ECW: And Deliver Us from Re-Basing

My health appears to continue to improve, for which I am grateful, and I hope to get back to previous levels of activity on the wargaming front. However...

...my eyesight, though quite a lot better, is still not really up to figure-painting quality, so for a while my priorities should be things I can actually manage. 

First off, I shall get myself better organised - for years my wargame scenery boxes have been in a big cupboard upstairs, so carrying the box with ALL the hills and the box with MOST OF the houses downstairs (and then back up again once the game is done) has become a ritual. It feels kind of worthy, since it is hard work, and it may even be useful exercise, but it seems to me that my Preston Grannie would have identified this sort of activity as daft. For a start, and most seriously, it is a glaring example of a Lazy Man's Load, which is wasteful and sinful for all sorts of reasons. Preston Grannie came from a background where a working man might spend his days carrying bricks up a ladder, one at a time. He could also carry a large hod, bearing many such bricks, which might seem quicker, but he might hurt himself or - more seriously - he might hurt someone else; also, his boss paid him to carry bricks in an approved manner, and to exceed that - especially if the boss made money out of it - was wicked. My Grannie would have pointed out that, since I don't need anything like all my hills and houses around to construct a battlefield, it would be sensible to remove the pieces I needed for a particular project from the box, and take just those downstairs.

Even better, I could organise myself so that the big boxes were stored downstairs (which requires swapping some boxes around, which is in itself worthwhile and may even encourage me to chuck some stuff out, for goodness sake). So that is already proceeding as a background project - it will take me a while to get used to this, but I see it as a positive step. These boxes do not get lighter as the years pass.

Next thing to think about is the basing of my ECW armies - yes - I, too, shudder at the sound of these words, but I shall at least think about it. Here is a little local wargaming history.

I started work on my ECW project around 2012, and the original plan was to base the units so they would work with a number of rulesets, especially Victory without Quarter, which seemed very promising. After much thought and fiddling about, I decided to use 60mm square as my main base size (the figures are 20mm). An infantry unit would comprise 3 such bases - one had pikes and colours - 8 figures in two ranks; the other two each had muskets (including 1 officer or drummer) - 6 figures in two ranks. The cavalry units had 4 stands, each with a single rank of 3 mounted figures. Then there were all sorts of specs for generals, guns - all that. Looked pretty good, in fact, just like the drawings out of the VwQ rules. So I got cracking with building up armies using this system.

I soon decided that VwQ was not what I was looking for - in particular there was an activation system which (a) used scabby playing cards and (b) didn't work very well. So - one time among many - I started again with a home-brewed game of my own, converted from C&C. That worked much better, but it pushed me back towards using hexes - the only snag being that the hex side of my table was adorned with hexes which measured 7 inches across the flats, which is pretty close to 180mm. Which all means that you could deploy one of my infantry units in line, 3 bases of 60 x 60mm, but there was no space between them and an adjacent unit, and certainly no room for any scenery. So I stuck with my basing system, and wished that I had used 50mm squares for the next 12 years or so. My experience encouraged me to do rather better for my WSS armies, for which the standard bases have been 50mm wide from the beginning.

What I've done in the ECW, in fact, is de-emphasise formations - an infantry unit with 2 bases of musketeers in front and the pike base behind is regarded as being in whatever formation the sergeants wish, so that works nicely, until some well-intentioned soul complains that they are not properly in line. Normally, of course, the correct response is to smile pityingly, but it's true, and it does hurt a little - also, I can develop cramp in my upper lip after a few years. So - quietly, and inwardly - I have thought now and then of what I could do without breaking either the bank or my heart.

* I could live with it - I've managed thus far.

* I could rebase my ECW armies using 50mm squares. Points in favour? - well, not much really, but the bases are not flocked, and as far as I can remember just about all the soldiers are glued to their bases with white PVA. With luck, an overnight soak in warm water should loosen them pretty cleanly, then it's just a question of tidying them up and scraping off any surplus - Hmm - that's possible, I guess, but it doesn't feel good as I think about it. 

* There are compromise versions of this, too - just switching the muskets to 50 x 50 would work - a unit in battalia (or whatever it's called) would then be 160mm wide, which would be OK. Rebasing all infantry on 50 x 50 would be even better, but the pikes probably wouldn't fit the smaller bases. Cavalry usually work with 2 bases behind 2 bases - i.e. in line - so I could leave those alone. 

