WSS: And Still They Come...

 Really on a hot streak now. Having been pleased with the three British battalions I finished off last week, here comes a unit painted by Count F Goya, which puts everything back into perspective. These chaps are Archibald Rowe's Regt, or the [Royal] Scottish Fusiliers by any other name.

Again, figures are all Les Higgins/PMD 20mm (1/76), apart from the colonel, who is an Irregular chap (?) on a Higgins horse (that's how we do things around here).

Thanks again, Goya, the boys are raring to go.

WSS: More British Foot Completed

 After a day's delay, occasioned by my deciding I really had to produce my own version of the flag for North & Grey's Regiment, the three new units are now ready for war. This is all Blenheim period...

 

On what looks rather like Joe Morschauser's breakfast table, here is the regiment of Baron North & Grey (surely one of the sillier titles?), also known as the Earl of Bath's Regt. I refuse to discuss these chaps in terms of regimental numbers which weren't thought of for another 50 years (although it seems everyone does...). The flags were quite a lot of work, but worth it.

 

This is the Duke of Marlborough's Regt (aka Edward Dering's)

 

And this is Scrope Howe's Regt (aka Sir Wm Clifton's). Scrope Howe not one of the great names, either, really

Since it seemed a pity to miss out on the opportunity, I fetched Ferguson's Regt out of the Really Useful Boxes, and lined up a group photo of what could be my first British brigade - if they only had a general...

It's OK - all in the pipeline. I'm waiting for cavalry figures and guns to arrive in the mail, and I have the next couple of battalions ready to go on the bottletops. Coming along nicely.

***** Late Edit *****

I've been using flags from Warflag and the War Office for my WSS armies, though I had to put in some original effort for my Imperial troops. For the French, my intention is to use Warflag, and I'll maybe dust off my blog note on texturing using Photoshop. There are also some lovely flags on the Not By Appointment blog, of course, (though they tend to be more towards the SYW) and I always keep an eye on Ray's smashing work on Don't Throw a 1 (though his are usually a bit earlier than the WSS).

Since I couldn't find flags for North & Grey's regiment with high enough resolution in a decent size, I had a go myself. If you're not offended by the stock clip-art "Sun in His Splendour", I thought they might be useful for anyone else who, like me, couldn't get hold of the appropriate Robert Hall sheet(!).

I might texture them, in fact, if I get into texturing the French ones, but for the moment I'm pleased enough with this - at 20mm scale, the textured flags sometimes look as though someone dropped them in the dirt!

******************

WSS: The Refurb Factory Chugs On, plus a "Missing Link"

 I'm currently working on a British contingent for my WSS collection - I've been lucky enough to get some figures painted by Goya, but at a more humble level I've been working on refurbing some bought-in troops - these are variously sourced from eBay, from the old Rye Soldier Shop and from that all-round Good Egg, Albannach. The ex-Eric Knowles collection I bought in 2019 did not include much in the way of British troops, since the British were one of the nations which Eric had been in the process of replacing with Hinchliffe.

Anyway, today I've varnished a batch of refurbed musketeers, these are for the regiments of Wm Clifton, Dering and the Earl of Bath, and the grenadiers and the rest of the command, to complete the battalions, will be painted from scratch, from fresh figures. Using this procedure, I also plan to add the Royal Irish and the Buffs, plus (probably) two battalions of the Royal Scots, and I will source the Foot Guards from fresh figures. Still a load of cavalry and artillery needed, but this is shaping up.

The musketeers here are the Les Higgins MP15 "at ease" pose, and the officer is one of the castings from the MP19 pack. With an unusually seamless glide, I shall now move onto my second topic, which is all about this very MP19 pose...

 Collectors of old figures invariably become nerdy about the history of the poses, and the changes and variants (is it all right to say that?) which appeared over the years of production. I am getting into this situation with the Les Higgins/Phoenix Model Developments Marlburians, which I had hardly seen 18 months ago, so nerdism obviously sets in quickly. There are a number of figures in the range which were replaced after the changeover to PMD (early 1970s) - a couple of poses which were standing on one leg (and therefore fragile) were modified, and the drummer figure was completely replaced by a new one, sculpted by Tim Richards (who became chief designer after Les Higgins' death), as was the advancing/charging musketeer (MP16?).

