises!

Nothing particularly special about this man and his horse; this is Les Higgins MP23, the only mounted officer in the original range, complete with baton. One noteworthy point in this case is that this really is a remarkably clean, sharp casting, so it must be a very early example. This fellow must have spent many years lying in one of Eric's cucumber boxes, in his best fighting gear, just waiting for the call.

His cuirass and general appearance suggest to me that he might be a German of some sort - maybe a cavalry commander - but which army he will appear in is up for grabs. Whatever - willkommen.

Ironically, a small parcel of new W&N Series 7 brushes arrived from CurtisWard yesterday, so I'll look forward to getting them into operation sometime soon, but for the moment, apart from being carefully counted and checked over, they can have a rest until my next painting session.

WSS: Languedoc Finished

 Extra figures painted, flags (by David of Not By Appointment) added, bases magnetized, photo taken in garden.

 

Régiment de Langedoc - 20mm Les Higgins castings, though the mounted officer is an Irregular figure on a Higgins horse

This is the last of the French units I propose to build by refurbishing Eric's men. There are still some figures left in the boxes, which may get called into service later, but the rest of the French will be virgin castings.

I wish you to know that I got bitten by ants while taking the pictures. Very small ants, but nippy! It is necessary to suffer for one's art.

This and That, but Mostly the Other

 This week I was handed a dose of Real World which has effectively put a stop to much of what I had been hoping to do over the Summer. With luck, I expect to get through this, and in the short term I now have a chance to clear up some odds and ends which have been dragging on a bit while I was indisposed with the Plague.

Topic 1: Another French WSS unit nearing completion

Last night I finished what may be my last refurbishment job for my WSS project. I completed 14 figures for the 18-man Régiment de Languedoc - there are still another 4 figures to be painted from scratch, but that should be very straightforward, and the refurb work is done. This batch has been a bit arduous, to be honest. 

At the start of the French phase of my project, I identified a lot of pre-painted figures from Eric Knowles' collection which could be restored to fill the ranks in my new army. Some of these needed only very light re-touching, so I prioritised those, but as I worked my way through I got to some more battered and re-hashed units, and this last lot was really pretty marginal; I might have been better stripping and starting again, and I think my decision to persevere with restoring them was influenced by a wish to keep Eric's old soldiers on the march as far as possible. Eric might not have recognised some of them now, but I'm pleased with what's been achieved.

The effort required for this batch wasn't helped by a historic decision by someone (many years ago) to improve a nicely-painted regiment by the addition of sawdust, Russian toffee and henhouse-green paint to the bases. Well, in many cases, to the area below the soldiers' knees. Yuck. It's taken me about 2 weeks of soaking and scraping to get it off, but it is now gone.

Anyway, as of this morning, here are the 14 restored fellows, with the glue drying, waiting for a new mounted officer, two ensigns and a drummer to complete them. I'll post a smart photo once they are ready for action.

Topic 2: A Very Old Brush

I've maybe mentioned this brush before, but I was working yesterday with a brush which is certainly the oldest I have, I wonder how long these things last? When my dad died, 14 years ago, I helped my mother to clear out all his old art materials; he had been a keen watercolourist, but hadn't been near the hobby for years.

There were all sorts of solidified paints, and a good number of very old brushes, most of which disintegrated to dust when I rubbed the bristles. However, there were a couple of brushes which he had obviously used, and they still felt OK. I destroyed one a few years ago when I accidentally got superglue on the bristles, but the other is still going strong. Here it is, in the foreground, in action yesterday:

I use this a lot for (for example) applying baseboard-green paint to the bases of my figures, a situation in which I would not choose to involve any of my Series 7 brushes, since the paint is simply latex emulsion paint for interior walls, and they get bunged up.

Things get a bit more sinister if you check the other side of this brush. 

The logo indicates that it comes from HM Stationery Office, was from the 1966 stock, and must have been liberated from the drawing office at the UK Atomic Energy Authority's electrical engineering section at Risley, Lancashire, when my dad worked there as an engineer in the 1970s. I also found a large number of high-quality boxed Beryl pencils - mostly sketching grades like 2B, which is not a lot of use to me - which may have been liberated around the same time. I prefer not to believe that my dad was in the habit of nicking stuff from work, so I'm sure there must be a more comfortable explanation if I could just think of it...

