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?
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.
Very strange week for my WSS project. I've been playing about with ideas for a couple of French dragoon units, complete with stocking caps. The big problem in my scale is the command element - especially mounted drummers!
My most recent thinking has been along the lines of using Irregular dragoons - they manufacture 20mm dragoons in stocking caps - at a pinch I could have the officers in tricorns - I understand that both kinds of headgear were issued. The drummer is a scary idea. I've been experimenting with conversion possibilities, none of which were pleasing. After a lot of fiddling about, I sat down to have a really close look at odd figures I have here.
My WSS armies are primarily Les Higgins/PMD 20mm from the 1970s - small figures - 20mm to the eye. Only Irregular will work with these; plastics are too big, as are the very nice 1/72 metal offerings from Minairons and Hagen. I reckon the Higgins boys are about 1/76, in old money, and in this scale a millimetre on the hat brim size is very obvious. Fine visual tolerances. I have been talking myself up, therefore, to use Irregular, and there is a value-added pinch to this, since I could use some of my spare Irregular horses, which are appreciably smaller than the Higgins horses I use throughout this project. Robert Hall says that French dragoon horses were normally about 12 hands, as opposed to 17 hands for cavalry horses, so this is looking like a sensible possibility.
OK. I put that idea on hold while I just checked if anything better presented itself.
I have in my bits drawer a box of the Strelets "Early War" WSS Fusiliers. Very nice models. A little chunky in the head and hands for a perfect match with Higgins, but very interesting. They are described on the PlasticSoldierReview as "24mm high" (I never know what that means) - OK, still interesting - they are about 20mm to the eye, according to the plastic ruler I nicked from my son's former school on their open day. If Strelets's stocking-cap dragoons are to the same scale, I reasoned, then - since the hats will be different from the standard tricorns and thus not directly comparable - I could do plastics for the French dragoons, and these sets come replete with all sorts of mounted drummers and fancy officers. PSR describes the dragoons as "24.5mm high", and certainly I've seen specimens painted by Will and by Lee which look very attractive. The Big Issue, then, is that of scale match.
After a long ponder, which went as far as measuring on-screen images with my trusty 6-inch ruler, I decided this was the way to go, so I ordered 2 sets of the Mounted Dragoons in Attack (box 253) and 1 of Dismounted Dragoons Skirmishing (box 254). These are very hard to find - I tracked down the mounted chaps at Model Hobbies, and the dismounted ones from an Italian eBay shop, which was a bit painful in the shipping cost department, but times are tricky.
Today I received an eBay message from Italy, apologising for selling me an item which they did not actually have in stock. Apparently this was not their fault (that's what they all say). They offered me a refund or they could get me another box by the end of May. So the dismounted dragoons are not going to arrive any time soon. Also, this morning Model Hobbies did very well to get my mounted dragoon boxes to me. So I rushed upstairs with them, to get my first in-the-plastic look at some actual Strelets horsemen, and compare them directly with my usual metal figures, which did not even require me to unseal the plastic bags inside the boxes.
Bummer. The Strelets figures are very obviously taller and heftier than my Higgins standard. This business is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but to me these will not fit in at all with my armies, very nice though they are. I was also a little disappointed in the amount of flash, the odd "leaning" horses which I'd read about in PSR, and - especially - with the fact that the mounted dragoons, with a scabbard sticking out on the left and a slung musket on the right, are each about 25mm wide, which will not work even a little bit with my standard system of 3 mounted figures side by side on a 50mm wide base.
So, very quickly, my Strelets period came and went. I messaged the Italians and said that I would take the refund, thank you very much, and emailed Model Hobbies to apologise for messing them around, and to see if there is any scope for returning the figures - if not, I'm sure I can move them on through eBay - these things are in very short supply, and, since they come from Ukraine, the situation is likely to worsen.
Back to my Plan B-and-a-half, then, which is to use Irregular men on their (small) Irregular horses, and just not have any musicians in the units. If someone subsequently comes up with a nice little mounted drummer in a small 20mm scale I'll pop a couple in. In passing, it occurs to me that if Newline made figures for this period they would be about right. They don't, of course...
Ultimately this was a bit of a damp squib of an idea, but I'm now satisfied that I couldn't have gone ahead with it. One thing for certain is that I'm not going to derail the whole project for the sake of two dragoon drummers. They'll be fine. Now that I've decided, I'll start getting the metal castings prepared for painting, which will feel more like progress.
