Fnurban #40 : Boxing Clever

I should give fair warning, this post is about storage boxes. I don't want any of my readers to risk  triggering  any adverse physical or mental health reactions due to becoming over-excited; so please, look away now if you are at risk..

I've been looking at storage options for the various collections of toy soldiers that I have accumulated, with the aim of standardising a bit and organising properly. As seen in my last post, the 25mm Seven Years War / AWI forces seem to suit A4 box files, which are widely available and cheap; the next challenge is the currently expanding collection of  6mm figures for the Italy 1859 Risorgimento  project. For obvious reasons, these can fit in smaller, and especially shallower, boxes. I've been looking around various outlets including supermarkets, DIY stores and 'Pound Shop' discount stores, and this week I struck lucky, I think. 

don't get too excited..

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the 'Crofton' stackable food storage range from Aldi supermarkets, here in the UK.  Aldi are a German 'discounter' supermarket chain with a special feature being the 'middle aisle' which has an ever-changing seleciton of homeware, clothing, DIY kit etc, which currently includes these boxes. There's actually a range of sizes, and this is the 'large', measuring  27.4 x 20 x 4.7cm   ( about 10.5 x 8 x 2 inches ).  Decent sturdy plastic, secure 'tupperware' style lid.  It looks just right for the 6mm chaps, and I  reckon I can get about a Division's worth of troops in each box. Here's an example, the temporary cardboard storage  'sabots' (actually just blu-tacked )  for two Austrian brigades fitting nicely in there, with a bit left for some artillery and/or  cavalry if needed

1859 Austrians : one complete brigade and one partly-finished

 

I will have four Divisions to accomodate (two Austrian, one Piedmontese, one French) so I ended up buying 6 boxes, allowing for 'extras' and expansion. Price  £2.99 per box which  seemed quite reasonable. Of course the collection may expand, and who knows whether these appear on that middle aisle ever again, but fingers crossed!  I should add that there is also a version of this size box with one internal partition, which might be worth thinking about if you're interested - but as I said above, I wouldn't want anyone to get over-stimulated by this, so please do just take care.

Having been looking around for suitable boxes, I also couldn't quite resist an impulse buy at our local B&M  (which somewhat confusingly has replaced a branch of B&Q) - they had a multi-pack of three Really Useful boxes 1.75 litre size ) at a good price (£8 for 3 boxes)   

Really Useful indeed..

 Really Useful seem to be the Rolls-Royce of storage boxes and priced accordingly, so bargain offers are good to find! I think these may be good for some of  the 20mm. WW2 D-Day Dodgers - I have found that their 2.5 litre box will hold a Rapid Fire battalion of infantry, and these will be handy for brigade HQs, artillery units etc I am sure.

I hope that's been interesting, and not too emotional for everyone - I just wanted to highlight these current offers, so if you are in the UK and these look useful, you may need to get down to your local Aldi ASAP..

In the meantime I have managed to put in a few more painting sessions on the 1859 Austrians - about 240 shakos, muskets and backpacks have been completed.  

from the front.. 

  

..and the back 

Each coffee-stirrer stick in these pictures holds a 24-figure battalion. The Commission Figurines figures pretty much oblige you to 'keep it simple' - there are features like cross-belts etched into the MDF, and moulded canteens and back-packs etc,  but that's about it detail-wise. The figures are in 'At Attention' with musket grounded and not projecting above the torso, so  I 'drew in' the muskets using a fine-line artists sepia pen - you'll have to look very hard for that!  Now just blanket rolls to paint in (optional, still considering it), flesh for faces and hands, and brass/gold splodge for a badge on shako front, and they'll be done - 'simples!'

Now after that thrill-ride of a post, I think I may need a lie down in a darkened room.. I hope this has been of some interest, at least, if you are looking for similar storage items. I'll try to do something slightly more interesting in my next post - may have even finished those Austrians!   Until then, keep well, everyone. 

