ECW - New Group Photo

Current state of the armies - the King's men on the left

An early task after arriving home from foreign parts was to base (and issue flags to) my new ECW units of horse, recently received back from Lee. These new units have already appeared in much higher quality photos on Lee's own blog, so I opted to work them into some general photos of the current state of my armies.

Bearing in mind that I only bought the first figures in March of last year, and the first painted units didn't start to appear until late in the Summer of 2012, I am delighted with progress. Anything less typical of my usual level of effectiveness is hard to imagine. Much credit, and thanks, must go to Lee, David Young, Martin Amon, Clive, Old John and a few more for guidance and painting and everything else. Thank you, gentlemen.

Royalist horse - Tyldesley's regiment at the front

Parlies - Bethell's and the Derbyshire Horse

More Parliamentarians - Wm Fairfax's boys in the foreground

More Royalists - Northern Horse and Prince Rupert's

I must be back home in Blighty - things are crazy again this morning. My email no longer works, because of improvements to the service, but I am assured by the nice man in India that they are working on it and it should be better by the weekend. Right. That's good then.

Before the email packed in, I got a message from my pal Bernard, the idiot robot, from his night-time job at Amazon, to tell me that the Kindle Fire I bought for my wife's birthday last week is now £30 cheaper than it was last week. Thanks, Bernard.

Final thought - while I was passing through Amsterdam duty-free I saw a demonstration of a new Cube 3D Printer. Holy Smoke. If you haven't read up on 3D printing I recommend you have a look. This one copies a solid object in a plastic material - maximum size a 5.5inch cube. Goodness knows what the cartridges cost, but the machine retails at 1449 euros. I think that, like hybrid cars, they will get much cheaper and much better - this is not the time to buy one - but the potential is mind blowing. I'm keeping an eye open for developments. Miniature soldiers? - absolutely.

All Better Now

Commands & Colors board with 7-inch hexes - official layout at last.

With thanks for messages of sympathy for my dalliance with senility – much appreciated – I am pleased to announce that I have worked extra hard today, and the battle board refurb job is pretty much finished. I have some minor touching up to do to improve two points where the joins don’t quite line up, and to an extent I have proved that a battered old board repainted is still a battered old board, but mission accomplished, I think.

I’ve also wheeled out some of my new scenic plates with roads on, to see how they look – simple, but useable. Genuine C&C devotees will be perplexed by this, since roads do not feature in Mr Borg’s games. However, I have recently been reading Tactique, which is an old Napoleonic game based on Commands & Colors, predating C&CN – this was published in Vae Victis a good while ago. In this game, roads are used – interesting. I am, in any event, giving thought to including road rules in my ECW variant, so – anyway – here you see some roads, which will not win any prizes but are a big improvement on the laminated paper efforts I used in my Battle of Nantwich.

Mr Borg may have already realised that roads don't run naturally straight across the table in
C&C - maybe that's one reason they don't appear?

I’ll leave everything to cure for this evening, then get everything tidied away. You are familiar with the concept of a Portable Wargame – my wargames are Stowable Wargames, of necessity, since I use the family dining room for games. Thus all components must be flock free, easily handled and capable of disappearing into cupboards when required to do so!

Oh Strewth...!

Boards #4 and #3 (behind) - good so far...

Good news and bad news. There is even a moral – the moral is that it is possible to outsmart myself by trying to be too clever. The working definition of “too clever” is not as impressive as it once was...

I’ve been promising myself for a couple of years that I will replace my current battlefield boards with some nice new 18mm MDF ones, and paint them up with the hexes the right way round for Commands & Colors. My existing table is battered, ½” chipboard, and was painted in the mid 1970s with hexes that are, sadly, 30° awry for C&C. I did have the foresight, however, to have the correct table proportions of 13 hexes by 9. Yes – I know, I know – I even had a number of Mr Borg’s game mechanisms spot on all those 35 years ago, but somehow I still managed to avoid inventing Battle Cry, and avoid becoming rich and famous as a result.

Anyway – no matter. This week I suddenly decided that, instead, I would just refurbish my old boards. If I really didn’t like the results I could still do it again with the full MDF, and the practice would be useful. So I went to the hardware store in Dunbar that does paint mixing to order, and bought in the official shades. I was trying very hard to remember the history of these old boards, and how I had painted the hex cells last time – last time being in the days when I had crisp eyesight and knew no fear.