Steve Cooney, who has supplied me with figures in the past and occasionally sends me some splendid pictures of his collection, has very kindly mailed me some photos of his ECW troops, which are Hinton Hunt and Les Higgins 20mm castings, many of them cleverly converted.
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of some correspondence with a Canadian gamer and history enthusiast, Peter Brekelmans, when he was working on rules for a hex-based miniatures game for the Thirty Years War.
Peter and I have kept in touch from time to time subsequently, and in a recent email he has expressed interest in disposing of some of his collections of figures. I thought it would be helpful to set some of this out here. I can't answer any questions on his behalf, but I reproduce part of Peter's description here. It looks as though these items are potentially very attractive, though the shipping costs and insurance would represent the main part of the cost of acquisition.
If you wish to see Peter's Excel attachments (mentioned below), you should find them here. If you have questions, Peter gives his email address in the text. If you cannot access my link to the spreadsheets, please shout at me, not Peter!
Peter's note states:
… was looking at the things I am never likely to use again because no one in my area is particularly interested in the rule systems or the period, and was wondering if you knew of anyone who might find the following of use. A couple of cautions here … while the games and miniatures would be free, the new owners would be stuck paying shipping and insurance (both of which are likely to be hefty even if the items are sent by sea), and I would like the games and/or figures to go to people who would actually use them rather than just sell them on.
Because I am an obsessive amasser of things, available are:
* Around 4400 10mm ECW/TYW miniatures (see spreadsheet attached). These are painted, and the artillery and cavalry are probably good enough to be used as-is (though I don’t black armour); the foot, however, are another matter - the painting is shoddier, and they are badly based - not just in absolute terms, but also being based for my own home-grown rules, so any new owners are probably stuck with repainting, rebasing and re-sticking on the pikes (something I had enormous difficulty with and largely abandoned in this scale).
* A small (800 or so) 6mm Baccus WSS/7YW British army. Half painted and based before I discovered that no one here was interested in continuing on with Sam Mustafa’s Maurice rules (I liked both the rules and the period and, as always, rushed in where angels fear to tread). As with the ECW/TYW figures, the painted ones come with their own storage box(es) - the unpainted ones are primed and on popsicle sticks.
* An (almost) full set of the Command and Colors games (again, spreadsheet attached). I am probably going to keep both the Battle Lore v1 set - not only because I love them, but because the figures are all intermingled rather than organized by expansion - and my jury-rigged ECW/TYW set which I put together for your rule set from the spare blocks in the other C&C sets and blanks I purchased from Columbia Games (though if someone were interested in either or both, I suppose …). As mentioned though, anyone interested in the other sets should be aware that, though the rest of the games are in good condition, the basic game board for the Napoleonic ones has fallen into two parts, and all of the Napoleonic ones lack the spare blocks supplied by GMT because I cannibalized them for the ECW/TYW set.
If you know of anyone interested in any or all of these, my email address is brekelmansp@bell.net
As an aside, I have close to 3000 15mm ECW/TYW figures that are painted and based as well, but I am loathe to part with these at this time. If someone wants to wait and be remembered in my will …
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.
Something I found when I was clearing my mother's house. I had no idea what it was, but it looked sort of interesting, so I hung on to it. I still have no idea what it is, so would welcome some suggestions.
The size is given by the librarian's glove (which is just present to stop the thing rolling about). It is obviously a glass measuring device of some sort - the narrowness of the internal tube suggests that the units may be smaller than millilitres, but it could be ml, I guess. There is a small glass funnel at the top, with a pouring lip, and the tip is tapered; looks to me as though it is intended to add small amounts of something to a mixture - that sort of thing.
(1) it was never very valuable
(2) it was purchased after decimalisation (1971)...
(3) ...but soon enough after decimalisation for the UK still to be working in accurate conversions from Old Money.
There was no obvious context given by where it was stored - it wasn't in the bathroom cabinet, it was in a cupboard in the boxroom, with odd drawing tools and spare lightbulbs. As far as I know, my father wasn't into drugs or tricky medication, and he wasn't a chemist. He was a photographer, however (of a sort), and for some years he was an enthusiastic (though disastrous) amateur wine-maker (Sprout Port, anyone?). The clues run out at this point, though of course I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!
Another unit of 20mm French infantry ready for duty. This time very nicely (and generously) painted by Count Goya - thank you, sir - the army salutes you!