One of the figures which was modified is the charging officer from the MP19 pack (as mentioned above). It was never one of Les's best, to be honest, and at some point it was improved. I have specimens of the original and the improved production castings...

Here you see, from left to right, original (front), improved (front), original (rear) and improved (rear) - you can see that the wig and the ornamentation on his coat have been modified, and his coat has been restyled at the back so that it now drapes over his sword scabbard. OK - that's a nice example of an upgrade, and it probably dates from when the Higgins ranges were re-branded as PMD (with changed logos on the bases).

However, in this particular case I happen to have in my possession the actual altered master figure, with added sculpting in beeswax and Plasticine (or something), which came with an assortment of oddments from Tim Richards' old desk drawer in the old PMD factory at Earls Barton - here it is - the Missing Link - the step between the original and the revised production charging officer in MP19. You can see quite clearly what Tim has done. Notice that the face is still Les' original sculpt, but that the shape of the back of the hat has been tweaked.

 

That's probably enough of that - I've put him back in the official Nerd's Drawer - Box B...

WSS: First of the Brits!

 All hail to Goya, who has very kindly painted some more figures for me. Very nice too - if it wasn't for him, there would be no painting at all going on here this last couple of weeks.

Here we have The Earl of Angus's Regt of Foot*, also known as Ferguson's Regt by 1704, also known (unofficially?) as the Cameronians. The figures are Les Higgins/PMD 20mm, as usual, while the mounted officer (though not his horse) is from Irregular. Photos give a choice of with or without flash, since I couldn't make my mind up. These are not refurbed figures - all fresh castings.

Very pleased to add these chaps to the boxes - at last I have a "Dutch school" unit to join in the games!

Thanks again, Goya. Lovely job.

* Historical Clap-trap: The Earl of Angus in question was James Douglas, son of the 2nd Marquess of Douglas. He raised the regiment in 1689, when he was 18, and died at its head at the Battle of Steenkerque, in 1692, when he was 21. He was, of course, one of the "Red" Douglases, a family I take an interest in since they owned Tantallon Castle, which is next door to where I live. By the 1690s, however, after George Monck had wrecked Tantallon in 1651, following the Battle if Dunbar, the Red Douglas lot were living in their other castle, at - well, Castle Douglas...

WSS: The Missing Flag Appears

 Quick footnote to yesterday's game - I've now fitted a 75cm (in scale!) flag to the Imperial C-in-C stand, and photos are necessary. I've also added the requisite magnetic sheet, and the chaps are now safely stored away with their army in the Really Useful Boxes.

I'm pleased because getting this group painted and based has been another hanging-around task, but am also interested because it gave me a chance try out some combinations of figure makers.

Here they are - the gentleman in the brown (civilian) coat is the boss - he could be Prince Eugene himself if it weren't for the moustache. Mind you, old PE wore some pretty outrageous wigs, so a false muzzer can't be completely out of the question? - maybe it was Mo-vember?

The commander is a Les Higgins casting on a Higgins horse, which is an obvious and standard arrangement hereabouts; the adjutant in the blue coat is an Irregular casting on an SHQ (ECW period) horse, and the standard bearer is Irregular on a Hinton Hunt ECW horse, and I'm delighted to see that these all work nicely, and are happily compatible with each other.

 

The flag - if you have exceptional eyesight - is the correct edition of the arms of the Holy Roman Empire for the time of Leopold I. It would be a terrible thing, I'm sure you'll agree, if I had got that wrong.

WSS: Quick, Snappy Parade

You want it good, or you want it Thursday?

[Nelson Riddle]

 

I was sorting out some flags and putting the finished boys in a better order in the boxes. Since I am now about a year into this project, I thought some commemorative photos would be appropriate. Time is a bit short this morning, since I have to go to get my car fixed, so there will some grumbling in the ranks about order of precedence and all that, but here are my Austrian and Bavarian armies for circa 1703, in their current state.

The Austrians - they are due to get a proper command stand for the C-in-C, and there are two battalions in mid-refurb, otherwise we are just about there.

The Bavarians - nothing in the to-do list for these chaps, so I guess they are done for Phase 1

Next up? - well I'm keen to get some siege and fortress artillery done, so they can join in with Vauban's Wars, and (to be strictly honest) the Austrians and Bavarians could each use an extra regiment of horse, and after that I have a lot of French and British troops to sort out. Team photos are reassuring - it reminds me that a lot has been done! Many thanks to Goya for help with infantry painting.

