Merry Xmas 2024 !

Just a very quick post to wish everyone who follows and reads this blog a very Merry Xmas, and a Happy New Year!

 

Looking to create a vaguely seasonal picture, I thought lots of red, and appropriate trees: so it's an Xmas salute from the Regiment Picardie, away from home territory among the pines of Northern Europe.  Those trees are good old Tri-Ang from the 1970s, which surely  match the vintage  design of the Garrison 25mm figures.  Thanks are due to Rob from The Eastern Garrison for supplying the soldiers, and  to my late parents for providing  pocket-money which enabled the childhood me to acquire the trees, which have been with me ever since!  Xmas is a time of nostalgia and looking back on  happy childhood memories, after all.  

I hope this finds all my readers well and enjoying their Xmas, if celebrating it is your thing.  Many thanks to all who have visited this blog, and especially to those who have joined in with so many friendly and supportive comments, you make it all worthwhile!   

Here's to a happy 2025, with plenty more blogging, painting and gaming. Meanwhile, keep well everyone. 

 

Fnurban #36 : What's in a Name?

There's been something of a pause in hobby activities in the past few weeks - largely just due to 'daily life' happening, really  ( 'Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans..' as a working-class hero may, or may not, have said ).  A little progress on painting 6mm figures for the Risorgimento project, but nothing finished and alas, no gaming.  But there has been a little 'military history' interest, with a common thread, that being my family name. 

I think I was slightly aware that one of Wellington's staff in the Peninsular bore the name Barnes - I think I remembered him being mentioned at 'No.1, London', Apsley House, which is of course well worrh a visit if you are in central London. But recently, and  possibly after Jon Freitag's ACW Shiloh game that I took part in,  I happened to search on-line for 'General Barnes'. There was indeed an ACW character of that name, commander of the Union army's 1st Division, who disgraced himself at Gettysburg, I'm afraid. However,  I was more interested to see some details of the Napoleonic officer, Sir Edward Barnes (1776-1838).  His Wikipedia page makes a good introduction.  He seems to have had a distinguished military career, rising to be Wellington's  'fire-eating adjutant general'  in the Waterloo campaign, and was wounded in that battle. Subsquently he spent seven years as Governor of Ceylon, and was Commander-in-Chief in India in 1832-1833.   Here he is, in a portrait by William Salter 

Need I say there is emphatically no resemblance to me? ( except perhaps what is euphemistically called a  'high forehead' )  And no evidence of any family connection - my ancestors were all  lowly farm labourers in Norfolk at the time.  But I was struck by a couple of nice coincidences in his biography.  Firstly,  that he was briefly MP for Sudbury at the end of his life - Sudbury being my adopted home town. As an aside, he was first elected in a controversial by-election in 1834, which was covered by a young newspaper reporter named Charles Dickens, and probably inspired Dickens' fictional election at  'Eatanswill' in The Pickwick Papers.         

And secondly, General Barnes died at his home at Walthamstow in 1838, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church, Walthamstow. His gravesite is marked by a large monument, with an inscription giving details of his achievements in life.  It happens that before moving to Sudbury, I too lived at Walthamstow, for about 10 years ( I suspect his house was a bit grander than my Warner Estates maisonette ), and I must have walked past St. Mary's churchyard a good many times, all unknowing. It has occurred that I seem to be following my illustrious namesake around, and it might be fun to do a little research into his life and career. By way of a start, a few weeks ago I paid a visit to the church, and found the monument : 

 as you can see it's quite impressive, but alas the inscription is by no means easy to read

- but it's a start, at least. It might be nice to find out some more.  Perhaps my new friends at the National Army Museum ( well, I paid for a membership there, mainly to donate some money and to get a discount in the cafe when attending their talks! ) can help..

