Horsies

Here's a picture of the Kurfurstin Regiment as she stands at the moment - Stokes; this one's for you!

No more pictures of this regiment until it's a lot more complete. This week I'll be working on a conversion to a trooper to turn him into a drummer for this regiment.

The other troopers are undercoated and ready to go as are the other eight dismounted troopers. I've some horses in more sedate poses standing by to represent the ... er... discarded mounts.

Strudelberg

Here is a picture of Strudelberg as she stands today. Another couple of buildings ought

to round things out a bit.

Dismounted Dragoons

Well, this weekend I didn't get around to a solo game, but I did manage some painting and photography.

First up we have fromt and rear views of the RSM didmounted dragoon. The one on the left is the Austrian (or in my case the Bavarian!) figure - that on the right is a Prussian who I'll be painting as a Bavarian anyway as he is what I have handy!

Alzheim History

I'm amazed at the moment by the number of mythical countries that have sprung up on line in recent times. It is beginning to seem to me that you need an atlas more than a search engine to navigate their variegated terrains.

Alzheim is one such mythical country.

It's funny though that the Duchy never was conciously conceived as being a blog with a country name and a map and carefully worked out uniforms. I really admire the people who have the disciplined forethought to plan their countries, create gorgeous maps and design beautiful uniforms. It's not something that my scatterbrained thinking has ever really lent itself to, more sadly for me, I sometimes think!

Before this blog there came a name.

Once upon a time I was a member of the SocDaisy Yahoo Group and for some reason names of mythical countries came up as a topic. I (cleverly I thought) stuck up my hand and mentioned Alzheim. Why not? It sounded appropriately German, contained a clever pun that brought to mind a land forgotten by History. Genius!

It was lovingly launched into the mysterious places of the Interweb and promptly vanished without a trace.

Hey ho, I forgot about it, sort of. I still liked the name.

There things pretty wel were left until a friend introduced me. He's a follower of the Lubavitcher rebbe. He's got a blog (AussieEcho) about all things Lubavitch which he showed me.

This got me thinking that this would be a great way of getting my hobby-based materials together in the one place and to try and find a way of imposing some order upon the chaotic mess that I'd created for my self over the years. This came together at about the same time as I had started participating in the OldSchoolWargaming Yahoo Group. The OSW people have had a great deal to do in terms of feedback early on that really made me want to keep regularly at the blog.

At this point the Duchy was still a collection of tidings from my note-book or workbench. I'd not really decided on any detailed characteristics for it - for example, the name of the place is German, but most of it's early doings were those of French-looking troops with French-sounding commanders! I'm sure there are still many contradictions there.

The Duchy took on a more German tone with the introduction of the noble Elector Augustus, his ignoble, Blackadderish manservant Bauer and the dear, doughty, brave and stupid General von Browne who in my mind bears some resemblance to the Graf von Grunt.

Still no maps, though, although for a while though I did toy with the idea of using a map I found online of Alfred the Great's Wessex. I still toy with the idea. I really should do something about that one day.

As it stands though, I'd still characterise the Duchy of Alzheim as a hold-all for my projects in process, random thoughts and occasional pretty pictures. I think it will yet continue to ramble on and hopefully take new und unlooked for turns and sprout unexpected excrecences.

Most of all, I'd like it to be a place where we can meet and talk about our own varied projects and experiences.

Friday Forum #1

Please post your comments on any topic you please.

I'll be checking them as frequently as out time-zones allow to enable something like a free-flowing conversation.

Change to Duchy of Alzheim Style and Content

I’ve been thinking a little about my style of blogging in the past few days.

I think it could be characterized as a lot of little posts on progress on this or that project with pictures of my latest half-dozen painted toy soldiers.

I’m thinking I might revise this approach in coming weeks and concentrate on more meaty (but obviously less frequent) posts on what’s going on, rules ideas, battle reports and so forth.

I’m also thinking of running a “Friday Forum” with an open topic where we may post to our heart’s content using the Comments feature . I’ll them convert the comments into a post and respond as necessary.

I hope that these changes will make the Duchy a more interesting place to visit.

A box of tin from America has arrived! Hurrah!

Oh for joy! at last my RSM order has battled its’ way through shoals of Easter mail to land on my doorstep.

So excited was I at this advent that I plucked out, cleaned and primed the dozen galloping horses that will be the mounts for the Kurfurstin Dragoon regiment. Keeping in mind that I have now painted four of this regiment, scrounged up an officer and trumpeter, as well as this additional dozen I am on my way to having about a squadron and a half of troopers – a very satisfactory stare of affairs I think. I like the fact that this sort of regiment size (say 36-38 figures) will give my horse regiments some sort of battlefield parity with my Infantry. Thus they won’t be withering away too quickly under the impact of a battalion volley.

I ought to have the horses painted to completion by tonight, I hope and then be ready to make a start on the troopers.

