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!

WSS - More Imperial Foot

The painting is still coming along nicely. As promised two weeks ago, the next hefty batch is refurbished and finished - flags apart. Another four battalions of Austrians.

As this job continues, I'm starting to get to the rather more battered parts of the hoard (horde?), so the clean-up work becomes more substantial, and in this case I had to supply about 15% of new figures, painted from scratch. To avoid any culture shock, or obvious silliness in the line-up, I have started painting the new figures in a style which is unfamiliar to me, with black outlining, to match the originals. This is slow going, but I have enjoyed the challenge, the results are quite pleasing, and it is a good exercise for me to have to produce finished soldiers painted "in the style of" the previous owner. Certainly the new boys fit in well enough with the refurbed old ones for me to have to look carefully to tell them apart.

There you go, you see - forging antiques; my teachers said I would come to no good.

Two battalions each for the regiments of Thürheim (left) and Gschwind. Not a flag in sight, of course, but that should be sorted out in the next few weeks

Next batch of Imperialists will be another of the same size, 72 figures, and that will be Phase One finished, apart from general officers. Lots of flags to do now - the new arrivals have to wait in a lengthening queue for their flags, but I'm coming around to that. Something should happen there soon.

You can see the large command bases in the centre of each unit, with the mini-dice frame at the rear. The research team here at Chateau Foy came up with a design which would make a column 150mm long or a line 150mm wide. No reason, really, just OCD at work.

Immediate plans for what happens after Phase One are to add two battalions of grenadiers to the Bavarians, two more battalions of Austrians (blue - Baden-Baden - for a bit of variety) and a small batch of foot dragoons for the Austrians.

I'm trying to keep this painting frenzy organised, so I don't lose all enthusiasm for the task. I'm (roughly) working 6 days on, 3 days off, I limit each session to two hours max and take a lot of trouble over keeping things tidy and putting everything away at the end of a batch. I think the attic area may become rather hot for extended painting sessions as the Summer comes in, but the night shifts are good [no extra pay, though]. Radio 3 on permanently during painting hours - I've sat through more screeching sopranos than usual over the last few days, but generally very calming.

The two-hour shift rule works nicely - I also try to keep my hands off the soldiers during my days off, or else I just get distracted and fiddle about, which, overall, dampens the mojo.

Strange times, so if I can delude myself that I'm staying organised - however petty the context - I find it helps. I am not painting because I have nothing else to do, I'm painting because I choose to do so.

My thanks to Stryker for advice on painting in this style - much appreciated. Keep well, everyone - look after yourselves and each other.

WSS - Another Batch of Cavalry

It took me three days (not very intensive days) to paint the remaining cavalry which were still in the current queue. About half that time was needed to refurbish those figures I could lift pretty much straight from Eric's collection (with facing changes and a bit of cleaning up), and about half to paint the missing command figures from scratch.

From front to rear, these are the (Bavarian) Santini Dragoons, the (Bavarian) Leib Garde and the (Imperialist) Aufsess Dragoons. Not a flag in sight, as yet. I have a good image of the flag for the Aufsess boys, courtesy of one of the Bruno Mugnai books, but have come up with nothing at all yet for the Bavarian dragoons - maybe they didn't carry them in the field? Nah - there's men with poles waiting for them, so if I can't get authentic flag images I'll invent my own. I've a lot of flags to do, so I'll have a graphic-design week later on.

The Aufsess unit (grey coats) are actually Franconian, from the Fränkische Kreis - I chose them because I had pre-painted troops in very similar coat colours - no better reason for selection could be imagined! The dismounted dragoon contingent for the Aufsess are now in the queue - I have the figures, I just have to paint them.

The Leib Garde (blue) are actually [heavy] horse; the squadron with the red belts and facings are the Carabiniers, the squadron with black are the Hartschiere.

No excuses left now - the next job must be the first of the remaining big Austrian foot batches - 4 battalions, I think. I'll clear the decks and have a couple of days break before I disappear into that lot.

I had a very pleasant walk on my own yesterday on the farm - during one of the few sunny spells of the day. I walked down to one of the farm's reservoirs - really just a big rainwater sink which they use to pipe water on to the fields. There must be fish in the reservoir - I saw a swan, about half a dozen geese and a few ducks, and a spooky heron took off as soon as I appeared. Strange creatures, herons - they take off like a lorry-load of scaffolding. I also saw and heard the skylarks busy over the farm fields, so I guess they were trying to distract my attention from their nests.