Anyway, my point is that I have a sable brush here which was new in 1966, which my dad must have used for his watercolours from about 1969-1978, and which I have been using regularly for my wargame painting since 2008. I guess the amount of use is probably not as high as you might estimate, but I'm astonished that the sable bristles are still in good shape. It is just one of my "gash" brushes - it gets no special treatment.

Anyone got an older brush which is still in use?

Topic 3: Some Thoughts about Shiny Soldiers

In a convoluted way, this follows on from a conversation I had with Stryker recently, about the implications of applying gloss varnish to miniature soldiers, and what defines an "appropriate" painting style for the Shiny Brigade. Rather famously, he has been doing this for years with his beautiful Napoleonic Hinton Hunts, but it is a new departure for me, starting with my new involvement at the end of 2019 in the Malburian period .

Deciding which bottle of varnish to use to finish your soldiers seems like a mere detail, though there are practical considerations, such as the common trick of using gloss varnish followed by matte, to give a hard-wearing coat. I'm concerned in this note mainly with the "look" of the soldiers, and with some things I have learned about my reaction to my own shiny armies. This will all be extremely personal - what I like and what I'm trying to achieve with my collection will certainly be regarded as strange, or even unacceptable, to others. Some things which I hadn't really thought about became apparent when I started working on the armies. I developed some preferences and some definite views which I hadn't considered previously.

First thing, which came as a bit of a surprise, is that I find that what I'm putting together is not a museum of perfect historic miniatures, or a miniature facsimile of a real army, but is just a collection of toy soldiers. Yes - toys. It's OK - I enjoy, nay, celebrate the fact that they are toys!

Last week I watched the first of the later, colour episodes of Callan, from UK TV back in 1970. Illustrative point. It turns out, you see, that Callan has been moved into a different apartment after his spell in hospital, and his colleague, Cross (Patrick Mower - I hope you're taking notes here), teases him about his box of "toys". Callan gets very scratchy about this, and insists that they are "model soldiers". This is where Callan and I part company; I would have been quite happy that they be regarded as toys. In any case, Patrick Mower spent his later career stuck in some ghastly UK TV Soap [Emmerdale], so in the long run he is in no position to make fun of Callan's toys. [Bastard].

 

Callan keeps his entire collection of model soldiers in a single "Banner" shirt box. Even in 1970, that makes him a dabbler in my book...

Here are some thoughts, in no particular order.

* If I were to paint up a beautiful little model of a WW1 machine-gun team for wargaming, complete with basing involving mud, wire and sandbags, I would never think of giving it a shiny finish. Without pondering too hard about it, it just feels wrong.

* So, if my WSS collection are toys, why? What's the difference?

* I read an article somewhere which suggested that maybe it makes the dreadful idea of conflict and slaughter more acceptable as an entertainment, if the participants are toy-like, and the game is abstracted to the point where there are no dead men or horses cluttering up the field? - Interesting, and possible, but that's not my chief driver, I think.

* A lot must be to do with my figure supplier. I go on rather a lot about the old Les Higgins castings I use - probably rather more than general levels of interest might justify. In the past I've had appreciative comments from John Ray and from David (of the Not By Appointment blog), both men of refined tastes,  about the realistic human proportions of my toys, and the elegance of the sculpture. Cue a round of applause for the late Les Higgins. But there is something more here: the stylised poses, the delicacy of the little men, their strangely androgynous appeal, the bobbed hair, the shapely calves in stockings...

 

Joli Tambour. You may join me in observing that this picture from an ancient children's book seems to show a drummer wearing the French King's Livery  [Lee will especially appreciate this] 

Nailed it.

These guys are straight out of the French nursery-rhyme books of my childhood, when pretty drummer boys caught the eye of the King's daughter, and all that. They do not have smelly feet, or buck teeth, or outsized, garden-gnome hands; they do not relieve themselves behind your hedge, or burn down your barn - they are just lovely toys, of a very old-fashioned style. Thus it suits me to paint and present them as such, with appropriate overtones of a bygone age, and toy soldiers have to be shiny; it's as natural as, well, something or other that I can't quite put my finger on at the moment. 

There are implications, some of them not obvious, for painting, and I have to thank Lee and Goya and a couple of other kind souls who have generously suppressed some elements of their natural painting styles in support of this idiosyncrasy of mine; if the painting is too impressionistic or too layered then gloss varnish can produce bizarre results. A simple, colourful style lends itself well to the presentation, and the toy units will then move around the field in colourful, rigid formations. They can fight Schellenberg if you wish, but it will be Toy Schellenberg - as my brain ages, I find that my rules are becoming more toy-like, as well.

