1809 Spaniards - Some Welcome Progress

After charging ahead with my 1809 Spanish Army for a while, everything screeched to a halt in November - to a large extent this was simply because an illness in the family left me with very little spare time, but it was also a consequence of what I am now rather ashamed to refer to as The Great Sulk - of which I shall say more later.

Today I am delighted to welcome the first newly painted Spanish unit of the year - this is the 3rd of what will be 4 Foot Artillery batteries suitable for 1809. These were excellently painted by my rather shadowy friend Francisco Goya (does he paint in a mask? - hmmm), and they are not only a valuable addition to the available forces, but also (I hope) an important step towards ending the Sulk.

The figures are mostly by GB Miniatures, one of the Hagen family of 1/72 makers (mastered by the estimable Massimo), with a couple of NapoleoN boys and one Falcata. The guns are Hagen's own.

One slightly tricky aspect of putting together a gun-crew is the combination of poses - I try to make this sensible, but manufacturers are very enthusiastic about having the rammers ramming, the firers firing etc - everybody depicted doing what it is he does - but having them all do it at the same time would upset the Health & Safety boys more than a little. I'm not too fussy about this - I have enough artillery crews of old Minifigs and similar which made a point of having the rammer portrayed making an attempt to have his arms blown off, so getting snippy about it at this stage would be rather silly. I do try to keep an eye on things, though.

The Sulk.

Ah, well. You see, last year I suddenly found myself in the position where I was going to have to go back to doing all my own painting, and this after a period when I had been using the services of painters who were both quicker and far more skilful than I. I decided the only thing to do was to bite the bullet and crack on, by myself, so as not to lose momentum (momentum, at my age, being a precious thing).

I did pretty well, painting away, good-style, and listening to a lot of Fauré, but I was obviously going to need more outside support in the painting department. I renewed my acquaintance with Philgreg, the painting service based in Sri Lanka.

I had previous with Philgreg - I had found that they produced an acceptable result (unbelievably cheaply, even allowing for postage costs) if I provided an exact painted sample of what I wanted - I would get back pretty good facsimiles of what I sent them. The occasions when things went a bit wonky were when I required them to work from verbal descriptions, or - I suspect - when they were unusually busy, when an observable dip in quality suggested to me that some of the painting crew were less experienced, or fringe players in a team pool. My first attempts to get Philgreg involved again last year went pretty well - I required them only to provide rank-and-file, in fairly simple uniforms, and the amount of rework I had to do to get the finished figures to a decent quality was acceptable - the cost of the outsource work was good for the effort saved. If they produced 85%-finished figures, it was worth the money.

Their approach is businesslike, and the main man (Philip) is helpful and easy to deal with. The idea is that they send you photos of samples, to show you how your shipment is progressing, to make sure you are happy. Apart from a rather high proportion of broken figures, this went OK - for the first such shipment. Then - lulled into a foolish over-confidence - I sent a rather more complicated job.

First ominous sign was I got no sample pictures, and got no progress report at all until I chased them. The figures arrived back, painted, and they weren't good. One battalion took me about a week of evenings to rescue, but it turned out well. The other battalion that came back was worse. In all honesty, they aren't really so bad - I reckon that another week of fairly dedicated evenings would put them into very good shape indeed, but somehow I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I have been more depressed by this (relatively minor) reverse than I should have been - I have put the figures, on their bottletops, carefully in a box, ready to start work, and then I have hidden in a hole in the ground. I have found Other Things to Do. Sulking. Lamentable behaviour.

With this new artillery unit I hope I can get myself motivated again - a good slap around the head, a cup of decent coffee, some appropriate painting music on the old Bose and I should be back in business. There you are - I've said it on the blog - I'm duty bound to shape up now.  

1809 Spaniards - Regimiento de Ordenes Militares

Regto de Ordenes Militares - the flags are in the pipeline (or maybe the pipes are
in the flagline - I forget)

More painting - a further two battalions are ready, apart from the flags, which will be following along shortly in a catch-up session. Ordenes Militares in 1809 were the 31st Line regt of the Spanish army - they were quite a recent addition - the regiment was raised as late as 1793 in the Madrid area.

