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.

More Horse, More Horse

Another two newly painted units of ECW cavalry back from Lee's House of Magic. The guys with the nice purple flag are another bit of the Royalist Northern Horse - this lot being Sir Charles Lucas' regiment. The more sedate people below are Sir Thomas Myddelton's Parliamentarian "Myddleton's Brigade". Lucas, I think, was captured at Marston Moor. All I can remember about Myddelton is that he was the governor (owner? warden? janitor? gardener?) at Chirk Castle.

If you care, the Royalists are Tumbling Dice men on Kennington/SHQ horses, and the other lot are all Kennington/SHQ. I believe that the flags are pretty much correct, which is an unusually fine result for me.

Speaking of results, and without wishing to tread on any toes here, I note that the BBC's website is heralding the glad news that the Briton has won the Wimbledon men's singles final today. I don't have any kind of a problem with this, I'm as proud as can be, for all of us, but I wonder if he would still have been a Briton if he came from, for example, Oxfordshire. I don't recall Tim Henman ever being a Briton. Funny, that.

It would be paranoid to suggest that if Murray had lost he would definitely have been a Scot, so I'm not going anywhere near there.

Another random fact - a couple of days ago, I did a search on Google for Aaron Copland, the American composer, to get some biographical material. The day after, I visited the Amazon site, using the same machine, and - lo! - I was presented by Amazon with adverts for various Aaron Copland CDs.

Now how could that possibly happen? Cookie swaps?

ECW Dragoons - including squad players

DIS...(wait for it!)...

...MOUNT!

Restored after some damage inflicted by Royal Mail, I now have a unit of dragoons to add to each army. Lovely painting, as ever, by Lee, with a little subsequent gluing, straightening and touching up by moi. I have little to say (nay - in truth, I am afraid to say very much) about the shipping incident, other than to mention that once again I have learned that it doesn't really matter how carefully you pack goods for mailing, there will still be some height a package can be dropped from, some degree of lateral acceleration which can be applied, which will defeat your efforts.

Anyway, here they are. The first pictures show Col. Henry Washington's Royalist unit, in both mounted and dismounted guises. In my rules, mounted dragoons may ride up to three hexes, or may ride up to two hexes and dismount. Dismounted dragoons may walk one hex, or may mount and ride up to two hexes. These distances, of course, are subject to normal terrain issues. Mounting/dismounting consists of switching 3 of the 4 bases, as shown. The command base remains mounted, to represent horse holders who may not fire, and also to make it easier to spot them in the woods! Dragoons who end their move dismounted may fire - they may not fire from horseback. They may also, of course, take part in melees in either state, but are not very good at it - mounted dragoons are half as effective as normal cavalry in a melee.

Overall, to be honest, dragoons are not very lethal - an irritant rather than a major threat. They have the advantage of being able to move and fire (which normal musketeers cannot), and they can fight as soon as they arrive in woods or a village, without forming up, but they are gnats rather than hornets. They have been known, though, to pick off the odd general...

Roundheads + subs

They do look nice. Here are the Parliamentarian unit. This is a posed team photo, featuring a typically dastardly Roundhead trick of fielding the substitutes at the same time as the original line-up - they would not be seen like this in a battle. The unit purports to be Tom Morgan's boys, though of course they could be anyone.

The figures are Les Higgins, mounted on Higgins horses, though the command chaps are SHQ/Kennington, also on Higgins horses. The careful observer may notice that the officers are rather better fed and wear slightly bigger hats than the rank-&-file, but you'd expect that. They probably have thicker underwear too. By the way, I keep seeing mention of "out of production" Les Higgins ECW and Marlburian figures on eBay - not so - the ranges are alive and well and available in any numbers you fancy from Old John, whose blog is here. These lovely old figures deserve better recognition, I believe - I keep doing my best to plug them.

My special thanks to the Contesse Foy, whose heirloom embroidery scissors were just the thing for cutting out those pesky dragoon standards.

Syringa vulgaris ‘Madame Lemoine’

Elsewhere, Spring has definitely, finally arrived in our garden. We have a super little lilac bush which blossoms every year, but the flowers are fragile and short-lived, They go brown within a couple of days, and they are so easily wrecked by rainfall or any kind of a stiff breeze that it is very easy to miss them. If you blink, or the weather is wrong, you have to try again next year. Well, this month they are in fine form - does your little heart good to see them.