All a bit tricky. I even thought about mad stuff like sawing the edges off the 60 x 60 bases without removing the figures, but we all know how that would work out.

So - what am I going to do?

Well, probably nothing at the moment, but at least I know what the possibilities might be, and I have a clearer idea what it is I'm not doing yet. That's OK - I am not short of quiet time, so I could work at this slowly (whatever it is), and I'm not scared - I've been miserable before. I shall see how this new clarity develops as I let it simmer. I would feel even better if I wasn't sure I've been through exactly this same process a year or so ago, and probably came up with the same answers.

A visitor to my house recently made the mistake of asking to look inside the Napoleonic Cupboard, and was obviously (though politely) shaken by the experience. "But it must have taken ages...".

I said to him what I always say: "That's what hobbies are for, I think; I'm sure I've neglected something else along the way to free up the time, but I'm not sure what it was." 

That is probably me trying to reassure myself, I think. Anyway warm water and glue, a load of bases, a can of the house pea-soup paint and sheets and sheets of self-adhesive magnetic sheet from Trevor. I could do that. The thing to do is probably try a few units, see if I survive, see how it goes. In light of that, I could abandon, or I could revise my estimates as necessary. The worst that could happen is that I end up with a few units the right size.

WSS: Getting Rid of Troublesome Spots

 I have a Zoom wargame set up for Wednesday, of which I am sure you will hear more if you visit around the end of the week. Naturally, since I always fret a bit about running out of time (or broadband), the table is set up already - just have to lose some chairs and shift the table into the centre of the room. I've sorted out the paperwork (such as it is), so I'm all set to get cracking.

Just a little tidying up; a few odds and ends, and a brief return to the niggly-but-not-serious issue of minidice, and the neat deployment thereof. I have a number of friends who consider that things like counters and minidice, not being on the official Featherstone or Peter Young merch list, are best treated by allowing the vacuum cleaner to inhale them. I'm sure they are right; anyway, even if they're not, it gives them a useful opportunity to let off steam in the padded room.

I shall explain this non-serious issue, so that you may understand - this is getting into the First World problem of Creeping Elegance in the wargaming infrastructure department. My WSS armies have minidice (that's 5mm acrylic jobs, in little frames) attached to the unit stands. In my rules, they are useful in a number of ways:

* since the armies, not to mention individual allied units, were often dressed in surprising (or the same) colours, the body colour of the minidice confirms which army (or nation, if that is not the same) this lot belongs to. It varies a bit by scenario, but the main colours in use are red (British), blue (French - slightly anachronistic, but the main significance is that it is not red), sky blue (Bavarian) and white (a general Grand Alliance colour - thus Austrian, Dutch, Hessian...).

* the number displayed on the minidice is important for army organisation and - importantly - activation, since it shows which brigade they belong to. Keeping your brigades organised is a good idea in my games, since if you get brigades intermixed then you may have plugged some gaps with reserves, but they may not be able to do anything at the same time as their friends (etc). Trust me - it is a hassle when it happens.

 

The minidice system - here you see some of the 4th Brigade of the French army - battalions, attached artillery and the brigade commander, all numbered up

That's all fine then. Army commanders are important chaps, of course. A few of them gallop around accompanied by their national flag, which is certainly a clue, but it makes sense (to me, anyway) to have them fitted with a colour-coded minidice too - if the CinC has a brigade all his own (guard, whatever) then that brigade will have a number all to itself, and the CinC will have a minidice with his army colour, bearing the number of his brigade. More usually in my games the Commander does not have such an attachment, but it is still potentially useful to have him colour-coded (these Marshals are very casual about what uniform they turn out in). As a sort of default, I have used 6 as a conventional non-number to indicate that this chap is of this army, but doesn't have a brigade alignment. It isn't right, though, is it? It isn't elegant, for one thing. Apart from the potential inconvenience of one side having 6 actual brigades, anything which requires some explanation isn't right by definition.