I am contemplating doing a skirmish line of a squadrons’ worth of dismounted Dragoons. I was going to use some of the RSM dismounted dragoons, but they are not quite to my taste and I am wondering whether to use some Austrian infantry and Grenadiers in the advancing pose and do some small amount of modification to their leg-ware to indicate boots rather than gaiters. I will be putting a few horses on two bases to represent the horses they dismounted troops leave behind – I’ll probably have to sculpt saddlery onto them.

Equal cause for excitement was the discovery of some sample Ottoman Turks who I thought might make good “early Croats”. I think that, after examining them closely, that they will make fine wild men from the fringes. I’m thinking here especially of plate ‘A’ in the Osprey on Austria’s Frontier Troops (1740-1796) and some early images of some few Serbian troops of the earliest part of the era.

Dragoon Regiment Kurfurstin

Also called Kaiserin fom October 1744 until October 1745 and Piosasque thereafter, I've based this dragoon regiment on the 1740 version of the uniform mentioned in Stephen Manleys excellent uniform guide to the War of the Austrian Succession. Significantly though, he neglects to tell us what colour the small-clothes were. I opted for buff as the "best guess".

This regiment was organised into three squadrons each of four troops. One troop (represented here) was designated as Grenadiers. In my organisation, I am using three figures to represent a troop and thus a dozen for a squadron. When they are fighting dismounted (an option I'm going to allow myself), two figures from each squadron must remain behind as horse-holders.

I'm piecing the regiment together from odds and ends while I await my last RSM order. The horse closest the camera is from Eureka.

Painting for pleasure.

Here's a few things I've been pottering with while

I've been awaiting my latest RSM order.

I've decided to renovate my French regiments, taking them up to a three-company, 15-figures-per company structure with a couple of ensigns and a mounted Colonel to round them out. it's proving pretty painless; as you can see I've just about finished the Berry Regiment. Next on the list is Royal Languedoc with the first three round-outs painted up.

Second is a cheap plastic building from what I think is a Chinese company called "Lee" which I've decided to build into part of Strudelberg. It's actually the second Strudelberg building - the first is a little church with a conical top on the steeple that features earlier in this blog when I was building my Vauban Fortress.

Finally is the converted Austrian/Bavarian Grenadier Officer I've been threatening to do for ages. I'm not entirely sure about how he's cradling hus musket, but we'll see how he looks when he's painted.

Until my next order arrives, I'll probably be painting more Frenchmen and refining my gris-blanc skills. I do have a few other odds and sods saved up for painting just to spoil myself with - mostly aavalry singletons. More later as I get on.

Ducal Doings

Thanks for being patient. And Ducal doings aren't what you think. That's between Friedrich Augustus and Bauer.

I've been fairly busy this past week with work and overtime and haven't really had the time to post much here.

I have been doing a little work on the Strudelberg project. I finished the first Bavarian house a couple of days ago. I have painted up a couple more Croats of the Szluin Regiment, so have had to perform a little hat-surgery upon them.

Speaking of surgery, I have been slicing around an Austrian infantry officer with the aim of turning him into a Bavarian grenadier officer, complete with fusil and belly-pouch - I think the French used to call the equivalent item in their army a "gargoussier". I have an NCO lined up for similar surgery, although I think he will keep his pole-arm. This officer figure, once he has had his "Spanish Reed" cut away would also make a dandy ensign with a little arm-bending.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll post a few pictures tomorrow for the sake of a little eye-candy.

Doodling Along

In between writing another Battlegames review for Eureka (or is that the other way around?) I've been quietly adding to my Croats - I'm up to 26 now (including a standard-bearer) with another couple to be added in the next day or so - these will be Sluiz and so will need the "hat-swap" surgery to do them, so they take a little longer than the regulars.

After that, I'll be out of Croat castings and will be waiting on my next shipment of a dozen from DPC, so I think I'll round out next week painting some more Hungarians to build up Regiment Haller.

This weekend I'll be raiding the model railway shop for some "Bavarian-looking" buildings. Painting them ought to be a nice break from painting miniatures.

Croat Horde

Captain Kalnocky leads his reinforced company into action across the top of my spray-paint spattered recycling bin. To him it is a field of Mars. To his Carlstadters from the Likaner Regiment it's just another fight.

I just finished painting Captain Kalnocky this evening, promptly dropped him on a concrete path, curses, re-touched and varnished him then got him together with all the lads if the first company and a few of the second for a group photo.

They refused to pose with the fisrt recruits to the Szluin Regiment of the Karlstadt Generalcy. They look too much like Germans to them.

More on the Defense of Strudelberg Croats

I just sent off an order to DPC for another dozen Croats which ought to finish off the second company and help the third get well on its' way. I also will be welcoming a dozen galloping Austrian Dragoon castings to recruit into my Bavarian forces. Additionally, I ordered a few Ottoman Turks who I think look promising as "early Croats" - I'm fairly excited about these and really hope they'll live up to my expectations.

Next, I'm hoping to convert a couple of the dragoons into drummers using the seperate drums it's possible to buy from Castaway Arts. How did these guys steer their horsies, anyway? Did they tie their reins to the stirrups or something? Anyway, expect me to beplaying with knives, files, greenstuff and brass wire soonish...

