WSS: Strelets - the briefest of flirtations.

 

 

Strelets set No. 253

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.

 

"Mounted Dragoons in Attack"

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.

Another Quick Burst of Engineers

Mostly to give myself a little break from refurbing the 70eme Ligne, I've painted some more soldiers for my French Siege Train. Here are the 1st and 3rd companies of the 2eme Bataillon de Sapeurs, all ready for Ciudad Rodrigo or the Salamanca Forts.

The guys who will do the actual work are from Hagen. The officers are clearly of a superior breed altogether - these are from the Franznap Pontonniers Command set. I've had the Franznap set for a while, but since I am unlikely to make any serious attempt at a wargaming pontoon team, here they are.

I enjoyed painting all of them - a lot of fun. I'm usually a bit nervous of Franznap - the sculpts are lovely, the castings (by Schilling, I believe) are very good too, but the figures are very slender - a bit delicate for tabletop handling, maybe - the castings regularly arrive bent from the supplier, especially the legs of horses, and I am always doubtful about any wargame figures which have to be assembled from bits - they just look as if they are going to come apart in moments of stress.

Anyway, here they are, to sit in The Cupboard and remind me I was going to get back to my siege game any time soon. The officers look a little senior for digging trenches or saps - a Chef de Bataillon and possibly a Colonel? - I guess that must be a really important piece of wood they have there.

As with all (most?) of my siege stuff, these chaps are on the earth brown bases - these are individually based, on magnets, so they can be deployed around the diggings once I have got the siege rules a bit more stable...

Bavarians - Brigade Commander

I do enjoy painting staff figures, as I've possibly mentioned before. We have a game coming up next weekend, and I was short of a brigade commander for the Bavarians (who will be getting a run out, though I fear they are going to get thumped again).

Here's a new arrival. In my normal Bavarian organisation (3rd Divn, VII Corps, 1809) this will be GM Vincenti, but next weekend there will be a bit of role-playing going on, so he will be Minucci for the day.

The casting is a fairly recent one by Hagen, though his horse is an OOP Falcata. Yes, he does look a bit as though he's falling from his horse, but I think he's just giving a very dramatic signal for his boys to get a move on. In the honourable traditions of the theatre, the twitch of your eyebrows must be discernible from the back row, or such that even Hansl in the 14th IR picks up on it.

Reining in My Enthusiasm - Whinge of the Day

I was checking out my painting queue, and - inevitably - I came back to a pile of mounted figures which are stuck until I find out how to assemble them. These figures are mostly (though not all) from Hagen Miniatures, and they are splendid little figures, but they are all the work of the demon sculptor, Massimo, who likes to produce his horses without reins.

Here's an example - this is part of a very nice set of French general staff - you can get these from Hagen. Obviously, you simply have to fit reins, running from the bridle bit, round the rider's hand(s), draped artistically, depending on the action. What could be easier?

Well, my problem is that I cannot find a method of fitting reins to the horses which works for me - I've had so many harrowing episodes trying to solve this that I have now developed something of a phobia about it - I have managed to fit about 3 horses with reins successfully over a 3 year period, and there have been a lot more than 3 failures. In my project boxes, waiting to be assembled, I have 40 Spanish cavalry, 20 Portuguese cavalry, 10 French cavalry and about 30 or 40 assorted staff and celebrity figures, and none of these is going to make any progress at all until I understand what to do about it.

I have tried fuse-wire of various thicknesses (a couple of successes, but it is a nightmare to bend to shape, and won't take a sharp curve), cotton thread (a recommendation from Hagen - it sort of works, but it's hairy, man!), copper wire, aluminium wire (assorted thicknesses from 0.56mm to 1mm), lead foil from wine bottles, nylon fishing line (2 thicknesses)...

This should be a reasonable thing to achieve, I'm hardly a craftsman, but I have many years experience of hacking figures about, drilling, reshaping - my regular re-heading jobs in 20mm have caused my wife some unease for a while now. This reins issue has me flummoxed, and no mistake.