And just wait till you see how the edelweiss are getting on. Assuming the flowers come out nicely, and the deer can refrain from eating them, there should be quite a show later on.

More Horse

No - it's OK - this isn't another advert for the supermarket's Value Range lasagne dinner for one, it's the arrival of some more real quality for my ECW armies. Once again Lee has done a lovely job, as you will see.

Here are Shuttleworth's Lancashire Horse...

...and Prince Rupert's Regiment of Horse.

The officer in the second unit is not Rupert himself, of course...

...this is Rupert.

Sunday Morning - This and That

Firstly, here are two new foot units for my ECW armies. The grey chaps are the Parliamentarian regiment of Colonel John Moore (that's John Moore of Bankhall, Kirkdale, Lancashire - noted as the Parliament diarist and regicide - everyone should have a hobby), and the others are the Royalists of Robert Byron (brother of Lord John). I liked the officer, who reminds me a bit of the Mouseketeers (out of Tom and Jerry? - en garde, Monsieur Pussy-Cat). He is from SHQ, and is a fair enough match for his men, who are Les Higgins castings - it is reasonable that he should eat better than the rank and file.

I had a nice email from Amanda, in Sweden, asking me if I could put some more of my home-made flags on the blog again. Always happy to oblige, here are the flags for today's new units. If they are useful to you, please feel free to use them - enlarge the image and download the big version. I print the image at 51mm high, which suits my men, who are a little smaller than 1/72 scale. Please remember that these are complete bunkum - just a guess. The colonel's colour for Moore's shows the family crest.

I've been doing a little more work on the proposed trip to the Danube, pencilled in for September now. Current outline is to fly to Vienna, hire a car and drive to Regensburg for 3 days, then return to Vienna for a further 4 days. The first part of the trip aims to take in Ingolstadt (maybe), Abensberg, Landshut and Eggmuhl, with appropriate intake of cream cakes, coffee and beer. Vienna has so much to offer that we don't really know what our priorities are yet, but cakes and beer will figure there also. Work continues.

I dug out an old map of Germany, and found that it is the Baedeker one I bought in preparation for a family holiday in Bernkastel, on the Mosel, in 1987. Which means, of course, that it shows the border between East and West Germany - my son was fascinated that there was a border around Berlin. How time passes - and how odd that all seems now.

ECW - Byron's and Dodding's Regts of Horse

Two new regiments of horse arrived today, splendidly painted by Lee - whose excellent painting services are described here. As ever, there is one for each side, to keep everything balanced and in step.

Col George Dodding's RoH [P] are a serious, well controlled lot. Dodding himself was from Conishall, in the Furness hundred of Lancashire, and his men were raised around Cartmel and Grange-over-Sands. The figures are SHQ/Kennington.

Lord Byron's Regt [R] are maybe a little more exciting in style - noted under my rules as "veteran rash gallopers", which makes them formidable opponents in melee but possibly difficult to keep under control. Figures are by Tumbling Dice - I've used SHQ horses to keep the cavalry units as compatible as possible.

Tomorrow they all get fitted with magnetic sheet under the bases, then they are ready for the light red boxes [not pink...].

ECW - More Cavalry

More mounted recruits, once again splendidly painted by Lee. These are Parliamentarians - William Brereton's Cheshire Horse - figures are Kennington/SHQ. Having varnished and based them, I made a splendid job of the flag, then found to my disgust that I had fitted it upside down, so I printed another and corrected things - though in my heart I will always know that I didn't make quite such an accurate job of the second attempt...

Not to worry - as my old mate Allan Gallacher used to say, the deliberate error keeps away the Evil Eye. Come to think of it, I never did understand what he was on about.

ECW - High-Ups #1

It's half term at my son's school, so we have some plans to get away, and spend a couple of days visiting Loch Ness and Culloden. The plans are a bit vague - well, not so much vague as flexible. Even people with no real experience of Scotland will realise that such activities as these are heavily dependant on the weather. The latest idea is that, since the short-term forecast is iffy, and - more specifically - since the recent deluge is likely to have reduced the entire Highland area to a vast bog, we will go later in the week.

I thought I would take advantage of the spare time by painting a couple of general officers for the ECW. Some serious work has gone into planning for the production of my units of foot and horse, and - predictably - the easier bits, the generals and the artillery, which can be picked off in odd moments, have fallen behind.