Righto. The problem is defined - my early plan was to get a few 5mm acrylic cubes which looked like dice, but didn't have dice spots. What could be simpler? Well, in fact it isn't simple at all. You can buy 5mm dice in many, many colours, you can even buy them with a hole bored through the No.1, to make bracelets and necklaces (I don't mean "you can buy them" of course, I mean "one could buy them"). You can even buy excellent blank dice in all sorts of colours, but nothing smaller than 10mm - in fact hardly anything at all smaller than the ubiquitous 16mm. So you can buy 5mm beads (not cubes) by the truckload, or 5mm dice with holes in, but you can't get unmarked 5mm cubes. I can only assume that this is all based on the assumption that they are a choking hazard for small children, and it is well known that children would never try to ingest a bead or an actual minidice.

Hmmm. I spent longer than you might think trawling the Internet looking for them - eventually I was going to just give up.   

At this point I must thank anyone whom I dragged into consideration of this little problem. I got some thoughtful advice, some very decent suggestions, and I'm grateful - you know who you are.

What I did was take some of the minidice, in appropriate colours and in quantities of one of each, and soaked them in Clean Spirit for about 3 days. Scrub them with the old toothbrush (no, not that one) and wash them and we're ready to go. 

 

New tweak - the French army commander has his new spot-free minidice. If you look very carefully you will see that the ghost of the "1" is still just visible, but if you notice it then you are being awkward - it's streets better than a very obvious "6" staring up at you, anyway!

WSS: Déjà Vu (well, sort of)

Case Study No. 1

Some years ago, when I was building up my 20mm ECW armies, I became very interested in the Covenanters of 1643-44. I bought in some useful books, and kind of befriended all those local chaps who had trooped down to Duns Camp, besieged Newcastle and fought at Marston Moor. When I say local, I mean local to where I live; I was especially interested in the adventures of the East Lothian Regiment, for example, who were raised by Sir Ralph Hepburn, whose family seat, Waughton Castle, is about 5 miles from where I'm sitting. Well, it was there before someone nicked all the stone to build dykes and farm steadings.   

I read the life of Alexander Leslie and the history of his army, and there is some wonderful detail of who was who in the Covenanter force. I became very interested in the rather confusing period which is now known as the Bishops' Wars, about 1638-40. I considered whether it would make a satisfactory alternative campaign, and how easily I could fudge armies for it from what I already had planned. I still think about it now, but I quickly decided that the idea was intriguing, but there were some major snags, not the least being that King Charles's on-the-cheap Army of Vengeance was a wash-out. It was a very silly and one-sided conflict. Charles obviously felt that the Divine Right of Kings extended to prohibiting anyone from opposing his army on the battlefield. The point at which I left it is that

(1) it might make an interesting campaign at some point, but not a historical one; it would benefit from the armies being artificially balanced rather a lot.

(2) come to think about it, maybe it would make a nice map game - possibly a boardgame...

Case Study No. 2

Time passes; since the end of 2019 I have been working on refurbishing and extending armies for the War of the Spanish Succession. Once again, I find that I have committed myself to building armies in a long-dead scale, using figures which have been out of production for 45 years or so. It's a rare talent.

In my hunt for alternative figures which would fit, I looked at all sorts, and found that nearly all the plastics and 1/72 metal miniatures were too big. Irregular Miniatures offered some useful variations, but there wasn't much else. Around this time, it occurred to me that Newline, if they made suitable figures, might be just about right for my target 1/76 scale. Of course, they don't. They have some SYW British infantry who obviously have the later uniform. However, they sent me a sample pack of their Jacobites. Hey. Pretty good.

Now I was at the beginning of putting together serious armies for the Blenheim period, and had no wish to get distracted into looking at the 1745 Rebellion. However, I thought that perhaps, as an alternative, The 1715 might be an interesting add-on for my WSS chaps. A period I know very little about, of course, so I made a mental note and shelved the idea for later.

To my amazement, I now estimate I should complete my original Phase One plan for the WSS by Winter this year, ignoring any element of Creeping Elegance which might extend the work. Without wishing to tempt Providence, I spent a little of my current isolation period thinking more about this. I bought a very cheap, pre-owned copy of Stuart Reid's Sheriffmuir on eBay, and it arrived last week. Great book!