I'll get a picture of the completed company up tonight or tomorrow morning.

On another note, me and the missus have finally (after saving for about three years) booked a European Holiday. Mmmm. Six weeks, and only two of it tied into a tour (OK, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Prague, Budapest, Vienna - it's like the Austro-Hungarian Empire Tour...) so I'm free-ish for four weeks.

Who's got suggestions on places to be and things to do from a geeky perspective?

Croats for Strudelberg

Just quitely noodling away here on the idea of the Defense of Strudelberg and I'm thinking about the composition of my Croat forces.

I like the idea of creating a company of "early" Croats using some of the figures from the RSM Ottoman range - I've spotted a couple of chaps in tall hats and baggy pants wearing shirts and loose waistcoats who might suit. I even like the guy with the horsetail standard who I could swap with a more "Austrian" standard-bearer.

It might even be possible to get some of these blokes into flugelmutzen (perhaps casting my own) to create something approximating von Trencks' infamous freikorps.

In the meantime, I'm nearly done on my first Croat company and have made some progress on companies two and three. My next order to DPC will get these latter companies close to completion, buy me some Austrian Dragoons (who will go nicely with some old von Kleist Cavalry as horse-grenadiers, I think) and some samples for my Balkan wild men.

The Defense of Strudelburg - Croats

Here are a couple of new Croats/Grenz.

I've done them to represent the Szluin Regiment of the Karlstadt Generalcy. You'll note that they are the two RSM Croats with their felt tshakoes chopped off and replaced with tricornes. I did this on the basis of a throwaway line in "Instrument of War"* referring to those troops having at one stage tricornes. Whether they retained them for long is another matter...

You'll note the man on the right has a bandage on his head. This is the legacy of me being too eager with cutting his old hat off, then being too generous with the Green Stuff as I tried to patch the gap!

Overall though, I think they look pretty cool; I really like the overall effect of the colour scheme.

The RSM Croats are very easy to paint, too. Try them for yourself some time. I'll soon be painting up an Austrian Officer with a Hungarian infantry head swap on him to "exoticise" him enough to serve with the Croats.

It strikes me that you could almost mistake them for early (mid1740s?) Hungarians, especially if you replaced the sabre with a plastic card sabretache. Just a thought.

*Duffy

A few thoughts on "The Croat Terror" (or "The Defense of Strudelberg")

Some little while go I posted on what is evolving into a demonstration game - "The defense of Strudelberg".

To refresh your memories: It is about 1742. Austro-Hungarian forces are ravaging Bavaria. A small Bavarian force of Infantry and Cavalry are trying to hold up a strong force of enemy line and light infantry supported by a strong force of hussars and some light artillery. My initial idea was to fight down the length of a table with towns representing victory points scattered on either side of the river. TheBavarians would be forced to choose what to defend and this choice would be complicated by a river running down the centre of the table. The Austro-Hungarian player would be able to choose where to strike, and would have a small but significant advantage in numbers.

To all this, Murdock said:
The only concern I would have for your planned 'long running' battle along the banks of the river is the speed of most infantry cannot match that of the cavalry. Wheras the artillery is what is generally needed to 'batter-down' hardened town locales.Your overall concept I think would be better organized as a 'campaign' to be faught over a number of 'imaginary' weeks. With each defensive stand, chosen by the Bavarians (probably based on the 'value' of the locations) becoming the basis for a tabletop engagement.This way the Croat forces would be able to either 'blitz' trying to rush past with their superior cavalry...or surge forwards in a unified formation.

Me: Murdock, I take your point and am revising the scale of the game down to an "evacuate the civilians" game. Further, I am taking on board your recommendation on artillery and will be equipping the Austro-Hungarian side with a pair of battalion guns. Play-testing may also result in the Bavarians obtaining one also.

I would still like to play out the campaign at a later date, though!


And then Grimsby Mariner said:
We ran a very similar idea for a demo game some years back at Triples & Partizan. the game was based on a large Indian raid down the Ohio valley in the French indian Wars. Twelve warbands of indians (some 120 figures) racing down the valley against 30 regulars and 40 civilians (including women and children) with a relief force sailing up the river in boats. The terrain had two steep wooded valley sides with a fort close to the river and homesteads scattered across the valley floor. we found the whole thing great fun and added twists with each play adding in some French regulars to support the Indian or local militia for the English - we even had Indians in canoes!).the trick we found was play testing it several times before the demo to make sure it worked and was not too unblanced.I imagine your Croat terror game being similar.

Me: It's interesting that you should say that. I'm fairly sure that Jim Purky's "Croat Terror" rules (the title of which I'm pinching to head this series of posts) had it's own genesis in a set of FIW rules called "Iroquois Terror" that had a premise not unlike the series of games you describe.

In light of Murdock's comments above, I'm inclining toward this sort of a scenario at the moment. Hungarian regulars replace the French, Croats replace the Indians, a walled or fortress town replaces the fort - hm, at last! a use for my Vauban fortress - as eye candy at least.

Now i just need a number of 18th Century civilians to look out for. I have some from RAFM's old "Flint and Feather" range. Can anyone suggest some more?

