Bavarians - noch zweimal

Newly finished yesterday, here are the two battalions of the 14. Linieninfanterieregiment, flagged and ready.

My Bavarian forces are based on the troops which made up Lefebvre's French VII Corps in 1809, and the three battalions produced so far are part of Bernhard Erasmus von Deroy's 3rd Division.

The 14th regiment was relatively new in 1809, and had no official title, since it owed its existence to the terms of Bavaria's contribution to the Confederation of the Rhine rather than the patronage of a particular Inhaber. The history of the organisation of the Bavarian army is rather complicated, as I am learning. Even the brief snapshot around 1809 has a few quirks.

Line regiments with higher numbers than 10 become a bit tricky. Regt No. 11 "Kinkel" was ceded to the newly-created Grand Duchy of Berg in 1806, though a new regiment with the same name and number was created the following year - these chaps spent 1809 chasing around the Tyrol, fighting Andreas Hofer's rebels.

Regiment No. 12 "Lowenstein-Wertheim" was disbanded after it mutinied in 1806, and the number was kept vacant until 1814. The problem was that the regiment, which formed the garrison of Bamberg, consisted of men from the Würzburg area, and since Würzburg also became a new state in 1806 the troops did not wish to remain in the Bavarian army.

Regiments 13 and 14 were created in 1806, without regimental titles (which, I remind myself, was the reason I embarked on this explanation). In 1811, the new (replacement) 11th Regt was disbanded, the 13th became the 11th, the 14th became the 13th (to preserve seniority - and there continued to be no No.12); subsequently, in 1814, more new regiments were raised and things swapped around again, but we won't worry about that here.

Bavarians - 1/9. LIR ready

King Maximilian's heroes - Oberst Delamotte leads the Ysenburg regiment towards
the front lawn. Some fool parked his car in the wrong century.

Here we go - all based and flagged, this is the 1st Bn of the 9. Linieninfanterieregiment "Graf Von Ysenburg" ready for action on the Danube. I have another two battalions almost ready, and I was holding off to post a photo of all of them, but time is passing and I thought better of it.

The others will be along on the next bus. Two posts for the price of - well, two, I suppose.

These are a bit special - they were painted by the illustrious Count Goya, who - when he is not painting the horrors of war - can apply his skills to turning out some very nice miniatures, as you see. This allows me, now I think about it, to focus my attention on the horrors of war. Anyway, my grateful thanks to the Count - I'm delighted with these fellows.

20mm as it used to be - guilty as charged, Your Honour. The rank and file are Der Kriegsspieler, the mounted officer and the Fahnenjunker are from the old Falcon range, which is now available again from Hagen, and the foot officers and the drummer are Hinton Hunt.

They probably felt a bit conspicuous marching round the garden, being the sole representatives of the VII Corps at present, but some friends will join them shortly, and they were enjoying the sun.

Hooptedoodle #303 - Flushed with Success [EXPLICIT]

Today was our day for a visit from the Septic Tank Man. The wagon duly arrived - all the way from Motherwell - to pump out our domestic drainage system.

As expected, it was all very professional and inoffensive. The driver/operator got about his business very quickly and efficiently - half an hour and we were done, and he was on his way to his next call.

It's not a big tank (1000 gallons), but it only services part of our house, so usage is very light really. This is our first clean-out in 13 years, and there were no problems - it was not an emergency. In the light of this (and the one-off service cost £250), consider, if you will, that Scottish Water, whom we approached late last year, will not touch your tank system unless you sign up for a 5-year minimum contract, with yearly visits which each cost more than Henderson's job this morning. Sometimes local authorities are not unlike the Mafia in their business model.

Anyway, all done, and now we are good for some years. Thank you, Mr Henderson. Remember: it may be just sewage to you, but it's his bread and butter.

...and, in case you missed their marketing push...

Lightbulb Moment - The Murky World of Illumination

The dining room lights at Chateau Foy - we like the light fittings a lot, but I need
some rather jazzier bulbs I can fit  on wargames days

Just over a week ago I had the very considerable pleasure of attending one of Stryker's classic wargames - his photos of the event are on his blog (4 posts starting with this one), and very good they are too.

The Bold Baron had a very crafty ploy up his sleeve - at the start of a turn he would bring in a couple of freestanding photographer's lamps, and we would all snap away, before the lamps were moved out of the way for play to continue. A wizard wheeze - the results are evident from his pictures.

This has got me thinking (again) about how to improve the lighting at my own wargames. I get occasional mutterings about my gloomy photos - quite rightly so; I'd like to do rather better - much better, in fact.

It was not always thus. Nearly 40 years ago, in another life and another house, I was given an old set of tripod floodlights by a friend who was a part-time professional photographer. They were OK - they came from his junk shed, but they worked well enough, though the cabling was a bit of nuisance, and visitors had to be careful not to scorch themselves. The bad news was that they were Soviet Russian (don't ask), and when the bulbs eventually died there was no way of getting hold of anything that would fit. One major obstacle to my adopting this extra-lights approach now, with more modern kit, is that I have a bigger table, and just don't have space - Stryker's room is far larger than mine.