Very therapeutic, anyway.

Keep well, everyone.

WSS - Bavarian Return - 2nd April

A day late and the usual dollar short, I got the four remaining battalions finished - they have still to get their flags, but I'll leave that to my next flagging session.

Because they are not strictly finished (without flags), and because I feel there's probably a limit to the number of photos I can post of the same units which say, "Look - I've done the red paint now...", I thought a quick group photo of progress to date with the Bavarian army might be an idea.

Some kind of infestation in the attic

Here they are - the new battalions are the ones at the rear without flags. I also have another unit of dragoons on the bottletops, ready for a Henry Ford-style refurb-factory touch-up, and similarly for the Guard Horse - they should be quite quick, I think. Other than that I have plans to get a couple of battalions of grenadiers painted - this will be proper painting from bare metal, and I'll probably send these out to a pro painter. In passing, I might mention that one of the two painters I currently use responded rather flippantly to my query about whether he was taking on work during the plague; he said that there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary panic about some sort of flu epidemic. This was a couple of weeks ago, so maybe he has had time to revise his views. Certainly I imagine he will have been obliged to close his shop - I hope he survived. There's a lot of view-revision going on at present, and no mistake, so no snarky questions, please.

Beyond the outstanding cavalry and dragoons and the proposed add-on grenadiers, the army does look a bit light on horse generally. I have a couple of French regiments they might borrow - I'll think about it. Oh yes - I have done nothing at all about staff figures, so I'll get that organised, too. I was hoping to use some Lancer Miniatures figures for generals, but they do not match well - the guys are built like toads. Sorry about that - they are beautifully cast, but it's my army and they are not getting to play - I'll stick with Irregular and Higgins and conversions thereupon for the time being.

The photo is taken on the attic floor, as discussed, but I couldn't squeeze in and didn't have my pipe handy. The light is good up there, though, with two big Velux roof-windows. I'll take a better "parade" photo when there are more flags. Very odd, actually. I spent the photo session paralysed with anxiety in case the soldiers got damaged on the floor, though there was no-one else in the house, and I had no immediate plans to stand on them. HG Wells must have been very tough.


I've removed the remaining Austrians from the community foot-bath, and faithfully paid my dues for a couple of afternoons, scraping off someone else's damned old flock, so now they are packed into house-issue battalion boxes (freezer packs) and will be ready for work soon.

Now I'm going to tidy everything away and have a few days off painting - 6 battalions retouched in 11 days is a rate of progress I haven't come close to for many years. Now I'll do some reading. While I'm on this high-energy roll I might as well see if I can read some history books without falling asleep.

WSS - French Books and That

Progress with my Henry Ford-style production of a big refurb batch has been pretty good - never since the golden days of my purchase of Peter Welsh's Napoleonic collection has anything as mind-numbing as this taken place here. All being well, I should have 4 more battalions based and flagged by Wednesday (famous last words).

Before I started this latest batch - two battalions each of Bavarian IR Bettendorf and IR Kurprinz, to be retouched and freshened up. The ultimate Henry Ford touch would be to spray them all black, but I'll try not to do that

Assuming I don't destroy my morale completely in the next few days, the plan would be to do two further, similarly-sized batches, this time Imperialists, over the coming weeks. They may be rather more fiddly, since there are more replacement figures needed, and my research into flags is - how do you say? - doing my head in.

Anyway, all good. Since I will certainly become very peculiar if I paint all day, I am deliberately setting aside non-painting times, so some suitable reading is going on too.

I also have some British troops to refurbish, and I've been dipping a toe into the subject of the French army for the WSS. I have the CS Grant paperbacks on the period, and I've been very kindly sent some copies of uniform plates and old magazine articles, but I thought I should get something just a little heavier, to give me some good background and some reliable detail. My French forces will be starting from zero, so it would be useful to build up a small army for 1703 which can sensibly grow (God willing) into a rather larger army without too much disruption and too many U-turns.

I intend to buy Mark Allen's book, which gets some criticism because it is not The Bible, but it looks very useful anyway. Rene Chartrand is also an obvious source, but I start to get into problems with potential overlap between different publishers (primarily Osprey and Helion), and also there are a lot of books with similar sounding titles.