Last Time

My boards were originally the sort of dark, hen house green that I had seen at my local wargames club. It was the sort of green that made the room actually seem darker when you switched the overhead lights on. When the time came to apply hexagons, I switched to a paler, pea-soup shade which I have used ever since. The hex-cells were painstakingly scribed in pencil, using a homemade cardboard stencil (which I still have), then I inked in the grid lines – literally – with black Indian ink and a fine brush. I felt a bit like one of those fabulous Japanese artists you see on the TV – as I got into the job, my skill improved, and they really were surprisingly neat. Well, I thought so, anyway. Only problem was that the black ink was very vivid, and the overall effect was like the old Pop Art from whenever-it-was (1960s?). If you stared at it for a little while the room started to rotate, which is distracting during a wargame. So I had to tone it down a bit.

My plan was to thin down some of the pea-soup green – about 40% water – and apply it with a roller, building it up, coat by coat, until the grid lines were sufficiently obscured to give a better effect. I was concerned about the waterproof qualities of Indian ink – I had nightmares about my nice black lines running in all directions when I overpainted them. I recall that I asked Allan Gallacher what he thought, and he reckoned it would be all right, so I went ahead. In fact it was all right, but when I discussed it with Allan later he said he based his opinion on the need for Indian ink to be capable of withstanding monsoons. Thank you, Allan...

This Time

I decided this time I would use a similar approach, but instead of spidery black lines I would make a feature of the fact that it was hand-painted, and use a pleasing khaki shade in rather thicker lines, the intention being that I could still apply coats of thinned-down green if it was too much.

I started on Wednesday. Two coats of pea-soup green to obliterate the old markings – 2 hours drying between coats, then pencil scribing and freehand painting with the khaki, and then block-in the off-table areas outside the 13 x 9 hexes with a complementary grey-green, in proper C&C style. It looks OK – I’m pleased with it. The khaki was a bit of a fright after the old arrangement, but it has grown on me and I have decided against the over-wash.

There are 4 boards in total. I started with No.3, which is the right-hand middle sheet, and then moved on to No.4, the right hand end. Great. As of this morning, the second coat of green on No.2 – the other middle sheet – was dry and I was ready to start scribing to match the meeting edge of No.3. Because of the limitations of my work area, I had to rotate the board through 180° and work the other way round. Sadly, because I managed to confuse myself by this rotation, I then transposed the sequence of half-hexes and whole hexes at the meeting edge, but didn’t notice until I had finished painting the grid lines. I mean FINISHED PAINTING the grid lines. I made a nice job of them too. I had been really pleased with myself today – in much better form than of late – popping in from cutting the lawns to apply more paint – all that. Around 8pm I suddenly realised that I had screwed up in a big way, so board No.2 is now green again, and should get its second (fourth) coat of green about 11pm. By 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, after I get back from an appointment at the hairdresser, things will be exactly as they were this morning at around 8am. It’s hard to see this as progress.

I did get the Contesse to check that I really had got it wrong, in case I painted it over, back to green, when I didn’t need to, which would be even less amusing than the current situation. She confirmed it was wrong – I had almost kept a little hope alive that it was somehow correct...

Never mind, I’ll be even better and faster tomorrow, but it’s hard to dress this up in a way which conceals the fact that I have lost a complete day through my own, mind-boggling stupidity. The job is now half done (again? still?) instead of the three-quarters I had aimed for by tonight. Still hope to finish it off by tomorrow night, but a few other things I should have been doing tomorrow are going to fall by the wayside. That’s OK – it will feel like a little penance, and something small and dark and mean in my upbringing approves of that.

More haste, less wassname. If time permits, the plan is also to apply coats of plain green to the reverse side of the boards, so that I may keep the option of some proper wargaming if the mood takes me.

Onward and upward – with a few staggers on the way.

Bethell's Horse

Another new Parliamentarian regiment of Horse - this one is Colonel Hugh Bethell's Regiment. I painted these myself, so they are probably not up to the usual standard. Thanks to Lee for consultancy and spare pots of buff paint(!).

They don't have a flag yet - there are another 3 units of horse coming shortly, so they can all get their flags together. This is not just for time management purposes - it is so hard to get single-coated (i.e. coated on one side) lightweight, photo quality inkjet paper these days that I am now reduced to printing around the edges of old sheets bearing extra copies of Napoleonic flags I've done previously. Thus all at the same time will save paper as well. [Another useful environment-saving and penny-scrounging tip from MSF]

All I know about Bethell is that he came from Rise, in Yorkshire. The family home, Rise Hall, is still standing, though not in its 17th Century form, and is owned by Sarah Beeny - property developer and TV celeb. I read (with interest, naturally, since I am a great follower of celebs) that she and her husband found it a bit large for a weekend retreat (97 rooms), so they have had it smartened up and it is now available for wedding hire.

Rise Hall

How lovely. Please form an orderly queue.

I think I may have digressed a bit there.