Whatever I do is going to have to be a stew of compromises - I'll try to summarise what I need - if anyone would care to make some suggestions I'll be very grateful (practical and affordable would be good). I'd welcome some recommendations for particular bulbs (models or types?) that would do the job for me. I'm in the UK, so I need a British/European solution - no more retired Soviet stuff for me.

I fight my wargames in the household dining room - it's not ideal, but it works well enough - it is a decent size, and there are two overhead lights above the table.

Some of the uncertainty in this area stems from my outdated grasp of lighting metrics. I come from a world of traditional, incandescent coil-filament bulbs in which the folk lore is that 40 watts will do for a bedside lamp, a 60 watt lamp will do for the landing, normally we would be looking for at least a single 100 watt for a living room, and so on. This is now confused by the need to save the planet, and by the introduction of LED and other new technologies that Messrs Edison and Philips never thought of, not to mention the dodgy claims of equivalence made by manufacturers.

Our dining room has a nice dimmer circuit, so you can set the mood to anything you want (consistent with still being able to see what you are eating, of course). Most of the fancier bulb types do not work with a dimmer, but my literal "lightbulb moment" recently was the realisation that I could simply replace the normal bulbs with more suitable alternatives for the duration of a game - and if I keep the dimmer turned up full then it doesn't matter whether the bulb is designated as dimmable or not. The removal of the need to find a type of bulb which will handle both jobs is a big simplification. All I need now is a better idea of what I need for the wargames.

We currently use a pair of Philips halogen bulbs which are described as "75w, equivalent to a 105w bulb" (75w being the actual consumption of electric power, 105w being the claimed illumination equivalence in old money, just to confuse everyone). These will dim satisfactorily, and they give a good level of light for normal use, but they are not really bright enough for wargames, and too yellow for photography, especially if someone places a large mid-green table a couple of feet below the lights.

I thought maybe I could just screw in some proper photographers' lamps. Problem is they are very large - deliberately so, to avoid the hard shadows associated with a point light source - and they really don't work with our domestic downlighter fittings.

I did some background reading, to brush up my understanding of the numbers underlying the science. My Philips bulbs each produce a bit less than 2000 lumens of light, and the "warm white" colour which makes my photos so yellow is typical of domestic, household bulbs which are said to have a colour characteristic of about 2500K (that's degrees Kelvin, chaps). Never mind how the temperature relates to the colour - the point is that proper photographers' "daylight" bulbs are rated at 5500K, which is a much harder, bluish-white light, as we know.

I tried screwing in a couple of these. Not great - they are enormous, so protrude from the
shade, which gives a very uncomfortable glare. Also - and paradoxically, given my concerns
about glare - I'm not convinced that the overall level of illumination is much improved

So I'm building a picture of a pair of wargaming bulbs to keep in the drawer, specially. The overall requirements are:

* must be suitable for a large domestic light fitting - must not overheat the thing

* should be suitable for 220-240v AC, needs an E27 (European large screw) fitting, and should be about the same size as a standard bulb, so it doesn't protrude below the light shade (thus avoiding a distracting glare)

* it would be nice if it is dimmable, but it doesn't matter - dimming is not needed on wargames days  [...on the other hand, if it did dim, then it would be possible to set the lighting levels differently for normal play and photo moments...]

* I don't care too much about the technology - I'd like to save the planet, naturally, but whether it uses LEDs or whatever is not important, but...

* the bulbs must produce about 2500-3000 lumens [to put this back into terms I understand, this would be a bit more than I would have expected from a big old 150 watt incandescent bulb, which would certainly have fried my light fittings]
* ideally the colour should be whiter than my current "warm white" bulbs - the full 5500K daylight standard would be OK for photos, but is a bit harsh otherwise - does anyone produce an intermediate type of bulb, rated at say 4500K?

Mother ship. I ended up with an accidental UFO pic...

Hooptedoodle #302 - Nice Weather for Pigeons

Two consecutive wildlife Hooptedoodles is usually a sure sign that not much is going on in Hobbyland.

That's not entirely true, in fact - yesterday morning I spent a couple of hours re-sorting the lead piles into things that need to get done (in properly labelled boxes) and things that maybe need to be put at the back of the cupboard now (or got rid of, in some cases). I also did a little more work on some converted Bavarians which (according to the Grand Plan) are going away to be cloned, to provide some necessary cavalry command presence for the forthcoming contingent of Bavarois.

Most of my afternoon yesterday was spent out in the sunshine, mowing the lawns - I even got to run the mower over the grass verge, outside in the lane, which was a bit of a mess after our crocuses had died back. There was a bit of a deadline - the forecast for today (accurately, as it turns out) was very wet. The gardener is due to come on Tuesday, but he is likely to be a bit inhibited by the fact that Tuesday morning is also the date for the guys to come and flush out our septic tank. Just routine, you understand, and the least said about that the better, but I suspect that not much mowing will be possible.