New progress pics of the Haller Regiment

I finally finished off the second company last night - plus a few extras.

I'll start adding command when my last order from DPC comes through.

Bits and Pieces

Just so you know i've not dropped of the face of the earth.

Well, work on the 2nd company of the Haller regiment is coming along quite well; I think they'll be finished off in the next couple of days. I'll hold a parade whaen that happens.

I'm still waiting on my latest RSM order, so the part of the project that's the incentive (ie, the pretty bits) is still a twinkle in my eye. I'm contenting myself with a drummer and another mounted officer for my Bavarians.

Yesterday I took delivery via Amazon UK a copy of Stephen Manley's The War or the Austrian Succession; A Wargamers' Guide - Part IX. This comb-bound A4 paperback (reviewed in BAttle Games V1 Nr5) covers the Uniforms of Denmark, Bavaria, Pfalz, Hannover, Saxony and the varios Hessian states. Let me just say that I was humming with delight as I perused this little gem with it's densely-packed and well-laid out information. It's a great help for my Bavarians in my growing "Croat terror" game that I am slowly assembling. I will be buying more of these. Especially the Austrain book.

Anyway, I must carry on; the dishes won't wash themselves and I would like to put in an hours' painting before Amy gets home from karate.

Here's an idea

I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about how I might create a pioneer figure for my Bavarian infantry.

RSM do a couple of figures in their waistcoats with empty hands as part of their artillery sets. I'm thinking, perhaps a grenadier head-swap, a greenstuff apron, a scratchbuilt axe, a loose musket on a sling and a painstakingly built-up coat and I might be there.

The bare head could be transferred to an Officer or NCO who might then be persuaded to hold his hat in his hand.

I'll let you know how I go with that.

I'd like to go further too with my Grenadier officers and actually arm one with a fuisil and a belly-pouch (did the French call them "gargoussiers"?). The Austrian Officer advancing with his "spanish reed" in hand looks a promising subject.

What's on

Every now and then I must really annoy Rich and Dave from DPC by putting in orders like this:

5 x S6-001 - Austrian Officer with Baton
5 x S6-002 - Austrian Officer Advancing
5 x S6-003 - Austrian NCO with Halberd
2 x S6-004 - Austrian Musketeer Drummer
13 x S6-005 - Austrian Grenadier Marching
10 x S6-007 - Austrian Musketeer Marching
8 x S6-012 - Austrian Grenz Loading
8 x S6-013 - Austrian Grenz Stand & Fire

Still they are good about it and they humour me, which I like.

That being said, that's my Hungarian regimental officers taken care of, as well as my Bavarian Grenadiers and a company of Grenz.

Speaking of Grenz, I reckon that with some judicious chopping, you could turn a Grenz Officer casting into an "enthusiastic" ensign. That upraised sword cries out to me to be replaced with a flagstaff.

Flags here: http://royalfig.free.fr/DrapAut.htm These are amazingly beautiful flags by Frederic Aubert, surely one of the most helpful people in this hobby. I stand in awe.

I've finished undercoating the next company of the Haller regiment and am painting all the blue bits. Next comes highlighting them, then the gray base-coats of the coats followed by the white highlighting.

I've a busy weekend on!

1st Company, Haller Regiment

Voila!

The Grenadier drummer will eventually be drafted to the Grenadier company. Just as soon as there is one...

New Recruits

Yhis weekend i started batch painting the first fusilier company of the Haller regiment.

As you can probably see it's an Hungarian unit. Figures are the huge stash of RSMs I found I had.

These two are a pair of test shots I did last week; they are painted very much according to the plate in my Blandford book on the uniforms of the 7YW.

I've another dozen fusilieers and a couple of drummers (one a Bavarian) in process. I've painted the coats, facings, leggings, cross belt and have made a start on the faces.

I ought to have them finished by the end of the week. Each company will have an Officer, Drummer and NCO in attendance. Four companies plus a mounted Colonel should see the regiment come in at 61 figures.

If only all my regiments were of such a size!


This next gentleman is from the RSM aid package of "odds and ends" that lovely Ioannis Mavromichalis sent me, and I painted him over the weekend to stop myself from going mad as I splashed the white paint around. He has now joined the von Kleist Freikorps.

Eureka Toy Soldiers - Free!!!

...and they're gone!

Next available lot are Eureka's Warrior Frogs.

Take a look here:

http://eurekamin.com.au/news.php?newsid=EEyuFulkAEOKftJokR

Again, a pretty fair sampling across the latest releases in the range.

bloggerator@gmail.com

I'll be posting a bit later today to let you know what's been going on here.

Eureka Toy Soldiers - Free!!!

I've some review samples from Eureka Miniatures "Toy Soldiers" range. They are a complete sampling of the range, so there's quite a few items there.

http://eurekamin.com.au/news.php?newsid=EEyuFuZAZkMNLaWktT

For the cost of postage and packaging I'd like to get them to a good home.

First email gets them. Please contact me at: bloggerator@gmail.com

More on the Croat Terror

I've been knocking a few ideas around in my little head these past few days.