Just Like Christmas

Since it would be churlish to comment on the fact that it took Royal Mail’s guaranteed-next-day Special Delivery service two days to get the thing here, I shall simply state that I was very pleased to get a parcel this morning from Norfolk. Inside were all sorts of good things – converted Hinton Hunt models, the work of the esteemed Pete Bateman, and all for my Peninsular War armies.

There is something very pleasing about good conversions based on Hinton Hunt figures – I don’t have a great many, but they always feel like the sort of thing a proper wargames army should have (strong echoes of Peter Gilder), they bring a unique element and some welcome variety to the forces in The Cupboard, they provide troop types which otherwise would not be available and – especially if they are the work of someone with a lot more skill than I have – they are interesting and good to look at. Also, because this lot are individually converted, heads are all at slightly different angles and each figure is a character in his own right.

I’ve started basing and organising the new arrivals, and here’s some early results, which I’m very happy with. I have two new light cavalry units for the Spanish army, which fill a very prominent gap in the OOB. [Please note that my artificial light photos have started washing out red tones again – the paint is much brighter than this, and the reds are RED.] The horsemen in green are the Voluntarios de Espana, who, despite their name, are an old-established unit of regular Cazadores a Caballo. The other fellows are the Husares de Extremadura, formerly known as the Husares de Maria Luisa – I have no idea why they changed their name – maybe Maria Luisa lost them at cards. Both these units fought throughout the war, and they are presented here with hats which would fit any period from 1810 onwards. They have no flags yet, but I’m working on it.

There are also some cheerfully eccentric Spanish staff figures...

...and an interesting custom figure for General Von Neuenstein, who commanded a Confederation brigade in the Armée du Centre. Von Neuenstein is, authentically, wearing the uniform of a general officer of the Duchy of Baden – HH enthusiasts will spot that part of him may have been Russian in a previous existence!

Tomorrow, time permitting, there are some artillery and logistics items to sort out, so this is a particularly good parcel. Unpacking this lot has been just like Christmas...

Spanish Thoughts

1812 Spaniards in bicornes?

As ever, I find myself going about with a head full of plenty of half-formed ideas, but very little that is clear enough to do much about. It helps when a particular thread is hit simultaneously from two different directions – then there is an implication that a bit more focus is needed.

Napoleonic Spain is one such area at the moment. I had another friendly poke from Martin by email, asking me when the solo campaign is going to come out of the freezer and get moving again – which is a good question, pertinent, even, and I shall come back to this in a moment – and then I was doing some more clearing of the spares boxes and I came back to the old question of what am I ever going to do with my 1808-style Spanish infantry. Let’s have a look at this second bit first, just to be awkward.

I have a fair mound of unpainted Baylen-period Spaniards with nothing to do. Because my French and Anglo-Portuguese Peninsular armies are dressed for the later stages of the war (originally because of availability of figures, but now simply because that is what I have, and the momentum is established), it made sense to add Spanish forces from the same period, so my Spanish Nationalist line infantry have the post-1811 British style uniform. Blue jackets and shakos and all that. A sprinkling of white-clad chaps from 1808, in bicornes, in what was an old fashioned uniform even in 1808, would not sit well. They might look nice, but the anachronism would grate with me. Mind you, they would look nice...

This is how it always goes. This is not helped by the fact that my existing army contains a good proportion of milicias and voluntarios in round hats, not to mention guerrilleros, all of whom could be comfortably wheeled out at any date from 1808 onwards. Which, in turn, got me thinking that maybe I could make up some 1808 line units which could be combined with the irregulars to make an alternative Spanish army, for earlier in the war. Hmmm.

Mind you, they would have to fight Frenchies, some of whom are wearing distinctly 1812-style uniforms – I could just about live with that. But then, if they fought alongside the Brits, there are a good few of those who are straight from Waterloo, and that would be upsetting. Worst of all, I would have difficulty combining the two alternative Spanish armies into one big one for special occasions, which you can see would be a disappointment at a more childish level.

The alternative approach is to go back to studying the various books and bits and pieces and see if I can identify any units in bicornes which could justifiably be added to the existing 1811-12 army. JM Bueno’s Uniformes Espanoles de la Guerra de Independencia is always a treasure trove, and I turned up various odd militia units raised from colleges and academies who seem to have dressed in a rather outdated style, but they may be a bit rarefied. They might have been drinking clubs rather than regiments (no – I don’t mean it, I’m sure these guys fought like heroes).