The command figures have been waiting for a couple of weeks for the rest of the boys to arrive, so here they are together at last - the colonel with the huge nose is in evidence in the back row. There is another two-battalion regiment nearing completion - in the next week or so, I hope.

Things are really shaping up nicely now - to meet my original planned OOB (based upon a subset of the forces at Ucles in 1809), I am now just short of another 3 battalions of light infantry, 3 of grenadiers, 2 of foot guards, 4 regiments of medium cavalry (dragoons and line cavalry), 1 (possibly 2) more foot battery(ies) and a small force of sappers and workmen. I have all the figures I need. I also need maybe another 4 or 5 brigade commanders and odd personalities, and I am discussing the possible purchase of a converted unit of lancers in top hats.

When added to the section of the "1812" army which is suitable for both periods (basically the volunteer and other "new" regiments raised after 1808 - mostly in round hats - and the irregulars), the 1809 army is going to be very hefty indeed. Maybe even big enough to outnumber the French by a sufficient margin to stand a chance of beating them.

I'll post a proper set of OOBs for the 2 armies, once I've worked it out more completely, and once I think of a good way to present them.

Other topics...

(1) Following on from my previous post, I regret to report that there was a big shooting party on the farm here yesterday morning - the timing possibly influenced by the dodgy weather outlook for the coming weeks. Algernon the pheasant has not been seen since, and yesterday afternoon there was a new cock pheasant in our garden, so I fear the worst.

Late edit ---- Algernon has been seen today, hiding from the gales in our front garden, so rumours of his demise were incorrect. There is a dead hen pheasant outside our French window, though - the Forensic Dept have been called - a spokesman [me] said that fowl play is suspected [see what I did there?].

(2) You may have seen in the UK news that the Forth Road Bridge, which connects Edinburgh with Fife (and therefore with the major cities of Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness etc) is closed for emergency structural repairs until after the New Year. Since the bridge carries some 70,000 vehicles a day, this is a major disruption; it carries a great deal of commuter traffic, so at the moment I'm not sure how things are going to work out. The first stage of the disaster involved closing one carriageway, which resulted in 2 to 3 hour delays in traffic queues. Now the bridge is completely closed, which means the Fife/Edinburgh traffic will have to detour via Kincardine Bridge (20 miles upstream) or people will have to get the train. [From a completely selfish point of view, I was also struck yesterday by the thought that Amazon's main Scottish depot and warehouse is at Glenrothes, which is on the north side of the Forth, which could be a major problem for my Christmas shopping...].

If you were unaware of this local problem with our bridge, I am confident you would have read of little else if the bloody thing had collapsed during the rush hour.

The good news is that the bridge boys are on the way with the gaffer tape supplies...

1809 Spaniards - More Grenadiers

I confess that news of the dreadful events in Paris has left me unable to settle to do very much since Friday, or even concentrate, so as you would notice, but tonight I did manage to complete the other half-battalion of Spanish grenadiers. This combined battalion has contingents from the Reina (2nd) and Africa (6th) regiments, and will be the grenadier presence in my Spanish 1st Division for 1809. If I can get it organised before I change my mind, the plan is for four divisions of infantry, of which the "1st" is actually, confusingly, the second, but that will be explained when I produce my post on the OOBs for the Spanish armies of 1809 and 1812...

The second half-battalion is pretty much like the first, except that it does not include a drummer and does include a mounted commander. If you can make out the facing colours in the photo, Reina are purple and Africa are black - the Africa boys appeared in my previous post.

This unit is complete now - they will not have a flag, though I still need to put the usual magnetic sheet on the underside of the bases and make a 110mm square sabot for them (topped with steel paper). They will then be ready for the box files, which the Contesse feels is a strange end-state for the products of a hobby. However, the more promising news is that when they get to the box file they are ready for a wargame, so I must get something set up in the next week or so to give these chaps a run out - all box-file and no wargaming makes Jose a dull boy, or something like that.