I've become interested in doing a demo game based around the devastation of Bavaria during the War of the Austrian Succession in around 1742.

This probably isn't too suprising considering where my painting and modelling have been taking me these past few weeks, but geez, it'd make a good demonstration game for later in the year.

I was thinking I could put together a scenario based on this where a couple of weak Bavarian battalions with a squadron of Dragoons might try to defend a three villages from a horde of Croats with a large battalion of Hungarians in support along with a squadron of Hussards. The terrain would basically be a long-ish valley with a river running through the midle of it.

The villages could each be assigned a points value depending on their size. Lesser points values could be obtained by sucessfully evacuating their populations. Victory would be based on the number of points accrued by defender or attacker. One of the villages with the highest points value would have to be seperated from the others by a river.

The number of players could be easily varied - the Bavarians could accomodate another by hiving their grenadiers off to form a detachment; their 40-figure battalions could be halved. The Croats could be played be single or multiple companies. The large (60 fig) battalion of Hungarians could be broken down into four 15-figure companies or two 30-figure divisions.

Rules - currently I'm looking at der Alte Fritz's "Kleine Kreig" rule set, as you'll probably realise from the unit sizes.

All food for thought.

Any comments?

Finished Grenadiers

Here they are, all done.

I'
m pleased with how they tirned out. They do have some inaccuracies - the officer should not be wearing a moustache and he ought to be carrying a fusil and wearing a belly-pouch. Overall though, I'm not displeased. The ribbons on the queues turned out OK, but could have been better - I have a long way to go with my Green Stuff technique.

Works in progress

Sorry about the crap photography; the lighting conditions were less than optimal. Still, I think you get the idea. I'll put somthing better up tomorrow. Paints are by Vallejo and Games Workshop. Note that I have used a black undercoat.

I'm finding it makes life a LOT easier.

I'm starting to sound like a convert.

Well, the Croats were painted that way, too.

Grenadier NCO and Officer

Here they are, fresh out of the camera.

A note to me - use a razor-saw rather than clippers next time - you'll need to do less to reconstruct the necks!

Let Me Convert You

Right.

I got a little crazy tonight with the clippers and the greenstuff.

I've created an Officer and an NCO for my Bavarian grenadiers. Leib Regiment, I think.

After devastating the castings with my clippers, I had to re-biuild the necks and the bags for their grenadier caps with the Greenstuff. And the little ribbons on their pigtails. They look OK.

Pictures to follow tomorrow morning when they have dried enough to photograph. I'm fairly happy with the result.

I'd give a lot for a dremel tool to save myself from the tedious, endless filing though!

For my next trick I'm going to paint these guys and then a 60-figure regiment of Hungarians. Digging around tonight; having a general audit of my lead mountain, I've found enough castings to do just that and it's a pretty exciting idea for me. I even found enough castings round to build up the strength of the Leib regiments' fusiliers to a reasonable (40 figs) level.

I also dug out Alte Fritzs' "Croat Terror" rules and they look like enough fun for me to contemplate a little game (demo? convention?) later this year. I'm envisaging a Bavarian battalion versus an indeterminate number of Croats c.1742.

More later.

The Croat Terror!

Those among you with a taste for such things may recognise these Croats as being Carlstadters from the Likaner Regiment. Reference for painting then (and I think also for the original sculpts) is my Blandford "Uniforms of the Seven Years War, 1756-1763" by Mollo and McGregor.

Not so much a new venture, I was combing thru my lead mountain and found these odds and ends. They're not quite finished (they need basing and a few need loose weapons attached), but I was so pleased with them, I had to show off...

Painting Again 2

Painting Again

I reckon it's been about two months since I painted any figures.

It's time to get back on that wagon.

Some few weeks ago Ioannis Mavromichalis (he of www.wargames-etc.com fame) kindly sent me a grab-bag of RSM miniatures including a mounted artilleryman I'd never seen before and these whetted my whistle rather. I now seem to be painting again, and tomorrow I hope that I'll have a couple of images to show off.

And now, to bed.

Thanks Ioannis.

Building the Spanish Farm

I thought I'd take the time to write a short piece on how I built the Spanish Farm.

I started off with the imaes I found on the internet - they are still up on the blog a few entries back. From these I drew a rough cartoon to work out the relationships of the various buildings to each other, their rough proportions and to get an idea of the kind of details I wanted to include.

The next thing I did was to work out the dimensions. My Peninsular collection will never grow to be too large, so I felt that I could make the buildings a bit larger than I otherwise might, thinking that the larger they are, the more useable they becoime in a low-level game.

I took my note from the height of the walling I use, which is about 40mm high. From that, and with no small degree of fudging, the rest of the dimensions were reasonably easy to work out.

For the record:

The larger "dual" building with the peaked roofs are 80mm wide and 190mm long. The wall heights are 100mm and 90mm. the roof peaks are 15mm higher than the wall heights.

The smaller "dual" building is 60mm wide and 160mm long. That part of the roof that slopes from left to right is 80mm high at it's highest point, falling away to 70mm. The other is 90mm high at it's highest point, falling down to 80mm.

