Bavarian Pictures

Well, here they are, the promised pictures. First up is a fusilier from the Lacy FreiKorps. Apart from it being a compny-sized unit, I know absolutely nothing about it. I intend to build it up to 16 fusiliers and a few command - Officer, NCO and a musician perhaps. Does anyone know anything of the unit's history? This fine fellow is a Grenadier of the Bavarian Regiment Minucci, distinguished by his pale buff facings. The uniform is from my recently-acquired copy of Herbert Knoetels "German Armies in Colour". Click on the image for a larger version. I really enjoyed how his face turned out despite using a #1 brush.

Last come are the Grenadiers from the Autrian German "Arberg" regiment. You'll note that they are painted in a version of the Austrian uniform more suited to the War of the Austrian Succession rather than that of the Seven Years' War. I enjoy how they look with their coloured small clothes.

The figures are all from the RSM range, and some of the better ones they are, too. They are very easy to paint. I put on the blue base coats of another eleven Minucci Grenadiers this morning in a spare thirty minutes I had while I was getting ready for work.

Billions of Bavarians

I had quite a productive week this time around.

I painted the Grenadier Company of the Austrian German regiment Arberg – eleven figures plus the sample I painted a year ago - and individual samples for the Lacy Freikorps and the Bavarian “Minucci” Regiment. Thirteen figures in a week is a bit of productivity high for me, why, I could paint a whole regiment in a month..!

Dream on! Still it’s a nice fantasy, and I’ll probably keep it going for another week before I get back to the Victorians.

It’s starting to look like I am gathering a Bavarian Army by stealth.

I have the completed Leib Regiment and those Dragoons, the Minucci Regiment is officially commenced and I stumbled across a handful of Austrian Cuirassiers which means that the Taxis Cuirassiers (or some other regiment) are about to rear their ugly heads.

Can’t you see it happening? I’ll be painting some Brigade staff next, then I’ll just HAVE to paint the Locatelli Hussars and another regiment of Cuirassiers to balance them out, then the Infantry will start to look under represented and I’ll slate another two units there. Oh! And what about artillery?

It just goes on and on!

Heckenfeur

What ho.

Been having a break from the Victorian military forces this week and have dug out some Austrian Grenadiers from the lead mountain that I painted some samples for quite a while ago. I am cracking on with them at quite a pace and am enjoying the results mightily.

Pictures to follow, as ever.

Recently the Duchess and I went to a crime fiction night at the local “Reader’s Feast” mega chain bookstore. I naturally drank too much (*ahem* – free booze) and made an arse of myself in general, but between spouting off too loudly about this and that I stumbled across a large-format book of Richard Knoetels water-colours. I begged and pleaded nicely enough for the Duchess to dispense cash and I made off with my prize. I was delighted to discover it included a pretty fair selection on the Bavarian army. This has led me to decide that the Minucci regiment looked very smart in their mid-blue coat, buff facings and small-clothes and will thus be my next unit after the Austrian Regiment Arberg gets done.

The Bavarian Cuirassiers illustrated in the same volume look rather tempting also, but I suspect Mr Knoetels’ accuracy* when he’s depicting the lace on the shabraques – what’s that triangular lace thing he’s got going on there?

The strength of the Australian dollar at the moment means another order will be going out to the chaps at RSM/DPC for more bags of their Austrian castings.

In other news, I see that Eureka are gearing up for a crack at the 28mm French Revolutionary Wars market with a young Napoleon and a few Grenadiers storming the bridge at Arcola way back in 1796. Will Eureka be able to get a run in an arena pretty well stitched up by Elite miniatures? Only time will tell, I suppose. They look fairly nice in the pictures on the website, though.

I hope there will be Austrians.

*Has anyone of the nit-pickers out there ever thought of putting out a book. The title could be "Correcting Knoetel" or "Mollo, Knoetel and Funcken: A nit-pickers guide" or even: "What the Ospreys got Wrong". Get to it, nit-pickers; money where mouth is.