1809 Spaniards - The First of the Line Grenadiers

I've been very nervous about these chaps - the fancy embroidery on the flammes of the bearskins makes Spanish grenadiers of this period a bit of a nightmare for those of us who are rather below-average painters. In particular, this group from the Regimiento de Africa features yellow-on-black, which in my experience is one of the very worst colour combinations. They came out better than I had expected, and it was less work than I had feared, so I am encouraged to carry on with the next half-battalion. The drummer is a handsome devil, isn't he?

The Spanish system converged the two grenadier companies from each of two regiments in the same division, to form a provisional grenadier battalion. The other half of this lot will be from the Regimiento de la Reina, who have purple facings with white lace, so they should be a bit easier - they are undercoated, awaiting their turn.

Note the sergeant with the black epaulettes in the right hand group

The hats that make us painting imposters wake up screaming...

These are Falcata castings - I think they are officially OOP - if they aren't then they should be; Uwe recently commented that I was lucky to have so many Falcata figures left - maybe so - the original sculpts are excellent, but the uneven casting quality and the amount of mould damage mean that only a smallish proportion of the figures are useable, and the re-carving and dremeling required to clean them up to a decent state for painting is reminiscent of Hinton Hunt in the 70s!

Anyway, so far so good. Subsequent grenadier battalions will use marching poses, which seem to be in a better state.

1809 Spaniards - Command Figures for Regimiento "Ordenes Militares"

Another little group of command figures emerges, blinking, into the bright lights. This is an example of the classic 1805 regulation uniform. Ordenes Militares were the 31st line regiment of the Spanish army; like Navarra (24th), America (26th) and Jaen (30th) they had dark blue facings, but the configuration of white lapels, blue collars and white metal buttons identifies them uniquely. I'll get their flags printed up during this next week.

You know what they say about men with big noses? - that's right, the
Colonel of the 31st can smell the enemy miles away. This is a Falcata
casting. He is wearing his sash of the Order of Sant Iago.

I'm expecting a new unit of light cavalry to be finished sometime this week, and painting continues for the fusiliers of La Corona and Ordenes Militares, so things are quietly shaping up very nicely.

1809 Spaniards - Command Figures for Regimiento La Corona

Mixture of NapoleoN and Falcata figures - the lights show them as a bit
glossier than I intended, but they will be fine

The painting queue is shuffling along, but slowly. Last night I finished the command figures for two battalions of the Regimiento La Corona - these guys interest me because they will be (probably) my only unit dressed according to the 1802 regulations - these uniforms were still in use here and there by 1808/09, though officially they had been replaced by the better known (but less practical) 1805 white uniforms.

I have to say that (despite my paintwork) I think the 1802 version was very smart - makes me wonder why it was replaced so soon. It has been suggested to me that there was resistance to having all the line infantry dressed the same - the 1805 regs reintroduced different coloured facings. I also read somewhere that importation of indigo to dye the blue coats was a problem during the time that Spain was a French ally, since Britain had a monopoly supply. The first of these two is interesting, but I have no real basis for believing it to be true; the second seems unlikely, since the cavalry had enough blue uniforms to be problematic anyway. So I really don't know - 3 years seems a very short run for Godoy's "deep sky blue" uniforms, and I really do like them. Any further theories would be welcome.

Falcata were an odd manufacturer, some of the later products were pretty
agricultural, but this is one of the early pieces sculpted by Tomas Castaños,
and for 20mm I think this is splendid  

Falcata again - the figures were originally intended to be plastic, and you can see
it in the range of poses and some aspects of the mastering

On the bottle tops next are the command for Regimiento de Ordenes Militares - they will be in the white uniforms. Fusiliers for both units will be coming fairly soon - that's more of a factory process.

I notice from my photos that my matt varnish seems to be getting a bit shiny - better start a new bottle. It's OK, the overall effect is a light sheen rather than a hard gloss, and I like the toy soldier look. The lighting makes it look worse than it is.

