What a Load of Old Walls

Further to references in a couple of recent posts, I have now painted up most of my new Battleground medieval fortifications. The paint now appears to be sticking nicely - thanks for assistance with the base coat issue - I am still swithering over whether to apply a coat of matt varnish spray to finish. I prefer the appearance without, but these chaps will have to be stored away in a box, wrapped in tissue, and tough might be better than pretty - thinking about it.

Quick photo includes my existing Battleground pieces, just to fatten up the picture a bit. I decided to go for a general stone shade, which, strictly speaking, is incorrect for the Siege of Chester (Chester has good, red Bunter sandstone walls), but is fine for Newcastle and a pile of other places. Also, a big plus for this colour is that it will match well with my Vauban pieces, so I can produce hybrid fortified towns for the Peninsular War.

I still have to paint a rather natty little gatehouse (with clock) and two dirty great half star-fort castings (two halves = one complete star-fort). The star-forts may be a week or so, but I'll try to get the gatehouse done at the weekend. The gatehouse is not Battleground, by the way - I think it's JR Miniatures, but I'm not sure.

Drybrushing stonework, fortified with plenty of coffee and my new Radu Lupu recording of the Brahms Divertimenti, has been very therapeutic!

Reluctant Paint

Here you see me having a relaxing evening session, preparing my
15mm fortifications for painting

Hmmm. Interesting.

I took advantage of an odd free evening to make a start on my medieval wall castings, safely received from the maker last week. I've done a fair amount of this sort of thing before, and I find it an enjoyable job - especially on something like stone walls, which have relatively few colours and produce a pleasing result very quickly. The new castings, as ever, are resin, and - as ever - I've taken care to scrub them down thoroughly with very hot water and washing-up detergent, then rinsed them very carefully in clean water and left them to dry off completely. I know that some of the release agents used with resin castings are petroleum based - once, long ago, I made a resin chess set using silicone rubber moulds, and made up my own release agent by dissolving Vaseline in white spirit. So the keywords are greasy, waxy, and the response is hot water and detergent and a good scrub.

Never had problems, really. Sometimes the first coat of paint doesn't cover too well, but a second undercoat covers the gaps nicely, and then everything goes to plan. This shipment seem to have traces of something a bit more stubborn. The first coat of the old Dulux Rum Caramel #2 (household wall emulsion) has rolled back a bit to leave some white spots and streaks showing. In other words, the paint has covered about 98%, maybe more, but there are gaps.

I'm not unduly worried - I usually use two coats of the base colour, and I think the second layer of undercoat should fix it, but this is the worst experience of non-sticking paint I've had, so I stopped about 20% of the way through the shipment just to be on the safe side. If I'm not happy with progress on the second coat on the ones I've started, I'll consider some more serious cleaning and preparation of the remaining castings, but I'm a bit surprised, really, and I'd rather not have to. I don't think I've skimped on the scrubbing-up. I've read before about guys who prepare their castings in the dishwasher, but I fear that dishwasher products might deposit something undesirable on the castings anyway, and some of the battlements and fiddly bits look a bit fragile for a dishwasher - I've already had to glue a couple of parts which I de-flashed with too much enthusiasm.

Anyone got any suggestions? I have various additive things in the drawer like acrylic flow enhancer (which I think is a sort of detergent) - I emphasise that I am not unduly concerned, but this is the worst coverage problem I've had with this kind of paint in this context.

[I wonder what happened to that chess set, by the way.]

1809 Spaniards - A Quick Look in the Boxes

These boxes contain the 1809 section and the versatile "new" and irregular 
units which will fit with either date

Not much time for hobbies at present, but I took the opportunity to sort out my boxes of Spaniards a bit. The [Nationalist] Spanish army comes into 3 sections - (1) a specifically 1809 army, (2) an 1812 army (which includes a lot of infantry in British-style shakos, artillery in French-style uniforms and the Coraceros Españoles, none of which are suitable for the earlier OOB) and (3) a grouping of round-hatted "new" post-1808 regiments and irregulars who will fit in either line-up.

I've rearranged the figures in their boxes to try to make some sense of this - here's some pictures of the troops available for 1809 thus far (not very easy to make out the details, but they prove something exists).

Some of the 1809 infantry

I realise now that the irregular cavalry and the staff figures are still in the other
boxes - not to worry, they'll appear on a more formal occasion in the future. It
is unknown for staff figures to miss an official group photo...