'Not a Child in the House Washed..' A January Miscellany

Late January already? And not a child in the house washed, as an old friend from Roscommon would say.. Where did January go?  ( I suspect I may have said 'where did December go? in a post last month, too - let's not make a habit of this! ).  There's been quite a lot of  real life, and not a lot of hobby activity since Xmas - 'time and space, dear boy'.  But there's always something to think about and get on with, or think about getting on with,  and no harm in discussing some of that here. 

This raises an interesting question - does this blog simply report hobby progress, or does it drive hobby activity?  Which is a subject I spent some time thinking about, having taken part in a really interesting discussion on Jon Freitag's  Palouse Wargaming Journal  about blogging and commenting, which in turn had been triggered by a thought-provoking post on Norm Smith's Commanders blog ( 'Thinking aloud and a reduction in output', 14th Jan ). I thoroughly recommend all hobby bloggers or potential hobby bloggers to have a look at those posts - I suspect many readers of this blog will have already done so!   I think this current blog post is a case in point; I admit I am blatantly using the 'need' to put something on the blog as a spur to get on with some actual hobby activity, as well as simply showing the wargaming world that I'm still here..  

There has been a (very) little progress. I have finally picked up my paintbrushes again, and made a start on the next batch of 6mm 'Risorgimento'  figures for Italy, 1859 : working on the Austrian Line Infantry of their 2nd Division (2 brigades) and the remainder of  2nd Brigade of 1st Division.  That's a  total of 10 battalions, 240 figures - turns out I can splosh pale blue paint onto trousers, and white onto jackets,  at a rate of about 90 mins each colour for all 240! Next session, black paint  for the shakos. Here's a 'work in progress' picture 

 I think this gives a good idea of the simplicity of the Commission Figurines MDF figures, which suits me very well - there are simply no buttons to try to paint, let alone count, so these chaps will get a very simple jacket/trousers/shako/backpack/musket/flesh paint job, which will do just fine on the gaming table. Bases and flags tend to play a large part at this scale, too. 

At a larger scale, there are of course my vintage 25mm Minifugs  Seven Years War / AWI collection, acquired in the summer, which I've been trying to simply sort out and put in decent boxes. That's going fairly well, we are up to six A4 box files in some sort of logical order : 

 Here are some examples: 

9 units of French 7YW infantry

 

United States, Native Americans and a few British for AWI

 

Russian contingent

 

and Prussians..

 I've also acquired some A4 Magentic Paper and Ferro Sheets, which should allow me to store them more securely in the boxes.  Thinking around this, I suppose I am eventually going to have to go for a wholesale re-basing exercise on these. I had hoped to keep the vintage bases, but some of them are rather heavily and unsubly textured, some are on non-magnetic aluminium bases, and several different base sizes are in evidence. I think that coming up with a simple, standard-sized, plain old-school basing system, and applying it to all the models, should go a long way to improving the overall look of the collection. But of course, that's going to be a large job! 

Aside from 'physical' stuff like painting and sorting figures, there is the 'mental' stuff  - which recently has been  largely confined to reading.  I am a bit of a magazines obsessive ( just as print magazines are probably withering on the vine, of course! ), there's always a pile to be worked through. I must put in a plug for a couple of recent ones: 

 

For anyone interested in 19th Century European military history, you really should be getting The Foreign Correspondent from The Continental Wars Society. Four issues per year, just 20 pages but it's all good stuff, and a subscription is £10 per year  ( only £6 for PDF version ) - a bargain! This current issue includes articles on : 

•     Lieutenant Colenol Litzelhofen and the Battle of Solferino
•     The Cyclist Service in the French Army, c. 1900
•     The Bavarian 'Feldl' machine gun, 1870 
•     The Battle of Le Bourget, 1870 (which will be the society's game at 'Salute' in April) 
•     Polish Scythe Men, 1830
•     The Army of Liechtenstein in the 19th Century 
•     The Russian capture of Khiva, 1873 
•     Illustrations of Belgian uniforms, 1830/31 

Mostly short pieces, but all interesting stuff! 

