Scottish Castles - Andrew Spratt

Tantallon under repair after one of the periodic unpleasantnesses - this
time in 1529, repairs commissioned by King James V.
Artwork by Andrew Spratt.

I've recently been attempting to give my chiropractor (no, really) an overview of the history of Tantallon Castle, which happens to be next door to where I live, and the history has been a bit violent (nothing to do with me - mostly before my time, in fact).

In the course of some background reading, I came across a useful and attractive resource - the work of Andrew Spratt. Mr Spratt is a graphic artist who works for Historic Scotland, and he is Custodian of Dirleton Castle (which is also near here). He has produced a fascinating series of paintings of reconstructions of Scottish Castles, and also some Scottish battle scenes, which may be found from the link above.

Knights at Bannockburn  - Andrew Spratt

His work is all copyright, so please treat with due respect - anyone interested in medieval warfare, or Scottish history, or castles and fortifications should have a look.

Hooptedoodle #208 - Collecting, and the Schlumpfs

A line of 1920s GP Bugattis in the original Schlumpf building

Still no time for hobbies here, so again I’ve fallen back on the Hooptedoodle Theme to keep my blogging eye sharp. This morning my lady wife and I were pondering the general topic of collections, including the delicate grey area where enthusiasm crosses over into obsession and (whisper it) monomania.

I had been comforting myself recently, in the absence of any wargaming time, by having the occasional quick review of my troops – in The Cupboard and also in The Boxes. I enjoy them – I am pleased that I have them, they represent the fruits of a lengthy interest in military history and its supporting toys, and they mean a great deal to me, though – as we have discussed – their financial worth is miniscule, and in truth there are very few people who would cross the street to see them.

That’s all fine – that is probably what hobby collections amount to. The Contesse and I spoke of a theme which features in much crime fiction: the potential theft of (for example) the Mona Lisa. There are a number of good yarns around this – the fiendishly cunning plan to achieve the theft is obviously a key element in the story, but I always get distracted by just why someone would wish to steal it. What could he do with it? Where could he keep it? Whom could he tell about it, or show it to? What pleasure could he possibly gain from it? What would it be worth, in fact? Would this be a collection too far?

Maybe the answers to all of these are obvious and intuitive – I don’t know – for myself, I even get to worrying about how the thief could insure it…

I know of a man in the USA who has one of George Harrison's guitars - it is priceless - he keeps it in a bank vault. He rarely sees it. It may appreciate in value, but why does it have a value, anyway? What good is it? Is he simply depriving others of the chance of owning it? Hmmm.

This is all idle daydreaming, but I have always been fascinated, in particular, by the tale of the Schlumpf brothers – you may well be familiar with it, but it is remarkable in many ways. The Schlumpfs were Swiss by birth, they owned a textile manufacturing firm in Mulhouse, in Alsace, and they were extremely successful. Their story is told well and entertainingly in The Schlumpf Obsession, by Denis Jenkinson (a book which I once owned – the subject of obsessive book collecting is a completely separate theme, of course). In brief, the firm eventually went bust during the 1970s, and the brothers disappeared, owing money to everyone in sight – especially their own workers. There was a mysterious locked building on the factory site, and when it was opened it was found to contain the most astounding collection of veteran and vintage automobiles – mostly restored and in perfect working order.

Fritz Schlumpf with his personal Bugatti Type 41 Royale "Coupe Napoleon"

The lists are staggering – they had an unbelievable collection of Bugattis, but they also had classic vehicles from all the great marques. As a random, and unlikely, example…

In 1956 the Bugatti firm had one last go at re-entering Grand Prix racing – they commissioned a very advanced design for a rear-engined car, the Type 251, and were bullied (by the French government and the Automobile Club de France) into entering it for the French GP of that year, long before it was properly tested and sorted. The car was entered to be driven by Trintignant, ran very slowly and eventually retired with carburation problems. It was never seen again – it was scrapped when the Bugatti organisation was wound up.

Well, in fact it wasn’t – it was in the Schlumpf collection all the time, as was an additional, spare car which the team had built as a back-up.

The mysterious Type 251 of 1956 - not dead at all - you can go and tap on the
bodywork if you want - well, maybe best not to...