Any sensible or wise suggestions as to how I may shape up and get on with this? All help would be most welcome. Solutions involving superglue just cause an exasperating mess - even with the official accelerator, the bloody stuff is hopeless.

I've even had a look at some online sites which describe how to tie fishing flies, which I thought might be useful, for techniques and materials, but this is getting well away from the topic. Anyone done this? A few kind words could change things quite a bit...!


Topic #2 - a Painting Story

I'm currently painting batches of Les Higgins French infantry - I've been lucky enough to get some welcome assistance with painting lately, but this work will be ongoing for a while yet. I was reminded of another occasion - many years ago - when I was painting Les Higgins Frenchmen, which makes me wonder whether my life has progressed at quite the rate it should have, but no matter.

This story is set in a flat I once had in the Marchmont area of Edinburgh, which must date it pretty accurately to about 1974, I guess. I had a phone call from my friend Allan, who was a regular wargaming opponent and buddy at  that time. This was on a Friday, when I was at work. Allan was expecting a visit from an old pal, and was going out drinking with him on Saturday evening - if I was up for it, they would call for me and we could go up to Chic Murray's at Bruntsfield Links.

Fine - I was up for that. Saturday came and went, and no-one called and no-one rang. That's OK - I've been stood up before. On Sunday afternoon I was finishing off some wargames figures (the aforementioned Higginses) when the doorbell rang. It was Allan, with his friend Lammy.

Lammy was originally an Edinburgh man, but Allan had met him in Zimbabwe some years before. He now lived in Gibraltar (I think), and was back in Edinburgh for his mother's funeral. [His name, I should explain, was Lawrence, but he was called Lammy as a reference to a long-forgotten kids' radio programme called "Larry the Lamb" - I could tell you wanted to know this.]

Lammy was a bit loud for me - drink had obviously been taken already, and he was definitely a tad bumptious.

"Ah - painting...!" he roared, and he sat down at my painting desk, switched on my old Anglepoise lamp and produced a folding magnifying glass from his pocket - he began to study my paintwork.

I wasn't very comfortable with this at all - my painting was probably effective enough from the opposite side of the table, preferably in very dim light, but I was not happy at the prospect of a serious review. Allan explained that Lammy was a very keen figure painter, and regularly organised and judged painting competitions at his club in Gibraltar (or wherever it was). That didn't make me any more relaxed at all, especially when Lammy began to announce his findings...

"Hmmm....  Aha!...   Hmmm... Gosh..." and then, more alarmingly, "Oh dear...."

"I take it this is a line regiment?" Lammy directed his question at Allan, who nodded to me, with his eyebrows raised. I realised that I must still be there, after all.

"Yes," I said, "they are the 76e Ligne, they are intended for the Peninsular War in about 1811."

Lammy was delighted - he tipped his head and looked at me sideways, like Hercule Poirot making an accusation. If he'd had a moustache he'd have twirled it.

"You realise, of course, that only Guard regiments had brass fittings on their muskets? The line had steel, so this is incorrect. Why did you paint brass fittings...?"

I was getting a bit hot and bothered at this point, but Allan cut in, very smoothly.

"No, it is not incorrect. The 76th Line had been on service in Martinique, as you will probably be aware, and my guess is that Tony has assumed, very reasonably, that they will have brought their muskets back with them. Of course, the muskets issued for colonial service were of superior quality and had brass fittings, like the Guard's."

"Erm - oh yes, of course..." said Lammy, and he excused himself to visit the toilet before we went up to Chic Murray's.

I was very impressed, and said to Allan, "How did you know that stuff about the French colonial service? - I just thought all the muskets had brass."

"I know next to nothing about French muskets," said Allan, "but I can bullshit with the best of them. Lammy is a very indifferent painter, to be blunt about it, and not much of an expert, so just nod and say yes when it seems appropriate. It'll be fine."