1809 Spaniards - Interim Group Photo

The new guys are at the far end

It's still early days for my 1809 Spanish army, but they are shaping up nicely, and the arrival of some long-awaited flags allows a first attempt at a mass photo. I haven't started on the grenadiers yet, the light and line infantry still have a lot to  come, and there is some more artillery (including some excellent stuff from GB Miniatures at Hagen). The light cavalry is about there now, but I haven't begun the dragoons or the line cavalry.

There is no attempt to line these up according to any OOB for this photo - the group on the viewer's left is the new stuff, painted up specifically for 1809. The group on your right represents the bits of my existing army which will fit in for 1809 - they are what in 1809 are termed "new regiments" - formed from May 1808 on.

I also have a sizeable force of irregular, partida-type troops who will be OK for 1809, but I've left those out of the picture simply because I felt it would be cheating to include them.

Current logic, then, is that anyone from my existing army who is wearing any British-style uniform, any artillery in shakos, plus any units which did not exist as early as 1809 (such as the Coraceros Españoles) are excluded from the new 1809 line-up. Rules, you see.

New, bicorne-hatted infantry

Light cavalry - 2 regts of cazadores and 2 of hussars - which reminds me - that
blue unit of Kennington figures at the back does not exactly fill me with delight
 - some creeping elegance required, methinks

Assorted Staff bods - more to come

The voluntarios and other units shared with the 1812 army

The new infantry march proudly into a stiff breeze, complete with flags at last

So it's a work in progress, as you see, but the arrival of the batch of new flags means that quite a lot more of them are suddenly ready for action.

* * * * * * * * *

Late edit: Completely different topic...

Anyone who, like me, got slightly burnt in the demise of NapoleoN Miniatures in 2009 may be interested to read a recent announcement from the management of Napoleon at War, which is an ambitious rules-plus-figures project run by some of the same people. I don't really have anything informed or worthwhile to say about what is going on there, other than that it would be a pity if it fizzled out, since the rules package and the 18mm(?) figures which are marketed under the same branding are really rather good, and since a lot of customers seem to have invested in the game and might - if things don't work out - end up stranded and out of pocket.

I didn't fare too badly at the end of NapoleoN - just some incomplete orders; other customers did much worse. In hindsight, NapoleoN was not such a strategic loss to the wargaming world as the Napoleon at War set up could be, since there were, and are, other suppliers of 1/72 metal figures - 18mm is much more rarified. [Though the loss of the NapoleoN-owned Les Higgins Napoleonics reissue was another matter altogether...]

I bought a lot of NapoleoN figures over the period they were active, and I purchased some stock remainders after they went under - a large part of my new 1809 army is built from exactly those NapoleoN figures. I don't know how NaW's 18mm soldiers match with other 18mm or with big 15mm (or small 20mm), but that sounds more tricky. I would be very nervous indeed at the prospect of committing my long-term hobby interests to a single supplier if there were no obvious back-up in the event of a commercial failure. Over the years, how many of us have eventually regretted getting involved with the little RSM figures, or Bataillon Fleur, or Hinchliffe System 12, or whatever else was heralded as the New Big Thing when it started up? Left snookered with incomplete armies, and no hope of rescuing the situation - especially in the days before eBay.

I bought the Napoleon at War rule book, and it really is well done. I never had any intention of going anywhere near their 18mm soldiers - even if I were not already committed to another scale, I wouldn't have entertained the idea. Too risky by half. Anyway, I hope they come through whatever problems they may be having at present, but - especially - I really hope that their loyal followers and collectors don't get hurt in the process.

More 1809 Spaniards

Yesterday I was pleased to welcome back the two battalions of the Regimiento La Reina from their trip to be painted by the excellent Lee. Not only that, but I now also have some mounted colonels painted up, including the new mounted command figures for the existing Regimiento Africa.

After a short frenzy of varnishing and basing, here are the two regiments on parade. At present they look a little odd since they have uncut flagpoles - the flags and finials are still to come, but I hope you will see that my little 1809 army is beginning to take shape. The Reina boys have purple facings here, Africa black. Figures are NapoleoN, apart from the hat-waving colonel, who is a Falcata casting, and the other mounted officers, which are conversions of my own.