This is a period for which it is possible to spend money very quickly and find that what you have bought isn't quite what you were looking for. I have obtained titles by Robert Hall and Bruno Mugnai on the Austrian army, but I'm aware that trying to doing anything like this for the French is risky and potentially ruinous. Thus I am starting out at a gentle stroll.

I identified the following as books I could get easily and without huge expense - I'm still dithering about this, so would welcome any comments.

This last title is potentially interesting but, looking at the contents summary, am I to gather that this covers the Line Cavalry etc only up to 1697? Hmmm.

Unless there's a good reason to do otherwise, I might start with a few French units that would be OK at Schellenberg (for example), but could grow into a larger presence. My War of the Spanish Succession is very likely to be almost an imagi-nations set-up, with long-winded and largely imaginary campaigns between Bavaria and Austria to start with. [To quote from the Gallacher Book of Axioms, "If actual history is useful on a particular occasion, then use it, otherwise it's just a luxury (like the sick-bag on an aeroplane journey)".]

Anyway, British and French are a little over the horizon, but could come into sight fairly soon. Thinking and reading about them can't do any harm.

After a late rush of maniacs last weekend, the beach here at the farm has now been closed to the public (well, closed to their cars, which is effectively the same thing), so here's a sort of post-apocalyptic photo - by 9am on Saturday, the only footprints are mine.

Look after yourselves - please keep well. I'm also intrigued by the reported huge demand for dried chick-peas - is this recommended stuff for the fallout shelter? Any good recipes will be welcome.

WSS - I Ain't Got Nothing but the Blues

Today I have started on the re-furbing of a big batch of Bavarian infantry - this one is four battalions. Yes, matron, you are right - I must be crazy, but it is only a heavy touch-up job, and I have a few days to get it done.

One slight complication I have here is that Eric painted the Regiment Kurprinz (2 bns of this) with black facings - I wish to have the facings light blue, as per the regs, so I must overpaint the cuffs and coat turnovers. This sounds simple enough - first issue is that whatever I do is going to be a compromise, since the coats of the chaps in the regiment are painted in slightly differing shades of blue - I'm not worried about this, since I can always claim that the uniforms would vary, not to mention fade, and I'm sure those big fancy cuffs weren't made of the same material as the main bit of the coat. OK - good, that's Bluff #1. The next challenge is to choose a decent shade of blue to do the job. It doesn't have to perfect, but should not be ridiculous - if I can't find a suitable shade for the cuffs, one of the alternatives might be to paint the coats as well, which doesn't strike me as an attractive idea.

Illustration borrowed from WSS Bavarians blog, which, in turn, borrowed it from Anton Hoffman's book

Next slight problem is that my colour vision has never been such that I would bet the farm on it, so I decided to involve the Contesse in the decision making.

I find that I have 22 different shades of blue, and that's without getting to the enamels and the model railway colours. A great many could be rejected out of hand, since they were obviously too dark - some others had congealed, of course, which is always a risk. I roughed out a short list, and painted some blotches on clean white photographic paper. Since I rather enjoyed painting the big blue blobs, I have included a scan of the sample sheet.

You would think that Foundry's Bavarian Cornflower Blue would be a good shout, and that is what I've used for my Napoleonic Bavarians, but in the early 1700s it seems that the uniform colour was much paler. I'm delighted to announce that the Contesse and I - independently! - both chose Coat d'Arms #206 Light Blue, which should be close enough - so that's something I don't need to worry about any further. Mission accomplished.

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

To restate the theme of this post, here's the excellent Robben Ford, when he was much younger than he is today, playing live on Italian TV, a very slow version of his interpretation of Mose Allison's arrangement of Duke Ellington's classic song (are you following this?), I Ain't Got Nothing but the Blues. You may not like his ponytail, but I think it's hard to find fault with the music.

Take that.

WSS - Another Two Battalions Ready

Maffei at the front, Luetzelburg at the rear. All ready to be hidden away in the boxes. I've smartened them up a bit, but these are still identifiable as from the original 1970s army, which is what I intended, so I'm pleased with that! 