The two Bueno pictures at the top of this post look more promising. The soldier on the left is from the Milicia Nacional Urbana de Madrid of 1812 – apparently, as soon as the French evacuated Madrid following the Battle of Salamanca, the local movers and shakers raised 8 battalions, no less, of these fine chaps, plus an attractive-looking unit of cavalry. Now you’re talking. Unfortunately, JJ Sanudo’s database of service records makes no mention of such a unit (or maybe I just missed it), so maybe they were disbanded, smartish, when Wellington went back to Portugal after Burgos. The jury is out on the Madrid boys – they are interesting, though.

The other soldier is from the line battalions of the Voluntarios Distinguidos of Cadiz. He is in parade dress, but apparently this unit was dressed like this throughout the war, and they have a very long and worthy record in Sanudo. They look good, too, eh? Sadly, they were, of course, rather stuck, not to mention besieged, in Cadiz, and would not be a convincing addition to an army in Castile. I am continuing to ponder the matter. There must have been other, similar, units which I could utilise.

The solo campaign. I have waffled on about how I was disappointed with some aspects of how the rules worked, and have been gently accused of putting the campaign on hold in a fit of petulance, which I would protest is only partly true. The campaign had reached an interesting phase, and I am determined to get back to it when the Autumn comes (which may mean when the lawns no longer need cutting). It would certainly be a pity to abandon it, and I have received an extra boost from the imminent arrival of some Spanish light cavalry (at last!), and a couple of new general figures, of which you will hear more. Admittedly, the acquisition of new toy soldiers does not make a very good reason to fire up the campaign again, but it all helps. Watch this space.

There you go – another entire blog post which doesn’t quite say anything.

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?

Hortillery & Articulture...

...or something like that.

Big 'uns

Little 'uns

It's taken a while to get everything ready (because artillery is fiddly), but my ECW armies finally have guns. In fact they are rather over-supplied now, but there is an element of future planning in there (he lied). I still need to get a couple of big bombarding guns and a couple of mortars, since you can't do the ECW without sieges, but this will certainly keep me going in the meantime. A dozen new guns with crews are going into the boxes tonight - very good.

Topic 2

In the garden, Nature rears her formidable head once again. Last October I posted here to express our astonishment that our half-hearted attempt to grow Edelweiss from seed produced a single fine bloom. This year we didn't know what to expect. Are they annuals? We had no idea.

Well they have come up fine and strong, and we have the beginnings of a marvellous show. Unbelievable - and this is despite the environment in our garden being wrong in a number of ways:

1. Next to the sea - salty air and high humidity

2. Wrong type of soil

3. About 1000 metres lower than their preferred habitat

4. Permanently overcast, near-Arctic climate

We can only assume our Edelweiss don't know any better. Here they are, anyway - alive and well and living in entirely the wrong country. We hope our experiment is not endangering our Scottish ecosystem...

Bless my homeland for ever - erm - just a minute...

Late Edit...

Thanks to John P and Ross for comments - here is a relevant clip I found, which shows how the Sappers might have looked in action. It is a surprisingly long clip...

Strangely, all suitable clips I could find apart from this one were filmed in Oregon. Cultures obviously can be transplanted, like wildflowers.

The Thunderer

The general in this picture has appeared here before, and there was some helpful discussion of how I could use him. Generals on foot have always been a problem for me, since I find it unlikely that even infantry generals would have led their men into action on Shanks's pony.

As a result of suggestions made, I resolved to get him a held horse to add a little potential mobility, and I have finally done it. You can't rush these things, of course.

This is Sir Nathaniel Aspinall, known to his men as The Thunderer, and occasionally God's Trumpet - I sincerely hope this was because of his very loud voice. A noted lay preacher, and sometime Member of Parliament for Bury, in the Hundred of Salford, Sir Nathaniel was unusually well qualified to be a general of foot, since he had served some years of his youth as a professional soldier in Germany in the Wars of Religion.

He is here seen with his horse, Herod, and a horse-holder who was formerly in the artillery. Hinton Hunts to a man - or horse.

This sets a useful precedent - I'm quite pleased with Sir Nat (this is about as close to a diorama as you get in my armies), and will follow a similar grouping style with other suitable Staff castings which I have.

 

Filler

Years ago, when life was simpler and I had more enthusiasm, I used to do a lot of figure conversions and scratch-build scenery items, and I used to use a Humbrol filler, and sometimes I used to use Plasticene, coated with banana oil in the celebrated manner mentioned in all the old books.

Recent hobby work - especially on resin buildings - has brought to my attention that I don't really have much idea what to do about filler now. Banana oil, if it isn't prohibited by Euroregs, is almost certainly plantain oil these days, and it was always dodgy stuff anyway. I have various clever two-part epoxy fillers and things which you mix together and knead by hand for half an hour before you find they have passed their sell-by date and will never set. I admit that I have even used Polyfilla on occasions to fill bubble-holes and graft-gaps in figure castings - at least it sands down nicely. I covered the brass plate on the front of a Hinton Hunt Old Guard Grenadier drummer's bearskin with Polyfilla once, and textured it with a pin, so that he could transfer to the Chasseurs. He's still serving in the ranks - no problems. Not something I would normally brag about, though.

