Thanks for positive reaction to the painted SHQ siege artillerymen from last week. I quite enjoyed the "factory" process of painting up the first lot of gunners for the Siege Train, so was happy to bash on ahead this week and get the rest of them done. It went well enough (though my current favourite brush seems to be moulting), and I got them finished quite quickly.
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| Two batteries of howitzers and two of Gribeauval mortars, to add to the siege cannons |
I have to confess to a faint unease about this little project - I'm happy to have made such good progress (eventually), but there is something about it which maybe says something about me which I don't really care for. Online, one sees all sorts of projects which are beautiful, or which make use of rare and glorious figures, or which represent the height of the figure-painter's art for us to relish. This is none of these things - it is just BIG. Having decided to do it, I have gone about it (relentlessly?) and got it finished - it's kind of industrial. Never mind - I guess it's a personal style or something.
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| All right then - let's have a look at what's in this box now... |
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| ...all right, that's the whole lot |
That's the guns ready for the French siege train, then - I may paint a couple of water buckets or ammo chests to make the bases more interesting, and I have some officers and some digging soldiers to paint - all looking quite promising. Another major gap in the Napoleonic siege effort is I still have to obtain some of the special MDF buttresses to enable guns to stand on my Vauban walls - it's in hand - the drawings exist, I just have to meet Michael from Supreme Littleness for a coffee next week and we are back on track.
Good. I'll tidy the brushes away until after Christmas.
Separate Topic - more pottery buildings.
I have obtained a couple more buildings for my ECW town...
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| On the right, The Priory, Lavenham, on the left a rather odd church... |
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...it's flat-backed! What in model railway circles I believe we used to call
low relief - this is a church to stick in the distance, against the edge of the table. |
Great looking guns and crews, very impressive...and I love this old church...
ReplyDeleteThank you Phil - the church is from the Philip Laureston range (made in Babbacombe, Devon, now OOP) - this is number 721 in the range - "Church with Tower". The Contesse and I were trying to think of a suitable saint for a half (or flat) church - still thinking about it. I looked at a site giving some little-known patron saints - great stuff. There is a patron saint for disappointing children, apparently...
DeleteHow about Pierre de Fermat as the patron saint of unfinished projects? After all, he is famous for NOT finishing a project!
DeleteLovely work, I bet they'd do some damage!
ReplyDeleteI've been reading Belmas and Howard's "Napoleon and Iberia" for some inspiration!
Delete...I'm using my stupid tablet here - "Howard" was supposed to read "Horward", and Belmas got corrected to Belfast. No wonder the world is grinding to a halt. Never mind, just listened to commentary of Liverpool's 3-0 win over Middlesbrough, so I am not pessimistic!
DeleteThe Priory you latched onto is fantastic! Very cool piece.
ReplyDeleteAs for your siege train project, no need to fret about what others do. You soldiered through and completed the task to YOUR satisfaction. That is all that really matters.
Damn fine siege train it is too! I would not want to face it on the field!
Thanks Jonathan - I'm not too bothered - I've always been this way! Hope to be ready for an actual siege soon - one thing on critical path is the need to have the Spanish army ready to defend - not sure about engineers.
DeleteThe siege train is great. If you want to move it a bit more towards the 'art' end of the scale then get some gabions to put to the front page of each base and perhaps look at Kennington's site for something like the field forge and a couple of wagons to provide depth. Maybe a fancy officer and aide with a map?
ReplyDeleteHi Roy - the officers are in the pipeline - I will add some bits and pieces to the bases, but the gabions and all that are in the separate earthwork/trench style pieces - all will ve revealed when I get to an actual siege!
DeleteOfficers with maps and telescopes etc are just the ticket.
...the Kennington field forge is the old Finescale one, I think, which is good. The Finescale man now does the artillery pieces for Hagen, which is also good.
DeleteLavenham Priory? That's about 3 miles from me!
ReplyDeleteYou can stay in it, self catering for a mere thousand pounds a week, give or take. The guns look great, especially en masse. When might they see action?
I think I read somewhere you can stay at the Priory, but I got the idea you could only stay in a bit of it for your grand. It makes a worthy addition to my collection of tourist site buildings for the ECW town. Lavenham features a lot in the Tey collection - I have the Guildhall, the Priory and (I think) The Swan Inn - maybe they were close to Tey's factory, maybe it is an unusually picturesque town.
DeleteThe guns in action - well, I'd like to do that soon - a few bits and pieces needed for the French to besiege the Spanish - I could do the Anglo/Portuguese besieging the French tomorrow, but I've done that before. Shouldn't be long, anyway.
Next siege action should be another ECW siege, but this time with visitors! I think we'll do it as a multi-facilitator collaboration rather than a straight game - i.e. all players manage both sides.
I just need a little time to prepare...
Lavenham is indeed madly picturesque, and preserved as it were 'in Aspic'. At the swan hotel tea garden a waiter spilled a full pot of tea over me - no actual harm done, and they were so mortified that they wouldn't take payment for any of our drinks.
DeleteNow I come to think of it, pouring boiling liquids over the victim was one of the ways of getting rid of martyrs I read about (see below, somewhere) - are you sure it wasn't St Grophus's Day, or something? - it might be a tradition. And then the victim gets free ale, but has to walk a mile from the village cross with his face tied to a horse's anus (genuine traditional English punishment, folks) - oh, they didn't tell you about that bit? - in that case, never, ever go back there.
DeleteHi Tony, We are off to the Farmers' market in Lavenham this Sunday. It's a lovely village full of half-timberedproperties that just say 'wargames scenery' to me.....
ReplyDeleteSounds good - now that my time may be more freely available for my own plans, I must go and look at such places.
DeleteThanks for the reminder, I may look in at the market. This blog is now providing a sort of long-range social service..
DeleteNothing wrong with putting a large number of finished figures on the table, and I have to differ with you, my dear Foy, the siege train looks the business. I would be proud to have them in my collection.
ReplyDeleteAs for the church, seeing as it is partially flattened, I did a quick search for saints who were crushed to death. There is a Catholic St. Margaret of Clitherow who was crushed to death under a door laden with weights by grumpy puritans, and an early church martyr, Alpheus, who was crushed by rocks. St. Alpheus or St. Margaret's might work as names? :)
Best to you and La Comtesse,
Michael
Thank you sir - hope things are good with you and Mme.
DeleteExcellent suggestions about the saints - regret I got distracted into reading a site about martyrs, and - once again - am impressed by the ingenuity displayed over the centuries in doing away with the religious opposition. Apart from being crushed under doors, they burned people in pans, filled their heads with molten lead, dropped them into all sorts of bad places and impaled them in some surprising ways. I guess they didn't have TV in those days.
To quote the old philosophers, Foy, quantity has a quality all its own, especially when we are considering toy soldiers with honking huge guns. They look magnificent.
ReplyDeleteOld tailoring line: never mind the quality, feel the width...
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