The locked garage was fitted out in sumptuous luxury – the cars were laid out in grand style, in a gravelled showroom setting, with super-expensive custom-built Belgian cast-iron lamps to show them off – the building also featured at least two restaurants. The Schlumpfs used to entertain ladies from time to time, apparently. Well, you know what they say about ladies and expensive cars. [What do they say, anyway? – I haven’t the faintest idea…]

It is an ambition of mine to visit the collection at some time, but I’ve never managed it. It was taken over by a workers’ co-operative and ultimately sold, and now forms part of the augmented and rehoused Cité de l’Automobile attraction in Mulhouse – I am less sure of the recent history. If anyone has visited it, I’d be delighted to hear about it.

So there you have it – the Schlumpf Collection – discuss. Were they truly happy with their priceless secret hoard of motoring exotica? Was it worth the investment, and the eventual, disastrous loss? Were they really so desperate to gain female companionship?

[In passing, I should add that it never occurred to me that ladies might be interested in my Napoleonic armies, so my conscience is completely clear on this count. I quite like the idea of a couple of restaurants in the games room, mind you.]

Hooptedoodle #207 - Talking about the Weather...

Grey sky, grey rocks, grey water

It's a noble British tradition - if there isn't much time, let's waste what there is talking about the weather. My first wife used to spend a lot of each winter telling everyone she met how cold it was - you can see this was a serious responsibility - they might have failed to notice otherwise.

The thing which is notable about this morning is that it is the first time this year it has not been raining here - by Malaysian standards that would not be very impressive, but we have seen very little in the way of daylight during the past week - the security light on my garage keeps switching on because it thinks it's night time. Also the skylight windows in our roof are turning green with algae, or some form of aquatic plant, anyway. We have been relatively lucky - further north in Aberdeenshire they have been very severely impacted by wind and water - we at least have no flooding.

All this is just an excuse to post a photo I borrowed from our local community Facebook page - this was taken on Monday, when it was, as you see, a bit breezy. This shows a walkway over the rocks next to our harbour (you can see the handrail) - a recommended stroll in Summer, less so now. That's the Firth of Forth out there, people - almost the North Sea. Somewhere through the murk is the Kingdom of Fife.

Someone on the Facebook page commented that it looks good for surfing - there speaks someone who has never been surfing, sure as you're born.

Hooptedoodle #206 - Donkey Award - Plastic Coffee Cups

Yesterday being the Sunday after New Year, things were pretty quiet at the hospital where my mother is currently convalescing. Since I was early for official visiting, I went into the little WRVS cafe on the ground floor, and got myself a sandwich and a cup of coffee. The volunteers that run the cafe are often as elderly as the patients, so it can be a slightly confusing place if you don't pay attention. Yesterday it was deserted apart from me and the lady who was in charge.

They have a coffee machine behind the counter - also pretty elderly - so I asked could I have a filter coffee with a little milk. "Is that an Americano with some milk?" said the lady, and I agreed it probably was, though the matter of lifestyle names for types of coffee is an irritation for another post, on another occasion.

My coffee was prepared, in a plastic cup, and the lady proceeded to clip a lid on the cup.

"Please don't bother with the lid," I said, "I'll just sit and drink it in here".

Can't be done, apparently. It was explained to me that the volunteer was not allowed to sell coffee without the lid, since I might turn around and spill scalding coffee over the person behind me in the queue, and she would be responsible. No point getting into a dispute about it, so I took my lidded coffee over to a table - I had a choice of 5 tables - the place was like the Marie Celeste - I would have had to go somewhere else to find someone to spill it on.

The main reason I didn't want the lid, of course, is because I detest them. The stupid hole in the lid doesn't allow the coffee to come out sensibly - serious efforts to suck the liquid out can probably result in a hernia - and the drips always finish up on my chin. So I set about removing the lid, and - you guessed - spilt hot coffee on my hand and my shirt cuff. It was, however, entirely my own fault, so that's OK.

Fortifications & Stuff - Picking Up a Few Loose Threads...

For the last month there has been very little time for hobbies here. My new-found momentum on the Spaniard-painting front has stopped abruptly – fortunately I have some splendid plastic hobby boxes which enable me to put incomplete painting projects away safely, on their bottletops, organised and safe from dust and accidents – I can even store the relevant brushes and pots of paint in there if need be.

I did manage to squeeze in a solo game after Christmas, but otherwise the only hobby-related thing I’ve done is keep an eye on an eBay auction that caught my attention – I didn’t buy anything, by the way.