Looking around, I see that Humbrol Model Filler is still on the market, and I believe that is the sort of thing I'm looking for - a simple, relatively non-toxic, one-tube gloop which will set quickly, sand smooth and take any kind of paint without blistering. I would happily order up some of the Humbrol, but felt a nervous twinge - in this day of wonderful acrylic things for modellers, is there something better I should be thinking about?

Yes - correct - replacing the bathroom wall heater would be a useful thing to do, but that's not what I was addressing here. Any gloop-lovers prepared to offer a little advice?

ECW - Finished the Foot

A small landmark today - still maintaining strict parity (8 units of foot for each side), I've now completed the infantry target for the first phase (you mean there will be a second?) for my ECW project.

Here are the Royalist greencoats of Broughton and Gibson, on the left, and the Parliamentarian units of Brereton and Mainwaring. Dragoons and artillery are coming along, and recruitment of cavalry will continue for a while.

The odd lighting in the photos is the result of a strange luminous object appearing in the sky over South-East Scotland today. I feel an inexplicable urge to rush out and sacrifice a lamb, or a maiden or something.

I was listening earlier to a discussion on the radio - some people were complaining that a ceremonial funeral for Lady Thatcher seemed a bit of an extravagance in the current economic situation. I think it is an excellent idea - in fact, I think they should break with tradition and hold the procession in Leeds, or maybe Glasgow, so that her loyal former subjects can take the opportunity to show their gratitude and affection.

I'll see you there? Looking forward to it.

ECW Horse - another 2 units

Another two units of horse arrived for my ECW armies - usual lovely job by Lee. Here you see the first of what will be two units for the Earl of Newcastle's Northern Horse [R] - this lot might be Sir Edward Widdrington's regiment - and the more sedate chaps below them are John Lambert's RoH [P].

We are very close to a White Easter - two inches of snow this morning, though it appears to be melting now. I really am very tired of this. I need to understand - this is Global Warming, right? During this last week I was reminded that it is just a year since I went to visit Old John in North Wales, and to collect the first instalment of my ECW lead mountain. Two things about this:

(1) it doesn't seem a year ago

(2) on the 27th March last year, it was sunny and hot - rather too hot for a comfortable motor trip

Same world, different planet.

Boom in Very Old Property Continues

I've been pretty much out of things for a fortnight with the accursed flu, which, as ever, has hit harder and lasted longer than my own patience or the available sympathy window allows.

Better today - going into Edinburgh to see a concert tonight, armed with sucky sweeties to avoid my coughing the acts into silence. On the hobby front I've done a few lightweight organisation chores - fitting out more A4 box files with steel paper - stuff like that - and I've continued to work away at my supply of 15mm buildings for the ECW. Steady progress continues, though I may eventually convince myself to do a little re-work to tone down a couple of my paler thatch roofs. These little Hovels castings are really nice to work with, though I'm finding the finished buildings are a bit of a nuisance to store safely.

As I've progressed through the stock of unpainted resin over recent weeks, I did a lot of checking with the painted examples on Hovels' website, to see how they are intended to look, and as my confidence has grown I have found that I am frequently setting about doing something different. In particular, since my intended theatre for the ECW is the North West, I've had a go at producing some buildings which are a bit less obviously Cotswold Stone than standard. I am pleased with the little brick smithy shown here, and especially with the Bunter Sandstone mansion house, though it does bother me a bit that it looks like a childhood memory of Rathbone Road school in Liverpool - if it had bright green railings it would be the complete thing.

I'm going to have a go at a dark sandstone church next. And a timber windmill, though the mill is a real construction kit job with cast metal sails and everything.

I've been reading David Johnson's Adwalton Moor of late. It is written in heavily correct "thesis" style, and took a little getting into, but I have been won over. Great little book. The detective work involved in unscrambling old references and old maps, to get a picture of the battlefield as it was in 1643, is especially fascinating. I have also been very impressed by the accepted de facto form of classification of events in the ECW into "of general interest" and "of interest only to local study groups" - a whole pile of stuff I have suspected but never seen written down before. Recommended book for any ECW enthusiasts.

For anyone who is interested in the funny way us northern folk speak, Adwalton appears to have been pronounced "Adderton" or even "Atherton" in 1643. By 'eck.