When I started on this, I had very little idea what I was aiming for, other than clues I could get from what Eric and others had done before me, but what is evolving is a little, personal subculture and some better developed guidelines on how I like things done. This is not based on any series of decrees; I have rarely said, "this is how it will be", but I have frequently said, "Gosh, I really like that", and very occasionally I have said (of my own work), "oops...".

Quite soon, when my WSS Phase 1 is complete (the delay is likely to be associated with non-appearance of staff figures, but I'm working on that), I'll produce full team photos and pay tribute to the heroes who have helped me so much over the last couple of years, but I haven't quite got there yet. I'm constantly amazed by how much I have learned along the way.

 

 

WSS: A General Smarten-Up (you can't get the staff, you know)

 Last night I did some more work on tidying up my small pool of WSS General Officers, so that I can manage to put on a decent-sized game when required,

These fellows come from various backgrounds - some were specially painted, others are survivors from other people's collections which I bought in, already painted.

Most of them, in fact, were odd officers liberated from Eric Knowles' armies - often Les Higgins generals who were serving as regimental colonels in the cavalry. Some of the charging officers are actually from Higgins's ECW range, but can happily carry on in service - what is 60 years among so many?

 

The coloured mini-dice are also useful for identifying which army a figure belongs to - in many cases, these fellows are up for grabs, and can (and will) serve for anyone who needs them. Paint quality ranges from beautifully professional to, well, pretty industrial. Some of these chaps have obvious affiliations - the guy in the yellow coat, back left, usually defaults to the role of Maffei, because that was the regiment he was liberated from...

I am hoping for a fresh supply of new generals within a few weeks - these chaps will not have cuirasses - my French and British commanders are not allowed cuirasses! In the meantime I spent a little time smartening the bases, touching-up damaged paintwork and so on.

This current collection of leaders is quite an odd bunch, really - few of the uniforms stand up to expert examination - in some ways they feel a bit like the "personality" leaders in Charge and The War Game. I am relying heavily on that well-worn phrase, the senior officers tended to wear what they liked - often civilian garments.

Good enough for me.

WSS: More French Infantry

 Been busy last couple of weeks - keeping my head down to avoid seeing the news. Five new battalions ready for duty. I'm pleased with them. As ever, figures are mostly Les Higgins (small) 20mm from long ago - flags are by David at the excellent Not By Appointment blog, laser-printed to scale by Malcolm at Lothian Printers.

At the front are two battalions of Régiment de Poitou (thank you very much, Lee), in the 2nd row are two battalions of Régiment du Dauphin, and at the rear the single battalion of Régiment de Saintonge.

WSS: Régiment de Champagne

 These are (mostly) very old figures from Eric Knowles' collection, so this has been a return to my Refurb Factory desk. Eric used larger units than I do, so there are some extra command figures added to make up the numbers. I am pleased to say that I am happy with my new technique for painting musicians in the Kings Livery, which has removed an amount of stress from my current push to progress my French contingent.

I have tried to keep the appearance consistent with Eric's original, freshening everything up as necessary, and am pleased with the result. These are the two battalions of the Régiment de Champagne, all ready for the Duty Boxes. The flags are used by kind permission of David at Not by Appointment - no problems this time, with the flags laser-printed on thinner paper.

As always, these are Les Higgins figures - smallish 20mm - though the mounted officers are by Irregular, on Higgins horses.

There will be some more French units arriving over the next few weeks, so the barracks are getting swept out, ready.

Sieges: Getting Organised (a Bit...)

 For a while I've been intending to take advantage of the strange world of Covid limitations and do some solo work on getting the hang of Vauban's Wars. Siege games are, by definition, very dependant on all sorts of fancy scenery and hardware, and it is always very easy to find assorted reasons why this is not the ideal time to have a go. Well, that's long enough.

I now plan to have a solo bash at a Napoleonic siege game, so I'm scratching around trying to collect all the bits and pieces I need. Some of this is trivial work, to be honest, it's just a question of getting down to it.