I find myself back in the Bishops' Wars situation. What could I do, how rewarding would it be, and how much of a distraction? There are copious lists of regiments, not all of which could have appeared at the same time, but some familiar names from my memory of the old Royalist horse in the days of the Marquis of Newcastle - Widdrington, among others. Maybe some of my ECW cavalry could ride again? A few of the British WSS regiments have the right facings and so on, though of course my flags are hopeless for the years after 1707. And then there are Highland troops - I now know that Newline might work nicely, and I also have some (very scruffily painted) Irregular Highlanders I bought in to help the Marquis of Montrose. Hmmm.

At the moment I am enjoying reading about this, and making up candidate lists of what I could use from what I already have (if I kept my eyes half-shut), and what else I could sensibly add. I'm convinced that I won't do anything for the moment, but it's an interesting possibility. As with my potential cod Bishops' Wars, I think the approach might be a heavily-fictionalised map campaign.

Anyway, whatever happens, I am enjoying reading about yet another unfamiliar bit of history. Learning stuff is fun, provided the old Covid allows one to stay awake long enough to do some reading!

Creeping Elegance: Everyone Switch Units (Musical Sabots)

Creeping Elegance is a general classification here - any odd sorting-out or reorganising jobs which are not obviously a high priority, but which still irritate me when they don't get done.

It's easier to get on with it when there are several reasons all pushing in the same direction - i.e. the planets align (which doesn't happen very often).

For a while I've had the following in mind:

(A) There are a few units in my French army which acquired a 3rd battalion at some point. My improvised house standard for these French 3rd battalions seems to have stipulated that they have no mounted officer and no eagle - I can't remember why, maybe I was short of command figures at the time. Yes, quite. Subsequently I changed my mind - I decided I already had a real, serious house standard, which is that the infantry of my French army in the Peninsula will consist of divisions, each of which has 2 brigades and a battery; each of these brigades will comprise 2 regiments, plus a converged mini-battalion of voltigeurs from these regiments; each of the regiments will have 2 battalions. Not 3, 2. 

(B) Some of my battalions do not please me, because their appearance does not match up to the rest of the army. A case in point is provided by 2 battalions of old 20mm Garrison fellows, some of them recasts, which I've had since 1971 or so and which I've always thought I should upgrade sometime.

(C) Fairly new idea - I need to raise some more little 12-man battalions for my developing siege games.

So I've decided that I can rationalise much of this in one go - thus:

(i) The 1/50e Ligne (apart from their command figures) are of these old Garrisons - if I combine the Les Higgins rank and file from the unwanted 3/50e with the command from the 1/50e then they can become a new, rather smarter 1/50e, and the Garrison troops thus released can be reallocated (very appropriately, in fact) to siege duties. Good. They'll be happy there. The idea of making the 3rd battalion into the new 1st battalion works for me, but I suspect that the 2nd battalion will be furious when they find out.

(ii) Similarly for the 59e Ligne, except that they previously did not have a 3rd battalion, so the replacement Higgins troops for the 1/59e will come from the (unwanted) 3e/15e. The Garrison boys will go for siege basing, as for the 50e.

(iii) The 3rd battalions of the 6e and 25e Léger can also be released, to be allocated to forthcoming Divisions which are in the Refurb Queue.

This is the revamped 1st battalion for the 59e Ligne - the command figures were previously surrounded by Garrison men for many years, and the replacement Higgins rank and file have arrived from the (now defunct) 3/15e.

Here are the troops released to be rebased for siege games - mostly Garrisons - some old friends here!

So I've done the necessary basing adjustments and unit labelling, I've taken new photos for the Napoleonic Catalogue, and I've adjusted the sabot numbering slightly so that the battalions may still be placed consecutively in The Cupboard. So far, I seem to have done everything correctly, though I am half expecting to find two units with the same catalogue number in The Cupboard.

Time to have a cup of tea and read for a while. Nice sunny day here - freezing cold, mind you. 

***** Late Edit *****

Pensioners: some grenadiers from the old Garrison battalions, now re-based and ready for siege duties.

***************

A Tale of Two Flags

Yesterday was a flagging day, which means I was involved in attaching a flag to a new unit. I keep stocks of my home-printed flags, and fitting them is not complicated, but it does require some care, because it is very easy to mess it up. And I do mean a mess. Water-based glues and ink-jet printed flags are a potent mixture, especially if you have fingers like elephants' feet.