I finished off the Bavarian battalions I was working on - this morning I painted the bases, fitted the magnetic sheet, added the flags. The boys are now safely away in their box. Good. Next up could be another two Bavarian units of foot, or I could knuckle down to scraping the flock off the Austrians who are in the foot-bath. What I'll do, I think, is tidy up a bit, have a coffee and do a little reading - I have Mark Allen's old magazine articles about the French army of the WSS - I have no idea when or where they were published, but they are a very good source for a novice like me.

I was going to arrange a group photo of all the Bavarians I have ready for action, but decided against it - I'll get to that another time - the gaps still irritate me! For a while I was sorting out the boxes, crawling around on the attic floor in a way that I would have found extremely natural when I was eleven or thereabout - the knees must be in better shape than I thought!

When I do the Bavarian group picture, maybe the attic floor would be a good setting - shades of HG Wells, too.

For the Bavarians, I have now completed the following:

IR D'Octfort
IR Tattenbach
Leibregt (2 Bns)
IR Spilberg
IR Haxthausen (2 Bns)
IR Maffei
IR Luetzelburg
Monasterol Dragoons
Arco Cuirassiers
Weichel Cuirassiers
4 guns & crews

I have to complete refurbishment of:

IR Kurprinz (2 Bns)
IR Bettendorf (2 Bns)
Garde Karabinere
Santini Dragoons

And I have yet to start:

Leibregt Grenadier Bn
Boismorel Grenadiers
All the General Staff

 Set out like that, somehow it looks like progress is being made!

I think I have made something of a decision this morning - I may change my mind, of course! While sorting through the various units in the WSS boxes, I got confused a couple of times by the fact that the Bavarian and Austrian cavalry look very similar. The units are all fitted with 5mm dice frames, to carry status scores in my new rules. They have white dice fitted at present, but I also have red and blue mini-dice of the same size, so I think I'll issue the Bavarians with blue dice, to avoid any embarrassing mistakes! Stryker can tell you about such mistakes.

WSS - A Trickle of Bavarians

Up early this morning - I went for a walk down to the beach, when it would be quiet, I reckoned. Quiet? - deserted is more like it. Haven't seen the place as quiet as this since the Foot & Mouth epidemic of 2001, when the farm was closed to the public.

The farm company have fixed the road up from the beach, past the old ruin of Adam Otterburn's Auldhame Tower - peaceful up there

I made good progress yesterday with finishing some odds and ends for the WSS project (a gun that never got varnished, a few colonels who have now been painted and can join their regiments - stuff like that), then I put about 8 battalions-worth of Austrian Foot into (appropriately) the foot-bath, to soak off the old bases and clean them up, and set to work to refurbish 2 more of the Bavarian battalions. Nothing arduous, just gently working away at them, drinking plenty of coffee and water and listening to Dominic Miller. The Austrians can chill out for a couple days.

These old troops are Les Higgins figures, from Eric Knowles' old collection - they will not take a huge amount of work to get ready to fight, but there are a lot of them, and refurbishment is always subject to creeping scope, as I have discussed many times before - when you start with the brushes, you suddenly decide that there's more to do than you planned for. Eric's WSS Bavarians were in pretty good shape, considering they must have been painted in the 1970s. My work, apart from freshening the paint, is to change the organisation (I use rather smaller units, apply nice, toy-soldier gloss varnish and rebase). Eric's army shows obvious evidence of having used CS Grant's From Pike to Shot as his prime source, and he has faithfully reproduced the odd howler and spelling mistake! Many of the glitches in CSG's book look like transcription errors - someone in the reference chain misread someone else's handwriting, or (as I do) had problems with German print.

Eric's Austrians are a bit further from what I have in mind for them, since he appears to have aimed at a sort of middle-ground army that would sort of fit the WAS, and the uniforms are a bit wild in places. All shaping up - I have a plan! In the short term, the clock will be frozen at 1703-4, and Bavaria and the Empire will fight an extended and little-known campaign against each other. With luck, some Dutch, British and French troops should join them in due course.

Maffei at the far end (with the yellow ochre regimentals) and Lutzelburg at this end (dark red). Now then - do I really need to freshen up the white trim round the hats? I guess I'd better, eh?