The 1809-period light cavalry

More infantry - the unpainted MDF bases await the La Coroña boys, who are
on the painting bottletops (and likely to stay there until Real Life quietens down)
- quite a few flags missing thus far

This is most of the guerrilla infantry

The "new" units who can also take the field in 1809

The provisional 1809 Order of Battle (loosely based on the Battle of Ucles) is:

Vanguard Division

IR La Corona [2 Bns]*
IR Murcia [1]
IR Cantabria [1]
Converged Grenadier Bn**
1. Vols de Cataluña (light)
Bn de Campo Mayor (light)**
Provinciales de Jaen

1st Divn

IR La Reina [2 Bns]
IR Africa [2]
IR Burgos [2]
Converged Grenadier Bn
Vols de Valencia (light)**
Prov de Ciudad Real

2nd Divn

IR Ordenes Militares [2 Bns]
+3 "new" Light Bns
+5 "new" Line Bns

Reserve Divn

Guardias Reales [2 Bns]***
Guardias Walones [1]
Prov Granaderos de Andalucia**
IR Irlanda [1]
Granaderos del General**
Vols de Gerona (light)**
Prov de Cordoba

Cavalry 1

Line Regts of Principe**, España** & Montesa**
Dragones de Pavia**

Cavalry 2

Husares de Maria Luisa
Husares Españoles
Cazadores de Olivencia
Caz "Vols de España"
Gran a Cab de Fernando VII

4 Batteries of Foot Artillery (2 ready)

Pioneers & Engineers**

where * means "being painted at present"
** means "have the figures, awaiting painting"
*** means "waiting for figures"

There is also an irregular force available, of 10 small units of guerrilla infantry plus one of irregular cavalry.

There is also discussion of my purchasing a unit of lancers in round hats - may not happen.

1809 Spaniards - Regimiento de Ordenes Militares

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other topics...

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

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

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

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

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

1809 Spaniards - Regimiento de Cantabria

Flag still be be provided - otherwise complete

The dreaded Real Life has rather impacted this last week, but I did manage to finish off another battalion. Cantabria contributed just a single battalion to the Vanguard Division of the Spanish Army at the battle of Ucles (which army is the basis of my target OOB). The real unit was the 21st line regiment of the Spanish army - originally raised as the Tercio de Guipuzcoa (please don't ask me to pronounce that), they were renamed the Regimiento de Cantabria in 1715.

Since I had no idea where (or what) Cantabria is (or might have been) I did a little reading, and I learn that it is a province in the north of Spain, the chief city of which is Santander. Confusingly, I also learn that Guipuzcoa is the Spanish spelling of a Basque province, the capital of which seems to be, erm, Santander - is this just an older name for the same place?

The unit consists mostly of NapoleoN castings, but the drummer is
rather a pleasing little Falcata figure

Currently I have a further 4 Spanish line battalions in various stages of completion - these should be finished in the next week or two - I'll have a proper flag printing session when they are all ready.

Quick question, while I think of it: I took delivery of some pots of Vallejo paint this week, and two of them are metallics, which I am surprised to see require alcohol for thinning and brush cleaning - yes, that's alcohol. I am not proposing to bring the Martell VSOP into service - what is the official brew for this? - meths? - isopropyl? I have both of these - anything else would require me to sign the poisons book at the pharmacist, I think. Is there an official artists' alcohol product?

Expansion #5, and a Question of Tubes

Well, I've paid my ransom money of £17.76 to Royal Mail (that's £9.76 for UK Value Added Tax on an item imported from outside the EU, plus an £8 "handling charge", for the privilege of having my parcel delayed for 2 days at a detention camp in Berkshire), and have now received the promised Expansion #5 for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - "Generals, Marshals & Tacticians" from GMT Games.

I haven't had a proper chance to check it all out yet. There is a reissue of the C&CN Command Cards pack (green backs instead of blue - some tidying up, plus a logical dovetailing with the new Tactician pack), plus the new, additional pack of Tactician Cards, the initial allocation of which at game start-up is based on the ability of the General. There is also a bunch of new scenarios, there are some new unit and terrain types, and there are sheets giving General Tactician ratings for all the past scenarios.

I have steered clear of the C&CN expansions prior to this point. Expansion #1 covered the Spanish Army, but by the time it appeared I had developed my own additional rules for the Spaniards, and I have stuck with them (they are very similar to GMT's, in fact). I have no miniatures for, or particular gaming interest in, Russia, Austria and Prussia, which were the subject matter of Expansions #2 through #4, but I have always thought the role of Leaders in the core game was a bit underwhelming, so I was keen to purchase this latest instalment.