Since this is all new to me, the first few such figures are a bit of a learning exercise. I decided to produce one test figure from each of the 3 principal brands of figure - Les Higgins, Hinton Hunt and Kennington/SHQ. Further, for this first series I am going to mount each figure on the "correct" (i.e. the same) make of horse, just to get the idea. Later, the intention is to mix and match pretty freely in this respect.

The first figure is the SHQ one - this is a fairly routine cavalry officer from the range, but he paints up well as a High Up. So here is Sir William Brereton, looking suitably belligerent. SHQ are relatively modern castings, with crisp detail, and are easy to paint, though the horses can require a lot of cleaning up first. My experience with Kennington Napoleonics taught me that their figures vary within the range in both height and stature, and that some have overscale hands, but the ECW cavalry are a superior breed all round. They are a very acceptable size match with the older 20mm ranges, though the infantry are a little chunkier. The swords are a bit sturdier than Higgins' ones, but that is not a bad thing for wargames figures.

Quite pleased with this - spare time permitting, some more should appear shortly.

ECW - the first Royalist unit of Horse

Finally got my new ECW cavalry unit based and provided with a suitable flag. Lee did his customary super job with the painting, so I am very pleased with them. I have a further two regiments of foot which are almost finished, and hope to get more units fettled and ready for painting by next weekend.

The cavalry figures are by Kennington/SHQ - I really like their ECW cavalry.

This is getting dangerously close to progress. There is a minimum size of army - anything too small and it seems like one of those "abandoned projects" one sees for sale on eBay. I would like to move fairly quickly to about 6 units of foot and (say) two of horse on each side, plus a couple of artillery units and the odd general. At that point it becomes a work in progress rather than a geeky and uncertain prototype. I also have a small resin mountain of very nice (15mm) period buildings from Hovels to paint, so I must get on with that as well.

Here's the new guys, anyway. More soon.

Spanish Army - Getting There

Since I made a decision to finish off my Peninsular War armies (or at least give them a finite scope), and start on the ECW before I disappear down the microscope, the effort to get things tidied up has kept spawning new subprojects and the flow of finished Napoleonic soldiers has actually increased. Strange but true.


There's always this faint anxiety that figures which are available at this moment will soon cease to be so, and thus a lot of feverish haste to get stuff finished off while the chance is there.


My Spanish army has always been something of a poor relation, not least because of the traditional lack of 1812-period figures on the market, and I have been working of late to get it up to a useful size. I'm very pleased to have a new division of line infantry ready. They will have to wait a day or two to get their flags, but otherwise they are finished and on the new-issue magnetised bases. Here are 4 line regiments - those of Leon, Bailen, 2nd Mallorca and La Union - and 2 light units - Voluntarios de la Victoria and Legion Extremena.


They also have an artillery battery in the pipeline, and I have some generals and ADCs on order from Falcata (just can't get the Staff these days) - things are shaping up nicely. My original plan for a Spanish force was just a wishful fancy, given the lack of suitable figures, and it's a real satisfaction to see the guys varnished and based and ready.


Since you can never have enough of a good thing, I've also ordered up some more voluntarios/milicias from Falcata's extending range, but the real shortage is cavalry - I have to get some cavalry. There was always a shortage of horses, so the cavalry brigades were small, but I do need more.


Falcata make some very nice 1808-period cavalry in bicornes, and I would love to have some yellow-coated dragoons on my tabletop, but they are not really correct for the later PW. Most of the units around by then seem to have been composites - squadrons from here and there, mostly provincial, variously called grenadiers, cazadores, perseguidores and mostly with shabby hussar-style affectations, as far as I can see.


Research isn't easy - until JM Bueno's lovely Uniformes Espanoles de la Guerra de Independencia, most reference works on the Spanish army took the easy option, and trotted out the 1806 regulations, with contemporary prints of Romana's Division and the works of Dighton and a few others. Things are a lot better now for the infantry of 1811-14, but the cavalry from that period is still pretty poorly understood.

 

Anyway - this is my version of Pablo Morillo's Division of 1812-13. A few educated guesses (or half-educated), and a pinch of wargamer's licence where it suits, but I'm pleased with them. The rank-and-file are Minifigs S-Range SN1s, the command figures are conversions from Art Miniaturen Belgians, and from Portuguese castings by NapoleoN and Kennington.