Edinburgh drinking-places of the 1970s - this was a good one - lots of after-hours darts matches, and they had a fantastic mynah bird that used to swear at the customers...

Bavarians - 3rd Divn Infantry now complete

Bavarian 10. LIR "Junker"

The infantry for the 3rd Divn of VII Corps of 1809 are now finished. Both battalions of the 10th line regiment were based and provided with flags and sabots this morning, and photos taken for the Catalogue.

1st Battalion - that'll be Oberstleutnant Von Poellnitz on the cuddy

2nd Battalion

The cavalry are still to be painted, as are the artillery, but I now have the figures in stock. I'll put some photos of the artillery castings up here in a day or so. I still need to paint some brigadiers, and some sappers would be nice. It's all gone rather well thus far - I'm not sure when (or if) the 2nd Divn is likely to get started, but I have figures ready for that as well. One project at a time, if you don't mind.

And because it seemed a suitable occasion, here's a picture of all the finished infantry - here you see General Deroy, with the 5th (Buttler) and 7th (Gunther) Light Bns, and the 9th (Ysenburg), 10th (Junker), 5th (Von Preysing) and 14th Line Regts, all the line units being of two battalions.

Deroy with the infantry of 3rd Divn, VII Corps, all ready for the Danube campaign

Same Old Painting Style, and a Brush(?) with Technology

Reports of my passing have been premature - I've been a bit preoccupied...

This afternoon I've finished off painting the mounted officers for my next Bavarian infantry regiment. These figures are new releases from Hagen, which turned out rather nicely, I think. They are uniformed as LIR 10, Junker.

Yesterday I visited the Stryker Estates, up in t'North, for a proper Old School style wargame, and very nice too. A new departure for us was live posting on Instagram - if I'd known I'd have arranged to take my make-up crew with me (my hairdressing people only work part-time now). The game was loosely based on Plancenoit, and finished as a draw, which surprised me since I had the impression all afternoon that my lot were getting thumped. Now that we have an international online audience available, it could be that a rematch will be almost as big a draw as the Fury vs Wilder refight. Stryker will have to get his advertising contracts dusted off.

General view early in the game

My French skirmishers were lethal

Stryker's splendid Old Guard - mine for the afternoon - pinned in square by Prussian uhlans - no-one came near them!

Excellent day, as ever - my thanks to Baron and Baroness S for their kind hospitality, and my compliments to Stryker and Goya for their company and the excellent toys. 

Ready for The Cupboard, with a Quick Flash of Nipple Pink

All based and flagged, the two battalions of the Grenadiers à Pied de la Garde are now finished and looking for a fight. The guardsmen are 1970s Les Higgins NF1, and the command figures are modern Art Miniaturen castings.

Also completed today are another 2-battalion Bavarian line infantry unit, this one the 5. LIR "Von Preysing", resplendent in pink facings (Nipple Pink paint, thank you Foundry...). Their command figures are a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Falcon (from Hagen), the other ranks are Der Kriegsspieler. Too late for Eggmühl, but I'm sure they'll be in action before long.

Bavarians - Another Test Figure - Lt Bn No.5

Really not making good progress with painting this week, but have produced another painted test figure - this time for Light Bn No.5 (Buttler). Again, the casting is by Hagen, from the old Falcon range. Nice little figures these, I think.

There is something psychologically more satisfying, when time is short, in producing a single finished figure rather than, say, painting (most of) the crossbelts of an ongoing battalion of two dozen.

More of Buttler's chaps will be seen before long. Apart from another two battalions which are dribbling along in the background at the moment, the next big intake of breath is scheduled to be two battalions of the 5th Line Infantry. Bad news is that these are more of the Der Kriegsspieler castings, which are eyeball-busters as far as I am concerned; good news is that the facings are plain pink, with no piping, which simplifies things quite a bit.

I won't do any more test figures until the current batches are finished. A cavalry test must appear soon, but I'll avoid getting distracted by that at present.

Light a candle to St Luke and press on. No-one said this was going to be quick.

