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.

Willies

I've had a long standing thing for Edward Suren's "Willie" range of figures.

With one of the OSW crowd talking up the Regiment he's working on, I was prompted to pull out the ones I'd bought a few years ago. Looking at the paint jobs, I decided it was time for a thorough renovation.

I also thought this would give me something to do as I waited for the temptation to buy some of these frighteningly expensive figures to go away.

That didn't work, did it? I've since bought two packs if the Line infantry, a pack of the Foot Command and a pack of the Mounted Command. I've decided that my old Willies will form the second line of the regiment I build.

I'm really not very good at resisting temptation. Perhaps I may need to build an Old School Brigade?

JAFP*

Well, here we are again, another blog posting. Maybe a few belated new years’ resolutions, too.

Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet of late; boring old real life has been getting in the way of noodling around on the internet. On the bright side, Amy and I have gone a long way toward creating a native garden which in turn in drought-stricken Melbourne goes a long way toward saving water and making it possible to keep a garden alive!

So it goes.

In the blog world, I’ve not had too much to say and am trying to keep to a policy of not saying anything if I have nothing of substance to say. That’s the problem with blogs, I think. That empty page and the perception of an “audience” sometimes prompts me to write where I do not always have too much to say.

It is nice for me to put up yet another picture of the same dozen toy soldiers and say “Well, just did the highlights on their coats – what do you all think out there?” but it doesn’t always add to much to the greater discourse, does it?

Does it?

I resolve not to blog about having painted the gaiter buttons on the officers of the grenadier company of IR35, no matter what a terrific job I think I have done.

That brings me to another little niggle that’s been with me since I stumbled across an article in some Wargames mag or other while in the UK. Proper references later, but the gist of the article was what are you guys blogging about? Your miniatures? Please! I only want you top blog about well-painted miniatures, not some of the duff bits and pieces that I’m seeing.

This was accompanied by some photographs of some rather ordinary bits of painting (unattributed) on some decidedly unappealing bits of sculpting that allegedly illustrated his point that people were/are getting lavishly praised for any old thing.

I cannot begin to tell you how the patronising tone of this article got my back up. I fairly choked on my Full English breakfast!

I actually think the tone of posting that we have in the “blog-o-sphere” is possibly a product of the comments moderation policies of those of us who run blogs, rather than the fairly pathetic sycophancy that the writer seems to think holds sway.

I do think sometimes that commenters are over-nice or over-generous and that sometimes a post will be left as much to register a visit as much as anything else.

What are your thoughts?

I promise not to moderate any comments that are cranky, gnarled or spiky. And yes, you do only have my word for that!

UPDATE: The Article was "Wargaming Meets the X Factor" in WI #241, by Barry Hilton.

I'm strangely conflicted about the article insofar as Mr Hilton basically goes out and sets up a straw man - that the internet has bred a lot of people out for fame as it were and that this is coupled with a lot o people out there who'll praise any old rubbish. I think that what annoyed me was the broad brush approach he took and his complete lack of any real examples.

He then holds up a number of figure painters who he believes are worthy of praise.

Speaking for myself, I may enjoy the work of Holger Schmidt or Kev Dallimore, but really would not try to emulate them as I don't believe that their painting styles are sustainable over the kind of army that I am interested in raising. Indeed, modern painting exemplars strike me as being really only suitable for the single miniature or at most for the skirmish game. Taking the point just a little further, I really find the kind of painting admired by Mr Hilton just a bit depressing because I know that there would be no way I could ever finish of a 60-figure unit in anything like an acceptable time-frame.

Perhaps the failing is mine.

UPDATE the Second: I've posted reasonably lenthy responses in the to the comments in the "Comments" section.

*Who remembers "Blue Thunder"?

Vale Ed Hillary

It's a bit late, and not really on topic, but, well, good on you, Sir Ed.

There are not too many like you.

Sculpting Stuff Arrived

I just got a little parcel of sculpting bits and pieces from the good people at eBob.

It's a sort of a sculpting starter pack and consists of two sculpting tools, a 15cm strip of two-part epoxy putty and three "dollies" and 25mm circular plastic bases, similare to those you get from Games Workshop.

The dollies are almost an exact match in size and proportion to an RSM Austrian (German) Fusilier. Thus means that they are impressively dainty and I may need to buy some of those magnifying goggles to work on them.

I am already suitably intimidated - and a bit awed at how skillful our miniatures sculptors actually are.