No social distancing in 1703.

A Little WSS Painting, and Some Light Reading Matter on Peninsular Sieges...

 Even by my standards, this is probably going to be a fairly shambolic post as far as structure goes. If you're up for it, here goes.

First off, I have finally painted up the dismounted contingent of my first unit of Imperial dragoons for the WSS - nothing remarkable, in any sense, but they have been hanging around, unpainted, getting on my nerves, for some months. The figures are 20mm Irregular castings. The unit is the Aufseß Dragoons, who were not Austrian, but from the Frankischer Kreis. The mounted chaps came from the Eric Knowles hoard, so my task was merely to paint the dismounted element to look fairly similar to Eric's brushwork. OK - good - all based and magnetised and in the official Very Useful Boxes.

Otherwise, I have mostly been continuing my work on preparing for some serious testing and rehearsing of some siege games. The big recent change, of course, has been the eventual publication of Eric Burgess's Vauban's Wars. All very good - I am on my third read-through and I have copious notes, getting ready to go. At this point it gets just a little complicated...

The obvious starting point would be some actual Vauban-style warfare, for which my new WSS armies would be ideal, except that, as yet, I do not have any proper siege artillery for them (though, of course, I soon shall). They could borrow some ECW units to help out, I guess, but that would be a disappointingly shabby compromise for a first effort. Therefore, by default, I shall start off with some Peninsular War actions, for which I have more than enough troops - even the specialists.

In preparation for this magnificent stage in my wargaming development, I have been collecting bits of fortresses, and mortars, and engineers, and all sorts, for ages, and have spent years reading about the sieges in the Peninsular War. The immediate issue arising here is that most of what I have read has been a collection of heavily British narratives about Ciudad Rodrigo (though only the successful Anglo-Portuguese siege, of course), and Badajoz (same qualifier), and Burgos, and San Sebastian - plus snippets about the Salamanca forts and so on.

Nothing wrong with any of this, of course, but two points come straight out of the woodwork:

(1) There were a great many sieges in the Guerra de la Independencia, of which only a few involved the British army. Having read more widely, and given a free choice, I would dearly love to follow the adventures of Marshal Suchet, conquering all those exotic Spanish-held towns in the North East - Tarragona, Tortosa, all that. There were the French assaults on Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, as well, not to mention Sarragossa and some real biggies. OK - that's all excellent - plenty of variety.

(2) Spain and Portugal were relatively poor countries, and never had the resources (or priority) to carry out major programmes of modernisation of their fortresses. If you are looking for something like a modern, Vauban-approved style of fort, then there were very few - Almeida is one passable example. The range of defensive architecture involved was remarkable - which, again, is good for the student and the gamer because of the variety and because of the exotic places involved. Astorga was basically a Roman fortress in 1809, and there were medieval and Moorish-style castles all over the place, with greater or lesser degrees of improvement. 

Here you go - Vauban himself might have recognised Almeida as a viable fortress, though not when the magazines blew up...

Ciudad Rodrigo, as an example, had been modernised (a bit) in 1776 - the old, high, masonry walls were masked by the placement of fausse-braies in front of them - which served to give some protection from siege guns in the plains surrounding the town, but did not achieve the same amount of security from guns placed up on the Teson heights. Gradual patching-up of old fortresses to cope with the increasing power and potential of modern cannon was always going to be difficult, and these botched-together forts were not wonderful - that is why the style of the sieges tended to be "quick and dirty" - Vauban would have been surprised at the rushed timescales and the relative lack of science.

One other thing to think about is that the fausse-braie add-ons were usually made of earth. That's pretty crude, on the face of it, but the great thing about earthworks is that you can fire cannonballs at them all day without knocking them down, so additional tricks of the trade were developed - if you really wanted a hole in the enemy's earth banks, explosive howitzer shells were a necessary part of the assault. If you wanted to dig parallels in the dead of night, you had to use big parties of infantry to get the work done.

That's enough of this sketchy walk-through, I think. I've been doing a lot of reading (I seem to have acquired quite a lot of books over the years), and have enjoyed it thoroughly. One thing for sure is that it would be a bad idea for me to put a huge effort into tweaking Eric Burgess's excellent game right at the outset to cope with the local weirdnesses of the Peninsula, and thus I plan to move onto some proper Vauban-type gaming as early as possible. On the other hand, I have been very interested in the Peninsular War's sieges for a long time, and I am delighted to gain a little more understanding of how they worked.