Another thread of research is a bit closer to home - I have done a bit of family history investigation  over the years, and have recently been passed copies of  the RAF service records of a relative (with whom I also share surname), who was a mid-upper gunner in Lancaster bombers in 1943 and 1944. I  have his service record document which records his joining up in 1942, and then the sequence of postings to various reserve, reception and training establishments, finally arriving at No. 57 squadron  at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire in late 1942.  Scampton is famous as the base at which No. 617  'The Dambusters' squadron was formed in early 1943, and several crews joined no. 617 from no.57 squadron, so my relative may very well have been familiar with many  'Dambusters', though he remained with No.57.  He stayed with the squadron until July 1943, so I assume he completed a 'tour' of operations, and then transferred to various OTUs (Operational Training Units), perhaps as an instructor, before joining no.9 squadron ( the RAF's senior bomber unit ) in July 1944.  

All that information is interesting enough, but what is really fascinating to me, is a series of copies of  the squadron's Operation Records, for operations which my relative took part in. These give the date and target of the mission, the number of the squadron's aircraft involved,  and a summary of how the operation went - and then a separate section for each aircraft, giving details of crew members, time 'up' and 'down', whether they reached the target, time and altitude of bombing, whether results could be observed, and bomb load carried. 

As an example, here is the squadron's summary for the operation undertaken on the night of 3rd/4th March 1843 :

BOMBING OPERATION: TARGET - HAMBURG
Seven aircraft were detailed to attack HAMBURG. All took off, but one returned early with rear turret u/s and an oil leak in one engine. The other six aircraft reached the target area. Visibility was good and all saw the River Elbe and the dock system. The P.F.F. markers were clearly seen and bombed. All crews report a good concentration of bombs on the markers and report huge fires which could be seen over 100 miles away on the return journey. All returned to base except 'M' which was sent on to Wittering to land on the long runway there because of the inability to get the flaps down for landing. It landed safely there. Photographs taken on this raid show a large mass of fires with little ground detail. Those plotted (in all squadrons in Command ) show that the main concentration of bombing must have been on the little town of Wedel on the Elbe about 12 miles West of Hamburg. 

And for the aircraft in which my relative flew : 

Time up : 19:15, down 00:31. River Elbe identified and T.I. markers seen. Bombed concentration of markers at 21:35 hrs from 20,500ft. Bombing was concentrated around the markers. Bomb Load:  1 x 4,000lb H.C. + 96 x 30lb I.B. 

[  'P.F.F.' means Path Finder Force,  'T.I.' is Target Indicator, 'H.C.' I think means 'High Compression' (i.e High Explosive )  and 'I.B.' is Incendiary Bomb ]

I have Alfred Price's excellent introductory book Battle Over The Reich about the RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns over Germany, and he specifically discussed this raid - stating that the Pathfinder Force aircraft had problems with their new H2S centimetric radar sets, which were supposed to give an accurate picture of the features on the ground over which they were flying. The H2S operators were confused by low tides uncovering sandbanks which 'produced the appearance of  a river narrowing far downstram of Hamburg' . Also at Wedel 'Army engineers had dammed a small mill stream nearby to produce a large lake resembling in shape the Alster Lake in the centre of Hamburg... the majority of the raiders released their loads on the decoy, obliterating Wedel itself and several of the nearby villages' .  It seems from the squadron summary above that the failure of this mission was very soon known to Bomber Command.  No consolation to the unfortunate inhabitants of Wedel of course - and those of Hamburg had only a temporary reprieve before the horrors of the highly successful ( from the RAF point of view )  Operation Gomorrah in the following July.

I think the above gives a flavour of the information I am looking through - and perhaps the mixture of fascination and unease which they give.  I suspect that a big factor in our interest in military history ( or any history come to that ) is to consider 'what was it like to be there', and the sort of details available here help hugely in creating a picture in the mind of what the young men ( my subject being only about 20 at the time ) involved were going through,  and also, it must be said, of the destruction that they brought to the cities and people of Germany (look at the 'bomb load' details for just one aircraft,  multiply by several hundred aircraft  per operation, and think of the effect of them on the ground: huge fires which could be seen over 100 miles away ).  The amount of information available on-line on the RAF bombing campaign is impressive, including  from the  International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln, which I now hope to visit. The records I am looking at give the ID number of every aircraft involved, and so far  a simple on-line search has easily turned up information on the fate of each one of them - suffice it to say that the operational life of a Lancaster bomber in 1943, even if not actually lost in action, was usually  measured in months.  Very sadly, the same goes for the crews, and the fascination of following my late relative's tour of duty is overshadowed by the knowledge that he 'failed to return' from a mission in July 1944, aged only 21. 