Thus my stock of flags includes enough extra copies to allow for the odd failure.

Since I had the flagging kit out anyway, and since I have now (at long last) produced a correct flag for the Régiment de Prusse (4eme Étranger), I thought I might as well invest in a little drop of creeping elegance, and replace the flag for that unit. A tale of yesteryear beckons...

The fact that I have a Napoleonic army at all has a lot to do with the OOB for the Battle of Salamanca, which has always been a central inspiration. I'm not sure exactly when, but maybe 10 years ago I was tempted by mention of the Regt de Prusse in that OOB - admittedly only a residue of 80-odd men by 1812 (in Brennier's [Taupin's] 6th Divn), but that was enough of an excuse to encourage me to paint up a battalion of something (anything?) to provide a little variety among the otherwise relentless blue and white of the Armée de Portugal.

At this time NapoleoN Miniaturas had released their pack of "Allied Infantry", which basically represented Confederation troops in Spain during the 1808 period. These chaps are in moderately scruffy campaign dress, with covered shakos and rolled overalls. I painted them in the dark green of the Foreign regiments - the Prussians had red facings, silver lace and rank insignia. They also had, I had read, a non-standard flag - it was 162cm square instead of the normal 80cm for a French 1804 flag - and it had a spearpoint finial instead of an eagle. This was all faithfully reproduced in my little battalion.

A couple of asides here.

NapoleoN Miniaturas are sadly missed nowadays, but their figures are an odd mixture, ranging in quality from the exquisite to the downright agricultural. This is probably not unconnected with the fact that they had two master-makers, one of whom was a very talented sculptor and one of whom was the owner. Interestingly, a close parallel might be argued to have existed at Falcata, around the same time, and maybe even Les Higgins (much earlier). Whatever, the Allied Infantry set was not one of NapoleoN's best. In particular, there was an officer on foot, marching, wearing a bicorn with an oilskin cover - I've seen the same JM Bueno plate as the sculptor obviously had, but the hat is so blatantly made of a folded newspaper that I omitted this particular officer from the unit.

As originally recruited, with big flag. Both the photos in this post look a bit washed-out - the reds are proper reds in real life. The figures are from the NapoleoN "Allied Infantry" set, with the mounted and foot officers from Kennington - the foot officer at the end of the 2nd rank was drafted in to replace the man with the newspaper hat.

The authentically oversized flag I produced looked - well, daft. I've always been a bit touchy about it. If anyone were ever to comment on it, I had even memorised the references in Dempsey's Napoleon's Mercenaries so I could justify it! This is an area where I am a tad fussy. Stupid really, since my French army includes Les Higgins figures sporting 1806-style queues but wearing square-lapelled Bardin-type habits, not to mention Garrisons with high gaiters and the same late-model coat. Many of my British infantry strut happily around the Peninsula, wearing their Waterloo shakos. My armies are full of howlers, inconsistencies and known inaccuracies. I gloss over them all, but I do like the flags to be reasonable.

The infamous Bueno drawing of Confederation troops in Spain, featuring the officer in the newspaper hat

One trend in wargame armies which I have not approved of over the last couple of decades has been caricaturisation (if there is such a word). Beautifully- painted 28mm figures with grotesque faces, huge hands, outsize heads, giant muskets - OK - that's all down to the sculptors; there has also been a move to crazily-oversized flags. The French flag of 1804, let us remember, was 80cm square. If your French army has lovely flags which are 6 feet square in scale then that is your taste and your choice - no problem - but to me that looks daft. Thus my big Regt de Prusse flag, authentic or not, has troubled me.

With replacement (regulation) flag. Of course, it may be incorrect now. Hmmm. Must give the flag a little curl. Flags which look like hatchets are not cool.

Yesterday I replaced it. It no longer looks daft, I think - of course, it may be incorrect. I'll have to worry about that for a while now...

If I change it back then I promise I won't mention the fact.

***** Late Edit *****

By special request, for Liverpool Dave, here's another dodgy photo of one of my Confederation battalions. This time these are Badeners (alas the Baden infantry in Spain did not wear the fabby helmet) - the newspaper hat is in evidence on the left end of the second row. 