More Old Houses

Last night I moved on to a couple of the half-timbered buildings, which require some new techniques, and learned quite a lot. In my boyhood, I had a sad experience with the old Airfix OO inn, and was scarred by it. I now realise that I tried too hard - you can't paint everything that's there, and if you do manage to succeed it will just look like a model of a house, rather than a house. [With the greatest of respect, Airfix kits never looked like real houses anyway.]

In fact, painting the Hovels buildings is a delight, because the sculptor has made such a nice job of them that all you have to do is identify what is there, and let it emerge by itself - the rougher the dry-brushing the more building-like will be the results. The half-timbered houses appear to come in two types - one is the expected finish, with the gaps between the beams plastered, and the other has the gaps filled with wicker, or maybe it is wattle-without-the-daub, choose your nomenclature.

The biggest act of faith is finishing off the whole building with the driest of dry brushings of a Dulux shade called "Khaki Mists 3" (which is not exactly poetic, you marketing people), to make it look dirty - to stop it looking like a kid's drawing of a newly built house on a Pergamon estate. Or so I imagine, in my apprenticeship - the act of faith is trusting that the brush is dry enough - too much paint and I am basically going to have to start all over again. An experienced eye might check what I've done and chuckle, "oh no - not the Khaki Mist 3 overbrush..."

Anyway - excellent entertainment for a snowy evening. While painting some terracotta pantile roofs, I was reminded that such tiles are very common in rural areas around here in East Lothian. A visitor once commented to me that some of the old cottages here have a surprisingly Mediterranean look for the Frozen North, and the answer is exactly straightforward - the roof-tiles are Mediterranean, and traditionally so. When the ships carrying coal from the mines of East Lothian used to deliver to Spain and Portugal (and we are talking sailing ships here), they would fill up with the local roof-tiles to ballast them for the return voyage - there was always a steady market for them. Which - in turn - reminds me that when we got our house extension built in 2005 we roofed it with Spanish slate, which seems a pleasing continuation of an old tradition, but in reality was mostly because we couldn't afford Welsh slate, and the council planners gave us a choice of only the two.

Garvald, East Lothian, with roof tiles in evidence

As a silly background task, I am mentally collecting suitable place names for the ECW. My intention is to focus on an area (probably largely mythical) around Lancashire and Lonsdale - though you might struggle to find this area exactly on a historical map. I am very taken with The Perfect Captain's (free download) Battlefinder system, which uses map cards to create battlefields and campaign terrain. I intend to make use of this in my forthcoming efforts, but the names of the places - though excellent - are not quite right for the gruff North. I thought it would be amusing to tweak a personal set of the Battlefinder cards to use more suitable names - it would also individualise the game a bit, which is usually worth the effort.

Thus I hope to have a bit less of the Pumphet Mauleverer and Castle Mauvoisin (I may have made these up) and a bit more Clagthwaite and similar. I love the whole subject of placenames, wherever they are. The North of England has some great names - I think Northumberland and Durham may have the best of the lot. Among so many, my personal favourites include Wide Open, near Newcastle, and the wonderful Pity Me, in County Durham. Long ago, I had reason to write to someone who lived at Hag House Farm, Pity Me, and I still treasure that address as a classic. If you happen to live there, no offence is intended at all, but it conjures up images which would not fit with the more comfortable Home Counties.

Since I am now rambling, I shall close.  

Infrastructure

Back numbers - a pile of old number labels which have been removed and replaced

Messing around, more like. I got the revised unit numbers all worked out, swapped all the labels over, and am now left with the task of typing up list amendments. I have produced an accurate conversion table, so with a bit of luck I'm hoping to write a little program to use this table to amend the file-names of all my photograph library to match the new numbers.

I realise this is likely to end in tears, so have carefully produced a copy folder to play around with. I'll do this next bit when I've thought about it, and when I'm more awake, tomorrow.

I've also started on painting some 17th Century buildings. There are a lot of these, so I've started with what look like easy ones - I've left the half-timbered stuff until I've got my eye in and my confidence up with the dry-brushing. Good fun so far. These are all Hovels 15mm. I like painting houses, because it's quick and low-stress.

I'd like to be able to claim that the poor lighting didn't show off my house
painting to advantage, but it would be a lie 

Thanks to Xavier, who emailed me to point out that the numeric labels on my unit sabots are not actually Blick labels, they are Avery labels. He's correct, of course. I used to use Blick labels of this type, but they are not made now, so I use Avery. The Avery labels are fine, apart from the fact that the adhesive is not so good, and for some reason the set contains a typo - the number 110 does not appear, a duplicate number 100 being printed instead. Probably makes them more valuable. I have a couple of old Blick 110s which have been carefully re-glued a few times.