 

As an illustration of perhaps the 'small world' of Bomber Command and the amount of information available,  the above picture is from Wikipedia's page on 57 Squadron, and depicts  Flying Officer R.W. Stewart, a wireless operator on a Lancaster of No. 57 Squadron based at RAF Scampton speaking to the pilot from his position in front of the Marconi T1154/R1155 transmitter/receiver set :  it so happens that my relative flew on one mission in the same aircraft as F/O Stewart.  I am gradually reading through the records I have been given and transcribing extracts involving my late relative - it really is a very interesting, and sobering, exercise. When I was 20, living at a university and doing the final year of my degree seemed fairly stressful - I really didn't know I was born, did I? 

Aside from that, there has been a tiny bit of hobby activity, as I have made very small steps forward with painting my recently-acquired  Commission Figurines figures ( from their Napoleonic and ACW  ranges) for the 1859 Austrians vs. Piedmontese war in Italy, 

 

Here they are on the coffee-stirrer painting sticks ( always keep your coffee stirrers, I have a bundle of 'em ).  So far they've been primed, the infantry have been given their tunics/greatcoats and the cavalry horses have been painted. Still quite a long way to go, and xmas shopping, card-writing  and socialising has been getting in the way a bit, but  I will try to keep finding some time for them. 

I'm hoping to squeeze in one more post before Xmas, even if it's only a picture of a small Xmas tree - and maybe a little more painting progress. There is even a rumour of possible remote gaming.. we shall see.  Until then, keep well and enjoy the mince pies, everyone.

Warfare 2024 - The Day Went Well

On Saturday just gone I was fortunate enough to spend the day at Warfare 2024  wargaming show, run by the Wargames Association of Reading, at Farnborough International Conference Centre - and a good day it was, too!  The program listed about  27 demo/participation games,  23 tournaments, and over 70 traders in attendance, quite impressive numbers. I arrived around 11:30 am, and stayed pretty much until the end of the day at 5pm, (though of course it was  all due to happen again on the Sunday, too) which is a good indicator that I was having a good day. I looked at games, chatted to people, had a bit of 'participation' and of course did some shopping!  I also managed to take a few photographs, which I will show a selection of here, to hopefully give you a flavour of the show as I saw it.

I'll show some of the games I saw, more or less in the order I saw them: 

 First up, the 'Ardammer Group' with their lovely big 28mm Franco-Dutch War 1672 -78 game. I remember these guys from Salute last year. when they ran a big 7YW game with beautiful Zinnfiguren flat figures and the equally vintage  Charles Grant  rules from The War Game, complete with 'bounce sticks' and canister cones'. This one was a little more current, being played with 28mm figures and Beneath the Lily Banners rules, in a 'what if'  battle with William III's Dutch army attacking the French under Marshal Turenne. It was great to see such a big game set in quite an unusual period, a sort of  halfway house between the Pike and Shot battles of the Thirty Years War and ECW 20-30 years earlier, and the age of Marlborough and Eugene 30 years later. Troops were dressed in standard uniforms, but infantry battalions still consisted of both pike and musket-armed soldiers. 

The figures are mostly from Reiver Castings  Franco-Dutch War range, sold by Northumbrian Painting Services who had sponsored the game.  All very nice, and I tip my hat to the guys, who had travelled all the way from the Newcastle area to be at the show! Ray from Posties' Rejects reckons this was 'game of the show' for him, and I tend to agree.

  The ever-reliable Deal Wargames Society presented “Siamese Fireback Down” – Counter Insurgency in Thailand, 1980.  A participation skirmish game, with  squads of rebels attempting to capture the crew of a downed army helicopter, while squads of government troops try to rescue them. As ever, their explanatory leaflet was really good, too - I hope other game organisers are inspired to emulate them. 