Next up will probably be Irlanda, in blue and yellow, and maybe some light infantry.

Thank you, Lee - very much!

The Spaniards of 1809

This is all a bit of an about-face, since I have previously decided – and justified – that I would use an unexpected supply of bicorned Spanish infantry to provide units of Urban Militia to supplement my post-1811 army, rather than starting to tinker with adding battalions of white-uniformed chaps from 1809, however attractive they might be.

The decision was fairly easy, since I couldn’t possibly expect to collect enough figures to make a decent 1809 army, and since the earlier and later versions of the Spanish army don’t really mix very comfortably. Well, not for me.

Since then I have very quickly obtained a pile of figures – remainder stocks of NapoleoN and Falcata still existed, if you ferreted about a bit, and someone unloaded a stack of unpainted figures on eBay. Suddenly – to my considerable surprise – a proper 1809 army is a real possibility. Amazing what you can achieve when (because?) you are not really trying. OK – let’s be honest – they may not be much of a prospect for winning battles, but they should be beautiful. The white uniform introduced in 1805 is a great favourite of mine.

At present I have enough figures for some 18 battalions of line infantry, 4 of light, 4 of grenadiers, plus an adequate supply of generals, command figures and some very natty sappers. Some of my existing (post 1811) army will slot right in – particularly the light cavalry and the voluntarios in round hats. I am negotiating (haltingly) with a supplier in Spain for some 1809 artillery and cavalry, and am looking very seriously at the Kennington Spaniards – these last are just a tad small compared with the NapoleoN and Falcata boys, but self-contained units from a single manufacturer will be fine; Kennington do very nice artillery crews and line infantry. All sorts of possibilities are shaping up.

Thus far I’ve sent two 2-battalion regiments of infantry to be painted (Africa and Reina), but it now behoves me to sit down with the order of battle for the real Army of the Centre from early 1809 (which I have managed to correct and re-engineer by painstaking comparison of various sources) and plan exactly which bits of it will make up my new army.

The idea – to start with – will be to have infantry divisions each containing (typically) 2 x 2 battalion regiments of line (or guard), 2 or 3 battalions of lights, 2 battalions  of provinciales (dressed in white like the line, but all with red facings), 1 combined battalion of grenadiers and a foot battery. How many such divisions is possible or even sensible I have yet to decide – 3 might be a decent effort – I’d like 4, but that’s not feasible at present, so I’ll maybe go for a Vanguard Divn, a Reserve (with the guards in) and a Line Divn.

Having made some token show of top-down planning, I can now get back to the fun business of drooling over which uniforms I fancy! My sketch OOB includes 2 battalions of the Guarda Real, 1 of the Walloon Guards and 1 of the Regimiento Irlanda, this last in their sky blue with yellow facings, so that should all be a good colourful addition. The grenadier battalions will mostly be converged from the relevant companies of all the regiments in a division, so mixed facings will be the order of the day. I am contemplating the painting of the ornately embroidered bags on the grenadiers’ bearskins with a little alarm…

There’s no rush – I’ll just work away at building the army, and when they reach some kind of critical mass they can start doing some fighting. Pictures will appear here from time to time as parts are completed.

Cavalry is interesting – I have 2 regiments of light cavalry from my existing Spanish army who will be perfectly fine in the earlier period, and two regiments of irregular lancers, just right for Baylen. My friend Goyo is working to get me some cavalry figures which will work well as Line Cavalry (in blue) or dragoons (in yellow – I always wanted some yellow dragoons!).

Just a labour of love, really.