I thought it might be useful (for me) if I tried to follow up on a couple of threads on fortifications which are hanging over from earlier posts; it is a commonplace for me to say “I am thinking of doing such and such” – having a note in a blog post is usually an indicator that I have thought about it and intend actually to do it. Mostly these things eventually get done, but there are occasions when they disappear or get delayed indefinitely. I rarely feel it is appropriate to publicise all bad breaks, so I am aware that there are a few sub-projects which have just vanished from view. For my own benefit, I’ve been checking up on these.

Vauban Fortress

A while ago I did an update on myVauban-style fortress pieces – I had discovered that the eventual owners of the moulds and the rights for my old Terrain Warehouse fort were now Hurlbat Games, I got in touch with them and established that they might be able to make some more of the pieces for me. Sadly that has been a dead end – not only did we not get anywhere useful, but Hurlbat stopped replying to emails, so I am not sure if they have had some commercial dommage. Strike One.

ECO Vacuum-formed Castle

I still have plans to paint up my ECO castle in a less toy-like style, but I haven’t done anything about it yet. I am keen to get on with this, because it would make it less likely that the thing will just sit in a cupboard forever. Thus far, though, Strike Two.

Mediaeval Fortress pieces

In addition to my Vauban walls and bastions and so on, I have a couple of mediaeval pieces – notably a hefty gatehouse and a castle keep, both from Battleground, which maker I think is owned by Magister Militum. I bought these because it adds some flexibility to my Peninsular War siege department to be able to produce hybrid fortresses including older components.

My visit to Chester a couple of years ago to do a little study of the ECW siege there encouraged me to get some more of the Battleground pieces – these would offer all sorts of extra scope for setting up fortresses in either period. Apart from the usual personal inertia, I have been baulked a little from this idea by the fact that Magister Militum’s approach to providing photos of the ranges on their website is sometimes a little casual for my taste – I am reluctant to buy a fortress gate costing some £20 if I have never seen one, for example.

A couple of months ago there was an eBay listing which offered some pieces from this range for sale, which caught my interest, and recently there has been another, which really looked very attractive indeed – the pieces in the lot, added to my existing Battleground components, would provide the basis for a very handsome ECW walled town.

Classic eBay case-history: 10-day auction with a starting bid of around £50, so for 8 days, in the absence of any bids, I was thinking, “hmmm – good range of pieces, in crisp, nicely painted condition, at well under the list price for new unpainted equivalents – certainly worth a punt”.

Then the bidding started after 8 days, and it advanced rapidly. I went through the next stage of logic, which is something like, “I could buy brand new kit for less than this, but the paintwork is still decent value – I’ll probably have a go for these”.

And the last stage came when the bidding was now so high that it was debatable whether the painting was really good enough to justify the mark-up – the lot eventually sold for comfortably over £100, and I never placed a bid. However, what I did immediately afterwards was to order up a selection of new Battleground pieces from Magister Militum, which I shall paint myself to match my existing stuff. This also has the advantage that the choice of pieces is driven by what I actually want rather than what’s on offer.

So I think this last episode is OK – I am happy to have finally got around to buying some additional suitable fortifications – I should get them in a week or so, though I may not be able to do much with them for a little while. Building-painting is a fast and cheerful activity, though, so it might give me something useful to do in odd moments – and, if I have the Dulux pots out, I might take the opportunity to do something to smarten up the ECO castle while I’m at it – all sorts of possibilities present themselves…

One extra job I will have to carry out is to manufacture some stone-coloured wooden blocks to stand troops on – the walkways and firing platforms on the 15mm mediaeval walls are far too narrow for my 20mm basing system, so I intend to borrow a fudge from my old mate Allan Gallacher, and make some extra blocks to support the rear of the bases of units manning the walls – it looks less daft than you would think, and, since my ECW bases have magnetic sheet on the bottom, I can top the blocks with steel paper to improve stability. That is down the road a bit, but I am at least thinking ahead!

Hooptedoodle #205 - Runner-Up Prize

This morning the doorbell rang, and there was an unexpected delivery to be signed-for. How exciting! - perfect timing, too - a surprise parcel, just as we are starting to feel a bit flat after the greedy excesses of Christmas.