Anyway, comes the morning, and here is the rain - a lot of it. Looking at the bird bath, I estimate we had about ¾ of an inch overnight. Around breakfast time, the Contesse took a picture of a line of wood pigeons enjoying a spa on the kitchen roof.

Local wood pigeons (columba palumbus) enjoying the rain - a chance to wash out
the dust and the biddies.

They're all right, pigeons. We're not really very interested in them, since they lack the glamour of some of the more spectacular garden birds, and they do cause a bit of damage to the fruit trees, but there are so many of them that they are pretty much a dominant presence here. They are big, lumbering fellows, and they seem to fall naturally into the role of clowns. They have an endearingly stupid routine when eating chunks of stale bread - since they cannot bite or chew, a pigeon will pick up a large piece, and toss it up in the air. This successfully detaches a mouthful, but the remainder of the piece of bread will normally land behind the thrower. The pigeon will take a quick glance to either side, shrug its shoulders in a resigned sort of way (and if you've never seen a fat bird without shoulders shrugging, keep your eyes open for this) and plod off in search of another piece.

Their love-making is also noted for its noise and clumsiness - the aluminium roof on the garage is a deafening place to cohabit, and they regularly fall out of trees while coupled. And yet they are obviously very successful - if you close your eyes, the endless mumbling of pigeons is the main sound here. It's soothing, but sometimes I wish they would learn a new tune. [I am interested to note that some recordings of birdsong I made here in 2001 clearly demonstrate that the proportion of pigeon in the vocal line up was much less in those days. Demographics, man.]

Very recently, we've seen a few odd feral pigeons here, of the type you get in towns - very rarely see them. They didn't cause any fuss, but they obviously didn't like it much - went back home again pretty quickly. They obviously couldn't handle our sunflower hearts and the fresh peanuts, and went back to eating cigarette ends and chewing gum, and dodging the trams.

Hooptedoodle #301 - Lack of Planning Permission

Suddenly the weather is good - there's evidence of Nature trying to make up for lost time. Everything Springlike is happening at once. The swallows definitely appear to be nesting in our woodshed - no nest yet, but a lot of activity - I don't suppose we could get our money back for the fake owl, but it has not been a success. No matter.

There is much displaying and fighting going on among the garden birds; surprisingly, it is those supposed symbols of peace, the doves, who are the most aggressive of the lot at present - they have been beating up the wood pigeons for some weeks, though they must be outweighed about 2:1 per individual. The deer have scoffed most of the tulips, and the pigeons have eaten most of the blossom and fruit-buds off the plum tree, so everything is as usual.

Paper sculpture - a bad place to build. Delicate though - you can just see the builder's
leg, and the start of the hexagonal cells. I would guess this is manufactured from the
chewed remains of an old railway sleeper we use in the garden as a ramp.

Yesterday we spotted the beginnings of a wasps' nest right in the middle of the window over our front door. We really don't want a nest nearby, and especially not there - it is, let's face it, a dumb place to build one. So we withdrew planning permission and removed it with a broom. It is possible that a little of our irritation over the swallows business found its way into the wasps' nest removal, but no hard feelings.

I don't like wasps. I know the excellent cleaning-up job they do, but their main function still seems to be to spoil picnics and frighten people - me, in particular. Their nests are revolting, yet fascinating in an Alien-like way. How do they do that?

Once removed and brought indoors, it is quite inoffensive - about an inch
diameter, maybe a little more. Seen from the outside...

...and inside

This very small effort was not so intimidating, so the Contesse took some pictures. I am intrigued that this short-lived nest is exactly - to the millimetre - on the site of a previous nest from about 15 years ago - we've never had one anywhere near that spot in the meantime. Why there? There was no trace of the previous one, it's not a great site by any criteria. Why would they build there? Is there some nestbuilders' checklist the wasps go through when picking a site? Does some ley line or something pass through our front door? Does this simply give a quick insight into how few wasps are really this stupid? - most of the successful nests (and we've had some belters) have been in the roof cavity, or in a burrow under the stone dyke. That makes more sense.

Well, sorry wozzers, you can start again. We may live to regret this, but we can't have a wasps' nest over the front door, can we?

"Muskets and Marshals" Day Out

On Saturday I was privileged to take part in a very fine Napoleonic game - most excellent fun. I have no wish to pre-empt or otherwise produce a spoiler in advance of the official blog post, so regard these few pictures, if you will, as a humble taster. I will mention, however, that I believe I lost again...

I am told that the miniature headcount was over 1000; Hinton Hunts, and wonderfully well painted. A proper Old School extravaganza (I offer an appropriately deferential nod to anyone who regards Hinton Hunt as a little newfangled).

My thanks and best wishes to my hosts and my colleagues for a smashing day, in the most excellent company.


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

Very pleased to see that Stryker's produced a lovely post to commemorate the event - so please go over there and have a look at the real deal! (link)

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