ECW - Yet more figure comparisons

Still my investigations continue into which figures will work with my principal choice of Les Higgins as maker of my 20mm ECW armies. Progress has been a bit ponderous, because of my own lack of organisation. At last I have samples from Tumbling Dice, who were very helpful and quick once I had got around to emailing them.

So here is yet another strange green picture with unpainted figures. My conclusions to date are:

* Les Higgins are still the standard for my armies, by reason of affection and long-held ambition.
* Hinton Hunt are compatible, near enough.
* SHQ/Kennington - foot figures are nice, but a bit chunky to mix in - self-contained units probably OK. This was a bit disappointing, because I had hoped to be able to use SHQ foot command figures in Higgins units, but I'm not so comfortable about that now. SHQ cavalry are a good match with Higgins - no problems there - in fact Higgins riders on SHQ horses look good as well.
* Tumbling Dice - foot figures are similar in stature to SHQ - not quite so beefy - I am optimistic about being able to mix TD infantry figures in with Higgins units. This was a surprise, since I had expected them to be bigger. Cavalry are an excellent match, though the horses are bigger than both SHQ and Higgins. TD riders on SHQ horses also work OK.
* Art Miniaturen - they are lovely, but too big in this context.
* S-Range Minifigs - they have a charm of their own, but next to the Higgins figures they are big-headed and their physique looks wrong and, of course, they are armed with telegraph poles.
* Plastics - a lot of nice stuff out there, but in general they are too big to match - I'm keeping an open mind.

I hope to get as far as actually painting a trial unit in a week or three, and there is talk of some visiting armies coming for a VwQ game.

In my reading, I'm still looking for a regional context for my own ECW - I'm currently interested in Lancashire in 1644. I may have changed my mind in a couple of days. I'm looking for an area which strikes some personal chimes, and which is obscure enough to allow liberties to be taken with actual history.

No end of possibilities - I could do with having more time.

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.

ECW 20mm - Another Figure Comparison

I've now received figure samples from SHQ (Kennington) for their 20mm ECW range, and I like them. They are somewhat chunkier in stature than Les Higgins or Hinton Hunt, but the height is pretty close, and (very importantly!) the horses and the hats match the other two ranges.

The logic may seem a bit oblique, but the more compatible ranges I can find, the happier I am with my choice of Higgins as the main basis of my proposed armies. I have spent too many of my Napoleonic years backed into corners, stuck with little or no choice, and dependant on a small number of extinct manufacturers! Choices are good for covering gaps in ranges, and for maintaining welcome variety and interest in the armies.

Thus far, I reckon that SHQ, LH and HH cavalry can mix without problem. LH and HH infantry can mix pretty well, and SHQ infantry would be OK on the same table, though maybe better in separate units - in truth, it appears to vary between individual figures, so a bit of judgement will be needed (uh-oh, that might be a problem...)

So? Pleased with what I've found so far - all I need now is to firm up my ideas on unit organisation and basing, to work out quantities and shopping lists, and I'm in business. Well, sort of.

Portuguese Cavalry - done!

Very pleased to have my Portuguese cavalry brigade finished and fit for action. As discussed previously, no-one makes proper figures for these in the scales I can use, so the best I could manage was converted Dutch cuirassiers from Kennington.

The whole effect is enhanced greatly by Matt's very fine paintwork. Here they are, ready for The Cupboard - the 1st and 11th regiments, with the brigade commanded today by Lt Col Loftus Otway (later Maj.Gen Sir Loftus Otway, from Tipperary).

I originally intended to use the more correct brigading of 1st and 7th regiments (or was it the 8th? - can't remember), but the facings differed only in the cuff colour, and with gauntlets on they would be indistinguishable. Thus I went for the Salamanca line-up of 1st and 11th, which is more satisfying all round. I consider that deciding the order of battle by comparing facing colours is a fine wargaming tradition!

Tomar Militia Battalion

This evening I have mostly been fixing flags to my recent new units. A healthy dose of the commonplace after the giddy excitement of last week's Pommeranians. Here's a humble unit of Portuguese militia - I had enough odd NapoleoN and Kennington figures to make up a battalion. The more observant may notice that the Kennington boys are out of step with the NapoleoN figures, but this is the militia, after all. These chaps will come in useful for all sorts of duties, but one of their jobs is general labouring for the Allied siege train - heaving things about, digging holes, all that.

Once again, my clever but over-enthusiastic camera has brightened the colours - they are not really as psychedelic as this.