The wing is 60mm wide and 120mm long. It is 70mm high at it's highest point, falling away to 60mm at the other side.

The little lean to out the back is 60mm wide and 30mm long. It is 50mm high at it's highest point, falling away to 40mm at it's lowest vertical point.

All the walls were cut from foam core and apetures cut to take windows and doors from model railway accessory kits.

Finishing was done in the same way as the other Spanish buildings I've described in earlier posts. I hope the images add what the text may lack!

Urban Sprawl 5

Well, I'm back from holidays and back on deck here.

Today I came pretty close to knocking off my "Peninsular farmhouse". All that's left to do is a little detail painting.

Sean Bean's Rifles do what they do best - provide a sense of scale!

As ever, click on the image for a larger view.

The winner and new Alzheimer poetaster!

Stand high for grand Duchy,
Fight for King, and ne’er abate!
I am the very model of,
A petty German potentate.

Marching ‘cross yon battlefield,
Exchanging volleys ‘o lead.
Through fire we go, ne’er to yield,
Fighting for Duchy ‘till dead!

'Top our mighty steeds ‘o white,
With saber’s we go slashing.
Foe run when we come to fight.
Round the field we go a-dashing!

Stand high for grand Duchy,
Fight for King, and ne’er abate!
I am the very model of,
A petty German potentate.

Bombing forts with well aimed shot,
Or whiffing foe with bags of grape.
Through whole campaigns we have fought,
Though hard, we always escape.

Confident we always are,
To fight and die for Royal King.
Where fight is thick, we’re ne’er far,
Through trials we come out winning!

Stand high for grand Duchy,
Fight for King, and ne’er abate!
I am the very model of,
A petty German potentate.

Norris, please drop Herr Bauer a note at bloggerator@gmail.com with your address so that your wreath may be sent you post haste!

Urban Sprawl 4

A progress shot of the Spanish Farm. Please forgive the blurry shots - they were taken in haste!

You may not be able to make it out, but the building is modular, breaking down into four parts - the two wings, the larger house to the rear and behind that (unseen here) a small lean-to outhouse structure. Additionally to this are the two walls I built earlier that just happened to fit.

The next step will be to detail the buildings with card "stonework", dors and windows and the plastic card roofing. Following that I will do the texturing with the watered down plastrer and finally the painting.

I'm going away on holiday for the next week and a half, so the Duchy will be going quiet for a little while - unless I can get my hands on an internet connection.

Happy New Year.

Urban Sprawl 3

I've just about finished off my little hovel and additional walling, and am in the mood for something a little different. I have done my usual meticulous research (5 minutes googling at work) and think I might do a farm house.

The images I came away with were quite interesting, especially from this website:

http://www.spanish-inland-properties.com/farm-houses-spain/

It's amazing what prices are being asked for tumble-down ruins with no services whatsoever, but that's another story.

The accompanying picture looks rather interesting, and I think the farm could be built in the form of a number of boxes that could be basically butted up against each other and re-arranged to form a number of configurations. You seem to have a large house to which have been attached a number of newer buildings with the single-plane sloping roofs that then form "wings" and thus a yard which a stone wall has been built around.

Note the terrain. It's not quite the lush, verdant sward depicted in the touching History Terrain book on the Peninsular War!

I am also considering building an "L" shaped house - not as flexible perhaps as the "modular farm" but nice as eye-candy. I'm conceiving of it as being a high status house that might be at home in a town or in the country.

Urban Sprawl 2

I added another wall to the collection last night. Tonight I would like to add another with a simple gateway and to start work on a low-status house. I'll design this one to butt up against another structure or wall, so I'll leave two of it's walls innocent of any features.

It struck me also that I ought to loop-hole some of the walls I create. I might also do one with an embrasure cut in it.

Urban Sprawl

I had a few hours to myself yesterday so I went and built a few lengths of wall and the tower you can see in these pictures. Again, the materials are foam-core board and railway accessory windows. I'm out of windows! You really get through them quickly in these buildings.

I like the walling, I played around with it last night and found it's very flexible. I'll make a few more longish sections, some short ones and a gateway. I like the idea of being able to create a walled garden that I could use in the Duchy.

As ever Sean Bean's Rifles are vigilant in combing through the village and have been joined by Major Astin who is seeing to the placement of one of his precious 9-pounders. Major Astin needs a shot of varnish to finish him off.

Peninsular House

Construction materials - foamcore walls, balsa strip, platic card for the balcony and doors, model railway windows, pantile effect plastic card for the roof. A few matchsticks to construct the roof of the balcony.

A few of Sean Bean's Rifles are included for scale purposes.

Write a song - win a prize!

Here's the deal.

Write me a song to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern Major-General". I'll help with the punchline - "I am the very model of a petty German Potentate". Indeed, you can play with the chorus:

Hurry up there Bauer;
The hour it is getting late;
I am the very model of;
A petty German potentate!

Or words to that effect if you please!