Many of my English-language books consist extensively of quotes from each other. The most valuable original source (if you are happy to read French) is JV Belmas' Journaux des Siéges Faits ou Soutenus par les Français dans la Péninsule, de 1807 à 1814, published in 4 volumes in 1836. This is (or recently was) available as a set of pdf files from Google Books; if you are really interested and can't find a downloadable copy, get in touch and I may be able to provide some extra information. There are copious tables of equipment, ammunition consumed, losses, materials captured, OOBs and so on. Sadly there are no maps, though Lipscombe's atlas can provide some useful back-up.

New Troops and Old Trees

I have a couple of new units for my WSS collection - very kindly painted by Goya and much appreciated. I based and flagged them yesterday. They are both grenadier battalions for the Bavarian army.

These are the "red grenadiers" which fought at the Schellenberg - the Boismorel Grenadiers, a (supposedly) French emigré unit donated by Louis XIV to the Elector's forces. The Colonel/Owner of the unit was one Monseigneur Boismorel, who was very well-connected, and seems to have spent his brief military service in the cafés of Munich. The man on the horse, then, must be Lt.Col De La Colonie, whose memoirs I am currently reading. Fascinating book, though Colonie may be the biggest braggart before Marbot - he's a wow with the ladies, his military achievements are breathtaking, he is slighted and wronged by all sorts of people - particularly his colonel - he is constantly arranging or threatening duels. Very exciting. The figures are Les Higgins 20mm, from long ago. These are fresh painted bare-metal castings, not my usual refurb efforts. The Boismorels (yes - "forest mushrooms") were originally planned as a 3-battalion unit, two of fusiliers and one of grenadiers, based on the organisation of the Bavarian Leibregiment, but only one battalion was raised. That's probably why they had a mixture of hats.

And here are the grenadier battalion of the aforementioned Leibregiment. Thus we have red grenadiers and blue grenadiers. That's fine - I can understand that. Nice, eh? Thanks again, Goya!

One thing I don't really understand (though I suppose I could find out quite easily) is why the Bavarians had formal grenadier battalions as early as 1703 - I don't know who else did. The British, French and Austrians all had grenadier companies as part of each fusilier battalion, and sometimes on the battlefield such companies might be combined for some special task or assault, but the practice of keeping these converged groupings of grenadiers together on a semi-permanent basis doesn't seem to have caught on, though it obviously did later. Certainly I don't know of any named grenadier battalions elsewhere. I would have expected the Bavarian army to be very like the Austrian or French model, but not in this instance. Prussian?

Topic 2: Landscaping

You know how gardens are - you see problems gradually taking shape, keep putting off the moment, and one day your hand is forced and you have to get something done. Nothing desperate, but it has to be done.

(1) Our driveway is curved - negotiating it in the sort of darkness you don't get in cities is made much more difficult by having to bypass a chicane of sorts - a border which once upon a time (before my days here) was a rhododendron bed. Now it is just a mess and a nuisance. We'll straighten out the driveway, then. If we change our minds in the future, we can always add potted shrubs or something.

(2) By the garden path, we have two juniper "shrubs" which never understood when they were supposed to stop growing. They have already been shortened a few years ago (to prevent their interfering with the radio transmission which brings our broadband service, and to stop their shading the neighbour's garden in the afternoon), and it made them extremely ugly. Now they are blocking the path, encroaching on the driveway and (potentially) threatening the septic tank. The problem with junipers is that they cannot be cut back - they are black beneath the skin and will not grow back or green up. If you have a look online you will find a great many people asking, "what can I do with my overgrown juniper?", and the answer from the experts is invariably, "get rid of it and plant a new tree".

Righto - the time has come. Work starts tomorrow. We are thinking what sort of tree would be a good replacement. I have not mentioned it to anyone yet, but it has occurred to me that a couple of new juniper shrubs would take 25 years to get back to this state...

While I had my camera in the garden, I took a photo of the lane past our front gate, which a week or so ago was flooded - the way it slopes stops the water coming into our garden, but the lane itself gave a very good impersonation of a shallow river heading down the hill at the height of the rainstorm. The square which you can just see the entrance to in the distance is equipped with very big storm drains - it's obvious why this is so!