Today I have a case in point. The starting set-up for my proposed training game requires the British to have a couple of heavy mortars. Now I have odd bits of artillery around the place, and I have some spare soldiers, so it was a simple matter to put together the required mortar battery from some old Hinton Hunt gunners and a couple of very scruffy Hinchliffe mortars I got as a make-weight in an eBay parcel. Here they are - not beautiful, but absolutely fine - cross them off the to-do list. Ready for duty.

There is a new approach evident here - previously I put a lot of effort into making up smart siege trains for the French and the British in the Peninsula. I now also have pieces for a proposed Spanish train, including some fortress guns, and I'm starting to collect items for WSS sieges. My new approach is that I shall paint the ordnance pieces in nondescript colours wherever possible, and make up crews of various nations who can "borrow" spare kit as needed. This is the first such - the scabrous mortars here are simply BluTacked onto the bases, so they can be loaned out to another army, in a different period if required, or they can even be replaced by more beautiful examples if the dreaded Creeping Elegance ever catches up with my siege projects.

Anyway, enough said. I retouched and based these chaps (ex Eric Knowles gunners, by the way) while listening to the Crystal Palace vs Liverpool game on the radio. Easy peasy. The British now have siege cannons, mortars (both heavy and Coehorn), various howitzers and sappers. I even have some new, specially sized and based units of foot, rescued from spares boxes for duty on sieges. And still the wonder grew.

I'll put some notes here on the starting set-up for my Vauban's Wars solo game in a day or two.

WSS: Half a Pint of Cavalry

 "They will say what men say now, Sire: that you have extended the limits of refurbishment."

Almost two years ago, I bought the 20mm part of Eric Knowles' WSS collection, which gave me a flying start into a new project, a new period.

For about 18 months I have been working away to refurbish as much of that collection as made sense; since I had also acquired a veritable mountain of good unpainted castings, and as the number of finished units becomes sufficient to have a game, the pressures have changed. The last refurb job I did (last week) was enjoyable, and I'm pleased with the results, but if I'm honest I have to admit that it might have been easier and probably better to start again with fresh castings.

Also, I have to face up to the fact that under the couch in the attic room I have 3 large boxes of painted candidates for refurbishment, and I haven't really looked at them for about 9 months. Something has changed in the priorities; also, some of these remaining ex-Eric figures are pretty battered, and some of them have uniforms which do not fit with my project. Thus I've decided to draw a line, starting with the cavalry. As from yesterday, I have ice-cream tubs full of Eric's old figures, soaking the old bases off.

 

Massed footbath

I also have some ready de-based figures soaking in the Clean Spirit jar, let's get them back to bare metal and check the castings are nice and clean. Once the ice-cream-tub footbath has done its work, I'll remove the rest of the figures from their bases and put them in the Clean Spirit.

 

Half a pint of cavalry

I have no shortage of soldiers to paint, so there's no point in hanging on to the scruffier end of Eric's painted armies if I'm not going to do anything useful with them.

This also calls to mind the possibility that some of my early restoration work for the WSS was not quite up to the standard I would be aiming for now. That's OK - I'm not worried about that - my earliest refurbs used the very best of Eric's troops, so I'm happy with them.

If I'm going to re-use old figures, let's make it sensible and productive!

WSS: Webb's Foot

 

 

Webb's Foot. Yes, it is a very childish joke, but I've had good mileage out of this one; I've managed to exasperate most of my friends with it over the last week or two, and it's still quacking me up. Oh be still, my aching sides...

The final British battalion for this first phase of my WSS project has now been refurbished and is ready for the Duty Boxes. This has been a rather more challenging refurb job - the figures were from various sources - some were excellently painted, but in a style different from my own, and rather a long time ago; some were fairly roughly painted, and some were unpainted castings drafted in to fill gaps in command and provide grenadiers. Quite a bit of thought went into how to aim for a compromise style which would not clash with the rest of the armies!

Job done, anyway. These gentlemen are Webb's Regt of Foot, also known (for historic reasons) as the Queen's Regt.

A couple of units of Horse are being worked on as I write, and I have to do something about General Officers, and then that's it for now for the Brits. A group photo will be forthcoming, but not for a few weeks, I think. 

WSS: More Brits - The Earl of Orkney's Foot

 Another new unit ready for the Duty Boxes. This one very nicely painted for me by Count Goya, the famous international polymath and part-time owner of warships. This regiment contains a number of pre-owned figures which needed an amount of refurbishment, while the command and the grenadiers are all unused castings which required painting from scratch.