I do rather like the 'think-piece' columns in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine -  in the recent  issue no. 138,  Richard Clarke of TooFatLardies fame discussed Wargames Shows and how they might move forward, and  Ilan Mitchell-Smith ( is this really the actor from 1983 movie Wierd Science? ) discussed Arthurian wargaming in 'Taking Arthur Literally' - his idea being not to try to game 5th-Century Romano-British conflicts, but to game the later medieval literary versions - 'we can wargame not who Arthur was, but who the late-medieval audience of Arthur imagined him to be'.  I'm not about to start buying models of 13th-Century knights, but it's an interesting thought. 

There's also  another  good article using literature to inspire gaming - 'Going Solo Over Chalkis' by Mark Backhouse takes episodes from Roald Dahl's wartime memoir Going Solo, about his experience flying Hurricanes in Greece, 1941, and makes them into game scenarios. Of course there are many memoirs by fighter pilots, and thus there must be many possible game scenarios waiting to be created.. 

Easily the best 'opinion piece' I've seen recently was in WSS Issue 137 ( 'Rearguard Actions and Fighting Retreats' theme ),  this was by Keith Flint and entitled 'Let's Escape'.  Keith starts with the oft-quoted idea that  a hobby such as wargaming is an 'escape' from your real life, and expands into the nature of hobbies and their benefits, and some possible drawbacks. He covers a lot of ground in two pages - one line that stuck in my mind being 'What's so terrible about your life that you need to escape from it?'.   This very much  ties into the discussion that Norm and Jon started, too - so thanks to Keith, too, for a really stimulating piece. This picture probably won't let you read the article - maybe go and buy the magazine!  

 

And then by pure coincidence, just as I was thinking about his article, yesterday in an Oxfam Bookshop I found Keith Flint's book 'Airborne Armour' -  so buying it seemed a no-brainer!  Not quite my specialist area, but I'm sure it will be interesting - perhaps a fictional airborne armoured landing in Italy may follow someday? 

 And finally, another 'ooh shiny' piece of shopping - sometimes just buying something will scratch the hobby itch, when there's not time for more activity - I was in central Londond, dropped in at 'Orc's Nest' shop,  and came away with this: 

 

Well, one day my Ancient Macedonians, Persians and Indians are bound to expand beyond DBA and Dominion of the Spear, surely?  A semi-impulse purchase ( and I already have Neil Thomas' ancients book, and and Three Ages of Rome, oops ) , but AdlG seem well-liked, and will at the very least be an interesting read - a large chunk of the book is devoted to mulitfarious army lists, which may  well be useful. 

That about sums up what little I've been up to in January - a bit more effort clearly required in February! (must keep Freiburg 1644 in mind..)   I am in the mood to devote some time to my hobby, and there's the Cavalier show next month to look forward too, and hopefully take inspiration from. I think I'd better press on with painting those  Risorgimento armies, for a start, and try to show some progress next time. Until then, keep well (and warm and dry), everyone. 

New Year, New (and some old) Plans

 As the old year draws to a close, of course it's natural to think about what was achieved since 1st January, and what  might be planned for the New Year,  in hobby terms. 

I suspect that everyone looks back and thinks 'I should have done more', and I am no exception, but it's been a fairly happy hobby year. My main project has been the 1859 Risorgimento armies  - I completed painting  6mm figures to build Austrian and Piedmontese  forces sufficient for the army lists in Neil Thomas Wargaming 19th Century Europe, and to play a first game with his rules, which went well. I've since acquired more figures, of which more anon.  In addition, the Dominion of.. rules allowed another, smaller game in the same theatre - a fast and furious refight of  Palestro, 1859 . So, only two games in the period, but the armies are set to expand, and larger battles will follow.  I have been happy painting the smaller figures - more than I had expected - and also enjoyed the challenge of using a mix of Napoleonic and ACW figures from Commission Figurines to represent Austrian, Piedmontese and French troops - and at £2 for 96 infantry, the budget is not stretched!  