Bavarians - Something Stirs

Still a lot to do before this gets seriously underway, but this weekend I've started cleaning up some infantry figures for painting, as part of my Napoleonic Bavarian project. The chaps in the picture make up two battalions - most of them are Der Kriegsspieler, though the command are a mix of Hinton Hunt and Falcon.

The first batch should yield three painted battalions - not sure of the timing, but at least things are moving now.

The infantry will be provided by castings from DK, HH, SHQ (provided the castings are better than the batch I received recently - legs missing etc) and the Hagen-reissued Falcon range. The gunners will be SHQ (since I can't afford the Franznap ones) and the cavalry are still to be worked out. Since the cavalry of my target period of 1809-12 all wore variations on very similar uniforms, it should be possible to recruit nearly all the cavalry from the Hinton Hunt chevauxleger OPC figures, with conversions based thereupon.

My target OOB is in two stages:

The "halfway-house" target is Deroy's 3rd Division of Lefebvre's VII Corps of 1809 - this comprises two brigades of infantry, plus one of cavalry, plus a couple of batteries for the Division. The cavalry brigade is of two regiments (1 Chevauxlegers + 1 of dragoons), and the infantry brigades each comprise 2 x 2-bn line regiments plus a light battalion - that's 10 battalions total.

The longer-term objective is to add Wrede's 2nd Division, which has a very similar structure.

The accumulation of figures proceeds - I have them organised into tubs within crates, as you see, but there's a fair amount to obtain still.

I confess to some nervousness over the small matter of painting HH or DK type figures. It's been a while since I did this on any non-trivial scale, and I am uncomfortably aware that the glories which we see weekly from the blogs of Stryker, Wellington Man and Mark D show how this should be done. I don't anticipate getting even close to that quality, so I'll just have to take refuge behind the old "effective in the mass" policy embraced by some of the wargaming pioneers.

Problem with DK and similar (obviously) is that the detail of the figures is to some extent implied rather than set out in crisp relief in the manner of more modern castings. It'll be fine, I'm sure, but I'm not going into this with any level of arrogance, I can assure you! Doubtless you will see some painted figures emerging fairly shortly, but if my painting is disappointing they may be standing in the distance, slightly out of focus, in Old School black-and-white.

The Duty Marshal

Another new French staff unit, based to my new standard. The groups for Army/Corps level commanders are 60mm square, and have the general himself plus two staff; the base is bordered in the national colour - in this case blue.

This was going to be, very specifically, General (later Marshal) Suchet, but I had second thoughts. The next in the painting queue is the Duke of Damnation, Soult, and he has a very distinctive ADC, who can be spotted from the far side of the valley - "that's Soult," they will say. Now Suchet also had a recognisable ADC, with baggy trousers - plum coloured, as I recall - and this ADC's greatest claim to fame, of course, is that he appears in one of the Osprey books...

Sanity check - I could set up a whole series of celebrity generals to make guest appearances as appropriate - some of them wouldn't get out to play very often. Thus I have made this fellow rather more generic - the ADC in the blue and red (the guy with the horse, for the colour-blind) is wearing the regulation uniform for the ADC of a Marshal-who-is-not-a-Prince, and the man who is saluting is a visiting ADC for a General de Division, so it's all pretty much vanilla. I shall probably use this group as Suchet if the occasion suits, but otherwise other choices are available. Good.

This could get out of hand - I could have gone for the plum-trousered aide - I have figures which would work in this role. Then I would have to consider named groups for Victor, Jourdan, You-Name-It...

Mind you, Massena would be worth a shout - his group would probably require him to be in a carriage, accompanied by his teenage son, Prosper, dressed up in (white) pantomime ADC's uniform, and Old André's mistress, Henriette Leberton, who is reputed to have accompanied him on campaign dressed as a hussar...    [is it getting a little warm in here?]

Well, maybe - not sure what sort of conversion would be needed for a 20mm female hussar - suggestions welcome.