Yesterday's Bavarians were a single battalion each for the regiments Maffei and Lutzelburg - I am always intrigued by the Maffei name - it is often mistakenly written as Mappei, or various other variants. It doesn't look like a German name, and I wondered how it should be pronounced. I did a bit of Googling, and it turns out that the regiment was founded by General Alessandro Scipione, Marchese de Maffei, who was a native of Verona, though a commander in the Bavarian army. So it's not a German name (which I guess would be pronounced "maff-eye", with the accent on the first syllable) but an Italian name (which, again, I guess would be pronounced as "maff-ay-ee" with the accent on the second of three implied syllables). Lord knows what his soldiers called him. What is really rather odd is that the family was originally German, and Maffei was an Italianisation of the German Matthaeus. This is a recurrent theme in Bavarian military history, I think - I was surprised how many of the Bavarian generals and regimental colonels in Napoleonic times were from Italian families.

In the unlikely event that you might wish to check out the Marchese, you will find that his presence on the Internet is pretty much swamped by his brother Francesco Scipione, who was a famous scholar, writer and art-critic.

That's quite enough about that. Here's a bit of Dominic Miller - an echo of my painting session yesterday.

 

Dog's Chance

I'm really pleased with this. The refurb job on my ex-Eric Knowles British Royal Horse Guards (for Waterloo) suddenly became rather more complicated when the extra figures (Eric's units were bigger than mine are) offered the chance of making some of them into the Life Guards as well. The numbers were a bit tight - through the marvels of digital communication (and Old School analogue kindness) an extra recruit is now on his way from New Zealand to swell the ranks (will he get a seat to himself, they wondered?), and a broken figure needed to be fixed to complete the establishment.

Ah.

Fixed.

Right.

So here is Trooper Lazarus, now of the Life Guards. The horse was broken off its base, years ago, at ankle/fetlock height - tricky in 20mm. I had both the casualty and his base, in the boxes. No problem for Count Goya's Magical Manufactory of Miniature Marvels - the legs and hooves have been drilled, wire braces inserted and appropriately fiendish glue applied. He's as good as new, matron. Marcus Hinton himself could not tell he'd been repaired.

I'm delighted with him. I couldn't have done this. Thank you very much, Your Excellency.

The rest of the unit will follow along as soon as the chap from The Colonies arrives. Trooper L is thrilled to have the chance of getting back into action after all these years of being dead.

Black Bob

Lightweight, entertaining little paint session tonight. Digging around in the Eric Knowles boxes, I have found some interesting items in there.

Tonight I restored a couple of little command vignettes.

First off, here's Maj.Gen Robert Craufurd, of Light Division and getting-killed-in-the-breach-at-Ciudad-Rodrigo fame. This is not going to win any prizes, but it's an attractive little piece. The conversions are ambitious; I can see from the figure bases that the starting point for each is Hinton Hunt SC 4, which is a one-piece-casting ACW cavalry trooper. The mounted Rifles officer has had a body swap - I think I recognise the top half of the HH Rifles officer (normally on foot) - the one with the whistle. His shabraque has been cut from lead foil - it's an impressive job. The General's top half is more of a mystery - I thought he might be a Wellington - I even thought he might be an SHQ Wellington, but I think this model was made too long ago for SHQ. The cape is hand-built from lead foil, again, and I imagine the saddle furniture was, too. I've kept Eric's colour scheme. There was evidence of some corrosion on the foil cape - a white bloom on some of the edges. Lead rot? I've cleaned them up, repainted as necessary and sealed with fresh varnish, and put them on an official house-standard base (Division Commander - 50mm x 50mm, white border). I guess Black Bob's days may be numbered, but with a bit of luck he might outlast me.

And here is a HH General for the ECW, complete with dog. This will go well with Lord John Byron's ferret and Fairfax's Mynah bird. I couldn't find the dog in Marcus Hinton's catalogue, so can only assume it must be a Clayton addition.

Napoleonic Refurb Project - RHG

My Refurb Project has rather grown arms and legs since I acquired some of the old Eric Knowles collection of figures. Here's the first Napoleonic item to emerge from the boxes.

As you will see, these are the Royal Horse Guards. The castings are Hinton Hunt OPC BN60 - as far as possible I've kept Eric's painting - I've repaired chips and freshened faded colours, and occasionally tweaked things to match the house style, but the spirit lives on. The splendid conversions for the officer and trumpeter are by Count Goya, to whom I offer most appreciative thanks.