Normally I regard refurb work as the dirty end of my wargame projects, so I do it myself, but Goya is a top-class refurbisher in his own right, and he has done a lovely job here.

These chaps, then, are the Earl of Orkney's Foot, ready for service in 1703-4. As is customary with the British army at this time, one of the problems is who they are and what we might call them. This lot could also be the Royal Regiment, or (informally) they might be referred to as the Royal Scots, but definitely not the 1st Foot until nearly 50 years later (though it probably helps to identify which regiment we are talking about).

So why (I hear you asking, as I did myself) does a Royal regiment not wear dark blue facings, in proper Royal style? It seems that Royal regiments only had blue facings at this time if they were part of the English establishment, and in 1703 these fellows were definitely Scottish, so blue facings were not a consideration until after the Act of Union in 1707.

That's quite enough about that. 

The weather was better today, though we did go through a brief charade here during which the sun went behind a cloud each time I emerged from my front door. That's not a problem - I simply sighed patiently, and waited for it to come out again. You have to demonstrate that you are not distressed, and the weather gets bored quickly.

Figures, as ever, are Les Higgins 20mm, and the mounted officer (though not his horse) is from Irregular.

WSS: Some New Brits

 Four new units based and flagged yesterday.

First of all, some lovely paintwork by Lee; I am very pleased to welcome these two units:

 

1st Foot Guards

 

Schomberg's Horse

At a much more mundane standard, there are two refurbished units of my own:

Royal Regt of Ireland (Hamilton's Foot)

 

The Buffs (Charles Churchill's Foot)

It is a gloomy sort of day today. Too damp to go outside, and the light in the attic isn't really adequate for indoor shots. I tried a few flash photos, but the gloss varnish makes it hard to get any sense out of these. I am reminded that a light box is one of the numerous projects with which I have made no progress this year!

As always, the figures are mostly Les Higgins/PMD. The mounted command figures are Irregular, but the remainder, and all the horses, are Higgins. More British troops in the pipeline, so I'll make an attempt at a decent group photo when they arrive. The lighting people have been warned.

WSS - The Attic Room

 After a few months off, to leave space for some heavy Real Life stuff and also to avoid some oppressive heat up there, I've got back to some soldier painting in the Attic Room.

 

Up in the roof - very quiet up here, except when it's stormy. Tea and biscuits and I'm up for it.

I'm working pretty slowly, restricting myself to sessions of about two and a half hours, but it's pleasing to be back at it. I'm sort of getting myself comfortable with what I hope will be a useful Winter of hobby work. I'm attempting to establish some kind of default routine, so that it feels as though I know what I'm doing!

 

Lots of bright lights, and during daylight hours I keep the blind shut for painting, since my poor old eyes don't like overhead light.

Some suitable radio programme on in the background (if there's no football on it's usually BBC Radio 3 these days, not least because they have minimal news coverage, and I may now have retired from listening to the news...), a flask of black tea and some Abernethy or Digestive biscuits and I'm very peaceful up there!

I have some excellent painting work going on elsewhere, contracted out to guys who paint much better than I do, which will appear here before long, but I've resumed some of my ongoing WSS refurb work. As ever, this refurb stuff is an industry with traditions all of its own. The original figures are never as good as I thought they were, I spend a lot of time fiddling around improving things that I had planned to leave alone, I keep being reminded that these are never going to look as good or as crisp as work on fresh castings would, but they will be fine when they are finished!

 

Not yet ready to be looked at - I'm currently half-way through the belting and leatherwork; these chaps will take a big step forward when they get their hats painted!

I'm currently working on a batch of pre-owned figures I bought from the Rye Soldier Shop before it was closed by Covid; the figures on the bottletops at present will, by the weekend, be The Buffs (Holland Regiment, Charles Churchill's Foot, whatever) and the [Royal] Irish Regt (Fred Hamilton's Foot). After that I have some more refurb work to do on some rather better figures, these acquired from the legendary Albannach last year - I am still pondering who they'll be after a wash and brush-up.

British army is shaping up - still some more Horse required, and I'm short of a couple of guns and most of the Staff, but definitely getting there. Next after that will be a belated assault on the French - there are hordes of them waiting to be painted! After that there should be some Dutch, the odd German principality and what not. However, at the moment, my immediate objective is to get settled into my Winter studio, and get used once again to painting regularly and in sensible amounts. Looking forward to it, actually.