In the meantime, here is Marshal Suchet (let us say), looking fairly calm about  the job in hand. The black gloves worn by the aides were all the rage among the staffers...

The saluting ADC is from Hagen, whose range of staff figures is getting better and more extensive all the time, and the other chaps are from Art Miniaturen, sculpted by the wonderful Jorg Schmäling.

Napoleonic Bavarians - Uniform Sources

Ex-Falcon figures - now available from Hagen. I'm waiting for samples
of these - this picture from Uwe's History in 1/72 blog - thanks, Uwe

Early days yet for my Bavarians - I have some figures, I'm expecting some more - in particular I'm waiting for the postie to bring me samples from SHQ and from the Falcon series, which have recently been taken over by Hagen. I've received a packet of standing Bavarian staff figures made by Hecker & Goros - very nice - they need to be put on bases (we are into specialist diorama figure makers here, with eye-watering prices to match); the H&G figures were sent by Germania Figuren, of Duisburg. There will, I am led to believe, be some new, mounted Bavarian staff figures coming from Hagen some time reasonably soon - they are in Uwe's famous "pipeline". All very promising. Also Art Miniaturen do nice (though expensive) Bavarians - I am interested in their drummers and sappers - and Franznap produce some fiendishly expensive Bavarian Manson-pattern cannons - these are currently 3D-printed, I believe - my plan is to equip the Bavarian artillery with French guns!

Catalogue picture of the Hecker & Goros Bavarian staff figures - this is most
definitely not my paintwork - the grenadier with the cased colours is from
1814, so out of my time period. Presumably that must be Herr Hecker and
Herr Goros on the left...

So no painting yet - I'm at the reading and pondering stage. I have a first-cut OOB - based on Deroy's division of Lefebvre's VII Corps on the Danube in 1809. Classic case of wargamer's dilemma: naturally I want my version of Deroy's crowd to be correct, but I am disappointed to find that the 9th and 10th infantry regiments, who were brigaded together, had identical uniforms, apart from the button metal - that makes four near-indistinguishable battalions, which feels like too much of the same for a small and potentially colourful army. At present I propose to substitute a different regiment for one of these two - one with different facings, to enhance the spectacle. Wargamer's licence - it's my damned army, I can change it if I want. Yet I know that if, maybe a year from now, some visitor points out that I have the wrong regiment present, I will find my lower lip trembling.

So I could justify it like this - the next phase (after the one that hasn't started yet) will be to add another division - I'll borrow one of the regiments from that next division now, the understanding being that I'll put everything right when the second division is complete. Yes, that would work. Anyway, let's not get into that - I haven't started yet, and I am aware that this is all silly in any case - I would happily produce any number of identical line battalions if the division were French.

Thanks to Goya - if God had intended us to buy expensive uniform
books, he would not have given us Osprey

I already had some of the standard general purpose hobbyist books which provide information on Bavarians - I even get as exotic as all 4 volumes of Elting and Knötel. Goya very kindly gave me a copy of Otto von Pivka's Osprey title on the Bavarians, which is attractive and welcome. [Aside: I used to have an earlier edition of  this book - back in the days when I was still obsessed with the idea that one day I would build up all the armies for 1813. I have some uncomfortable personal history with OvP and his works, but I'm very glad to have this back in my collection.]

I also ordered this (below) from Blackwell Books - excellent - artwork is by Peter Bunde. The book is only available with German text, so my reading of the historical bits requires a lot of coffee, and I must keep the big yellow Langenscheidt dictionary handy.

Last, I must make a gentle plug for the works of the worthy WJ Rawkins. I had a couple of his booklets years ago - I suspect that if I have a good search they should still be here somewhere [problem is that my OCD leads me to store my odd booklets in big-box magazine holders, of which I have rather a lot, and which enable me to lose whole sections of the archives in a single step...].