Once again, the production standards are very high and GMT themselves are nice, organised people to deal with - the pre-publication (P500) price represents a good deal, even with the international shipping and RM's ransom demand, and I hope to get some decent value out of the extended rules - what GMT describe as "enhanced fun"!

I'll get the old reading specs on this evening, make some coffee and have a good study - with luck this should encourage me to get the table out for a game next week. Interesting now that I see the scope of what this expansion comprises - prior to this I had very little idea what it would be, so the reality is bound to be more restrictive than the unlimited scope of what it might have been (including all the things I never imagined, of course!).

Looks very good - I hope to say more about this sometime soon. I'm confident you'll find proper, informed reviews of the product all over the place, so I won't attempt anything of the sort, but the mere fact that I, who have scorned all the previous expansions, should have invested in this one is evidence of my devotion!

Separate topic - acrylic paints. When I first started painting again, maybe 12 years ago, after a lengthy sabbatical, with what to me were new-fangled acrylic paints, a friend talked me into using a starter set of acrylic artists colours, in tubes. It didn't go well - I had enough trouble just getting my eye in again with the brushes, and I couldn't get to grips with artists' paints at all - couldn't get the coverage I expected, had problems with mixing and the gloopy textures. I switched to pots of modellers' paints, and have continued thus, quite happily.

My paint collection must have reached a certain age - many of my pots are now turning into chewing gum, and there is a limit to how much reactivation you can do (not to mention the time and the hassle). A big blow during my recent Spanish Grenadiers effort was the demise of my beloved Revell Stahl silver (in a square pot) - it is now metallic chewing gum - visually spectacular but useless.

The time is coming when I'm going to have to replace quite a few of my paints. There is a local problem in that there is no shop selling Citadel or Foundry paints within 40 miles of here, and I don't like buying unfamiliar shades or makes online. There is a Hobbycraft store about 25 miles away, and they sell the DecoArt pots, including the rather excellent Americana series, but the stock is uncertain and there are often gaps on the shelves. None of this is insurmountable, but since I am in any case forced to review my paint preferences, I thought it was probably worth revisiting the topic of artists' acrylics. Again, a friend suggested that was the way to go, though he is not near enough (or supportive enough!) to talk me through this in detail.

So - the point of mentioning the subject - there are certainly a few art suppliers fairly close to here, so availability would be OK. Does anyone reading this have experience or opinions of (tubed) acrylic artists' colours for modelling? I hasten to add that I am not really interested in mixing my own colours, so would tend to use them straight from the tube. I feel it would be silly to overlook these if they would be useful, but even more silly if they were not going to be suitable for my rather childish painting style!

As is always the case with this humble blog, all advice and clues will be gratefully received!

1809 Spaniards - More Grenadiers

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

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

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

1809 Spaniards - The First of the Line Grenadiers

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

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

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

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

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

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

1809 Spaniards - Granaderos a Caballo de Fernando VII

I'm very pleased to welcome another new cavalry unit. The idea for this lot first occurred to me last year - it was the subject of a post on this blog in Sept 2014. There have been a few delays along the way, but here they are, and today I've even got them based up and provided with a flag. All they need now is the regulation (light cavalry) 160mm x 110mm sabot and they will be ready to fight.

The figures, as you will see, are Hinton Hunt conversions. Though "Horse Grenadiers" suggests elite heavy shock cavalry, similar to the French Old Guard regiment, these fellows were nothing of the sort - the title was in all probability merely an attempt at bravado. The historic unit they represent was one of the new regiments formed after 1808. Coronel Fernan Nuñez raised them in Extremadura, and in February 1809 they are described as the Regimiento F Nuñez, while a return from Sevilla, in April of the same year, describes them as Husares. Though they were clearly a light cavalry regiment, similar in style and dress to the line regiments of cazadores a caballo, their title appears to have firmed up as the Granaderos a Caballo de Fernando VII by May 1809.

They have a proper campaign history - the unit fought at Ocaña and elsewhere. By 1810 they had become the Husares de Fernando VII, and pelisses were added to the uniform. In my army they'll be brigaded with the mounted cazadores and the husares, which is where they rightly belong.

1809 Spaniards - Command Figures for Regimiento "Ordenes Militares"

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

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

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

Disappointingly Normal, Really

Can I help you...?