The Slavic Menace

*Sigh* one blurry and one clear photo of my new Russian Colonel - the figure is by Eureka - an Austrian 1866 Mounted Officer whose shako I cut down and turned into a Field Cap.

It's quite a small casting - almost *true* 25mm, but very fine.

I've just finished off my third Sword and the Flame Unit of Victorian/Imperial infantry. I'm on target to polish them off entirely over the nect few weeks. I'm painting a couple more of the Victorian Cavalry at the moment, and have started work on my allotted buildings.

More updates in the near furture.

Little Wars Pictures

That's my troops in the left background. My Nemesis is in the foreground. The figures are mainly by Eureka.

The enemy's left flank. I accounted for their chariotry easily enough, but his skirmisers (en bloc!) nailed me in the end. I was amazingly lucky to survive under their massed fire for as long as I did.

Eye candy! Eureka carts going into the fortress to escape the onrush of the battle lines! Lovely fortress; I'm assured that this is nothing compared to the one they left at home.

I never got to see this game get unserway. The figures were all from the Eureka Pax Limpopo range. I love the steam-boats! Extremely nicely painted bits of kit.

Amazing Tower of Isengard with squadrons of minis. Brilliant!

Little Wars 2008

I went to the inaugural “Little Wars” show in Melbourne yesterday.

It’s a new event promoted in part by Eureka Miniatures as being aimed at getting gamers in touch with each other.

It certainly did that for me!

The venue was the German Club Tivoli in Windsor. I got through a liter of beer and a plate of rindsroulade mit dumpling despite the rather eccentric catering arrangements!

There were a good few games on. I noted a very impressive “Ring of Isengard” LoTR game that featured a colossal Isengard tower that must have been more than one-and-a-half meters high; this very much impressed the Duchess of Alzheim.

I played in a Sumerian Game – Water Wars with some very nicely painted Eureka Sumerians. It was also my first introduction to the Armati rules; all I can say is we may have done better at rolling for initiative at the start of each turn! As it was, my ability to roll a six with unerring accuracy at most other times kept my chariotry alive under an absolute hailstorm of missile fire for far longer than I deserved!

I picked up a few nice items both from the traders and from the Bring and Buy. Pride of place goes to my English Language edition of Engelmann and Dorns’ volume on Frederician Infantry Uniforms. Apparently all I need do now is track down the companion volume on the Cavalry and I’ve got it made… I picked up a large mixed bag of Castaway Arts oddments which will feed various projects nicely and I was pleased to come across a copy of the WRG 1685-1815 rules for a fiver.

I laid my hands on a copy of the League of Augsburg’s’ “Beneath the Lily Banner” rules for the 1660-1720 period and am now retrospectively very glad I never sold my old Essex figures after all!

Finally, I picked up a sample pack of Eureka’s’ new Saxons – not the tricorne era ones, but chaps from a far darker age. Very nice and they will give Gripping Beast a run, I think. Review to follow in the next few days.

I was very pleased to be able to spend some time chatting to Gerry from Castaway and Nic from Eureka and to bump into Maurice from the Old School Yahoo group. It’s such a shame he no longer seems to post there – he always was worth reading when he posted! Gerry showed me some newly cast command for his Colonial range – I noted British, Ghurkha and Bengal Lancer Command – so there’s a lot to look forward to from our Australian manufacturers – take note!

I’ll upload a few pictures this evening.

What's all this Defense of Melbourne stuff, then, eh?

In the comments to my last post Jeff asked for a little more information on the "Grand Plan" for the Defense of Melbourne.

The DoM is pretty much my major project for this year. It's taking about 80% of my hobby time. The remaining 20% is turned over to little bits and pieces that I will take on as a break from the main project. It's the culmination of more than a decades' general interest in the colonial defences of what was the Colony of Victoria as well as more focussed efforts on over the past three years.

In the past six months I stumbled across some other gentlemen from Canberra who shared my interest in Australias' pre-Federation defense forces and together we have been working toward a fairly large demonstration game for CanCon which takes place in Canberra over the Australia Day long weekend.