 

Wet Day - Keeping Busy...

Very nice, sunny morning first thing, but it gradually clouded over and from early afternoon we've had what one might describe as biblical rain. At one point I had to get the recycling out to the bin, and I stood in the downpour to watch what looked like a shallow river running down the lane outside our gate. Yes, I got a bit damp, but it was worth it - not much happens around here.

Among the boxes of soldiers from the Eric Knowles collection which I have here, waiting for refurbishment, there are some generals and staff figures. A lot of these are very early Hinton Hunts, and the quality of the castings is a revelation to those of us who first met up with HH in the 1970s. I've done very little with these fellows thus far, so I decided to have a go at one. The original painting was of a very nice quality, but, being singly-based commanders, they have been subjected to a lot of handling, so the paint is worn in places, and the colours have (obviously) faded during the last 50-odd years.

So here is my new General Lord Somerset (though he could be almost anyone), a vintage Hinton Hunt BN107 OPC figure, freshly retouched and based, fronting his (ex-Eric) Household Brigade, ready for Waterloo if required.

I also glued up some of these. This is the production run of the Max Foy Mark 2 Siege Doofer (Vauban version) - Michael of Supreme Littleness did a nice job on these. I shall slap some paint on them sometime this week. All taking shape on the siege front - I'm waiting for the postie to bring me my latest shipment of trenches (they're in transit from Fat Frank's emporium).

This evening I'm listening to the Burnley vs Spurs match on Radio 5 Live, while working to set up a battlefield for Thursday. Still some work to do, but a decent start. You may hear more of this. Note the bag of Orange Chocolate Minis, courtesy of Terry's Chocolate - other sweets are available, of course, but these are the official confectionery of choice of Foy's Battlefield Construction plc.  

Now you're talking - these bags are now resealable, so you can have one or two minis and put them away for later. Can't understand that at all - surely they would go stale? Certainly I can't remember ever having a bag which lasted into a second day. Still, it's an interesting development.

Stirrings from the Attic

 I've been working away quietly in my semi-isolated state - done a fair amount of painting, refurbing and sorting-out. Here are a few quick pictures, from recent tasks which actually produced something.

I finally completed a unit of Spanish granaderos provinciales which I started (according to my notes) in March 2017 - which is not especially slow by my own standards! Figures are mostly OOP Falcata.

I replaced the crews for two French foot artillery batteries, using retouched ex-Eric Knowles Hinton Hunts - I used my original guns, which are Hinchliffe 20mm. The previous gunners were (whisper it) overscale Prinz August home-casts, very poorly painted, which resulted in these batteries being confined to the French Artillery boxfiles for many years (I'm beginning to understand how they must have felt) - now they can get out and shoot at someone.

David Crook, who saw these little chaps on my table via a Zoom visit, became quite emotional at the thought of these old soldiers getting back into action after so many years, in a form which we hope Eric would have approved of!

For my WSS collection, Goya very kindly painted some more Imperial troops - these are the two battalions of the Regiment of the Markgraf of Baden-Baden, in official shiny WSS varnish.

And I've also been working away steadily on bits and pieces for future siege games (I now have taken delivery of the Vauban's Wars rules and the posh playing cards, and am studying for my diploma). Here you see one of my handicraft evenings, cutting various length strips of 1-inch wide brown felt, to serve as forward saps in the game...

...and here is the start of a small set of mini-units for siege infantry - in this case the Peninsular War department. There is no strict requirement to re-base anything for the VW games,  but I have taken a liking to these little 12-man units, mounted in 3s on skinny little bases, which can sit comfortably in trenches and on walls and covered ways. This may seem a bit extravagant, but it gives me a really useful job for some Lamming figures that don't really have a home, and other various spares from the Deep Boxes. In particular, a good number of marching figures and "standing firing" fusiliers, which normally I don't use, can get a gig at sieges.

I'm not doing anything fancy with these - just a quick touch-up if needed, some fresh varnish and stick them on the skinny bases. Initial target is about a dozen such units for each side - normal units from my standard collection will be fine for tactical events like storms and sallies, if numbers are short!

I'm also adding to my collection of trench sections and gun emplacements, and some odd-shaped earthworks pieces to serve as a fausse braie for the medieval walls of places like Ciudad Rodrigo (Vauban never got as far as Spain, as far as I can see - the proper Vauban kit will come in very nicely for the WSS...).