Well, I have to explain that the Contesse occasionally dabbles in online competitions, and (being far smarter than the average bear), has a pretty impressive success rate - I shall not bore you with details, but I promise you would be impressed if I were to do so...

Anyway, it seems that she recently entered a sponsored competition to win an iPad, and this parcel was very obviously just such a thing.

Sadly, it wasn't - she had won a runner-up prize for said competition, which is a self-assembly, punched card doughnut stand - the main purpose of such a device is obviously to further the commercial presence of Krispy Kreme (of whom I have never heard, so it stands to reason they must be market leaders), but I can see it would be pretty useful to have a purpose-built gizmo for keeping one-dozen of KK's splendid products out of the heap of pizza boxes and Coke tins which might be expected to adorn our festive board.

Strangely, my heart is not uplifted. The stand comes without donuts, of course, and I understand that it retails for £4.45. I guess I'm not really a donut man - I feel the device will come in handy for lighting the log stove. However, I was sufficiently intrigued to look up Krispy Kreme on Google. It seems that (of course) they are a very big deal indeed, and are even capable (in the US, at least) of catering for corporate functions or weddings (have a look here). I suddenly have a wonderful vision of crowds of gargantuan rednecks at a wedding, cheering as a convoy of smart Krispy Kreme trucks delivers the high point of the big day.

Now I'm really depressed.

An Actual Wargame – [No-One Expected That…]

Christmas has been a bit odd this year – we’ve sort of squeezed bits of it in between other priorities. One unexpected by-product was that our dining table was no longer required for dining by Boxing Day, so I took the opportunity to set up a Napoleonic battle, and fought it solo in short sessions over two evenings.

I had a whole pile of reasons for getting the toys out; apart from merely wishing to demonstrate to myself that I still do this sort of thing occasionally, I also had the Commands & Colors:Napoleonics Expansion #5 to explore.

It is obvious, very quickly, that the C&CN#5 game enhancements are really not suitable for solo play – they look interesting for a [sensible] two-player game, but it is not easy to surprise yourself when maintaining two hands of Command and Tactician cards – in fact this may be one of the few situations where short-term memory loss would be an advantage. So I played the game using C&CN’s movement and combat rules and my own (dice-driven) activation system. Since my activation rules allow orders to be given to brigades, I had a chance to use my recently-acquired coloured wooden cubes to identify brigades and their commanders. The Expansion #5 involvement was limited to some new rules (terrain related, and also some new rules for rocket units, of which more later), and I also borrowed the general form of the Brienne scenario from the new booklet.

I have said here before that I am not a big fan of the published scenarios – mostly this is because of my solo games; the scenarios specifically give a balanced game which for a solitary gamer can produce slogging matches. I prefer an uneven game, where the skill of conducting a hopeless defence (or something) gives more of a challenge. Otherwise, a solo attempt at a balanced scenario can become an exercise in watching the chance element play itself out.

My version of Brienne was – of course – not Brienne at all. It used an elongated version of the scenario field (17 x 9 hexes) and I added some extra units – the line-up was now a Peninsular War one – Anglo-Portuguese (General Henry Clinton with the Allied 6^th Division, plus the Portuguese brigade from 3^rd Division, plus cavalry, plus – hallelujah! – a rocket troop) attacking a French force (General Eugene-Casimir Villatte, with a large division of French and Confederation infantry, with cavalry).

The French were installed in a fairly open, flat area which contained 4 villages (3 of which were in a cluster, within musket range of each other, and looked like an ideal position to defend) and a walled farm (which was classified as a “fortress” for the new rules), which controlled a key river ford. 10 victory points were required for a win, and there were 2 temporary VPs available for whichever side held most of the 4 village hexes at the start of each turn. If the Allies took the walled farm that would be an immediate victory – game over – didn’t look very likely.

Clinton was required to take the initiative, and his general plan was to ignore the cluster of BUAs on his right, and attempt to score enough VPs on his left to win the day. He had a few early bad breaks, including the loss of both of the brigade commanders on his left, as a result of which Plan C was required (there was no Plan B), and the game suddenly became a face-off between two linear armies, exactly the sort of slugging match I wasn’t looking for. At the end of the first evening session, I came close to abandoning the game. The Allies were now forced to attack a strong defensive position, their approach being across open ground which made heavy losses inevitable; without the scope to move reserves quickly enough to provide a game-winning local superiority, and in the absence of the whimsical trump-card possibilities of C&CN, it seemed fairly clear that the real General Clinton would have thought better of the whole deal and would have pulled back, and whistled up some heavier artillery (or some Stukas, if he had any).