Goya drew my attention to Rawkins' website. Wow. The books have all been enlarged and enhanced - they are excellent. I bought the Bavarian title and a bunch of others - I bought them on CD, sent by post, and they are astonishingly inexpensive - we are talking pint-of-beer prices here. If you choose to purchase by digital download then they are even cheaper, but my own ability to keep track of a digital file without a physical copy is likely to be even worse than my ability to hang on to a paper booklet through the years. There are all sorts of Confederation Napoleonic topics, the French foreign regiments, Austria, the Kingdom of Italy - all sorts. If you have not checked these out, do yourself a favour and do so now - the link to the website is here.

Major Checkpoint

Time to have my yearly Sensible Look at what is on my list of projects - things that have been going on for a while, things which have crept in through a side entrance or otherwise jumped the queue (including Creeping Elegance items), and things that I want to start on, and which need a proper plan - or at least a better idea of what's involved.

A sanity check, in fact (or charity snack, as Cousin Dave would have put it) - always worthwhile, always throws up a few surprises and decision points, and sometimes gives an opportunity to start something fresh.

This morning's head-scratching produced the following:

Gaming (generally, like) -

Must make time to do some more ECW stuff, must set about organising another campaign (probably boardgame-based in the strategic department), and must do some more work on developing my in-house tweaked variants on C&CN, to allow for extreme ends of the action scale - i.e. smaller and larger than normal. For small actions, I'd like to develop my tactically-enhanced C&C package, in which units have a front and a formation, skirmishing appears in a more explicit form and there is even (perish the thought) a simple unit "quality" test to permit reactive changes of formation. For very large actions, I must have a proper look at C&CN Expansion #6, which deals with EPIC and similar multi-player games (all the more pressing because of the very welcome increase in the social side of my wargaming, in collaboration with Stryker and Goya); I must also do some more work on my Grand Tactical variant of C&CN, in which units are brigades, and weapon ranges and implied groundscale are halved (roughly).

One hefty byproduct of this is that I should also give serious thought to replacing my current battleboards with posh new ones in 18mm MDF - probably in a slightly larger size, and with the number of panels increased to allow games up to full EPIC or La Grande size C&CN. Daunting but probably worthwhile - however much work may have gone into repainting them, my present boards date back to 1972 or so, they are horrible (fragile) ½-inch chipboard, and life has not always been kind to them.

Organising and Painting Armies -

ECW - my armies are probably big enough, but because I bought in and retouched a load of pre-owned figures for Montrose's campaigns there is a proportion which is pretty scruffy - I mean scruffy enough for me to want to do something about it. This means getting in specific replacements for some dubious looking Scottish pikemen, and it probably means that I should get rid of a pile of spare lead which is not going to get painted. Hmmm. OK.

Peninsular War -

All Armies - I'd like to continue to progress my plan to change grouping and basing of generals and staff figures. Nice to do, but no rush.

French Army - I have enough figures for another Division for the Armée de Portugal - probably Bonet's - which will need to be painted and based. I'd like to get on with this, but it's not critical - nothing else depends on it. This is a conscious addition to the Grand Plan. There are some sappers and engineers to paint for siege activities.

This is the makings of the HLI - some fettling and puttying needed...

Anglo-Portuguese - I have the 71st Foot (HLI) on the bottletops to be painted. This may require me to add some more infantry units to make up a brigade to go with them. I'm thinking about this - I have stove-pipe figures which could become (for example) 50th Foot, and I'm sort of thinking about adding the 92nd Gordon Highlanders (don't have figures for these yet). I have a brigade of nice Portuguese infantry figures (4 line battalions and 1 of caçadores) from Hagen which need to be assembled (a bit) and painted, to fill a long overdue vacancy in the Seventh Divn. I also have some new Portuguese staff figures, which are interesting, and Hagen have also produced some splendid Portuguese cavalry - they haven't produced the command figures for these yet, but when they do I will be forced to replace my existing Portuguese cavalry (which are paint conversions based on Dutch-Belgian cuirassiers, as I recall).