Once again, I've bought in scenery pieces from that fine chap Fat Frank, still going strong in his eBay shop. You can get your trenches made to order, with or without sandbags!

I'm sure there will be more pictures soon - in the meantime, I hope you are well, and keeping safe.

One Crossed Off the Job List...

 

According to this blog, in October 2011 I added the Lanceros de Castilla to my 1812-period Spanish army, and I made a note at the time that I needed to fit red pennons to their lances. Almost nine years later, gentlemen, I have not done anything about this, but, before you gasp in astonished disappointment, let me add that this very week I have read that it is very probable that this regiment did not fit their pennons when on campaign.

YES.

That will do nicely.

I shall now amend my Napoleonic Catalogue notes to say that this unit is complete, and I shall move on. Another triumph. Just goes to prove that you should never rush into anything. That was smart planning on my part, to delay this little job. What's that I hear? Do I have any confirmation or cross reference for this new information I have read? I regret that I have now placed my fingers in my ears, and am singing, very loudly.

 TRALALALALALA!

WSS - King Louis' Footbath

Time to get back to the WSS refurb work, so I'm starting with some easy stuff - let's soak the old bases off some ex-Eric Knowles French infantry, and clean them up, ready for retouching. In fact these guys look pretty good - there are a few bent muskets to sort out (and associated flaked paint) but by and large these look mostly like a wash and varnish job. [If I had a pound for every time I've thought this, I would have - ooh - several pounds, I would think]

First WSS job in the queue, strictly speaking, is an Austrian regiment, IR Haßlingen (2 battalions), which is hanging over from Phase 1, so I'll get started with them. These French chaps, once I have counted them and sorted out what's what, can get boxed up as potential battalions, then the next footbath load will be some more French, from elsewhere. After that I'm looking at British and Dutch, and goodness knows where we get to from there, but first off I need to work out a supply of cavalry - I have a load of cavalry figures, but they are all strip-and-start-again stuff. There will be a shortage of vintage figures for cavalry and artillery, so I'll also check out what I need to get in from Irregular. I'm also thinking seriously of having two standards per battalion for both French and British, just for the look of the thing, so I'll have a look at that. I also rather fancy getting some mounted officers from Irregular to provide French colonels, since the no-cuirass look is better for them

So - one step at a time - these French chappies can be soaking for a few days while I get set up to paint Haßlingen. Once they are clean and I have played around at organising them into units I can decide what else I need to get in. Busy busy. Idle hands are the Devil's fake news.


Footnote: today I have switched back to the "legacy" version of Blogger, since the new one will not allow me to set up a new post. The new one also will not let me collect a folder of images, to be inserted one at a time as I require them. With New Blogger, as far as I can see, you have to upload your images as you need them - if you don't insert them immediately, in a single lot, you will lose the folder and have to upload them again. Oh well. The new version has been going fairly well, and offers some facilities the old one didn't have - no doubt I'll like it again in a week or two, but at the moment it is a pain in the erse.

British Dragoons Finished

I see that it is only three and a half weeks or something since I finished restoring the troopers for my two late-war dragoon regiments, but my painting mojo fell into a trough of some sort after that, and it's only now that I've finished the command figures to complete the units. Anyway, it's done, and I'm pleased with them.

These originally were part of Eric Knowles' vast collection. They were a single regiment, but I use smaller unit sizes than Eric did, so I have split them into two. Here, then, are the 1st (Royal) and 3rd (King's Own) Dragoons, which, as far as I can tell (courtesy of Mr Franklin's book), were pretty much identical. The only slight issue was that I came upon a trumpeter of the Royals in reversed colours in one of the plates in Commandant Lachouque's Waterloo, but that seems unlikely enough by this late date for me to disregard it.

The troopers are Hinton Hunt one-piece castings (OPC), catalogue no BN 40. There were no matching command figures, so my solution was to mount SHQ/Kennington officers and trumpeters on Hinton Hunt horses (BNH3). Everything went pretty well - a lot of carving was needed to get the castings to fit, but it was an easy enough job, and they look fine. In fact the separate HH horses are very slightly taller than the OPC jobs. I thought of filing down the bases a bit, but these are very old HH castings, and the alloy is very soft anyway, so I left them. They are fine.

I have now placed them safely in The Cupboard, and can move on to the next challenge with a light heart!