My Napoleonic collection has been consciously confined to the Peninsular War for many years - in fact (to my subsequent regret), I have been known to pass over or get rid of items which did not fit with that narrow (though large) focus. Recently I have been working on a Bavarian Napoleonic army, so units for the Danube campaign came into scope, and now the arrival of some of Eric's old soldiers has brought the possibility of adding some specifically Waterloo-period units. Anyway, here's the first.

Eric's regiments were rather larger than mine, so I have spare figures left over. I hadn't meant to, but I now realise it would make sense to produce a unit of Life Guards to keep the RHG company. Goya has added further impetus to this idea by producing command conversions for them in advance, so I'll get on with the regiment. Sadly, I am one casting short - it is possible to convert and recarve and so on to get the extra man, but I thought I would brass it out and ask here: does anyone have a spare Hinton Hunt BN60, the British Household Cavalry trooper (charging)? I shall be delighted to do swaps, pay you actual money, wash your car, take your children for a walk - anything - name your price. I only need one.

Topic 2 - Waste Management

This crops up from time to time - not a rant, really. I read recently about a certain city in England where a primary schoolteacher contacted the local council last year, and said that her class of 7-year-olds were very fired up on the topic of saving the planet, and they were very keen to come along and see how the local authority deals with recycling and so on - would there be any chance of a class outing to the rubbish processing plant?.

She met a surprising amount of hesitancy, she thought - resistance to the idea, in fact. It turns out that the council are not actually doing any recycling at the moment. The residents clean and sort out their recyclable domestic waste, place it all carefully in separate dustbins, as instructed, but when the wagons take it away the whole bloody lot all goes into the same landfill site as the general waste. When she expressed a little disappointment, she got a lecture from the department head. Once they used to sift through it all and send it for suitable processing, then the problem became too large, they couldn't get the staff to do the work, so they started (apparently) sending containers full of plastic and glass waste to China. Then China stopped importing the stuff, so now landfill is the solution. She was told that they realised it wasn't an ideal situation, but proper recycling is not economically viable. They have a duty to the ratepayers to keep costs down etc etc.

OK - I can see there's a problem here, and I hesitate to rush to make worthy suggestions, but I did have some sympathy for the teacher's suggestion that the council's economic model might change a little if they were hit with a very large fine every time they did this. The ratepayers might even have something to say about it, too.

Just as well that environmental issues aren't important, really, isn't it?

WSS Project - Some Bavarian Heavy Cavalry

More units smartened up and re-based - here are the Cuirassier regiments Arco (front, blue facings) and Weichel (rear, red). The 20mm figures are all 1970s Les Higgins castings, with a few additions from Old John, who still markets these old figures. Building up the armies continues - next up is to prepare missing mounted colonels for a bunch of infantry units, then the Bavarian artillery, then the dismounted companies for 3 dragoon regiments, then I shall continue to crack on with the infantry and cavalry (of which there is a lot).

It's not quick, but it's going nicely - first objective is to build a couple of approximately equal armies, so I can get on with playtesting. Watch this space...

WSS Project - Quick Update

I've been tinkering away with my Bavarian forces - mostly the infantry, since, as is the case for the Austrians, for the cavalry I am waiting for some more reference materials on organisation and uniforms to arrive via the Xmas post.

I have to acknowledge a lot of valuable help and advice from Old John, who also sent me a load of sample figures and some handy uniform info. I'm waiting for the postie to bring Anton Hoffman's The Army of the Blue King, plus the CD version of the Robert Hall book on the Austrian Army (from Baccus), plus a couple of other odds and ends. I was also lucky enough to find a pre-owned copy of Mr Hall's little booklet on the same subject in the long-OOP Kuhn series.

To start with, I am aiming at armies based in 1702-03. For the Bavarians, it looks as though, with the addition of a smallish number of extra figures, the troops I have will provide about 10 or 11 battalions without a lot of work. My final plans for the Austrians - and all the cavalry - will have to wait until I have some better information -  they will end up as a compromise between what I'd ideally like and what I have. Here's a couple of pics of progress to date.