As usual, figures are Les Higgins/PMD apart from the mounted officers, who are by Irregular on Higgins horses. The laser-printed flags are used by permission of David at Not by Appointment, for which thanks. I'm still working on a successful way of colouring the paper edges - my traditional use of felt-tips and whiteboard markers has been abandoned, because with modern pens and laser-print paper the ink will wick from the cut edges into the images and mess them up (as I have learned). The labs are on it as I write.
Next up for my WSS project is another refurb job - probably the Régiment du Dauphin; however, I think I'll put the painting desk to rights for a week or two and catch up on that Real Life stuff, though at present it doesn't look too attractive.
This weekend I've finished the French artillery for my WSS Project.
Once again, the flash on my camera gives the pictures a bluish tinge, but you get the idea. These are Irregular gunners, and the guns themselves are by Lancer Miniatures.
This is probably going to seem a little weird. Though he has been dead for nearly 14 years now, today I plan to spend a little time commemorating the 100th anniversary of my father's birth.
No particular agenda - for years now, I've occasionally been reminded that my father, if he had lived, would be x years old on that day. Each time, I laughed a little and shrugged it off - not a significant event. What I am tracking, I guess, is personal landmarks in the history of my immediate family - in other words, my own mortality.
Anyway, whatever the underlying sentiment, old Ben would have been 100 today. I intend to visit his grave, and I have purchased a very small birthday cake. After tea, I also plan to drink the last of the last bottle (of two) of De Montal 1965 which he bought me for my 50th birthday; I had previously bought him two bottles for his 70th, so it was not unlike a very slow and ponderous game of ping-pong. I can't think what else I might save it for.
My thoughts today will be mostly of unsentimental stuff: how peaceful my life has been since he passed away, how angry and bewildered he would have been if he had survived to see 2022, and some measure of gratitude that he spent his last days very comfortably in a low-stress environment, though (like the swan's legs beneath the surface) I was one of the privileged few who had to race around fixing things for him, making sure he didn't get upset and didn't upset anyone else.
All the best, then, Ben - happy birthday - thanks for everything. I guess I won't have to think about this any more.
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.
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.
As part of my new, more relaxed approach to observing world news, I have stopped hanging onto every latest theory from someone-or-other's political Cub Reporter. I've seen it all before. On occasions I may be slightly afraid, but in general I am going to calm right down in the anger department. There are some things about the current state of our (my) nation which are so preposterously stupid that I can only assume that they cannot last very long. I'll settle for that. I didn't vote for any of these bastards, so I am only circumstantially interested in their self-promotion adventures.
One thing which did chime a faint chord was Mr Johnson's recent visit to Poland, to give assurance that Britain would be right behind them if they were on the receiving end of any aggression. Apart from those Poles who might ask, "Who?", I am confident that they will take a great deal of comfort from this, especially those of them who have a good feel for history.
Naturally, as a mere provincial, I do not expect to understand such things, but I am gradually joining the citizens' army of people who suspect that Mr J's fondness for casting himself in the role of Winston Churchill may be more than a little wide of the truth. There are other, more apt possibilities. No matter. In any case, this fades into the shadows compared with the recent idea of Ms Truss going away to give the Russians a piece of her mind over the Ukrainian Question.
Also in the interests of keeping down the blood pressure and the adrenalin levels, I am making an effort to cut down on the coffee - this one crazy trick is the one that Big Pharma don't want you to know about...
Two further days of solo play (and a lot of rule reading and checking) brought my second "practice" siege game to a close. The result will become apparent in the photo gallery.
I resumed the game with the British pushing ahead to develop their 3rd Parallel.
I'm still a bit shell-shocked by the experience - good fun, and very educational, but a lot of work and I have a big long list of things in the rules I need to look at again. As a siege, the narrative is pretty reasonable, I think. I got to the 8th turn (the British had enough powder left for about 2 more turns, accidental explosions notwithstanding). Since I started with the 2nd Parallel in existence as a trench, and my previous game suggests that it takes about 5 or 6 turns to get that far, at two turns to the week the Siege of Toro took about 7 weeks from starting the 1st Parallel - again, reasonable for the Peninsular War.
I may add another post to discuss the rules, and how the game went, but I'll give that some thought. At the moment, I am left to ponder what earthly use the Coehorn Mortar is. I decided to purchase some for the British, and they were a waste of time. Potentially lethal at short ranges, but useless for anything else - maybe the Coehorn Mortar is a weapon for the tactical game? Hmmm.
If you have read this far, you have my considerable respect - thank you very much.