At Long Last – proper British Peninsular War dragoons

Le Marchant's Brigade - fresh from the painter

I am delighted to introduce the official version of Le Marchant’s Heavy Brigade, circa Spring 1812. As I have mentioned on a number of occasions here previously, I have been looking for figures in the correct uniform in this scale since about 1975. For a while I considered the Hinton Hunt dragoons, but I could never have collected enough anyway, and I excused myself on the grounds that they would be a bit small for my heavy brigade. I rejected Qualiticast for exactly the same reasons. I also had a serious look at the Minifigs S-Range bicorne dragoons, but the uniform is a little early for my purposes. Another, better option was the Falcata boxed set (now OOP) of KGL dragoons, which are perfect apart from the fore-&-aft bicorne hat fitted with chinscales, which was a local eccentricity of the KGL. Briefly, there was also the NapoleoN version of the KGL boys, which were lovely figures, but - like everyone else - I was snoozing during the short time they were available.

3rd Dragoons

4th Dragoons

5th Dragoon Guards

My final version, therefore, is a hybrid – Falcata men with S-Range heads, on Falcata campaign-order horses. This has been an extended labour of love, and it is only fitting that I commissioned Lee to paint them to his usual high standard, so I am really very pleased indeed to have them ready and in The Cupboard.

My previous (post-1812, helmeted) regiments have moved into the Allied Odd-Bods box, while I decide what to do with them. They served as stopgaps for 40 years, so some respect is due.

Sappers & Miners

I’ve been having another good rummage in the spares boxes, to see what I should be doing when the ECW calms down a bit. I found the plastic box labeled Sappers & Engineers, and this reminded me of some holes in my Peninsular OOB. [I’ve already sounded out a few friends on this topic already, so if this post looks familiar you must be one of these friends…]

For the French, I have a natty little provisional unit of infantry sapeurs, who are a mixture of Falcata and Kennington, and some interesting little companies of fellows in full siege gear, with cuirasses and helmets and wheelbarrows and all sorts. This latter group is a mixture of LW and Strelets plastics, very kindly painted and donated by Clive when he came up here to try out my siege game a couple of years ago. You will notice that my engineering figures are individually based, and based on a handsome shade of two-tone mud, which seemed a good idea at the time.

[I had a look, and found Clive's excellent slideshow of that siege play test here - really enjoyed the nostalgia trip. Recommended.] 

I also have a team of pontonniers, from the mysterious Finescale Factory (also given to me by Clive), but I have never got around to assembling and painting them yet – I will, though…

The British are not in good shape, in comparison. I have a number of half naked labourers in plastic, who started life as British sailors, and I have collected enough infantry pioneers to make a unit similar to the French sappers, though they need painting and finishing. My original plan was to use the Minifigs S-Range BN55s for the pioneers, but that is such a weedy figure that, though I have enough, I have decided instead to use the later, intermediate-range Minifig, who is appropriately burly and rather more pleasing.

That’s it. I have no diggers or tunnellers or anything for the Brits. No-one, as far as I know, makes suitable RSM figures in 1/72 or 20mm scale. Old John has suggested a uniformed British infantryman without weapons which he can supply, which could be converted to carry picks, axes, shovels etc, and I have some packs of HO model railway workmen’s tools which could provide a barrow, so that is very interesting, but proper RSM chaps in short-tail jackets and silly hats would be a real find. I’m surprised that there is nothing of the sort available in plastic.

Anyone been down this road before? Are there 20mm engineering figures for a different period which would fit the bill, or which could be converted?

I know that the current Minifigs range includes a nice little working party of British engineers, but they are well out of scale, and I understand the S-Range never had an equivalent set.

Not a problem, but an interesting little itch that needs scratching. I am also reminded that I really must dust off the siege game and have another bash at it.

Spanish Milicias/Voluntarios

More recruits for the Spanish army - three more battalions of provincial troops, very nicely painted by Lee, ready to join with the extant Regimiento del Ribero to make a new brigade for Morillo's Division.

Here are the 1er Voluntarios de Aragon, the Voluntarios de Guadalajara and the provisional Regimiento de Cuenca (a mixture of the Cazadores de Cuenca and the militia of that town).