The Portuguese Cavalry Project

This has been off and on for many years. A chance discovery, and the fact that I have more time to fiddle around these days, means it is probably back on again.

No-one makes Peninsular War Portuguese Cavalry in 20mm. If you are a 28mm or 15mm gamer then you are well provided for, but 20mm, nothing doing. I have approached this problem in a number of ways. For a while, I decided the easiest approach was to assume that by 1812 the Portuguese had been supplied with British Light Dragoon pattern (i.e. French style) bell-top shakos, and I should convert some kind of cavalry wearing single-breasted jackets accordingly. I even have some Scruby British Light Dragoons which I bought specially for the purpose, with the intention of grinding off the epaulettes and shako cords - enough for at least two regiments. Alas, they are among Scruby's most primitive offerings, and I cannot bring myself to invest effort or money into them. The sow's ear/silk purse department is simply not prepared to take this on, though I have warmed a bit to Scrubies of late.

So I fell back on the safe and well-tried option of doing nothing at all about it. Portuguese cavalry (with all due respect) was not usually effective in a battlefield role, so could be a lowish priority anyway, and - anyway - I have not always been entirely comfortable that I knew exactly how these guys were dressed. There was the strange sky-blue uniform on the cover of Otto Von Pivka's old Osprey book, which I believe is probably incorrect (though it appears to have influenced GMT's counter artwork for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics), and there was a wide range of interpretations of the appearance of the helmet. The headgear situation is confused by the fact that the Legion d'Alorna wore something very similar to the helmet of a French line lancer, with a high crest, while there are descriptions of cavalry units in the Portuguese army equipped with British equipment, including, apparently, Light Dragoon-style Tarleton helmets.

We are much better informed these days - the recent Chartrand books published by Osprey are a big improvement. Just to be difficult, for a moment, let's go back to 1810, and reproduce an illustration from William Bradford's very fine Sketches of the Country, Character and Costume of Portugal and Spain.

Bradford's book includes plates of relatively familiar Spanish and French subjects which demonstrate that he was a skilled observer, and recorded what he saw. The cavalryman has his side plume removed, and the wide front stripe of piping colour is unusual, but we get the idea - there is no cause to doubt its authenticity. While on the subject of ancient history, here is a photo I took in 1981, back in the pre-digital days when poor holiday snaps really were poor, at the little military museum in Morges, Switzerland. The exhibit was described as a Napoleonic Spanish coat, but the button inscription (P. JOAO VI PRINCIPE REGENTE) and the style of the jacket identify it as Portuguese, the facings (sky collars and cuffs, red lining) being those of the 11th cavalry. The wings are odd - maybe a later addition, or a trumpeter's ornament?

The recent stroke of good fortune was that I came across some 20mm Kennington (SHQ) Waterloo Dutch Cuirassiers, and I think they will make pretty good Portuguese horse. Dutch cuirassiers, luckily, did not actually bother with wearing cuirasses, which makes the single breasted jacket a good match for the Portuguese one - near enough for 20mm, anyway. Sadly, Kennington do not do matching command figures, but the troopers are available in a resting or a charging pose, and it should not be a life-threatening challenge to produce two officers and two trumpeters with dremel, razor saw and my box of spare parts. I believe the project is back on - I would not recommend that anyone holds their breath, but I have a good feeling that my hoped-for, two-regiment brigade will become a reality before long.

To finish on a complete irrelevance, I was very taken with another of Bradford's plates, which shows a Portuguese goatherd in an ingenious straw raincoat. How about thatched guerrillas, then?

I am still having problems with Blogger which mean it is a major hassle to sign on successfully, so I have been unable to comment on my usual blog haunts, and publishing is an uncertain process. I am making use of Firefox to get by, but am not happy with it as a general-purpose browser for a number of entirely personal reasons (that should get me some hate mail – there’s nothing like a perceived religious insult to get people worked up...)

My Peninsular War Spanish Armies (2) - Afrancesados

These are my forces to fight on the side of King Joseph. I have a brigade of the King's Guard (uniformed very like the French Imperial Guard), plus a brigade of Line troops.

Here's the Guard.

Two battalions of Grenadiers (Les Higgins figures, with the odd Hinton Hunt and mounted colonels by Art Miniaturen)...

...two battalions of Fusiliers (same mix of figures)...

...a single battalion of Voltigeurs (same again)...

...a horse artillery battery (PMD)...

...and skirmishers (Les Higgins).