Piedmontese in 6mm - Baccus and Commission Figurines

 

A second, and maybe more long-term project came up rather unexpectedly, when I took the plunge and bought a large batch of 'pre-loved' Minifigs 25mm SYW and AWI figures from the Whitehall Warlords club, via their bring and buy stall at the Broadside show. It turns out there were about 1100 of them! It's been a lot of fun sorting through  and trying to identify them; I'll admit that with limited time, I've only got as far as starting to put them into standard box files by nation, and ultimately many of them  will probably need re-basing - quite a job! But crucially they are painted, and could be on the table pretty quickly - I hope to set up a 'fun' game with simple rules (Young and Lawford's Charge, perhaps? ) in the near future.  I'm currently totting up the combined forces available, when added to my existing Seven Years War  Portable Wargame armies - it's about time those were back on the table, too.  

 

I didn't run as many solo games as I would have liked, but I was able to game with others - special mentions to old friends Tony and Reg for hosting fantastic large Napoleonic and  ECW games,  and of course to Jon Freitag for his remote hosting of  many a great game -  Italian Wars, Wild West, Reconquista among others. Not forgetting another remote game - MS Foy's splendid Spanish Succesion battle.  Many thanks to all of you! 

Shows were a highlight - I managed to get to Cavalier, Salute, Partizan, Broadside,  The Other Partizan, and Warfare. All great fun, inspirational and a chance to chat to fellow gamers and bloggers - great to meet you all!  Last but not least, a big thank-you to Neil of Aufklarungsabteilung blog for inviting me to attend the on-line Virtual Wagaming Club - really inspirational stuff ('we're not worthy!') and again, great to 'meet', albeit virtually.    

So, what's next?  I've got a few ideas.. First, of course - those 6mm Risorgimento armies. I've made a start on the next batch of painting,  having taken the primer spray to what will become the Austrian  2nd Division : 

 

Plenty more to be done after these - I'm going to have to get into a daily painting routine!

I have a little Pike and Shot  period project idea - though I'm slightly ashamed to admit I mentioned it in my list of things to do this time last year!  I have a bit of a fascination for the battle of Freiburg, 1644, and it's time to try to turn it into a game. As mentioned last year, I have the recent and excellent Helion book on the battle, by Stephane Thion ; 

And recently realised that I've been sitting on a board game of the battle for several years, without ever playing it!  GMT games Under the Lily Banners from their Musket and Pike Battles Series includes a scenario for Freiburg and four other battles. 

.. and here's the map from the game

 There are actually two scenarios, covering the two days (3rd and 5th of August) of the action, and it will be interesting to compare the orders of battle from the game with those given by Stephane Thion. This all goes back 30-odd years, to when I was browsing one day in a Hay-on-Wye bookshop and found a rather aged biography of  the great French Marshal Turenne, which of course included this battle and featured plates showing contemporary illustrated maps.  I've had a penchant for Turenne ever since, and this battle seems especially interesting as it brought together the two outstanding French commanders of the ThirtyYearsWar and after - Turenne and Enghien (aka 'The Grand Conde') - only for their combined genius to order a blood-soaked frontal attack on Mercy's Bavarians well-prepared defensive positions!   Given the book and the game, I'm sure I can develop a scenario, or maybe more than one - it might be interesting to try different sizes of game, from  Dominion of Pike and Shot  upwards?  I think The Portable Pike and Shot Wargame rules would be worth trying.  I think a good place to start would be to actually play the board game.. 

Thanks to  Dominion of the Spear rules, I've had a bit of a rush of enthusiasm for Ancients again, and acquired the beginnings of an Indian army for  DotSp and/or DBA - more painting required, but at least not too many figures!   So I was very pleased recently to be loaned a copy of  Philip Sabin's Lost Battles book,  by  my good friend Chris aka  'Nundanket'.  I've heard so much about this book, it's sure to be a really interesting read - thanks, Chris!

 

Plenty more to be getting on with;  as I said above, those Seven Years War / AWI  Minifigs are going to have to get onto the table, perhaps especially the AWI side of it, given the anniversary of 1776 that's coming up.  And the D-Day Dodgers have been in abeyance somewhat - I think they need some appropriately Italian scenery and terrain.   Hmm... what's the chances of doing all this? Well, there's only one way to find out! 