Quite nostalgic, really, in an off-beat kind of way. I see from this blog that the last time I dared set foot in our nearest Games Workshop was in February 2013. I have some kind of nervous illness which makes it very difficult for me to function normally in these stores, I think.

Anyway, on Wednesday of the week-before-last I was feeling a bit giddy – demob-happy? – since I had just been told I was not required after all for jury duty on what was scheduled to be a 5-day trial in the High Court. It did take them 3 days to get around to deciding this, in fact, but I now found myself with some spare time on a nice, sunny afternoon, in suitably good spirits, and within easy walking distance of the aforementioned store.

I had some misgivings, so went for a preliminary cup of coffee to settle my nerves, and there I decided that it was well within my capabilities to just walk calmly into the shop – I even took some small delight in the fact that I was wearing sports jacket, tweed cap and big knitted sweater – I might just scare the Darklings into a compliant state.

So I did it. First surprise was that it is now called Warhammer. The place was unusually quiet – there were three black-clad young men sitting around a large game in the centre of the room, and I think that they all work there – or worship there, or whatever it is. My arrival usually sparks some unrest, since the obvious conclusion is that I must be an elderly wino who has wandered in to get out of the rain. On this occasion, however, they were very polite – charming, even. The nearest young man said, “Were you looking for something?”, and I said, “I’d just like to have a look at the paint racks, if that’s OK.”

Have to admit I wasn't really looking my best

“What kind of paint?” [tricky question that – I have only an approximate idea what the various paints are called, never mind what they do – on another day I might have been unnerved enough to run out of the store]

“If I can just have a browse around….?”

No objection, so I carried on. Eventually I was asked,

“What you working on at the moment?”

Here we go. “I’m painting some units for a Spanish army – Napoleonic period – I have been building it up for a few years now.”

“Oh – right – erm, cool!” came the  answer, and that ended the discussion.

I was hip enough to know that my favoured Citadel Blood Red is now called Evil Sunz Scarlet (discuss), and I found my way around the racks without hitch, so was quite relaxed by the time I took my three chosen pots to the checkout.

Happy as a pig in wassname...

The manager (or Arch Lord, or whatever) served me at the till, and he was polite and articulate and quite a few things which took me by surprise; in particular, he was very pleasant, and not patronising at all, and his eye-contact levels were very good.

I returned to the real world with my little bag of paints, quite chuffed with my success. No complaints at all, but it is faintly disturbing to have one’s prejudices shaken like this. Is it possible that the Warhammer lot are [and I apologise for the use of the term] growing up? Are they now, in turn, threatened by some newer, younger, even spottier phenomenon? The shop was very quiet – could they have reached a point where they are forced to treat visiting winos as though they might be potential customers?

I sat on the train home, my mind filled with wondrous thoughts, and dozed off in the warm sunshine. Fortunately I live at the terminus…

1809 Spaniards - Command Figures for Regimiento La Corona

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1809 Spaniards - some more test figures

Recently I've got into the habit of painting up prototype figures to see what the uniforms for specific units will look like, and how much work they involve. Here's another couple of trials for Spanish line regiments - on the left is a fusilier of the Regimiento de Ordenes Militares, in the 1805 regulation uniform (white with dark blue facings for this lot, and not much blue in this case), and on the right is the Regimiento de la Corona, in the 1802 uniform (which was the same for all line infantry regiments). Things did not happen very quickly in the Spanish army - Ordenes Militares received their 1805 kit by March 1808, while the Corona boys did not receive their 1802 uniforms until August 1804, and both these units would still have been dressed like this picture at the Battle of Ucles in 1809.

Notice also my "Silence of the Lambs" jeweller's loop specs, with which I have been known to frighten the postie if he rings the doorbell while I am painting, the base of my daylight lamp and one of my dad's old watercolour brushes, courtesy of HM Stationery Office, 1966 - still in good shape.

I was also toying with the idea of painting a staff figure or two tonight - I have Marshal Suchet and his aides to paint, and there is a bit of a backlog of other interesting little projects - including a Portuguese colonel - but the challenge of making a decision proved too much, so I'll try to make a choice tomorrow night.

Zzzzzz.

Sky Blue Pink with a Finny-Haddy Border

With better luck, this would have been a post about my trip on Saturday to the Durham Light Infantry Museum (that’s right, madam – in Durham), but I didn’t make it. After dithering over the weather forecast for an hour longer than I should have, I left home around 10am – Durham is about two and a half hours drive from here, and the museum is open 10:30 until 4pm.