The game will involve a Russian Amphibious assault on Fort Nepean, one of the cluster of Fortifications that defended the Heads of Port Phillip Bay, at the north end of which stands the City of Melbourne with seven millions of Sterling in the bank; a tempting prize for any raider!

It's 1887, and Britain and Russia are at War.

Russia has decided to strike a blow at the Prestige of the Empire and has decided that units of her Pacific Fleet will embark troops and raid the coastal cities of Australia.

The local defenders have been listening with rapt attention to news of the War Scare from Home when, of a sudden, the telegraph cable goes silent. It is Easter and the Militia are already enbodied and at their encampment on the Mornington Peninsula when the Russian attack falls!

Can the defences at Point Nepean hold while a relief column rushes to it's aid? Will the Fort's guns be silenced so a Russian Cruiser Squadron may raid up the Bay?

Who can tell?

That's the general idea. We're constructing a three metre by one metre model of the fort, models of a Russian cruiser and torpedo boat, a Victorian Monitor, a gunboat and spar torpedo boat (I want the model boats to be on tea trolleys, circling the main display... we'll see). The Victorians will have 30-40 figures at the fort and another 100 or so marching to it's relief. The Russians will be attacking with Huge amounts of Infantry, Machine Guns, artillery and the obligatory cossacks.

Rules will be The Sword and the Flame.

I think we are aiming pretty high for this game, but we have more than adequate research resources, the figures are pretty well all sourced. We are in the process of scratch-building the warships, and I am in the fortunate position of not having to build the fort - although i'll be providing sundry barracks blocks &c!

Introducing... The Colonel

There he is, freshly varnished, the Colonel of my 1st (West Melbourne) Battalion of the Infantry Brigade of the Victorian Military Forces.

He's a conversion of this cavalry casting - a head-swap from an infantryman and a gauntletted right arm built up from greenstuff on a paperclip armature. Oh, I also spent ages getting a HUGE moustache to adhere to his top lip.

I think he looks a bit like the illustration from the TVAG (google it) website! and none the worse for that.

Here he is giving orders to his ADC, Capt. Smedley. Young Smedley looks delighted to have a CO at last.

A Quickie for Fitz

I finished off my Victorian ADC tonight. This shot of him is as he was just after getting the coat of matt varnish that goes over the initial coat of gloss I put on.

You'll remember that originally he was basically a hussar with neither head nor right arm.

His new head comes from a spare infantryman, whilst I sculpted his arm from a coil of greenstuff which I wound around an armature made from a bit if bent paperclip that I superglued into his shoulder.

The only tricky bit was sculpting his hand as it wobbled about on the wrist with a millimetre or so of wire poking ot of it as a kind of wrist. I only hinted at the lace detail on the cuff, knowing that I'd paint it on later.

Obviouslly he still needs basing. I'm probably going to use 1mm thick plastic card in a blobby, rounded, "no shape" shape to harmonise with the coins I'm using for the Infantry.

Loose Ends and Norman Nonsense

I've been painting away at lots of "Victorian" infantry the past few weeks and now have more than fifty of them lined up, ready to go, but the TSaTF rules need a batallion to be commanded by a mounted Officer. Now, sadly, the HLBS range never had any mounted Infantry command, so I have have had to improvise somewhat.

Fortunately I had surplus one Line Cavalryman and one Hussar who I thought would make a splendid "Colonel" and a glittering "ADC". So, it was out with the razor saw, a quick zip-zip and off with their heads. I had a pair of infantry colour-bearers going spare, so took their bally heads off and hey presto!

Neither figure has a right arm; the originals were sword arms, and I have no suitable substitutes. I have decided on a tentative venture into the world of sculpting and will create my own.

To have a small break from the Nineteenth Century, I have taken a brief trip back down the time tunnel to both the Eighteenth Century, at last painting the last of the Stadden Command figures for my Prussian Fusilieer Regiment Number 35 per the tip from der Alte Fritz. They look very satisfying and go extremely well with the RSM Fusilieers.

Oh, if only Stadden had done some Austrians!