So, what's the goal?

I want to sculpt up some French infantry suitable for the War of the Austrian Succession. You know the sort - collarless coats with no collars, although collars could be addd easily enough as they began to appear throughout the conflict.

These figures would form the basis for doing Spanish and even Piedmont-Sardinian infantry from the same conflict. Then there are the light infantry of several nations (not forgetting the Montagnards!), Hungarians and Pandurs from the same conflict, to say nothing of the Austrians...

But that's getting ahead of myself.

Better learn how to sculpt first!

I'm thinking my first step might be to gently sever the little heads and trying to get some hats and hair onto them without mucking up too badly.

Let's see how we go.

PS - YES, there will be a seige move enacted this weekend, too.

Projects - good for Lead Mountain reduction

Having a project on focuses the mind.

Doing this siege game has really highlighted to me just how incomplete some of my units are/were.

Just a few examples, my Bavarian Leib Garde were short by a whole company, as were my Gardes Francaises.

Many of my French (or”Gallispan”) regiments while standardised on a three-company organisation were all short various NCOs.

When I started the project my Prussian (or Alzheimer) Fusiliers stood at less than half company strength – now they are at almost two companies and still going strong.

I had almost NO gunners – now I have eight Alzheimer and nine Gallispan (as well as an Ouvrier!) with more on the way.

I had no fortress artillery but for four unpainted and fiddly to assemble Hinchcliffe 12 pounders. Now I have a neat half-dozen from Eureka.

Hurrah for projects; the siege has boosted my forces by something like 70 figures since the start of December.

Note to self

Riding a bike in peak-hour traffic is a great way of developing ones coup l'oeill.

I think the modern term is "situational awareness"!

Second Move

Alzheimer Gunners about to give Johnny Gallispan a jolly good hiding!

No chance cards were drawn this move for either side, so the Gallispans made like busy beavers and began sapping forward.

They opened two trenches and, using three working parties on each, constructed two 36” saps, zig-zagging every 12” as they went.

This left them with an unoccupied working party, so these brave souls went forward along the left-hand sap and constructed 12” of the second parallel.

The Gallispans also now moved to occupy their works, The Gardes Francaises and the Bourbonnois regiments occupying the first parallel, whilst the Berry and la Reine Regiments received their orders to occupy the second parallel once it was completed.

On the Alzheimer side, “Kinsky” watched the sudden surge in Gallispan activity with not a small degree of alarm and while not relenting with his mining activities, determined to open fire on the enemy saps.

Batteries one and two in Bastion Kurprinz opened fire – Battery One demolished the Parapet thrown up before the incomplete second parallel, effectively destroying it. Batteries Three and Four in the Kurprinzessin failed dismally to hit a single thing, whilst Batteries Five and Six in the Kurfurstin Bastion were very successful indeed, destroying two 12” lengths of sap.

Neither side elected to make an ACTION move, so this concluded the second move.

Oh, the Gallispans were gnashing their teeth that night!

NOTES:
Chance cards – at the start of each move, each side draws a chance card from a deck of 20. Half are blank, the other half have various “amusing” (to me!) incidents printed on them.

Move One - Alzheimer

Oberst-Lieutenant Kinsky and his Chief of Engineers, von Fotze stood on the lip of the towns’ glacis.

Von Fotze lowered his glass and opined: “Herr Oberst-Lieutenant, it seems to me that the Gallispans have opened their first parallel and that they have almost finished buildind infantry redoubts at either end.”

“Very good, Captain. Ah, I see my fusiliers are taking a turn on the covered way today?”

“Yes Sir, but-“ and von Fotze lowered his voice “- their morale is low after the last beating they took. They looked more like refugees than soldiers when they came into town.”

Kinsky stuck out his bottom lip. “That won’t do! No, that won’t do at all! Let’s give them something to do other than just stand around. I want three listening galleries driven forward from the edge of the ditch. Knock holes in the counter-scarp if you have to. Start now – it’s slow work, so the earlier we get to it the better. By the time our Gallispan friends have sapped up, we might get far enough out to give them a nice surprise.”

One of the gunners had been trailing them like a lost puppy and now piped up. “Your Excellency, begging your pardon, but I’ve been taking the range and I think I could get a ball as far as the enemy lines.”

Kinsky turned to the man and shook his head. “No. We will wait until he has dug himself further into range before we start burning powder.” He clapped the man on the shoulder. “Don’t worry my lad, there’ll be more than enough to do, bye-and-bye! Now, von Fotze, a crown for each man in the working party that cuts the most clay – does that sound reasonable?”