All being well, I am going to start with Under the Lily Banners ;  maybe my next post should be a report on that.  Until then, keep well everyone, and a very Happy New Year to you all!    

 

Merry Xmas 2025

Gosh, where did December go? I thought I'd get at least one more blog post in, and have made some progress painting the 6mm Risorgimento armies, before Xmas; but no, here we are on The Night Before Xmas, and it all seems to have got away from me. Truth be told, a surprisingly social time was had since my last posting, and not very much hobby time. Need I say, I hope to correct that in the near future? 

So given the above, this is just a quick one to wish a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all who have stopped by and read this blog over the past year, and especially to those absolute stars who left (invariably friendly and supportive) comments, and thus made it all worth while.  I just got a bit carried away and actually counted the comments left this year, and there were 39 different readers who commented - thank you all very much!  Not that it's competitive, but extra thanks to top commenters Neil P, Steve J, Jon F, Chris/Nundanket, Alan Tradgardland, Richard and Norm - blogging heroes one and all! 

I wanted to put up a seasonal picture, was casting around for red-coated troops, fir trees etc, when my eye came to rest upon this chap: 

 

This rather splendid picture is on the front of my new National Army Museum membership card, which arrived in the post today.  I have thoroughly enjoyed attending several of their (free)  'Friday Insights'  talks this year, and developed a taste for the scrambled eggs on toast in their excellent cafe! 

It's getting late, I'd better close - many thanks again to all who have read, followed and commented, and to all those whose blogs I have read, followed and commented on, too -  it's lovely to be part of such a friendly hobby community. 

Now the tree is up,  it's almost The Day - have a very Merry Xmas, all!  A bit of a summary of what I'm hoping to get on with in the next post.. until then, keep well everyone. 

nb there are no hobby-related gifts under this tree 

   

Risorgimento 1859: Organising the Forces

Having recently  acquired a selection of reinforcements for my 6mm Risorgimento 1859 armies (from Commission Figurines), it's time to make a start on organising and painting.  Let's start with the organisation;  up to now I have simply painted enough figures to make a minimal representative  'army' from the lists provided in Neil Thomas' excellent book Wargaming 19th Century Europe , basing them according to the rules in the same book. Now, I want to expand the forces and put them into reasonably realistic orders of battle.  A very good source of information turned out to be the Osprey Campaign series book no. 207 Solferino 1859 , which gives sufficiently detailed orders of battle for the Austrian, French and Piedmontese forces in that campaign. 

 

Neil Thomas is careful not to specify exactly what a 'unit' in his rules is representing; I think this is to allow the depiction of different-sized engagements with the same rules, so an infantry 'unit' might perhaps represent  a battalion, a regiment or even a brigade on the tabletop.  Having looked at the OOBs, I decided to treat one Neil Thomas Infantry unit as (roughly) a Battalion,  one Artillery unit as a Battery and one Cavalry unit as a Regiment.   Using those parameters, I  am aiming to represent one division each of French and Piedmontese troops and two divisions of  Austrians.  Hence roughly equal but somewhat differently-organised forces, given that each nation's organistion of regiments/brigades/divsions  differed slightly.  I thought I would take actual Division organisations from the OOBs and represent them, with the real names of commanders, brigades and regiments - at the very least that would save having to invent names!  

So without further ado, here is a summary of the OOBs I am aiming at : 

Austrian : these will be (more or less)  two divisions of the VIII Korps, commanded by Graf von Benedek :

 1st Division - commander FML Berger 

    Brigade Watervliet 

        - Kaiserjager Battalion nr. 2    (1 battalion skirmishers) 

        - Line Infantry IR7 Baron Prohaska (4 battalions)

        - 1 Battery Field Artillery 

    Brigade Kuhn 

        - Grenz  IR4 Szluiner, battalion nr. 2  (1 battalion skirmishers)         

        - Line Infantry IR11 Kronprinz Albert von Sachsen (4 battalions) 