 Malvern Old Wargamers put on a 28mm Italian Wars game using Armati rules.  The Italian Wars always look brilliant with all those banners and colourful costumes, even though I don't think I'd ever be a good enough painter to try fielding these armies! 

Another slightly unusual twist on a very 'standard' period,  The Two Wardys 'One Day In August' game depicting the 1942 Dieppe raid, and using Peter Pig's  PBI rules. We've all seen plenty of D-Day 1944 beach landing games depicting the highly successful alled landings on 6th June '44,  but I don't think I've ever seen a game of the tragically unsuccessful Dieppe action.  Interesting stuff, and I think it was pretty much 1 model equals 1 real-life vehicle - a very large 'skirmish' game?  

(I'm not sure who the chap with the US Cavalry hat was, but he did a great job of photo-bombing me!)

                           

The host club put on several games and club T-shirts were out in force: this Trafalgar game (1/700th scale?) looked really good! 

 

 Joe Bilton put on  'The Barrikady Factory, Stalingrad'  in 28mm using What A Tanker rules, with an impressive tank park:

Newbury and Reading wargamers presented a '28mm Crusader Wars' game

Anschluss Wargames can be relied upon to mount very well-presented games, and this was no exception :  'Tobruk - Rommel's Easter Attack 1941' . 

 

I have a copy of their The War on the Ground rules, bought about 18 months ago at Salute and sadly not yet tried out, a situation I need to rectify! Given they are designed for 15mm (or smaller) figures, my 20mms are a bit large, so I would be confined to smaller scenarios - but that's not neccessarily a bad thing.    

Huntingdon & District Wargames Society's  Guildford Courthouse 1781  AWI game using Sharpe Practise on a quite heavily-wooded table looked very attractive 

 

Another really nice-looking game was by 'Combined Oppos' who showed 'Dawn Suprise Late 1944 : American carrier strike against a Japanese taskforce at anchor'  in 1/700th scale

   
 Lance & Longbow Society showed a 40mm 'Medieval Encounter' 

Another beach landing - this time Napoleonic style.  Steve Deeprose's 'Battle Of Alexandria 1801 – 28mm Napoleonic'  was another nice-looking game

Prince Rupert's Regiment of the Sealed Knot gave us their “what a corker” 28mm 1700 battle

 and it's always good to see a nice Pike Phalanx  -  The Society of Ancients delivered 'The Battle of Paraetacene 317BC' using Impetus rules, I think

There seemed to be an emphasis through  many of the games of encouraging visitors to participate, I assume this may have been a policy promoted by the host club, and if it was, I think that was a pretty good idea. I did manage to find time to have go, and spent a fun session with Michael Smith and his gaming buddy Tony, playing Michael's  Table Top Battles grid-based wargame,  in a scenario depicting an imagined 'Great Raid' on Norfolk by the beastly Prussians in 1871.  The opposing armies meet at Downham, inland from Kings Lynn:

  The armies were 15mm, mostly Irregualar Miniatures with  some by Peter Pig,  and I think the grid was 2-inch (50mm) squares. 

The game was great fun, very simple but fast and furious, with the significant mechanism being to decide firing and close combat with opposed D12 die rolls, modified for troop quality, cover etc - so both players are continuously  involved, and combat results either 'no effect', 'pushed back' or 'destroyed'. Playing the nefarious Prussian invaders, I got quite lucky with my die-rolling and was pushing the British redcoats back,  though not without losses!    [ update - I liked it so much, I have ordered the book! ]

 I enjoyed that a lot, and had a good chat with my hosts - thanks very much and thumbs-up, guys! 

A very large part of the weekend, clearly, was the Tournament area - I didn't take part in that, as I am not very competitive at all(!) and have never tried tournament gaming. But there was a wide range of games being played ( around 20 tournaments listed ) and it was impressively well-supported, as you can see below. That must have vastly increased the attendance for the show and business for the traders.

The third leg of the stool, so to speak is of course Trade Stands,  of which there were many and various. So of course, it would be rude not to pay them some attention, and I did a little light hobby shopping. 