Finally, some while ago I took delivery of some few Mirliton Normans. I am intending to use Norman figures as the basis of a First-to-Second Crusade Army, and started painting them last night. They are no better than "average" being very stiffly animated, but I'll see how I go. I'm looking about for decent Norman or Crusader figures, but haven't really seen anything I really like at the moment. I don't mind the look of the Black Tree Design ones, and I quite like the Perrys' take on the First Crusade.

Does anyone have any recommendations? My basic criteria are realistic anatomy and good horses.

Blog Update

Small update to the Defence of Melbourne Blog.

Take This Mans' Credit Card Away From Him!

I've been buying things.

I know I oughtn't.

I have though...

I was messing about last night in front of the TV and decided to get all my Minden Prussians out and line them up. I was pleasantly stunned to realise I'd got almost an entire unit.

I'll be getting more to flesh this lot out. I'm going to have to get some French, too, just to take a look, you understand. Not to build a batallion of them... honest.

Then I went and bought some (about twenty) Hanoverians from Jude Beckers' Venture Miniatures. I'm very eager to get these. Very eager - I'm extremely keen on the style of the sculpting; and the officer with the raised sword looks just like I imagine Baron Munchausen to be. They look a little cartoony, but in a good way, if you understand me.

Then there are the Eureka Sumerians. I've just bought my first 40 or so as I intend to follow Phil Olley's example on how to build an army. Here's hoping I have the discipline... Oh, who am I kidding? I want to paint the little domkey-chariots!

On the imagineering front, I am reading the Cambridge University Press volume on the Agean Bronze Age that I picked up in an excellent 2nd hand bookshop here on Brunswick Street. This has led me to fondle the sample Myceneans I bought from Eureka a couple of years ago and to really regret that it is nowhere near being complete. I must resist the call of the 100 Club - I've other irons in that fire! It's really nice to be reading a volume of history or archaeology that has actually been published less than twenty years ago and represents a rather more recent state of the art than I have been used to in recent years of "self-directed study".

On that topic, I have been watching with a great deal of interest the debate at the Old School Wargames YahooGroup on the topic of Anglocentric history. It bodes well as a topic worth exploration. Indeed, the topic could very well be broadened to take in the whole wargaming-history axis. Who knows what directions that might take us in?

Heckenfeur

It is with a rather guilty start that I noticed the amount of time that has elapsed since my last post. Still as they say, it's a hobby, not a job, and so...

I'm still here and as usual painting far more than ever I game, which suits me well enough, although I do have a little Sword and the Flame bash lined up for a couple of weeks from now. That the game will be between Anglo-Egyptians versus Mahadists is about all that has so far been finalised, so I suppose there will be more as we talk it through.

Continuing along the Colonial front I have finished my first TSaTF unit (20 figs) of Victorian infantry. They look very smart; I'm pleased with how their red tunics came out. Red is a colour I normally struggle with a bit, but this has worked pretty well, despite Games Workshops' dreadful Mechrite Red bought in the hope I really would be able only to put on one coat of it over my black undercoat. I had to bulk it up rather with my trusty Vallejo paints to get an even enough coverage, sadly.

Still, they are done and I've moved on with my reward which is to paint the first four figures of the Victorian cavalry. The castings were most unpromising, just being really quite unattractive sculpts with poor location points for their seperate sword arms. I hope superglue will be enough to hold them on, and that a good paint-job will lift the poor chaps up a bit. Still their horses have painted very nicely and only need a shot of spray varnish to finish them off.

I actually went a bit overboard with the horses and painted seven of them - but I'm cheating and regarding this as preparation for my next "reward stage" which will be converting a couple of Cavalry to a mounted Infantry Colonel and his rather glittering ADC.

On the topic of rewards, I think I remarked in an earlier post that the "Defence of Melbourne" project would be soaking up about 60% of my hobby time this year. At the time I'd not really thought too much about what the rest would be, but now I know.

I've enough Grenze castings from DPC to finish of my Croat forces for the Strudelberg game (whenever that may happen); along with them I also got a couple of bags of Austrian German infantry who I intend to paint up per the test shots I did a while back with the red pants. Too gorgeous.