Apart from a couple of missing flags, these boys are retouched, rebased and ready to fight. Here are two Austrian battalions (provisionally from the regts Trautmannsdorf and Lapaczec, though I may change my mind when I'm better informed), plus the Bavarian infantry regiments D'Octfort, Spilberg and Tattenbach, and the Dragoner Monasterol, who still need a couple of dismounted bases to operate as dragoons with my rules

Sorting things out - more Bavarians - on the white tray are the basis of 2 bns of the Leibregiment and 2 bns of the IR Mercy (formerly Haxthausen); lined up on the tabletop to the right are what I have to build up into 2 bns each of Bettendorf and Kurprinz, and 1 bn each of Maffei and Lutzelburg - some extra figures needed, especially command, but it's shaping up. There may be a grenadier battalion coming up as well - thinking about that

I intend the Bavarians to have two regiments of dragoons, one of carabiniers, maybe 3 of heavy horse as a first instalment. I have two batteries waiting to be painted up, and have yet to make up my mind how (or if) battalion guns could be supplied. They also have some French friends to help out - I haven't fully thought this through yet.

I'm pleased with the possibilities offered by extra figures from Irregular Miniatures' Restoration and Marlburian ranges, and from Lancer Miniatures - Newline may offer some possibilities as well - I have yet to try these. Then, of course, the extended range of Les Higgins figures from Old John are essential.

All excellent fun...

More WSS - and now some Austrians

Continuing in the same way, I've now cleaned and re-based a couple of battalions of Imperial troops. I haven't done flags yet (because I need to confirm which regiments I want), and one of the new units needs a mounted colonel (I have a figure undercoated, ready to go). Les Higgins (small) 20mm figures - old.

I am still working out the best arrangement of units in my draft OOB - I'm waiting for some more source material to arrive, to help with the reference, but it is somewhere in the Xmas postal storm.

This isn't going badly thus far - I'll get some more troops into the foot-baths tonight (old ice-cream tubs, warm water), to soak off the old bases - maybe 2 battalions plus a battery, or maybe some cavalry, so see how that goes. The units I have bought in were mostly already labelled up with regimental identities, but some of these don't quite line up with the dates I am aiming for, and I need to check out the Austrian facing colours!

So this isn't really a big step forward, but it maybe goes to show that I can do small steps quite quickly!

Once again, I have done as little re-painting as possible - the paintwork you see here, chip repairs apart, dates from the early 1970s. For some reason, the flesh colour on the faces seems to have faded, so I've freshened that up a bit.

The missing colonel I mentioned could be quite interesting - I have prepped an Irregular figure, mounted on a Higgins horse. As an experiment, I undercoated him in matt white acrylic, and gave him a wash over with Citadel Chestnut Ink, supposedly to pick out the casting detail. Erm - no detail showing, but the figure is now a nice, even, toilet-soap pink colour. Anyone remember Camay? The Contesse had a look at him, and assumed he was plastic! Nah - he's just pale pink.

Something Old, Something New

I've been experimenting with base sizes and unit organisation - here's the first glimpse of a new project for me. This is the Bavarian Regiment D'Octfort, circa 1703. I have rebased them, and applied fresh (shiny) varnish and a replacement flag, but as far as possible the paintwork is the original from the 1970s. The figures are ex Eric Knowles, and my plan is to have enough fightable units to get some games going, quickly, and with as little work as possible. I have some Austrians on the bench now.

The figures are Les Higgins, vintage 1971 - small 20mm (about 1/76, I reckon). Old John can supply extra figures from this range, and I have some promising samples from Irregular and Lancer Miniatures - these other makes of figures will match best if I standardise on Higgins horses throughout. Anyway, early days yet - the first battalion is a prototype in a number of ways - so far so good, I think.

The 3-base organisation allows me to use Beneath the Lily Banners rules, but my first effort will be to develop my own rules which - you may be surprised to learn - are hex-gridded. The base sizes will allow a battalion to form a line 150mm wide, or a march column 150mm long - all of this should work well with my 180mm hexes.

Note that the command base has room for a dice frame

Join the Queue

Some new figures in the painting queue this week - well, not new, exactly - some of them haven't been owned before, but they aren't new.

Some real Old School French chaps in here - HH Guard Engineers and Line Artillery, and some Alberken Guard Artillery. The Engineers still had the original mould flash under the paint, so I'll try to improve on that this time round

This is a random bunch of old figures which have been fermenting in the Clean Spirit jar for about 10 weeks. Since there were still traces of gloss black and gloss red which refused to shift, they finished up with a few hours in the Domestos - that did it. Like me, you might wonder why I bothered with the 10 weeks in the Clean Spirit, but it's the principle of the thing, really.