The castings are some more of what are likely to be very rare Falcatas - they are from my much delayed shipment of pre-production figures, and at present it looks as though full production isn't likely to happen. I quite like these little men, I have to say, whatever their pedigree, but those muskets have to be the thinnest and flimsiest yet seen on my wargames table. I have done some careful building-up of the muskets with superglue, but these guys will definitely be handled by the bases, and no mistake, and the mere fact that I have such impractical figures in use is pretty much a reflection of the fact that most of my gaming these days is solo, and casualties don't get removed. At least I'll know who to blame if they get damaged!

Regimiento del Ribero

Having replaced my congealed red paint, I've now finished the first of my new units of Falcata figures. Here are the Regimiento del Ribero - also known at different times as the Voluntarios del Ribero and even as the Cazadores del Ribero. Whatever, they are light infantry. These are all pre-production castings from Falcata - the skirmishers are my own conversions - Spanish regular light infantry with militia heads.

There will be three similar new battalions in the fairly near future.

Spanish Militia - One Small Step

Since my Falcata parcel arrived – and I confess I had given up on it by the time it appeared – I now have the happy problem of having some more Spanish troops to organise and paint.

I spent a few days sifting through various Spanish OOB’s from the Guerra de Independencia – Oman and Nafziger and the relevant bits of the J J Sañudo database – and cross checking against the illustrations and tables in Bueno. The idea is to identify a (fairly) historically authentic formation whose uniforms suit the new figures. I like this kind of homework.

The figures themselves are probably a little early in the war for me. Falcata base their range around the 1808-09 period, and the voluntarios and milicias are consistent with this – lots of round hats and double breasted lapels in evidence. However, such uniforms could have been seen right through to the end of the war – and if I produce anything which is not correct then it is simply a matter of the new uniform supplies not having arrived yet!

One thing that surprised me is that, if you study the OOB of the Spanish 4^th Army in July 1813, for example, it is very obvious from Bueno that about two-thirds of the units present had British-made single-breasted uniforms – dark blue with lighter blue collar and cuffs. And presumably they had British LI-style shakos as well. Somewhere in Lancashire, the mills must have been working night shifts! Interesting, but dull – I want some nice, classic militia that look like militia.

I have identified enough sound figures to produce four good battalions. One of these will be an 18-man light infantry unit - with lapels, ventral cartridge pouches, a mixture of trouser/breeches types, and with the skirmishers converted from light infantrymen, suitably re-headed. Falcata managed to send me enough broken figures to allow for head-donors, though to be fair they sent a lot of spare figures anyway. All these figures are pre-production castings, so there has been some cleaning up to do, but they will paint up nicely, I think.

I also have the makings of three units of normal volunteers/militia/provinciales (i.e. not lights) at 24 figures to a battalion. Two of these are in double breasted jackets, with a sprinkling of ventral pouches (nothing to do with kangaroos), and one is a mixed lot, various jacket styles, and a few of these have bicornes. My house standard does not normally provide such lowly troops as these with a mounted colonel, though a fairly ornate brigadier would be in order.

Yesterday I set about painting up the light infantry. Because of the number of body part grafts in the conversions, I decided against risking them in the mail to my normal Peninsular War painter, and to do them myself. I got started well enough – I am a bit nervous about black undercoat, since I require frightening amounts of light to see the detail on black figures – but that was OK. I got them undercoated, and did all the blue bits, but came to a shuddering halt when I got to red, since my main pot of red has turned into something other than paint. To save face, I found an old pot of red with just enough in it to do a single figure, and decided to paint a single pilot figure completely. I hadn’t intended to do this, of course, and it is something I normally don’t do (except when I am sending a shipment for painting in Sri Lanka – separate story), but in fact it’s probably a good idea. Or at least I can make the best of things and pretend it is a good idea.

So at the top of this post you will see the only completed output from yesterday’s session – a private soldier of the Regimiento del Ribero. You are unlikely to have seen one of these miniatures before, since they are not in full production yet, and obtaining them at the moment is a life-shortening exercise. I think this fellow would be ES41 in Falcata’s catalogue if it ran that far.