Thus the game only just made it into evening 2, but in fact the second session went well – there was a lot more ebb and flow than I expected, and the result could have gone either way – Clinton just edged it, though he might well have lost if it had gone on another turn. Good game, rather to my surprise – my faith is restored.

I’ll try to explain the action in the picture captions.

General view from Allied left flank. The cluster of villages is at the far end

Rule changes allowed me to field this rather scruffy rocket troop - as far as I recall,
they've never appeared in the field before - they have taken part in the odd siege
(brown bases mean they belong in the SIEGES box). The rules worked well
enough - the rockets had sporadic successes, but at least they avoided blowing
themselves up

Villatte set up his defence of the cluster in accordance with the scenario map
- the battery in the space between two BUA's proved to be a weakness - Villatte
has the white border to his base

Garde de Paris doing some berry-picking - no flag - having lost their eagle at
Baylen, the replacement unit was never given a new one (historical fact) - Napoleon
remembered...

Anson's light cavalry on the Allied right saw an opportunity to clear their front of
their French counterparts - it was nippy while it lasted, but they succeeded

Straight out of the box, the rockets scored a direct hit, first shot, on this battery
- they did not maintain anything like this level of success

General Hulse brings up his brigade in the Allied Centre - the idea was that he would
swing left, and, with Col Palmeirim's Portuguese, he would assault the French right.
It didn't go well - Hulse's men were repulsed pretty decisively, and Hulse himself
fell, and at about the same time Paleirim was shot in the woods to the left, which
meant that activation of the entire Allied left wing became a major problem
- without a commander present with a brigade, the constituent units have to be
ordered separately

Synchronised dragoons - the 20eme, with their brigade commander, did a bit
of riding backwards and forwards on the flank, but never got involved - note the pink
brigade identifiers

Their opposite numbers - Le Marchant's British heavies, facing them, also
contributed nothing to the action

After Hulse was wounded, the French started to organise their defensive line,
and this was the point where General Clinton had grave doubts about continuing the action

A decisive moment came when the light companies from Col Hinde's brigade overran
the pesky battery at the cluster - you will observe that I use red tiddlywinks as loss markers

Gen de Bde Bouton brings up a battalion of grenadiers to dispose of Hinde's light
bobs, and to plug the gap left by the artillery's demise

More reserves - the 3rd Confederation Regt (Frankfurt) look on from the rear

Allies on the right - this really doesn't look too promising, but at least the artillery
has gone

All quiet on the Allied right - the light cavalry spent the rest of the day glaring at each other

Looking back the other way, from the Allied right, as Clinton resolves to give it his best shot

For the first time, the British musketry has cleared part of the village (though reserves
are available, Bouton was a casualty) - at the bottom of the picture, Clinton
has arrived to take charge of Hulse's leaderless troops

Villatte himself brings the Chasseurs des Montagnes up to defend the village (this
is getting pretty near the bottom of the barrel!), while Hinde and Madden
organise the Allied assault - the more battered units to the rear, as per the text book

...and the marker is spitting blood - including the (green) temporary VPs for
majority possession of the villages, the French were leading 9-6 at this point - 10 for the win... 

Once again, the firefight forced the French to vacate the village - Clinton began
to smell victory, if he could just avoid losing any more units - at least the French
no longer had the green VPs (though they could march back in and reclaim them)...

So the action came down to 3 assaults with the bayonet - on the left, Clinton led
one of Palmeirim's Portuguese battalions against a battered French unit - the
French routed immediately, and the brigadier with the blue cube was captured...

...while Col Hinde attacked one of the villages...

...and a Portuguese battalion attacked another village - this was regarded as
the least hopeful of the assaults, so was kept until last!...

...the Portuguese attack on the village was not required - Col Hinde took his
village almost unopposed with the 32nd Foot, the French legere battalion
which opposed them routed from the field, and Villatte was taken
- Allies won 11-8, but it could have gone either way at the end

Now I must try to pencil in a future evening, and invite a guest general to help me give Expansion #5 a proper try-out. 

If I don’t get back to the blog before next month, I wish everyone a happy and peaceful New Year. I'd better get the battlefield tidied away!