This will be the national anthem of the ancient and noble Duchy of Alzheim.

That's right, the National Anthem!

Madness indeed, you might say, but His Serene Highness has deemed that it is to be so, and it was only with difficulty that he was dissuaded from offering the hand of the fair princess Mathilde to the sensitive soul who sufficiently moves His Majesty.

This competition will be open until a winner is found.

Aside from the laurel of victory and the honour of becoming the Duchy of Alzheims' poet laureate, you will also win a handsome prize! Not as handsome as the Princess Mathilde, but handsome nontheless!

Marvellous, aren't they! 1/72nd Revell Austrian artillerists, freshly and pointlessly won on eBay* by yours truly. Meister Chanticleer Schwartz, you would seem well qualified in many respects to enter this competition; nonetheless, come one, come all!

*thanks to bangorstu, 100% positive feedback - quelle homme!

Am I being anal? You can tell me...

I posted this on the 7YW Yahoo Group today.

Gentlemen,

I wonder if anyone could perhaps clarify for me whether or not the Saxon Infantry wore collared coats during the 7YW?

If I may, let me take you through the reasons for my confusion.

Older visual references (Funcken, Mollo and the Knotel(?) cigarette cards on the Grosser-Generalstab website*) all show the collarless coat. This might be fair enough, but I think that they might all be working from Knotel. I do not know this for sure, but this is my feeling. My Knotel, Knotel and Seig does not confirm this one way or the other.

Newer visual references such as my Pengel and Hurt and my copy of Sapherson show the Saxons in a collared coat. Again, I think Sapherson is relying on Pengel and Hurt for his information which in turn seems derived from an illustration from 1753.

My most recent and up to date reference is Wolfgang Friedrich's "Die Uniformen der Kurfurstliche Sachsischen Armee 1683-1763". It shows collars appearing on the Infantry coats from 1742 onwards, appearing in the plates describing the uniforms for 1756 and 1760.
Is it true that there was generally a collar on the Saxon infantry uniform that did not appear on the uniforms issued to the newly reconstituted corps of infantry after Pirna? Was the collar re-introduced when the uniform changed (ie, bearskins were added) in 1760?

Is Knotel (and those who have used him since as a source) wrong? Or was Knotel right and relying on sources that may not have survived the destruction of Dresden in WW2?

Is it even possible to be so precise at two and a half centuries distance?

Any light that could be shed would be most welcome!

Best regards,

Greg Horne

*possibly the most popular, referenced and readily available visual reference available on the Saxon army on the Internet!

Illustrations from the French 1755 Drill Manual

In no particular order and just for interests' sake.

Sean Bean's Rifles

Over the past few days I have been staying busy painting these Elite Miniatures Riflemen. I love the quirky style of the sculpting which repays a fairly careful paintjob. I painted these fellows in my usual Vallejo acrylics from a white dry-brushed black undercoat. The bases they are on are their temporary "handling bases" (GW plastic ones), and are not their final bases at all. I think that the three figure vignette on the larger base looks quite nice though and may form the basis for a later grouping.

I've nearly finished painting five gunners, too and expect to have them photographed in the next few days.

I'm thinking of writing a "Sharpe" parody and calling it something along the lines of either "Sharpe's Pastiche" or even "Sean Bean's Rifles". I have been using the phrase "whoreson motherless rogue" an awful lot in the back of my head lately..!

Painted Figures - comparison

Here they are then. From the left, Mr White Undercoat, then Mr Black Drybrushed white undercoat and finally dull old Mr Black undercoat.

Personally spraking, I think the two blck undercoats look to work the best for this type of figure. I'll try three of my RSMs next and see how they go.

The Gardes Francaises need a new draft of troops.

Undercoats

I decided to do a little experiment in the past few days to try out the competing “undercoat” models we have available.

I took three similar miniatures (WW1 Russians from HLBS) and undercoated them. One I did in white, one in black and one in black, heavily dry-brushed white.

I painted all three using exactly the same techniques – base-coat, first and in some areas, second highlights. Some areas got a wash of my favourite brown ink.

The HLBS castings are heavily undercut and have many a nook and cranny.

The black undercoat and the dry-brushed one let me paint the “visible” detail, while the white undercoat made me want to stick my paintbrush into every semi-accessible crevice in the figure. This is for me always a frustrating exercise and I wound up washing those areas with ink to hint at painted detail. The dry-brushed undercoat let me wash over raised strap detail without having really to paint it. I followed this up with a thinned wash of brown ink again to define the detail and it came up looking pretty good.

For comparison purposes, I ought to paint three RSM figures for comparison. They are much less heavily undercut and would make an interesting point of comparison.

Images of the HLBS figures will follow in the next day or so.

Touching History Terrain Book review

I received in the mail of a copy of the first volume of the Touching History series on terrain making last night, the Peninsular War one.

It’s a magazine format book with a great many illustrations showing the buildings and terrain. I was greatly impressed by the quality of the photos, but not too impressed by the information presented.