I used to smile faintly at blog posts dedicated to describing a lack of progress, but here I am doing it myself. Oh well. I have ordered up some red paint, and with luck it should arrive in a day or so. Since I live on the dark side of the moon, it is not simply a question of walking to my nearest stockist. I use a lot of Citadel paints – I say this without any embarrassment (you want to make something of it?) – and the Games Workshop website identifies my nearest stockist as being in Kirkcaldy – only some 17 miles away. This would certainly be true if I had a helicopter handy, or even a motor launch, but the reality requires me to drive through Edinburgh to the Forth Bridge, over the water and all the way back up the other side, which is a mighty trek for a piddling pot of paint. I have ordered online from Amazon – bless them. The paint is reasonably priced, the postage is extortionate, but the whole deal is ever so much cheaper than schlepping to the nearest city and parking in the Mafia’s multi-story arrangements.

The Joy of Robots – my nearest GW store, apparently

So when the paint arrives I’ll crack on with getting this chap some colleagues. The militia-type command figures are rather fun – more soon. There you are – I’ve managed to write another post about hardly anything. Must get out more.  

Spanish Army - New Commander

Hot from the much-delayed parcel of Falcata figures, here - at last - is the Commander of my Nationalist "4th Army" for the Peninsular War. This is Mariscal de Campo Don Pedro Agostin Giron, Marquis de las Amarilas, Duque de Ahumada (1778–1842), accompanied by his trusty chief of staff, Colonel Sainz.

Giron was a competent, rather than exceptional leader, but the fact that General Castaños, the victor of Bailen, was his uncle must have been a big plus on his CV.

The tasteful yellow border to the base identifies the Spanish commander - house rules...

Falcata - 25th May Order Arrived

Today the FedEx man brought the Falcata figures I ordered in May. The figures received are close enough to my original order for me to be happy with them. I have enough new figures for some more units of Spanish Peninsular War milicias/voluntarios, and some Spanish general officers - no doubt some pictures will appear here at some point.

I shall now remove all previous hostile postings on the subject of this order, as promised, but I urge anyone outside Spain who wishes to purchase Falcata figures to buy them from the forthcoming UK outlet (details will be posted here when available), not direct from Madrid.

Falcata - 30 Years War range

Hermogenes at Falcata Miniatures sent me some of the first pictures of their forthcoming 30 Years War figures, which will be available later this year - after the Summer, Hermogenes says.

I thought it might be a nice heads-up for anyone with an interest in 1/72 metal figures for this period. They aren't in the catalogue yet, but the catalogue is worth a look anyway - check out the Carlist Wars figures, and I fancy some Isobelinos for converting into late Peninsular War Spanish.

That's Enough Guerrilleros for Now

This post follows an email from Ludovico, who wanted to see what I was doing about flags for the Spanish irregulars. The first thing to note about these flags is that they are a complete fabrication - some are derived from a mish-mash of historical examples or depictions, or parts of such - especially of outdated types, some are adapted from reconstructions I found on the Internet, and at least one is just pinched from elsewhere, though whether a guerrilla unit would carry any one of these flags I really don't know. The main motivators were

(1) I had a bunch of irregular standard bearers with nothing to carry, and

(2) flags are fun to design and print (if gluing them into place is rather more fraught...)

Here, in a single jpg, are the fictional flags I put together for the 6 latest units - if they are of some use or interest, please feel free to copy them, or adapt them, or whatever. If you print the big version of this image so that it prints 62mm high, the flags will be at my intended size for 1/72 scale. Also, please note that, as always, the green rectangles are not part of the flags - these are added so that you can cut out a white flag from a white sheet of paper. Also, please note that they have no historical merit or relevance at all...

Ludovico also wanted to see a picture of all the guerrilleros together, so here they are. The 4 "battalions" at the front are mostly a mixture of Qualiticast and Kennington, the remainder are the ones I pictured yesterday (though they now have flags and sabots), and they are almost all Falcata. There is also a mounted unit, but I forgot to include them [sorry, Ludovico]. The Falcata figures, being just a little taller, are on 2mm plywood bases, while the others are on 3mm MDF. This is what passes for house standards here.