Most important for current projects was a visit to Commission Figurines, where I was able to collect an order of their 6mm 'semi-flat' MDF figures. 

These are an artful mix of Napoleonic and ACW types, which should pass for 1859 Austrians and Piedmontese, with a bit of  'painters license' - for example British Napoleonic Infantry in 'Stovepipe' shako for Austrians, and Russian Heavy Cavalry with 'comb' style helmet for Piedmontese Heavies.  We'll see how that works out, and at only £2 per  pack it must be worth a try! 

 

For the same 1859 project I've been on the lookout for scenery - not a lot going at the show I'm afraid, but I did pick up some Woodland Scenics foliage which should be handy for home-made trees etc, and a little batch of 1/300th scale Cypress trees from Heroics and Ros ( just to try them out, the classic end-of-day 'how many can I have for the amount of change I've got left  in my pocket?' strategem). Plus a couple of packs of 20mm by 30mm bases from Warbases, which should be enough for the initial 6mm armies.  For buildings etc, after a recent post I got loads of useful advice, thanks everyone - it was just a shame that none of the traders people suggested were at this show. 

And I always come away with some more books..

The Society of Ancients Simple Campaigning has a sort of 'holy grail' (or 'too good to be true'?) title - in fact it is a compilation of articles by John Graham-Leigh, originally published in Slingshot magazine. Each describes a simple (but quite ingenious) campaign game, which can be used to generate 'battles' which can be played out on the tabletop.  Examples include a Hellenistic mini-campaign covering 200-100BC in 5-year periods, with a very simple strategic map and a couple of 'big battles' per turn;  and a more sophisticated  'Angevin Empire' solo system where the player takes the role of Kings Henry II, Richard I and John trying to hold their widespread fiefdoms together.  Others include a Mongol/Crusades/Europeans 13th Century game,  a 'Millennium Campaign' covering Europe 1000-1100 AD,  the 3rd Century AD 'Crisis of Rome' period,    the Assyrian Empire 890-610BC, and 'The Calamitous 14th Century 1330-1450'. All look interesting, and feature simple but quite clever systems with minimal mapping. Of course I don't  have armies for any of the above, but the ideas and concepts are quite inspirational, I think - there must be scope to adapt them to other periods! 

Also a freebie - Tiger Miniatures were giving away booklets of their simple Striking Tiger  'large battle' rules, and they looked iinteresting enough that  I picked up a copy ( I'm afraid their 'Northwest Frontier'  gaming table was unattended when I passed, so I didn't get to talk to them - just grabbed the booklet!).  It's interesting that they are clearly designed for multi-period use, they give details and some  'army lists' for using their own figures,  which range from Burmese/Qing/Korean/Mongols through Renaissance and 'Tudor Irish',  and on to 19th/20th Century colonials.  They are designed for the use of armed groups of men that work as a unit, rather than individuals, across a battlefield, using tactics consisting of massed volleys, from bow to bullet, and charges to win tactical advantage and overcome your enemies. Which is quite a nice summation of quite a wide range of periods!   A well-produced booklet, and there are a couple of scenario suggestions and a painting guide. If you are interested in any of those periods, the figures (in 28mm) look nice, too.

Finally, I took the advice of Mark W aka The Jolly Broom Man, who commented 'buy at least one random thing that catches your eye since it’s good for the soul'  -  and what caught my eye was 

 

Charles Grant's  The Wargamer's Annual 2025 .  It's basically a very posh old-school wargames magazine, lots of lovely glossy pictures and maps, and a range of distinguished authors ( including the excellent Norm Smith, who has been a great supporter of this blog and  whose Commanders website is always a good read ). This is going to be great for a few winter evenings, I'm sure - I would say for  'pipe and slippers' moments, but that might  be an old school bridge too far.. Maybe tea and crumpets?   