10 packs of OOP Falcata Spanish cavalry - once again, I have killed off one of the world's endangered species - I believe they are now officially extinct. This should be enough for 4 regiments, with luck. Put them next to the White Rhino

Probably more interestingly, I also have a little shipment of the much-missed Falcata Spanish Napoleonic heavy cavalry - now rarer than hens' teeth. My mysterious friend and advisor, Count Goya, was recently in Spain. Goya's adventures can only be guessed from occasional glimpses and hints - tantalising, really. Sunset verandahs in Mandalay, a half-seen shadow in a village on the Adriatic, whispers of the Spice Routes, blood and sand...

Anyway, he spotted some OOP Falcata figures in Spain, and very kindly brought me back a pack. I, of course, was much less calm about the matter, and promptly lit up the Internet in my searches to see if there were any more. I am pleased to say that I seem to have managed to snaffle the world's final stocks of the Spanish cavalry.

To save a little on postage, since shipping rates from Spain are famously extravagant, I arranged with my friend Jack the Hat that he would collect the goods for me next time he visited Barcelona (he has an apartment there), and the deed was done last week. I think I have enough for 4 units of line cavalry. They can go in the Spanish box, and I'll get to them.

Jack the Hat, cunningly disguised (without  hat), does the messages

To give an idea of Count Goya's exotic lifestyle, he even has his own food manufactured and supplied when he is on his travels

French Refurb: Slow but Steady

Another battalion is now finished - bases, sabot, flag, varnish tweaks, labelling. Photos have been taken for The Catalogue and they are into The Cupboard.

I've actually got some metrics for this job - most of the figures come from a collection I bought last year which has the working title of Carlo's Army. There was a blog post of sorts when I painted some of them, in June last year, and since then I've been accumulating figures to fill the gaps. They are finished now - the 2nd battalion of the 47eme Ligne. Figures are mostly vintage Les Higgins, with a mounted Chef de Bataillon and a drummer from Art Miniaturen, and an eagle-bearer from Schilling.

And, as a check, here they are in June 2018. Not exactly lightning-fast progress, but I get there in the end (with help!) and a lot has been going on at the same time. Next up, also from Carlo's legacy, will be two battalions of 70eme Ligne. Don't hold your breath, but they are under way.

French Refurb: ex-Eric Knowles units

Just a quickie - these chaps appeared fleetingly here the other day - they are now properly based up and supplied with my home-made flags, so I've taken official photos for the Service Catalogue, and they can stand ready in The Cupboard. They are now the first and second battalions of the 1er Ligne, who are perfect for Thomieres' Divn at Salamanca or for service on the Danube.

Figures are, for the most part, Eric's 1960s Hinton Hunts, and as far as possible I have preserved his paintwork. I obtained some suitable HH drummers, but the rest of the command figures are SHQ, which fit in well both for size and style.

It is indeed an honour to be able to keep Eric's soldiers on active service. I'm confident they will march on for many years. Thanks to Dave Crook for rescuing them!

1st battalion

2nd battalion

Janitors of the Guard

Goya very kindly gave me these chaps some weeks ago - three odd figures from the collection of my late Edinburgh friend and erstwhile wargame opponent, Peter Gouldesbrough. They are, as you see, French engineers - Peter converted these from Hinton Hunt French line artillery gunners. I never saw his 20mm armies in their glory, since he had moved on to 5mm by the time I met him.

I have smartened them up a little (I hope you can tell). I guess Peter probably painted these around 1968-70, and he didn't really believe much in varnish, so there was some touching-up required to get them ready for duty. I thought they looked a bit like janitors, with the home-made hammer and shovel - ideally the third fellow should have had a bucket of sawdust. So they are currently known here as les Concierges de la Garde.

Of course, they are nothing of the sort. These are regular line engineers - I also have some more sappers and miners to paint up for the French Siege Train box, but they are all in full cuirass and helmet order - I didn't have any in campaign dress until now.

Peter had something of an Impressionist painting style - I've deliberately tidied them up a bit. I think he might disapprove of my painting, but he would be pleased that his boys are still around to cope with the odd job. Anyway, they're fun and I'm pleased with them. If you need any shrubs planted, please get in touch.