NOTES:
Mines are dug at the rate of 1” per strategic move.

Detonating a mine or engaging in a day’s artillery fire (ie, firing one’s Artillery in a SIEGE Move) expends a unit of powder. Kinsky has 15 at his disposal. To win, he must hold out for 20 days. Kinsky is seeking to shorten the range before he opens fire.

Kinsky has three infantry units at his disposal. He can this dispose of three engineering officers and thus employ three working parties.

IR35 is on the covered way whilst IR13 mans the bastions and ravelin. The Leib Battalion is in reserve.

With all stragglers now in, IR35 stands at 31 figures.

The Gallispan siege lines are 72” from the salient point of the ravelin and thus at the uttermost extremity of cannon-shot.

First Move - Gallispans

The Marquis de Gonsalvo

In the inevitably gray light that preceeds the dawn, silent files of men were issuing forth from the Gallispan camp.

Each man bore a burden. Some carried ordinary tools in the shape of shovels, mattocks and pick-axes. Others bore stranger items – long bundles of brush-wood that took two men to handle; these were called fascines. Some men wheeled in small carts or simply rolled gabions, large basket-like objects, open at both ends, woven from supple withies.

At the softly-voiced commands of their officers and NCOs all these men stopped and formed a long line facing the Alzheimer fortress.

The Marquis de Gonsalvo dropped his handkerchief fluttering to the ground. At this sign, his engineering officers made their last adjustments to the line, necessary since it was almost as long as two infantry battalions were wide! The men then planted each before themselves a gabion and started to dig.

As they dug, the soil thus excavated was flung up into the gabions, first to fill them, then to cascade in a natural rampart on the side facing the fortress. The fascines were used to bind the rampart laterally and to top the gabions off.

Whilst the line of the first parallel was being constructed, other parties, each under the close supervision of an engineer began to build one at each end, a redoubt roomy enough to hold an entire company of infantry. Gonsalvo noted with satisfaction that Brunetti his Chief of Engineers had taken him seriously on his worries about having strong places where he could shelter his infantry as they waited to counter-attack the inevitable raiders he was sure would come with mischief in mind!

He noted that Brunetti was keeping busy supervising the cutting of some embrasures in the new parapet. He was a good, conscientious officer. Breathing deep of the sour smell of the freshly-turned earth, he wondered if this might not be the odour of success?

NOTES:

Engineering officers are issued at the rate of one for each infantry regiment a side has.

The Gallispans have seven regiments\battalions and thus seven engineers.

A working party needs to be supervised by an Engineering Officer for relatively complex tasks. Each party can create 12" of parallel in a strategic turn.

"Gonsalvo" elected to build a first parallel wide enough to take two infantry units minus their grenadier companies which he intends to house in the redoubts at its' extremities. In the centre is a small battery position in which he'll be mounting a pair of battalion guns for protection against raiders.

My infantry units have a frontage of approximately 20" and thus we need four working parties to open the parallel, another two to build the redoubts and another to create the small battery position, for a neat total of seven fully-employed working parties.

Rules, rules and more rules.

I just thought I’d take the time to lay out a few basics on the siege rules I’ll be using for this game.

The rules are based on a slightly incomplete set published in “The Courier” years ago by Gary Comardo and heavily modified by me as I like my rules a little less abstract, although I preserve his turn sequence intact.

There are two move types, SEIGE and ACTION.

The turn Sequence for the SEIGE move is as follows:

a) Attacker constructs new works
b) Defender constructs new works
c) Attacker places troops in his/her works
d) Defender places troops in his/her works
e) Defender explodes mines
f) Attacker explodes mines
g) Defender fires cannons
h) Attacker fires cannons
i) Defender fires small-arms
j) Attacker fires small-arms
k) Either side may call for an ACTION sequence

You can find many of the basic ideas that I have “plugged into” this turn sequence in earlier postings:

http://mavisming.blogspot.com/2006/05/seige-rules-some-considerations.html

http://mavisming.blogspot.com/2006/05/couple-more-seige-warfare-thoughts.html


The ACTION turn is played out as a tabletop action, using your favoured war-gaming rules. I favour the Charge! Basic rules as they are quite straight-forward.

As I see it, SEIGE moves will largely be played out on a map, whilst the ACTION moves would occour on the tabletop.