Best solution is just to withhold number 110...

Here Be Dragons - Pitfalls of Planning

The 20eme Dragons, in fact. I'm pleased with these - a chance purchase on eBay, they arrived in good shape. The original paint job was really very good, though the passage of time and a few "improvements" had had an effect.

I got them cleaned up, retouched, based and in the cupboard very quickly - I only received them yesterday afternoon, and I finished them off this morning. Here they are, then, all looking eyes-right and with their carousel horses dancing in step - the best and silliest aspects of Old School in a single picture. They also gave me cause to wonder about a few things...

(1) Since I had already decided that I had more than enough units of French dragoons - in fact I had even sold off and otherwise disposed of a good many such figures already - I am not clear just why I needed these. It may be something about the sight of painted soldiers on eBay.

(2) Further to (1), how is it that a rogue arrival like these chaps can completely leapfrog the existing painting queue and make a mockery of any pretence of planning or prioritisation? Though I guess it is a hobby, after all.

(3) Most serious of the lot, my in-house unit numbering system has now failed. This is the first unit to which I cannot allocate a new number - I've run out of numbers. The end of the French army has just collided with the start of the Spanish. This may not sound serious, but the organisation of the cupboards, the catalogue, the picture library, and even my in-house computerised wargame all rely on these numbers. So, for the third time I can remember, the most recent being some four years ago, I shall have to re-do the numbering. Apart from the admin and the re-naming of the computer records and retyping the spreadsheets, this will require me to replace the little Blick number labels on a great many (probably most) unit sabots for the Peninsular War armies.

My intention is to allocate numbers 1-200 to the French and their allies, 201-400 to the British-Portuguese and their allies, and 401-500 to the Spanish. That should all be OK, leaving a good bit of headroom, and the next bit of head-scratching concerns how to arrange the numbers within these blocks. A man with an IT background like mine can see that certain arrangements are more capable of surviving organisational change and new arrivals than others, but the tabletop fighter in me sees that the most convenient way to address this is to number the units consecutively within the higher army organisation, so that the battalions within the regiments within the brigades within a division, plus their skirmishers and attached artillery, form a single number series which sit next to each other in The Cupboard. At set-up time, and during tidy-up (which is much more of a chore), there are few conveniences to match just moving a contiguous section of a shelf onto the table (and back).

It does mean that any re-organisation or insertion of additional units can cause a bit of hassle, but there's not so much of that these days. Apart from when new, unplanned units like the 20e Dragons arrive in the post.

Changing the numbers is actually rather fun - it does come, admittedly, from the same group of hobby jobs as re-basing, but involves nowhere near the same level of pain. However, because it is quite a pleasant job, it is likely to jump the entire queue of hobby tasks I have in mind - in the same way that the fitting of magnetic sheet to subunit bases and sabots did last year (or was it the year before?). That particular interruption formed a dangerous precedent, because I have been delighted with the results, and it does offer a case in support of changing my mind about things. This really does not help the concept of The Grand Plan at all.

On the subject of getting things done in the right order, I am pleased to present the thoughts of one of my favourite popular philosophers, AA Milne. I think there are familiar echoes in much of this.

The Old Sailor 

There was once an old sailor my grandfather knew 
Who had so many things which he wanted to do 
That, whenever he thought it was time to begin, 
He couldn’t because of the state he was in. 

He was shipwrecked, and lived on an island for weeks, 
And he wanted a hat, and he wanted some breeks; 
And he wanted some nets, or a line and some hooks 
For the turtles and things which you read of in books. 

And, thinking of this, he remembered a thing
Which he wanted (for water) and that was a spring;
And he thought that to talk to he’d look for, and keep
(If he found it) a goat, or some chickens and sheep.

Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut
With a door (to come in by) which opened and shut
(With a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about),
And a very strong lock to keep savages out.

He began on the fish-hooks, and when he’d begun 
He decided he couldn’t because of the sun. 
So he knew what he ought to begin with, and that 
Was to find, or to make, a large sun-stopping hat. 

He was making the hat with some leaves from a tree, 
When he thought, “I’m as hot as a body can be, 
And I’ve nothing to take for my terrible thirst; 
So I’ll look for a spring, and I’ll look for it first.” 

Then he thought as he started, “Oh, dear and oh, dear!
I’ll be lonely tomorrow with nobody here!”
So he made in his note-book a couple of notes:
“I must first find some chickens” and “No, I mean goats.”

He had just seen a goat (which he knew by the shape)
When he thought, “But I must have a boat for escape.
But a boat means a sail, which means needles and thread;
So I’d better sit down and make needles instead.”