I did not feel that the book really presented me with tips on making “Spanish” terrain. The section on making the terrain boards while nice enough presented some nice grassy scenery that might not have been out of place in any generic European layout. There was no discussion at all of the differing terrain and climate conditions that one might encounter in the Peninsula. I always had the impression that Spain is rather diverse, and a bit more arid!

The buildings as describes are very nice to look at, but the emphasis seemed more on describing the finishing of the buildings than on the techniques used in making them. That’s fair enough – it’s always seemed to me that war games terrain is mostly about the finish, but a few more tips might have been useful. Some tips that were mentioned were new to me – using brass sheet to represent pantiled roofing for example – but most were pretty unremarkable and frankly could have been gleaned from the Terragenesis website or past issues of White Dwarf.

The book contains a great deal of padding and irrelevance – double-page spreads of scenery layouts, close-ups of single miniatures, close-ups of scenery layouts from irrelevant periods and an astonishingly self-indulgent couple of pages on re-enactors of the 95th Rifles. Surely some of this wasted space (and surely there’s not much space to waste in a 75-page publication) could have gone towards fleshing out the descriptions on building some of the more complicated buildings.

The problem today with this sort of publication is that there is so much material available on the internet. This material is filled with excellent, well-illustrated articles on virtually every aspect of terrain design. To produce a book on terrain building that is actually worthwhile, you may need to pitch it as being someone’s “master class” with perhaps tips on advanced techniques, perhaps some material on designing buildings from conception to execution.

I think that if you wanted to take a more useful look at creating the terrain of the Peninsula War, you might be better off hanging onto the GBP18.50 this cost me here in Australia (and spending it on some Connoisseur miniatures) and go here instead: http://www.fusiliers.net/wargaming6.htm

West Melbourne Regiment

I'm taking a little time off the Seven Years War to paint up something a little different.

I have a small cache of Britains recasts from Soldier Pac and got around to cleaning up one of these already pretty clean castings. They are very light on detail, so most of what you see (buttons, piping &c) are all painted on. I'm fairly pleased with the result, but think I'd have benefitted from a brush with a better point! He represents a private from the West Melbourne Regiment c1882-85. I will do a few more in the next couple of days to go with my gun crew.

At the same time I am painting a dozen Mahdist cavalry in an attempt to cut into my lead mountain. I bought these in January at CanCon and I think they look very promising so far.

Feathery Hats

Odd title for a post?

I suppose it is. I was looking at some of my 7YW miniatures the other day and was struck by how well the feathery hat edges I'd added to a couple of mounted officers looked.

I'm the sort who likes sometimes to repeat what he regards as a success, so I started thinking that I'd like to do a few more and began casting around for a couple of units where I could have a shot.

I started thinking of the Cuirassiers du Roi in the 1740s and thought, "good, I'll do them - got a good collection of miniatures to represent a troop or two already". Then I remembered some chit chat on OSW or 7YW about Prussian IR15, the King of Prussia's own regiment. The Officers and NCOs wore feather edging in their hats.

Aha! thinks I, let's take a quick trip to Osprey-land.

One trip later and I'm a little confused. Don Fosten's magnificent plates show effectively two uniformsThe first battalion (of three) had a lapel-less coat - as some Prussian regiments did. Battalions two and three who saw a fair old bit of action had a coat with red lapels and white buttonhole edging.

Here is the question(s):

Battalions two and three can be readily modelled using RSM miniatures which come with the lapels and cuffs appropriate to battalions two and three, but did their officers and NCOs have the feathery hat edging, or was that confined to the gala-uniformed lads of the first battalion?

If they didn't, do I care and will I give them their feathery hats anyway because they look so good? Heresy!

HE/RSM Comparison Shot

Interestingly, the two look much the same size. I had always had the impression that the HE were the smaller figures.

If anything, they are pehaps a little taller and lankier.

HE Infantry Figures

I finally got around to photographing some of the sample HE infantry I promised for Stokes.

Npt the best image, but they do get the "look" of them across, I think. I'd say they were as close to a "true" 25mm as you are likely to get. They look very slight against Foundry, and by comparison the detail is very unrefined.

But beautiful to me.

One for the Kids

I'm currently painting some more Prince August homecasts for my nephew Max. He doesn't know it yet, but he's getting some Great Northern War Saxons and Swedes to bulk out the tiny force of Saxons he already has.

I decided to write some simple rules so he can do more with them other than line them up an roll marbles at them. After all, I painted them, and want them to stay unchipped for a while yet!

1. Move
Guns – 1dice in inches
Men – 2 dice in inches
Riders – 4 dice in inches

Men or Riders with an Officer or a Drummer or a Flag Bearer get to add another dice to their move.

2. Shoot
Guns – throw 4 dice. Each 5 or 6 is a hit.
Men – throw one dice. Each 6 is a hit.
Riders – throw no dice.

Each figure that is hit but has not fired is laid down on its side and may fire once before it is removed. Riders that are hit are removed. A gun needs two men to shoot.

3. Fight
Guns – throw no dice.
Men – throw one dice.
Riders – throw two dice.

Highest score wins.

4. End of the Game
The first player to lose half of his soldiers loses the game.