*******************

Elegance Creeps On - a little progress

Finally got the current batch of ADCs finished and based up. There is a bit of a risk with jobs which hang around - after a certain time (how long this is must vary from individual to individual, I guess) I sort of get used to the idea that they are not finished yet, and they can go into a state of limbo.

The replacement figure for Marshal Marmont [Art Miniaturen - henceforward AM]
 with his aides, who are both from Hagen 

...and they leave as elegantly as they arrive

MS Foy [OOP NapoleoN casting] with his ADC [AM] 

Bertrand Clauzel with ADC [both AM]

And Antoine-Louis Popon, Baron Maucune [NapoleoN] with his new staff man [AM].
It is a source of regret to me that there are no known portraits of Maucune - I would
like to know more about the man. He was blamed (unfairly?) for the defeat at
Salamanca, and a couple of other items on his CV suggest that he may have been
very brave but more than a little dumb. It seems appropriate that my Maucune should
be flagrantly ignoring his ADC - reading and obeying orders seems to have been
something of a weak spot... 

Anyway, this is all about my new basing standard for general officers (or Leaders, as they are termed in C&C). I have a fair amount of rebasing to do, so first I have tackled the Armée de Portugal bit of my French army. Apart from the new Marshal Marmont, only the ADCs in these photos are new - the extant generals have just been rebased with their (regulation) staff allocation.

A bit of background here - my Armée de Portugal is based on Salamanca, and is represented by 3 overstrength infantry divisions (the real army had 8 understrength ones) - the cavalry allocation keeps the full establishment of 2 divisions, which suggests an over-provision of cavalry, but my cavalry are a bit weaker than the historic original.

I am unsure what to do with the cavalry division commanders - for this army, both divisions were headed up by a general de brigade, and in each case the gaffer was an ex-staff man, with no obvious cavalry background or affiliation. Accordingly, Messrs Boyer and Curto appear on my table in rather boring regulation dress - a bit lame for supposed sabreurs. I would prefer it if I had some rather more flamboyant figures to deploy - I'm working on it - but I suspect that they were not particularly interesting individuals. Pierre Boyer gained the nickname "Pierre the Cruel" because of his harsh treatment of guerrillas, and there is a nifty portrait sketch of him, with fancy braided jacket and whiskers. However, I would guess from the style of his goatee beard that this is a later picture, from his time in Algeria, where he maintained his reputation for shooting and torturing, probably generating more unrest than he cured.

Beyond that my French army continues with another force, which is a rather vague amalgam of the Armies of Catalonia, Centre and Midi - it's chief role is to fight the partidas, and give a place in the organisation to the more colourful Confederation and Italian troops, and King Joseph's own fine chaps (poor sods). I'll get to their generals shortly.

In the meantime, things are going well.

Bordering on Command

This is a figure I've had lying around, undercoated, for years. Enthusiasts may recognise another vintage Alberken/Minifigs20mm OPC commander - this one starting life as the casting for Lt.Gen "Daddy" Hill. I have now painted him up as a senior field officer of the Royal Artillery. One issue I had with the casting was that there is a very prominent shoulder belt, over the LEFT shoulder - for which I could find no use. Given this fellow's map (no, it's not a towel), and the artillery role I've given him, the rogue shoulder belt became a leather strap for his map case. Of course, I hear you say. What else could it be?

I'll come back to this figure in a while - for the moment, observe that his base has a black border.

I've been asked a few times in the past, what is the significance of the coloured borders around the edges of the bases of the senior officers in my armies? Primarily, it makes them easy to spot, but occasionally I myself have questioned this system - house rules can sometimes live on as tradition long after the original reasoning is lost. For my ECW armies, for example, I dropped the coloured borders; I don't think I will, but just occasionally I have wondered if it might be a good idea to retrofit them, after all.

It all dates back to 1970-something, when I was using Don Featherstone's rules (gradually replaced by Charlie Wesencraft, then - later - by the WRG, which was the beginning of a period which I refer to vaguely as The Disillusionment...). In these rules, a simple morale test made use of whether a unit still had its officer present - fellow veterans and game historians will probably be able to identify just which rules these might have been. To help with this rule, I made sure that all unit officers were based on their own, and - to make it easier to spot them in moments of crisis - I painted a dark green rim around the edge of the base. This worked pretty well. I extended this to brown for brigade commanders, white for division commanders and yellow ochre (?) for army commanders. Yellow ochre? - well, the original idea was that I should use vaguely earth-type colours, which would not be too offensive against the house pea-soup green bases and tabletop.