        -  1 Battery Field Artillery 

    2nd Division (part) - commander FML Lang 

        Brigade Phillipovic 

            - Kaiserjager Battalion nr. 5   (1 battalion skirmishers)   

            - Line Infantry IR17 Prinz Hohenloe-Langenburg ( 4 battalions ) 

            - 1 Battery Field Artillery

        Brigade Dauber 

            - Jager battalion nr. 3     (1 battalion skirmishers)

            - Line Infantry IR39  Dom Miguel ( 4 battalions ) 

            - 1 Battery Field Artillery 

I have not included the complete 2nd Division, which seems to have  had an extra brigade in its original organisation, plus yet another brigade which had been attached from another corps a few days before the battle - I didn't want to make the Austrians much stronger than  their opponents. You'll notice there there is no cavalry mentioned, this is simply becuase there was no cavalry in the Divisions listed above. There was a regiment of cavalry (4 squadrons ) attached to VIII Korps, so I think I will add one Neil Thomas 'unit' of cavalry to represent them. It's clear from the OOBs in the book that infantry vastly outnumbered cavalry in the actual campaign.  I chose these formations mainly because of their commander - Graf Von Benedek seems to have been about the only senior Austrian commander who really knew what he was doing and acquitted himself well at the battle! 

 

Piedmontese :  3rd Divison, commander. Lieut-Gen. Mollard 

    Brigato Cuneo:  commander Maj-Gen Arnaldi

        - 10th Battalion Bersaglieri   (skirmishers)

        - 7th Regiment di Fanteria  (3 battalions Line Infantry) 

        - 8th  Regiment di Fanteria  (3 battalions)  

    Brigato Pinerolo : commander Maj-Gen Morozzo della Rocca 

       - 2nd Battalion Bersaglieri   (skirmishers)

        -  13th Regiment di Fanteria  (3 battalions)  

        - 14th Regiment di Fanteria  (3 battalions)         

    Divisional Cavalry :  Regiment Cavallegri de Montferrato 

    Divisional Artillery:  3 batteries Field Artillery

The Piedmont/Sardinian 3rd Division was involved in assaulting the hill of San Martino which Benedek's troops were holding, so these seem appropriate opponents for the Austrians. 

 

French :  (from 1st Corps)  1sr Division : General de Division Forey

    Brigade Dieu 

        - 17e Chasseurs a Pied  (1 battalion skirmishers)

        - 74e Ligne  (2 battalions Line Infantry) 

        - 84e Ligne  (2 battalions)  

    Brigade D'Alton

        - 91e Ligne (3 battalions)  

        - 98e Ligne  (2 battalions)  

    Artillery  :  2 batteries Field Artillery  

This was a division from Marechal Baraguey d'Hilliers  1st Corps, which seems to have done well enough in the battle, having 'pushed the Austrian outposts back from one crest to another, until they reached the ridges before Solferino' , then being involved in fierce fighting in the assault on the Monte di Cipressi - Forey himself being wounded.  The division also has a fairly 'bog-standard' composition, with no units of Zouaves, for example - I haven't got any figures for those yet!  

If you also have the book I'm using, you may notice that the numbers of infantry battalions  don't always tally - I have made some adjustments to allow for the different sizes of battalions in the three armies.  French and Piedmontese infantry battalions were about 600-strong, but Austrian battalions seemed to be larger, with almost 800 men each. I pondered how to reflect this - should I simply ignore the differences and  treat all battalions as equal in power? This would seem to treat the Austrians a little harshly, even if their army was hardly a model of efficiency at the time! Should I make the Austrian battalions stronger,  perhaps having 5 bases to the other nation's 4? But this might cause issues with the game rules, and of course would involve buying/painting  25%  more figures for the Austrians! In the end I have (roughly) treated an infantry unit in the game as about 800 men, so that Austrian units remain battalions, but French and Piedmontese need fewer units to make a brigade than the real-life number of battalions ( the French 1st Division actually had 12 battalions of Line Infantry, I have 9 units).  Hopefully that piece of wargamer's license won't cause any problems. 