The Armourer Visits - another stream of consciousness...

 I was sorting out The Cupboard the other day, to get the French soldiers into a logical order (which helps a lot with setting up and putting away - any Chief of Staff will tell you), and to make space for new and impending arrivals. While thus employed, I removed a couple of small trays of odd bits and pieces which some untidy beggar seems to have left in there, and I found a little stand of Spanish guerrilleros, which has been in there since September 2018 (I checked), waiting for me to repair a sword that I broke.

I have to say at this point that breakages here are very few and far between - probably because I am extremely timid about roughing up my troops (a legacy of being the owner of delicate Les Higgins figures for so many decades), and they spend their lives glued onto MDF bases, which are magnetised and mounted on permanently allocated sabots; I don't remove casualties and the armies spend their off-table time locked in The Cupboard or in specially-prepared A4 box files. [I think I was severely traumatised at the beginnings of my wargaming career, when at my local club it was considered macho behaviour to shove handfuls of figures around in heaps - fortunately they were mostly S-Range Minifigs, as I recall, which can stand a great deal of rough handling.]

 

The repaired sword - Alfonso is as pleased as anything. His neighbours, I think, are SHQ - there are also Falcata figures among the partida bands. Qualiticast alloy does not bend, I learned.

 Anyway, I had a breakage in 2018, and I remember doing it, and I've been wondering ever since what is the best means of repair, since this is not a strong part of my act. The basic problem is that the broken figure was a Qualiticast casting; they always seem to have used a hard, brittle alloy. Normally they do not break, but I caught a sword with my finger when I was tidying away one evening, and it just snapped off. Didn't bend, just went "ping" and snapped off, about 2mm from the hilt. [Before everyone rushes to tell me how I should fix it, thank you, but please read on...]

I eventually developed a plan for fixing it after reading an article from Archaeology Today about Bronze Age weapons someone had dug up. Glossing over the fact that Archaeology Today seems a strange title to me, what struck me was that these bronze swords were cast with a tang (aha!), a pointy bit which was fixed into the handle. That could be the correct approach for repair of a White Metal Age Qualiticast sword, I decided, though of course it took me a couple of years to get around to it.

Anyway, that's what I did. I filed the broken stub of blade off the hilt, drilled a hole (rather bravely, I thought) in the hilt, heading up into the chap's wrist, and spent a while filing the broken end of the blade into a short tang, as described, such as would fit into the hole. Some superglue, then an extra couple of thin coats of superglue to build it up a bit, paint and varnish and you're done - next gentleman, please. I shall look after it, of course, but you can't really tell it was broken. Good. Result. 

I remembered that the game when Alfonso got his sword broken was a demonstration for the benefit of my aunt (no, really), and was one of two pre-production runs-out for what became the Ramekin mod I use with Command & Colors. Ramekin started life as a simplification of C&C, for the benefit of novice generals. It became rather awkwardly obvious that the simplified game, for a large battle, ran a lot faster and was at least as much fun as the official rules. And the rest, as they almost say, would be history if only anyone knew about it and was interested.

I also remembered that this Battle of Alfonso's Sword was a fictitious game which I've always intended to revisit, so that may be coming up shortly. Watch this space.

Some Figure Paleontology - Back in the Old Boxes...

 On the phone yesterday with Stryker, the topic of vintage Hinton Hunts came up, as it tends to. In particular, I was interested in the Hinton Hunt French Napoleonic Grenadier à Cheval, which was made in 2-piece and OPC forms. I was vaguely aware (that's "vague" by normal standards, not necessarily mine) that I have a decrepit unit of ex-Eric Knowles OPC Gr-à-Ch in one of the Old Boxes, so I determined to have a dig in there and see what I actually have. Knowledge is power.

I was pretty sure that my unit was mixed - I thought that most of them are Alberkens - or 20mm Minifigs of some sort (I'm not good at distinguishing between these - I have always sort of assumed that the ones which look a bit like Hintons are Alberkens, and that the ones which don't aren't). I also knew that some of them were different, and assumed that they must be Hintons.