1812 Spaniards - a couple more infantry battalions to paint up - nothing urgent.

1809 Spaniards - well now - I worked so hard to collect suitable castings that I now have far too many. This is tricky - it is very easy just to keep adding units to the OOB, but I need to stop this, and probably unload excess figures. I have two big Really Useful Boxes full of unpainted Spaniards, and they weigh a ton - probably a bit silly.

Form an orderly queue - Spanish grenadiers, and odd staff

I still have to finish off a battalion of grenadiers, and I'm also in conversation with Peter Bateman about replacing one of my hussar regts with a unit of converted Hinton-Hunts, which will be nearer the heart's desire.

Apart from that, from the existing lead heap, I have to paint up

- 1 further bn of converged grenadiers (Falcata)

- 2 bns of light infantry (mostly Falcata)

- 2 bns of Foot Guards (specially converted castings)

- 3 regts of Line Cavalry (Hagen)

- 1 regt of dragoons (Hagen)

- a group of infantry pioneers (Falcata)

- some more staff (NapoleoN, Falcata, home conversions)

- 1 more foot battery (mostly Hagen)

...and that's about it. Then I can get rid of the surplus figures, but this is going to hurt!

Something New - a Napoleonic Bavarian Army!

I've been looking at figure samples and swotting up on uniforms and OOBs. My intention is to aim at (as a first stage, anyway) a division of Lefebvre's VII Corps of 1809 - they can fight on the Danube and also against Andreas Hofer in the Tyrol (eventually, pending suitable figures - a campaign for which I have a strange fondness).

Thus my first effort will involve 8 line bns, 2 of jaegers, 2 or 3 regts of cavalry, 2 batteries and a few generals. I already have some figures - Ian very, very kindly sent me some surplus Hinton Hunts, with which I am delighted, and I'm working on building up a suitable stockpile. SHQ are suitable, there are some Hagen figures which look good (haven't got physical samples yet - as ever, size is everything). The Hintons are very nice - I like them - only slight problem with Hintons is that Uncle Marcus made all the Bavarian infantry with plumed helmets, which is only correct for grenadiers, so I would feel obliged to convert (and clone) deplumed fusiliers in goodish numbers. Art Miniaturen are a good source as well, but they are pricey and sometimes their figures are a little delicate for wargaming.

Anyway - early days, but I'm quite excited about this.

So much for sanity - have I decided what priority order these projects will jostle each other into? Well - nearly...

Better have a good rest, to gather my strength.

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.

Lancelot? - 1000 and still rambling

The flow of finished staff officers is merely a dribble at present - Chateau Foy is being painted on a grand scale, so there are more rollers in evidence than No.1 brushes. This is all good - we now realise that our lovely white house had acquired a definite shade of pale green.

However, here's one new arrival. This is the first of the figures for the new-format "Marshal Marmont" command stand - the castings are from Hagen - the rider is from a useful pack of assorted ADCs and the horse, I believe, is a Turkish Crimean horse, but it is fine. It is a well known fact [bluff] that French ADCs were much given to Turkish military fashion - or was it Egyptian? Whatever - it's fine.

This is one of Marmont's aides - he might be 2nd Lt Lancelot-Meunier, of the 15e Chasseurs (sadly I do not know his first name), who was on Marmont's personal staff at Los Arapiles - he adds a bit more colour and variety to the army. It is not inappropriate to have a Lancelot in my Peninsular War collection - the brigade commander for King Joseph's Guard is a General Merlin, after all, and the British Big Boss is a bloke named Arthur, so it all fits together nicely.

Lancelot's companions will be along shortly - they are undercoated and ready for their treatment.

I am surprised to learn that this is my 1000th post on this blog. For anyone who reads this stuff on any kind of regular basis, I can only offer my sincere thanks and my sympathy - I really didn't expect to have this much to say. As a monument to self-indulgence and rambling verbosity it is not without significance, I guess. As my late cousin used to say, "I hadn't realised you could pile it so high". Back in the beginning, the blog was described as "discursive" - a term which was maybe not without a faint pejorative resonance.

Spot on!