Yes - I know, I know. The pea-soup is already something of an affront to the visual side of things, so picking colours which blended with it seems odd. It's OK - you just mutter the words "Old School" under your breath, and everything is fine. In fact, if I work at it, I can even dredge up a little genial ridicule of other people's armies, where the soldiers carefully drag a lovingly-prepared hearthrug of flock and cat-litter around with them - even along roads and into rivers. I am, of course, jesting. The point is, it's OK.

In a spasm of commonsense, I eventually replaced the unimpressive yellow ochre with a distinctive colour for the army, so that the Anglo-Portuguese army had a red border for its commander, the French blue, and - later - the Spanish had yellow. Yes - all right - yellow isn't great for Spain, but it isn't red or blue and it hadn't already been given a reserved meaning.

Righto. Time passed (that was the easy bit) and I was no longer using regimental officers for this morale rule - though it's always tempting to retain the coding system just in case I wish to use it again in the future. The result was that, long after it had ceased to have any significance, I was still devoutly painting up my units with dark green borders around the regimental officers. A major rebasing project eventually put a stop to that for the infantry and artillery - all command figures are now just glued onto a multiple base, with some of their subordinates, and no bordering colour is added. My regiments still have some way to go with liberté and fraternité, but we have at least made a start with egalité.

However, for the cavalry it persists. Now I would really be pushed to come up with a sensible justification for it, but any new cavalry units I add still have the officer on his own individual base, bordered in good old dark green. The only reason this still makes any sense at all is that - especially in campaigns - it is a commonplace for cavalry colonels to have to take over a brigade, particularly given the horrifying casualty rates in the cavalry arm in my battles. So, just occasionally, a colonel with a green border has been a useful addition to a battlefield, when acting up as a brigadier. I think that one day I shall probably get rid of the green borders on the cavalry, but I'm currently in that twilight, it's-a-tradition-no-it-isn't phase.

I am now slowly moving onto a Creeping Elegance project to change the basing standard for field officers - division commanders are to have an attached ADC, army commanders to have 2 supporting staff - so this gives me an opportunity to reconsider the coloured borders. I think I'll probably keep them.

Fine. Now, if I go right back to 1970-something, I did have an additional classification of field officers. I was aware that proper historical OOBs would identify an overall commander for the artillery, and maybe for the engineers. Since I wasn't sure whether such a fellow would equate to a brigade or division commander in my army organisation, I took an escape route and came up with a separate border colour - black - for officers of what I grouped as "service arms". Thus all commanders of artillery and engineering get a black rim around the base.

Only problem now is - I've never had one! I was never sure what I would use him for (my crass ignorance of how real armies worked is a major contributor to this), and other types of painting jobs always took priority.

Which - at long last - brings me back to the photo at the beginning of this post - long, long ago. I have painted up the old Alberken Hill figure to represent a senior officer of British artillery. I was going to make him Lt.Col Hoylett Framingham in my Peninsular army, but I find that Framingham was in any case a RHA officer, and was absent after being wounded at Talavera, so I'm still pondering his identity. I intend also to add Alex Dickson (a man from Kelso, as it happens) to look after the siege train and all that - Dickson will be in Portuguese uniform, I think. I should also have a commander of engineering. I think it might be appropriate for him to be on foot, and he will have the earlier (blue) uniform. I still haven't really got a clue how these fellows will be used on the toy battlefield (a puzzle with which some real generals of history might empathise, come to think of it), but here, gentlemen, after only some 40-odd years, is my first field officer with a black border.

I shall now, for shame's sake, dig out SGP Ward's Wellington's Headquarters to remind myself how this stuff worked...


***** Very Late Edit *****

I found some old pics of the Picton and Napoleon Alberken figures mentioned in this post and the comments, so here they are again...

I'm also reminded that, though Napoleon came in an eBay job lot, Picton was very kindly given to me by the Old Metal Detector - apologies for my error - one of wargaming's true gentlemen. Thanks yet again, Clive!

Napoleon playing the part of someone else