Sir William Ponsonby

Over the last few weeks, my soldier painting has just dried up altogether. I was doing really rather well, but we've had some family problems, which have been a major distraction, and I seem to have just lost motivation. I'm trying to pick it up again this weekend. I hope to finish off the two British dragoon regiments I was working on - they only lack their command figures, and they are coming along now.

Since these dragoons are in the Waterloo period uniform, I decided it would be pleasing to paint up their brigade commander at Waterloo, Sir Wm Ponsonby, to go with them. I was very lucky in that Goya donated a repaired Hinton Hunt figure (thank you again, sir), and he is now ready for action.

Sir Wm Ponsonby, MP for Londonderry 1812-15.  He is riding one of his second-string horses, a fact which he must have regretted when the lancers got after him at Waterloo. Damn bad luck.

I had a HH Ponsonby some years ago - it wasn't a great casting, and it got cleared out when I had a sudden rush of blood to the elbow and decided to replace all my 20mm generals with 25mm ones - an idea that must have lasted all of six months. My previous Ponsonby had a light tan riding coat - I didn't have access to Marcus's painting instructions in those days. This new one is a much better casting, and I've painted him as Uncle Marcus would have wished.

This is not just a one-hit Waterloo special - I shall use the figure to represent John Gaspard Le Marchant in an earlier period (he didn't last long either, come to think of it). I can ditch my current Le Marchant figure, which is an S-Range conversion of mine that I have never liked. In fact, given that his uniform is more or less invisible, this new chap can serve as any odd British commander. Useful.

Anyway - here we have Hinton Hunt BN257, painted and everything - he should have a brigade to command by Sunday night.

Napoleonic Refurb Work - British Dragoons

It's been rather hot in the attic this week for extended painting sessions, but I've finally finished the refurb work on some ex-Eric Knowles British Dragoons. These are Hinton Hunts of great vintage, having been present at the 1965 Waterloo Anniversary game at the Duke of York's Headquarters. Accordingly, out of respect, my efforts have been directed at restoring the faded and worn sections of Eric's original paintwork rather than blitzing it and starting afresh [I understand that maintenance work on the Mona Lisa, for example, is approached in the same way!].

All based, with gaps left for the command figures

One consequence of this is that it has been quite a lot of work to get the figures to a state which I would describe as "good but not perfect" [which is probably how the job reports on the Mona Lisa read, too].

A few nights ago, at about 1am, I found myself working away, smartening up the piping on Eric's original turnbacks (in 20mm), and I was laughing to myself, wondering how I had managed to get here. Some of the original paint has also roughened a bit over the years, which makes it something of a challenge to get horse harnesses and so on to brush on smoothly over the top, but I got there.

Anyway, having reminded myself that Napoleonic uniforms are more labour-intensive than the WSS, I am now left with the job of adding some converted command figures to complete the two units, which are to be the 1st and 3rd Dragoons. I don't propose to start hacking up 50-year-old Hintons for spare parts, so the trumpeters and officers will be SHQ/Kennington figures, mounted on Hinton Hunt horses. Shouldn't take too long.

Sieges - Vauban Makeover

I'm very excited about the imminent publication of Eric Burgess's Vauban's Wars rules, which should be appearing very shortly. It's appropriate that I should make some effort to prepare for this momentous event by getting on with some smartening-up work that's been in the queue since the end of last year. That's what I was doing yesterday.

Last night - just the final dry-brushing with my house "dust" colour to go, and then some heavy-duty matt varnish.

I've now arranged that the Vauban-period walls should be a similar colour to the medieval walls I have, so that I can build hybrid fortresses as necessary (I had already taken this step with the 3-D printed pieces I obtained recently), I've repainted the glacis sections so that they match the house baseboard colour and I've smartened things up generally. One of the shades of brown paint which had been used by the Terrain Warehouse people on the walls (10 years ago? More?) had reacted badly to one of my previous attempts to varnish them, and had become a strange, mottled grey-brown, so I fixed that, and cleaned up the rest of the paintwork where required.

They are now sitting while the varnish cures, then they can go back in their boxes.

Finished; today, waiting for the varnish to cure a bit before packing away.