In addition to the above I met and chatted with fellow visitors, gamers, and traders.  In my first five minutes I bumped into  Ray, Lee and Steve of Posties' Rejects - see Big Lee's Miniature Adventures and Ray's Don't Throw a One  blogs for their reports on the show, which contain many, many  more and better pictures than I have here!  I also struck up a conversation with John Treadaway, editor of Miniature Wargames magazine - I am quite impressed with what he has done with it, and indeed I am a subscriber, and I look forward to his report of the show.  It's great  to be in the company of 'like-minded people' at shows - I had a lovely chat with a complete stranger when sharing a cafe table, he was really pleased to have bought a fantastic (28mm scale?)  model U-boat, I think from Crooked Dice, it looked splendid and will surely feature in some great games!     Many thanks to  all involved in organising the show, putting on games and tournaments, running stands,  and all the other things that make it run. 

So that was it - a thoroughly good day, glad I went along. It had been a bit of a last-minute decision, but I'm very pleased I went for it.  I'd certainly recommend it in future, if you are within a reasonable distance! 

Now I think I had better get busy on those 6mm figures, hope to report on progress next time.. Until then keep well, everyone.

 

  

      

 

  

 

  

 

Going to the Warfare : and original 6mms?

All too little progress to report  on the hobby front in the past week or two - how long can it really take to paint just 16  6mm figures?  That's a  'paint conversion' of ACW Infantry in Slouch Hat to 1859 Piedmontese Bersaglieri - of which more when they are finished!   But I hope to boost my inspiration by going to Wargames Association of Reading's  show Warfare 2024 at Farnborough Conference Centre this weekend  (I'll be going on Saturday).   They have published their program on-line, and it's quite impressive, especially the list of Traders who will be there.  

A decent set of demonstration/participation games too, I like the sound of a Franco-Dutch War (1672-78) game by 'Ardammer Group,  Anschluss Wargames Tobruk game,  Malvern Old Wargamers  Italian Wars game using Armati rules, and Central London Wargamers 'Emperor of the Battlefield' demo. I was quite looking forward to Oxford Wargames Society 'Bloody Big Battles' game - I have the rules, and hope to try them in the future - but just noticed the Oxford club are only there on Sunday! Oh well - I'll look out for other people's reports on that one.      With all those traders, I'm sure some shopping will occur too.. And finally there are multiple tournaments - I am not a tournament player, but the program suggests taking a look at those games too, promising 'some fantastic tabletops on display and some stunningly painted armies that our competitors are exceptionally proud of'.  We'll see! 

I'll keep this brief for now, and all being well I will post a report of my visit and some pictures after the event.  Meanwhile, I really must get those tiny Bersaglieri finished..

As a quick aside, I was at the National Army Museum recently, and noticed an interesting little exhibit - are these the original 6mm wargame figures?

 

And of course, the seriously large 'tabletop' which they were part of can still be viewed nearby:

 Not sure there will be anything quite comparable with this at Warfare 2024.. but you never know! 

 Keep well, everyone.  

Italian update..

All roads lead to... well, Italy at least, right now.   This is a brief update on progress with my  'Risorgimento'  project to game the Italian war of 1859 in 6mm scale. Having painted some units of infantry for both Austrian and Piedmontese armies,  I was not very satisfied with a plain 'old-school' green basing system. So I acquired some Baccus 'Basing Medium' and some green scatter material, and had another go at the bases. This has been a bit more successful: 

In the Flocking Tray.. 

 

I used a simplified version of the suggested method from the Baccus website : 

-  apply PVA glue to the whole base and sprinkle over  the basing medium

-  paint the whole textured base with a brown ( I used artists' Burnt Umber ) paint

-  apply PVA in irregular 'splodges' over the base, do not cover the whole base 

- sprinkle over the green scatter material, which will stick to the PVA but not the entire base

 Et voila,  all done.  I am reasonably happy with the result, it has obscured  the 'plinth' effect of the figure strip bases, which was the main aim.  I found that as I progressed through the units, I was gradually  applying less green scatter material and allowing  larger areas of brown to show through, which gave a quite pleasing variation in colours.

The Baccus site suggests dry-brushing a couple of levels of highlights on top of the brown paint before applying the scatter, I was too lazy to do that but may try it next time  ( see Chris 'Nundanket's recent post on Punic Wars elephants, showing his use of the Baccus method, which looks pretty good ). 