This ought to see me with some leftover Grenzers. Hm, what to do, what to do... I am thinking of cutting them up and trying to create some pose variants - after all, DPC only offer three - including the ropey Officer/NCO type wearing the cloak with an un-pleasing looking sword being freely brandished. Secondly, I think the cut of the Grenze uniform is not unlike that of the Hungarian infantry during the War of the Austrian Succession, and I'm doing to try my hand at producing some. Ulp! That's about 20% of my hobby time.

The remaining 20% will be taken up with some of the new Eureka Sumerians. This is a period of history that has always exerted a strong fascination for me and I am looking forward to getting some of these minis and really getting to grips with them. I'll review them when I have them to hand and talk about the project when it has gelled a little more.

What else, what else? I was moaning before about the poor quality of the GW "Foundation Paints". Let's go on and suggest that GW get out of the paint game and just stock Vallejo - or someone who does quality paint! Furthermore, have we seen the packs of plastic bases? 20mm and 25mm and 40mm and then the horse bases all in one pack! I guess I won't be buying any more of those then - Litko, here I come!

What's up?

A bit off topic for this blog, but I've been painting 19th Century Victorian troops.

Pictures here.

What I'll be (mostly) doing this Year

Go here for a sneak peek.

The long and the short of it is that I'll be devoting about 60% of my hobby time this year to a fairly ambitious demonstration game slated for the Australia Day Long Weekend in January 2009.

The year is 1887, Britain and Russia are at War over Afghanistan or Caviar or something or other, and the pesky Russians have decided to empty the bank vaults of her Majesty's loyal, but tiny Colony of Victoria!

To do this they need to storm the forts at the Heads of Port Phillip Bay.

We will be re-enacting this momentus "historical" event by putting on a demo-game of the Russian amphibious assault on Fort Nepean.

Prussias' Hussar Regiment Nr 5

Illustrated is "Altpreussische Uniformen" by Hans Bleckwenn. This book is a nice little snapshot of the Frederician Army. It's not complete, but has a smattering of different regiments of each troop type. Each is illustrated with a colour plate depicting the basics of the Privates, the NCOs, the Officers and the Musicians uniforms as well as numerous small details like their colours and standards.

I had quite forgotten that I had ordered this book via the Internet until it arrived in my letter box. On examining it, I was so taken by the plate for von Reuschs' Hussar Regiment number 5 that I had to try painting some figures up as this regiment.

The figures are RSMs, on one of the galloping horse variants. I used the the Prussian Hussar in Mirliton for the troopers with an Austrian Hussar as the Busby-wearing Officer.

They are quite nice figures, but can be a little tricky to paint on account of the fine-ness of the detail. Try a beer instead of a coffee while you are painting these boys.

Painting was done from a black undercoat with a pretty liberal amount of mid-gray highlighting. It took me the best part of a week to get them done. The "dagging" on the saddle-cloths was done by painting the whole pattern in white and then going over again in red - this let me leave a fine white border while also brightening up the red.

Heckenfeur

Getting the painting wobbles…

I’ve spent most of the past week painting a few old Willies and some Stadden command for IR 35. I had been wanting to be doing a really good job on these figures; not only do they cost an awful lot of money, but they are also my beau ideal for toy soldiers.

The upshot of the whole experience has been to convince me of a few things.

Firstly I’m a choker.

You know whaen you want to do a really, really, really good job painting figures and then just can’t? This happens to me every time I lay my hands on some particularly beautiful or coveted or expensive castings. All of a sudden I am a sausage-fingered idiot with a four-inch brych trying to paint the cross-belts on a 30 millimetre figure.

Sure, and I can paint just fine on any figure I have decided I don’t care about. Perhaps a solution lies in this direction? Perhaps I ought to get good and drunk before I touch my next Willie?*.

Which leads me in a near-perfect segue on to the new Willies.

I have only briefly seen the new ones – incautiously ripping open the mail one afternoon last week to discover my birthday present (roll on March 22nd!) – and admit to some mixed emotions on seeing them.