He began on a needle, but thought as he worked,
That, if this was an island where savages lurked,
Sitting safe in his hut he’d have nothing to fear,
Whereas now they might suddenly breathe in his ear!

So he thought of his hut … and he thought of his boat, 
And his hat and his breeks, and his chickens and goat, 
And the hooks (for his food) and the spring (for his thirst) … 
But he never could think which he ought to do first. 

And so in the end he did nothing at all, 
But basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl. 
And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved - 
He did nothing but bask until he was saved! 

AA Milne

_______________________________________________________________________

Late edit - I'm thrilled to bits to report that the bold Stryker has contributed a nice little addition to the verse. It appears in the Comments below but, since no-one ever reads those anyway, I've copied it in here. How marvellous to acknowledge a little class on this blog, for a welcome change!

There once was a wargamer who’d played for a while

Kept changing his mind on the right basing style

That flocking and filler it looks pretty cool

But would they be better all based up Old School?

He lined up his lancers in neat serried ranks

(and sooo wished he’d gone for those King Tiger tanks)

My Romans are finished, but then again no

I’d like some auxiliaries armed with a bow

He tossed and he turned all night in his bed

Trying to work out what to do with his lead

At last I’ve got it (he exclaimed with a will)

I’ll do it all again but in 28 mil!

Stryker

Railway Paint – and a trip to the Dark Side

Current Humbrol Acrylics

In the days before Humbrol introduced their Military series of enamels – with specific Napoleonic colours and everything – I tried all sorts of ploys to find shades of paint that were otherwise unobtainable. I had an expert acquaintance who used to tell me that I should use artists’ tube colours, and mix my own – the implication being that only a prat would do anything else. [See details of Foy’s Tenth Law for a discussion of this kind of advice.]

I would fix him with the closest thing to a sardonic glance I could muster without a rehearsal, and say something profound, like “wuff wuff”. Apart from the hassle and the mess, the chances of ever getting the same shade twice – maybe even once – convinced this particular prat that a ready-made pot of the shade you actually want takes some beating.

In the pursuit of this, I discovered Humbrol’s very extensive Railway Authentics, which were really useful. I must have a great many patches of colour in my Napoleonic armies today which come from the world of model railways, though the original pots solidified and were ditched decades ago. I recall that for a long time you could not get a decent orange or crimson shade in the standard Humbrol ranges, so I had a pot of an orange paint intended for painting the coachwork lining on railway carriages (company and date unknown), and to this day the pennons of the Vistula Lancers show a deep crimson which started life as LMS Maroon.

One slight issue with the railway colours was that the authenticity extended to the degree of gloss, and they expected you to know what was what. LMS Maroon, for example, was a semi-gloss. At first I used to add Humbrol’s flatting agent to quieten down the shine, but I realised pretty quickly that leaving the paint as it was and applying matt varnish over the top was the way to go. For reasons I cannot remember, I started very early to use Cryla Acrylic matt medium as a glaze, and I am still delighted with it. Forty years down the line, it is as clear and pure as when it went on, which is very much preferable to the subsequent yellowing and crystallization of the solvent-based varnishes I used from time to time. Humbrol’s clear varnish of the day was not a long-term answer to any question at all.

Yesterday I was travelling about a bit, and took the opportunity to visit a branch of a large chain of wargaming model shops, which happens to sell Citadel paints. Not my most comfortable environment, but I thought I’d risk it. First problem was the paint rack – they had both the old and the new names on display, and the stuff was not well enough sorted for me to find my way around it. I was going to ask for some clarification of what the “layer” paints were, so I hovered near the check out for a while.

The young man at the checkout was deep in conversation on his smartphone, enthusing about an army of Darklings[?] a colleague was preparing. That’s right – you guessed correctly – they were awesome. After some five minutes of this, I remembered my new theory that somehow the special lighting in these particular shops does not reflect normally from me, and the young man would not be able to see me. I also realised how humbling it would be to have to ask for an explanation of white paint, so I left quietly, wondering if the CCTV could see me.

I subsequently visited a very large, independent model shop in the same city which sells everything you could think of, apart from Citadel paints. The staff in this shop can see me perfectly, and they are always very focused on the possibility of someone pinching a radio-controlled aircraft or a dolls' house and walking off with it. Anyway, I found the rack of Humbrol railway paints, which are now acrylic, of course, and which still offer an interesting range of unusual shades. I got some plain matt white, and something called RC417 (RC = Rail Colour), which was described on the rack (though not the pot) as “off-white for carriage roofs”. Could be just the thing for ECW stockings and suchlike.

A humble purchase, but I was pleased to renew my acquaintance with railway paints. Really quite nostalgic.

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.