As a result, the overall strengths of the three forces should be as follows: 

Piedmont    12 units Line Infantry,  2 units skirmishers, 3 batteries artillery,  1 unit cavalry. 

France        9 units Line Infantry,  1 unit Skirmishers,  2 batteries artillery 

Austria:    16 units Line Infantry,  4 units Skirmishers, 4 batteries artillery,  1 unit cavalry 

I think these should give plenty of scope for games large and small, with over 50 available units in total, even at 6mm scale they should fill a table!     

So, that's the proposed organisation, now I need to get them painted.  To keep things organised, I have used cardboard 'templates' to lay out the formations, starting with the units I have already painted - as units are completed they can be temporarily mounted on the cards using blu-tak. For example, here is the incomplete '1st' brigade (Brigato Cuneo) of the Piedmont Division, which is only missing  one of its  6 line infantry units, and the Divisional Artillery ( 3 batteries ) and Cavalry regiment. ( I need to change '1st' Division to '3rd' on the cards - oops!)

 

and here, the Austrian 1st Division, 1st Brigade (Watervliet) which is already complete, from the units I have previously painted. 

 

That all looks good, but the rest of the formations are still in this state:

 So there is a way to go! I'd better get started with the priming, at least... I don't think this will be 'all over by Christmas'.  But at least I have a plan, and it's eminently do-able if I just get on with it! 

Now the 'festive season' is upon us, there are cards to write and send, gifts to buy and wrap, etc, so there may not be quite so much hobby  time available, but I'll try to press on with this, and we'll see how it goes.  Next time, perhaps a progress report?  Until then, keep well everyone. 

Fnurban #39: Black Friday and the Middle Aisle

 Apparently it's 'Black Friday' today, some sort of made-up festival of what exactly?  So I won't bore you with lists of special deals ( that turn out to be not so special ),  but I did happen to be in a branch of the Aldi supermarket chain  today, and saw these in the famous 'middle aisle':    

Yes folks, a selection of 1/72 scale Airfix kits, selling at £6.99 each.  You can see some of them in my hasty 'phone picture,  but the full list appeared to be as follows: 

    Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1a

    Messerschmidt Bf 109E 

    Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero' 

    North American P51 Mustang

    DUKW 

That last one seems a little random, but there we are - I guess it's a job lot of whatever Airfix had a surplus of. If you are in the UK and a keen modeller of WW2 aircraft (and/or DUKWs ) in 1/72 scale, get down to your local Aldi 'while stocks last'.. 

I admit I didn't make a purchase, but it's nice to see them there, maybe a new generation of kids will experience the joy of sticking their fingers together with poly cement, or a few old geezers will re-live their childhood..  Actually I may go back for a DUKW - useful for river crossings by my 'D-Day Dodgers' British and Indians? 

One thing about them that made me smile was the presence of safety warnings etc printed on the boxes in several languages, one of which was of course German. So if you pick up the Spitfire kit, you see in very bold print the word  ACHTUNG... ( in the picture you can spot it on the topmost  'Zero' box ). Seems very appropriate, somehow. 

That's all for now, just a quick topical note. 'Real Life' and a bit of a mini-break has meant little or no hobby time this week apart from reading other folks' blogs - I hope to make some more progress next week, and report on it. Must start painting the figures I bought at Warfare the other week.  Until then, keep well everyone.        

UPDATE:  Reader, I succumbed...

 Jus the one, mind - maybe I should have got three, and hung them on the wall...

 

Warfare 2025 - Retail Therapy

Of course, no hobby show is complete without a little light shopping, and I did pick up a few new shiny things at Warfare last weekend. There was a pretty good range of traders present  (see Big Lee's excellent video report on his visit, which featured the trade stands quite heavily ), so plenty of opportunites. Here is a summary of my purchases, the directions they may be sending in.. 

I had pre-ordered a couple of things to collect at the show - first and most important being from Commission Figurines.  I acquired 10 packs of their 6mm MDF semi-flat figures, to increase the forces available to my 'Risorgimento' 1859 Italy armies.  A cunning combination of packs from the Napoleonic and ACW ranges should allow me to represent two divisions of Austrians and one division each of Piedmontese and French - the first time that Louis Napoleon's men have appeared. 