I have always really liked the older Willie castings for the light and graceful style of their design, but was getting very tired of trying to repair some really shocking imperfections in the castings which for the asking price were really unacceptable.

To me the new Willies are very much based on the old masters, changed somewhat and improved in terms of the research behind them and the fact that the old moulds look to have been re-made from the “new, improved” masters.

That’s all to the good, but (and this is going from a five-minute peer through the plastic baggies) it looks to me that the castings still have certain faults. These are not as bad as in the old range to be sure – I have a couple of French Infantry with lower arms attached by a metal “thread”, and British drummers with no fore-arms – but I saw at least two castings of the 32 I bought with significant pits in the backs of the figurines.

At GBP12.95 per eight castings (or about $AU31!) I’m not too sure as to whether I ought not just wait on Minden Minis or even just buy RSMs!

Has anyone else bought any of the new Willies and seen this problem? I’ll do a more thorough review when I can get my hands on the figures toward the end of March.

UPDATE: I recently bought and started to assemble some of the new customisable GW movement trays.

Initially, I thought that these were a great idea - customisable movement trays that you can size in 20 or 25mm units. Then I started to assemble them. Why (oh, why) are the edge pieces that you glue onto the traysides and front not themselves made in lengths corresponding to multiples of the 20 or 25mm units that make them up? Am I being obscure/silly? It makes sense to me to make the "edges" in - say - 75 or 80mm lengths.

Oh, and instead of providing "corner" pieces, why not just bevel the ends of the "edges"?

Is it just me, or do they seem to be quite bad examples of design?


*fnar, fnar, fn-a-a-arrrr!

Move the Third

The third move saw the Alzheimer side continue to mine doggedly forward. Their three mines now projected three inches forward of the lip of the glacis.

Meantime, the Gallispans had repaired their right-hand sap and opened a 48" second parallel. At the right-hand end of it they promptly emplaced a battery of two guns, having judged that it was time for them to begin striking back at the Alzheimer artillery.

You will remember from last move that I named the Alzheimer fortifications from left to right as the Kurprinz Bastion, the Kurprinzessin Ravelin and the Kurfurstin Bastion. So then, from the six dice the Alzheimers got to throw, five of them came up as either a five or a six. The only fortification that rolled low was again was the Kurprinzessin Ravelin with only one of it's guns striking home.

The five Alzheimer hits demolished the entire Gallispan second parallel and the battery they had planted there, but not before it had itself fired it's guns in defiance, scoring a single hit on the number two gun in the Kurprinzessin ravelin. This hit dismounted the gun.

NOTES: Gunfire is simultaneous. A hit on a gun happens when a six is rolled - the gun is irreparable on a roll of a further six on a d6. The ALzheimers will have to use one of their working parties to repair their gun if they want to have it ready to fire next move.

Introducing IR35

The Fusilieers are coming along nicely enough. I'd say they are about two-thirds complete, with the remaining rank and file of the third of four companies due for completion tonight.

I will then get cracking on their command. I took Jim Purky's advice and bought Stadden command to go with the RSM rank-and-file, and they are a very good match being as they are of a somewhat smaller stature than the rest of the Stadden Prussians.

I'll do a comparison photo tonight to demonstrate.

UPDATE: I finished of the third company tonight - that's them in the second picture from the top of the page. I've also included a picture of the Stadden Fusilier NCO for a point of comparison with the RSM fusilier with the cheeky look on his face. Note also the part-painted Officer and fusilier drummer ithe the completed company.

Gunners

It was common practice to borrow infantry from their parent regiments to serve the battalion
guns with the aid of a few artillery-men.

I've decided to pick up on this by painting a few of my gunners in the uniforms of one of my French infantry regiments - Languedoc if memory serves. Obviously they are not serving a little battalion piece here, but a monster siege piece.

Note that the gunners are doing the things that require artillery skills whilst the infantry are providing the brute labour!

Gunners are by RSM, the gun is a Willie/Suren.

Anyone have any Willie Artillery they'd like to part with? The Gallispans are in dire need. Seriously.