The A1 in Northumberland, on a relatively dry day...

Alas, before I got to the border the rain was torrential, and it remained so – could hardly see through the spray, and I had the demister blowing so loud I couldn’t hear Wes Montgomery on the stereo. Not good. Near Stannington, not far north of Newcastle, there were some fairly routine roadworks, which required two lanes of the dual carriageway to merge into one, to be joined shortly afterwards by a busy slip road coming in from the left. Much too demanding for your average British motorist, I fear – no-one will give way; merging of traffic lanes is a simple process, screwed up by heroes (mostly in white 4WD BMWs, on Saturday) who insist on driving up the closed outside lane and forcing their way in at the bottleneck, thus gaining some 200 feet of priority in the queue, but stopping the whole thing dead. By the time I reached Washington services my Durham ETA had slipped by some 50 minutes, and the rain was coming on heavier again, after a brief lull. At best I could expect to get about an hour at the museum before it closed, and I was growing anxious about delays on the return trip. I had coffee and a piece of industrial chocolate cake at Washington, cast an expert eye at the lowering sky, and then headed for home, muttering. The weather and the traffic were both better than expected on the way back, in fact, and I survived to attempt the trip again in a week or two.

So – no news of Durham, and I wouldn’t recommend the chocolate cake.

Right – subject 2.

Painted miniature of an officer in the 1802 uniform

I am preparing to paint up another regiment for my 1809 Spanish army – this will be two battalions of the Regimiento de la Corona, and I intend to paint them in the 1802 regulation uniform, which involves jackets in what Godoy specified as deep sky blue – a shade which seems to be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. I have seen actual sky blue, and the Peter Bunde plates show it as a sort of royal blue. Hmmm.

Peter Bunde plate - not helped by the current state of my scanner

Any opinions on this? I was going to try for a sort of medium blue, not too psychedelic – my preferred options at present are a choice of two old Citadel colours which I have to hand - Ultramarine Blue, and Enchanted Blue – I have no idea what these are called now. I have the Cronin and Summerfield book, the Histoires et Collections volume on Ocaña and all the Bueno books for the period – inconclusive – in any case my colour vision is probably a bit dodgy anyway, but the problem with plates in books is that the reproduction is uncertain, and we don’t really know what the author intended.

So – Spanish soldiers, 1802 uniform – “deep-sky” jackets with black facings, edged red, red turnbacks, brass buttons – what do you reckon? What shade of blue? All clues welcome.

1809 Spaniards - Regimiento de Burgos

Two further battalions - more fine work by Lee (thanks again, mate!).

This 1809 Spanish army is progressing so well that there is only one more battalion of white-uniformed line infantry still to be painted. There are still a couple of battalions of The Royal Guard to come, and a two battalion line regiment in the 1802 blue and black uniform, plus various grenadier and light infantry units. Then, of course, there will be some cavalry, there are two field batteries to paint up, and after that we are onto odd bods like sappers and more generals and ADCs - it seems a lot when you list it like this, but we're getting there.

Really very pleased with all this - if anyone cares, these are NapoleoN figures, though the mounted colonels are a hybrid Kennington/Falcata conversion, one has a NapoleoN horse, the other has a Falcata one.

1809 Spaniards - Milicias Provinciales completed

...and here are the same flags, with attached infantry. Four battalions of provinciales, in M1805 regulation dress, with a proportion of the other ranks in brown jackets instead of white. For what seemed like good reasons at the time, I did one battalion in white, one in brown, and two mixed. All officers have white jackets, since rank has its privileges.

My thanks to my friend Goya for help with the command figures.

These fellows look fine - I'm pleased with them - but this is the militia, gentlemen - in Commands & Colors these fellows suffer triple retreats, so they need to be treated with care. Fortunately they are spread among the line divisions...

I took photos with and without flash, and since I didn't think either was very successful, I've posted both! These guys can now go safely into the box files, and I can start looking at some more cavalry. I'm also giving some thought to a "unit" of British infantry (mixed facings) armed with shovels, to provide some labour for siege trenches. Hmmm - spoiled for choice!

1809 Spaniards - Interim Group Photo

The new guys are at the far end

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

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

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

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

New, bicorne-hatted infantry

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

Assorted Staff bods - more to come

The voluntarios and other units shared with the 1812 army

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

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

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Late edit: Completely different topic...

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

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

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

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