Encouraged with this progress, I am making plans to acquire some more troops. I am starting with units organised as specified in Neil Thomas'  Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe,  whose rules suggest armies of 10 units per side for a basic game - that seems a good starting point.  I now have 4 units of Infantry for each side, and  I already have both Austrian and Piedmontese field artillery packs from Baccus (4 guns each).  Now I need some more infantry and of course, cavalry, as well as some elite infantry units such as Austrian Jagers and Piedmontese Grenadiers and Bersaglieri. 

To find the additional recruits, I am going to try using the interesting MDF 'semi-flat' 6mm figures from Commission Figurines, who have ranges of Napoleonic and ACW troops which I think might be fairly easily employed with 'paint conversion'.and a little creative trimming here and there . As mentioned in a previous post, I happen to already have some of their ACW infantry in slouch hats, which I suspect will do for Bersaglieri and Jagers.  Having browsed their catalogue, I think Napoleonic Infantry in greatcoats may become Piedmontese Line Infantry, French 'Old Guard'  in tall 'busby' stand in for Piedmont Grenadiers,  and ACW cavalry in Kepi for Piedmontese light cavalry, for example. All  good fun!    You may be wondering why do this rather than just ordering from Baccus 'Risorgimento' range which would probably cover all bases - well, it's really just personal preference, I really like the quite stylised look of the MDF figures, so I thought it would be worth a try to use them.  And did I mention that a pack of 96 infantry or 36 cavalry retails for £2.00?

Now, having recruited armies, they are going to need some terrain :  the  Hexon terrain that I have used for all games so far is a little 'green' for Italy, to my mind ( bear in mind it will be used for both and my WW2 'D-Day Dodgers' ),  so I am thinking about adding some of their 'desert transition' hexes into the mix, which will add a bit more brown/sand colour to the terrain and make it a bit less uniform. The other major item required is going to be buildings, I think - what did an  Italian village of 1860 ( or 1944, come to think  of it actually ) look like?  I am starting to think about that. Looking at listings for traders at The Other Partizan this month, I didn't find very much - Baccus have a 6mm scale Spanish farm, which might do,  and  Battlescale/Pendraken some basic rendered houses,  but neither had actually brought any of the items I might have wanted to the show.  I reckon it might be quite easy to make my own buildings, especially for 6mm scale, from odds and ends of wood blocks and/or cardboard. For inspiration, at a recent exhibition at Gainsborough House Gallery in Sudbury I saw a couple of  paintings of 'Italian Landscape'  by Cedric Morris : 

 

Perhaps a little more 'warm South' than the 1860 theatre of  war, but with a bit of creative license they might make good models for my, err,  models(!).  I am also starting to look at the photos in various books about the WW2 Italian campaign ( the Images of War series being very useful here), to get an idea of typical buldings and landscapes.  Having moved into 6mm scale, of course I have to start from scratch with trees, walls, hedges  etc etc too.. lots to think about, at least they should be small, and hopefully cheap! 

 Finally I have some background reading in the form of this :

 

Acquired from Naval and Miltary Press, this is a facsimile of a 19th Century account of the campaign by the splendidly-named Colonel H.C. Wylly,  CB 'late the Sherwood Foresters, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regimemt'  in a nice big A4 paperback format. I am going to try to read this with a decent map of Northern Italy to hand at all times.. 

All the above is plenty to be going on with, quite apart from other projects which are in theory still ongoing - must paint some more 7YW French, for example!  I'm sure I'm not alone in having probably got too many projects I'd ideally like to be progressing with. 

So there we are - not massive progress, but I am at least doing some thinking and have some reasonable ideas, I think.   Next step should be expand the armies to at least have Neil Thomas' basic suggested forces - let's see how we get on with the MDF figures, should be interesting.Now it's already Halloween, the clocks have gone back, and where did October go? ( at least I managed 5 blog posts this month - pretty good by my lights!).  On into winter we go,  nothing else to do wih those dark evenings but paint, read and game?  And think of 'Sunny Italy', perhaps?

Until the next time, keep well, everyone.