Now the Line brigade.

A single battalion of the 1st Light regiment (Castilla) (Higgins figures with some Kennington command)...

...two battalions of the 2nd Line (Toledo) (Higgins with Kennington command and NapoleoN drummers)...

...a single battalion of the Regiment Royal-Etranger (Falcata figures, with a Scruby OPC mounted colonel)...

...and skirmishers from the 1st Light (Kennington).

In an ideal world, I'd like to add a hussar unit, but that is in the pending folder. I also have plans to add a standing figure (probably) of King Joseph himself, with a carriage, all ready to get captured at Vitoria. I wonder if Musket Miniatures do a 20mm chamber pot?

Qualiticast - just a glimpse of the unknown

I'm not sure why, but Qualiticast, the British manufacturer of 20mm wargame figures, has been a mystery to me. There is a brief summary on VINTAGE20MIL, which suggests they were sort of compatible, size-wise, with (presumably) Hinton Hunt, but there's no listing and no pictures. There is some discussion of Qualiticast on TMP, mostly about the Romans, and mostly repetition of urban myths - i.e. the figures are a little bigger than Newline, the Napoleonics are "unimpressive" and so on. Somebody produced a useful side-by-side photo of Qualiticast Napoleonics and 1/72 plastics, to give a size comparison, but that's about all the evidence I've been able to find. It seems very odd that all these years of involvement in Napoleonic wargaming have left me unaware of one of the makers I might have been very interested in, but no matter. The mystery has remained.

Well, today I received my very first Qualiticast Napoleonic figures. I am now a fan. I suggest that they are far from unimpressive. Just so there is no doubt, let me state that they are well proportioned, very nicely sculpted, and average about 23-24mm from soles to scalp. The figures I received today were part of a mixed eBay lot of Spanish guerrillas - a mixture of Qualiticast and Kennington. The Kenningtons are a very close match - the figures are about 1mm shorter (maybe less) and very slightly coarser in quality than the Qualiticast, but it's close, and it required some time poring over catalogue listings to work out which was which. They would be good with Hinton Hunts, though the castings are a little slimmer and more elegant than HH, and they would mix well with the HaT plastic guerrillas, for example. My eyes are opened - I shall watch with interest for more. They are currently out of production, and I am unaware of anyone who has stocks, but I did come up with a catalogue list, though I don't think it's complete.

Mixed guerrillas - the 3 on the left are Qualiticast (L to R NIS5, NIS1, NIS4), the rest Kennington (L to R SGA2, SGA5, SGA3) - you get the idea. The guy in the top hat is a little masterpiece, if his sword is a little long for true beauty.

Replacement Unit - Brunswick-Oels Jaegers

Creeping elegance.

That's when you start refining your armies to make them "nicer", or nearer to your personal (current?) idea of perfection. In my case, this follows an extended period during which I was so desperate for more and more troops that I would have kept both the new and the old versions of a unit, just to get the numbers up.

This is the second time I've replaced the Brunswickers, which is getting a bit serious, I guess. My original battalion was all Minifigs - the officer and drummer were s-range (and were really very nice), but the rank and file were the later, bigger Minifigs - as wide as they were high - and they were pretty awful. No - I didn't mean to express it like that - what I mean is they were a poor match for the rest of my armies. Anyway, I lived with them in that state until a few years ago, when I set about getting rid of all the overscale Minifig "chunkies", and I replaced them with castings from the current Kennington range.

The Kenningtons were fine - much more like the thing - but they were, strictly speaking, the Leibregiment from Waterloo. Now I think this uniform is probably pretty authentically what the Brunswickers wore in the last year of the Peninsular War, but I really wanted to try to get some figures in the earlier uniform with the longer polrock coat.

I'm delighted to say that I managed to buy some suitable vintage figures on eBay a week or two ago, and Clive (once again) very kindly helped out with some matching skirmishers, and here they are, based in my normal light infantry style, with two half-subunits of skirmishers and two close-order subunits to act as supports. They seem to me to be some sort of early Minifigs, though the small bayonets are clearly not s-range (I have some s-range Brunswickers, and the figures are similar but distinctly different). If anyone knows what they are, please shout. The officer may well be s-range - not sure. Alas, I did not get a replacement drummer to complete the unit, so I still have my Kennington drummer. If anyone has a spare s-range Brunswick drummer (BrN 6s?), please get in touch - I'll be very interested!