Tubs and Jars and Boxes

Today is my last chance to cut the lawns before the gardener comes tomorrow - it's raining. You may wonder why there is some pressure to get this job done if the gardener is coming. Partly this is a matter of self-respect, if I don't do the lawns between his visits, there is just a whiff of smug contempt when he comes; more seriously, I begrudge paying him for time spent doing a job I could (should) have done myself - there is no way I am about to climb up the big hedge with a ladder and a petrol trimmer - that's what I want to be paying him for!

So this morning I am doing a little tidying around the house. I thought I might take some pictures of the various hobby jobs I have around the place this week. The pervading theme seems to be one of storage, but it was ever thus, I guess.

Dragoons in the bath - these should be a very easy refurb job - 1st & 3rd British Dragoons soaking in a very mild detergent wash, to clean off half a century of muck and the remains of the cardboard bases. I'll get them retouched and varnished, and mount them on their new MDF bases, leaving gaps...

...for their officers and trumpeters, who will need a little more work!

Meanwhile, I have been doing some more editing and testing of my (slowly) evolving WSS rules, which are really shaping up nicely. The last big job will be to produce an intelligible leaflet and a decent QRS. You may observe a rather flexible approach to a hex gridded battlefield.

Whiteboards are very useful chaps - this is version 23.5 of the Firing Rules, which is pretty stable now - we are getting somewhere when there are no swear-words in the draft!

War in a Box - this is the current state of the WSS armies, and - yes - the bases are magnetised, and the Really Useful Boxes are lined with Ferro Sheet (the stuff which replaced Steel Paper).

Look, there are soldiers in there!

A jar of Imperialists - there is a delay with the Regt Hasslingen - about 16 or 17 of their number are pickling in the stripper jar; this is Clean Spirit (not so clean), and the fellow at the front looks just about ready for the toothbrush.

This is the next big job on the Refurb front - 3 battalions of French Napoleonic light infantry. I'm not going to start this for a week or two - I have to prepare for a Zoom battle, scheduled for Friday, anyway. You will observe that there are some bare-metal boys in there, and there's a full house of bayonets. Rank and file are 1970s Les Higgins, the command figures are already painted, and mounted on the bases, waiting. Command are a mix of SHQ and Higgins - the eagle bearers are plastic - nothing else available in this scale at present - but their flagpoles are brass, which is a relief all round.

French Refurb - 70eme Ligne

With an enforced break in the WSS factory, I have had a chance to make a return to my ongoing rescue of some bought-in French Napoleonics - the boys of "Carlo's Army". Here are another two battalions, 1st and 2nd of 70eme Ligne, to join the 3rd Division of the Armée de Portugal, circa Spring 1812 - a period which has always been my natural home. The figures are mostly Les Higgins, vintage 1971 or so, with a few command bods brought in from Art Miniaturen, SHQ and Schilling. My approach to refurb work these days is such that there is probably none of the original paintwork of these figures still visible!

1st Battalion

2nd Battalion

I also took the opportunity to spruce up a couple of colonels which I have based to act up as brigade commanders - I was never happy with them; so here's this morning's picture of the newly-augmented 2nd brigade of the 3rd Divn, led by Colonel Dein of the 47eme, who is relishing his new, cleaner paint job.

Bde Col Dein - 70eme in front, 47eme behind - the brigade awaits the official 9-figure converged voltigeur "battalion", which will be along sometime soon. I've never been able to work out who the official GdB was. The brigade came to the Armée de Portugal from II Corps when Marmont re-organised his new command in Oct 1811, and the brigadier, GdB Roche Godart, returned to France around that time, subsequently serving in Russia. At Salamanca there is no official GdB in place, so maybe the colonels covered the gap throughout this period. GdB Menne had the other brigade. Sorry - this stuff interests me!

WSS - Regiment Scharfenstein

More Imperialist infantry - this was supposed to be the last refurbishing batch for Phase One, but in fact I decided to hold back and strip two of the battalions, since they weren't in a good enough state to retouch. This last batch comprises the fuzzy end of the collection - these figures had not been varnished, and appear to have been stored less successfully than most of their colleagues. Whatever, they are more weathered, more battered than I have attempted so far in this project.

These fellows took a fair amount of labour to get into shape - I'm happy with them now, though a regiment dressed in grey with black facings is a bit on the sombre side.

These are two battalions of the regiment of Sebastian Carl, Graf Kratz von Scharfenstein. The Regiment Haßlinger will be along in a week or two, once they have been stripped and had the castings cleaned up a little.

Getting there!