Having got my coffee level to the required threshold, I tied a rope around my waist, donned my head torch and set off on my adventure. Box "J" is the one containing ex-Eric French cavalry - I tell you so that you may remind me next time I do this. In there I was surprised to find that my Gr-à-Ch are not Hinton Hunts at all, but are all what I had assumed to be Alberkens (I would welcome any more definite identification). They come in two varieties, as I shall attempt to show. I gave them a good wash, and attempted some photos.

 

Here, on the left, is a single example of the original figure, with two examples of the modified one. Someone, as you will see, has had a serious go at the modifications - replacement sword blade and scabbard, an added musket and a superior paint job. Definitely the same horse, though.

 

From the front, the difference is surprising - the figures on the right are much wider, have a sword arm which is away from the body and are much more detailed. Hmmm.

I've now checked a couple of places online, and it seems that the Alberken OPC Gr-à-Ch was a pretty close copy of the HH model, which these patently are not. Maybe Minifigs produced a separate design? Maybe these are something else altogether? I am interested by the very different stature, the replacement sword-blade, stuck-on musket and (I think) scabbard. Has someone just smartened these up, or am I looking at two different generations of the same figure? Interesting. The horse, which is definitely not an HH clone, has an unusual configuration - the hindquarters are a bit low-slung (short back legs - what my Grandma used to call "Ducks' Disease") and I am not at all convinced about my previous assumptions about Alberken/Minifigs.

I am happy to accept that I'm probably not going to be able to do much with these, but would like to know what they are, and who is likely to have done the modifications. Just out of interest, like.

Speaking of ex-Eric soldiers, I have now washed and cleaned up the next "cannonfodder" refurb batch, being Hinton Hunt French line infantry from exactly that source. They are now on bottletops, and in project boxes, ready for work, but I shall not start them immediately. I intend to get to them before four years, however.

Slow and Steady Does It

 I have a number of refurb jobs on the go at the moment - quite a lot of them, in fact - and I find it satisfying when I complete one, but increasingly I find that the unfinished ones nag at me. It's not that I was better organised when I was younger, it's just that I seem to worry about it more now. Perhaps I have less confidence in there being plenty of time? - Let's not go there.

I'm spending a few weeks - during the start of the Spring temperate painting season - clearing off some of the Napoleonic backlog, to clear the mind and free up some boxes for re-use. One of these has been on the go for about 4 years - a pile of old, rather bashed figures I got very cheaply from the worthy Steve Cooney, which I lined up for one of my "cannonfodder" projects. This is not intended as any kind of a poke at Steve, I hasten to add - I knew exactly what I was getting into when I took them on! This batch consisted of old Der Kriegsspieler castings, and - Steve being Steve - he had taken his soldering iron to bayonets, gaiters, bases...

 

Five additional battalions; the rank and file are mostly tweaked Der Kriegsspielers, from many years ago. There are SHQ, Hinton Hunt and Schilling among the command figures. I was short of grenadiers, so recruited some Alberken Old Guard to make up the numbers - I had some misgivings about these, since the castings are relatively crude, but they came out all right, I think!

These chaps are never going to win any prizes for beauty, and have actually been quite a lot of work to paint up, but in the end they are pretty much what I was aiming for - hoping for the old Featherstone objective of "looking good in the mass".

During the intervening 4 years, I have had an occasional peep at their current state, noted that the Refurb Fairies had once again failed to come to help out, and I had rather quailed at the prospect of resuming work on them, but this has all been cowardice. Since I set my mind to finishing them, I've rather enjoyed the painting sessions, though I've listened to an awful lot of BBC Radio 3 and drunk a lot of black tea in the process.

So I have added 2 battalions of the 65e Ligne and 3 battalions of the 22e to Brennier's (Sixth) Divn of the Armée de Portugal, circa 1812. I already have one battalion of the 17e Léger and a solitary battalion of the Regiment de Prusse, so I only need the missing light battalion, a couple of groups of combined voltigeurs and some staff, and I need to allocate one of the spare foot artillery batteries to them, and the Division is done.

In the unlikely circumstance of anyone being interested, I must explain [to myself, really], that it has taken me about 3 months to break my new house rule of no 3rd battalions. The 22e really do need a 3rd battalion, or their brigade will be a runt. I have, however, stuck to my existing rule that 3rd battalions don't get flags [that'll teach them].

Finishing little projects is good - even sub-projects. Must nurture my enthusiasm... 

Thanks to Steve for supplying the figures back in 2017 - worked out fine, and his boys will fight on.