 A major plus point for these figures is that a packet of nearly 100 infantry costs just £2, and that will make four battalions - very economical!  I am using Napoleonic British infantry in 'Stovepipe' shako for Austrian infantry, and ACW foot and artillery in Kepis for the French, for example -  as I think my friend  Chris aka Nundanket has said 'as long as the hat looks right, you're OK'..

My second 'pre-order' was from NewLine Designs  20mm Ancients range - specifically the 'personality' set of Darius of Persia in his chariot. I already had their Alexander figure for my DBA Macedonian army, so obviously I needed Darius.  And here he is, in kit form.. 

 I am quite looking forward to assembling and painting this, along with Alexander  (albeit the latter is a simple single  mounted figure ).  

Having dug out the Macedonians and Persians the other week and tried out Dominion of the Spear rules with them,  I admit I had a hankering to add another DBA-sized army to the collection, allowing a potential three-cornered campaign - so obviously, I needed Porus and his Indians.  I was fortunately able to make good on that idea, thanks to a couple more acquisitions :

First these two HaT 1/72 packs,  which I found on the Grubby Tanks/Brittannia Miniatures stall

These will provide up to 12 cavalry and 3 chariots, which should be plenty for a DBA-size army. I was mildly disappointed that they didn't have the Elephants pack from the same range, but I'm sure they will be available for on-line ordering  somewhere - it wouldn't be  Porus' army without some elephants! 

I also spotted some appropriate infantry on the Newline Designs display, so I picked up 2 packs (4 per pack ) each of their archers and javelin men - I think they are rather nice: 

 

I am looking forward to painting these too, they are nice figures, and I have a piece of wargaming magazine nostalgia to inspire my efforts too, of which more in a future post. 

Well, the above seem to have go me well and truly into an 'ancients' mood, and that doubtless influenced a couple of purchases from The Society of Ancients stall, and the pen of Phil 'Lost Battles' Sabin :  

 

Strategos II is a set of fairly simple rules for tabletop battles, using a gridded system. Armies are a little bigger than DBA, for example, which suits my longer-term plans, and I know Phil Sabin is absolutely an expert in this field, so it will be interesting to see how these play.  Empire is 'a very simple game... simulating the struggle for imperial dominance between Carthaginians, Romans, Macedonians and Persians/Parthians, from the 4th to the 2nd centuries BC'  - I am intrigued by the way that this period saw the parallel existence of all those powers, and the resulting campaigning possibilies (real or imaginary). The game has rather a nice map, too: 

 With a simple strategic game and more than one set of relatively simple 'small armies' tactical rules, I can feel  an Ancients campaign coming sometime in the future (though of course that might mean raising Roman and Carthaginian armies too!). 

And last but not least, I couldn't resist a bargain (it was the cheapest item here), from the second-hand books offered by  Stonewall Figures  - not quite directly relevant to the above purchases, but who can refuse a piece of vintage (1981)  Terry Wise, with classic illustrations by Angus McBride?  

file under 'comfort reading' 

 And that, as they say,  is about that - not a bad selection of stuff new and old, which should keep me busy in the winter months. I will need to have some regular painting sessions for the various figures, but I think I have kept them to manageable numbers which can be painted fairly quickly without boredom setting in.  

 As a quick postscript, I was fortunate last week to take part in one of Jon Freitag's remote games - this time the Reconquista battle of Zallaqah 1086.  I took the part of King Alfonso VI, leading his Knights to... well, I'll let you read about it in Jon's battle report.  A very challenging and tense game that went right down to the wire - many thanks to Jon and the other players for a great evening's gaming. The picture below shows an 'interesting' manoeuvre that I tried with Alfonso's Knights..

  

 Anyway, do read Jon's report for a flavour of the back-and-forth of a nerve-wracking game! 

Next time, perhaps an account of an interesting talk that I attended recently. Until then keep well, everyone.