Further Adventures in Re-Basing : the Swiss 'Rabbit Hole'

Welcome to what may well be called a Peanut Butter and Jelly post ( or perhaps Brown Spread and Yellow Fruit ) , just to report on a modicum of hobby progress, which at this point mainly involves 'The Great Re-Basing',  of my pre-loved  vintage Minifigs  7YW/AWI  figures.  Having achieved a decent result with a French Line Infantry unit last time,  I pulled three more units out of the same box for the same treatment.  Here they are as received: 

At the front we have another French Line Infantry unit - from the flag and uniform facings, possibly representing the Picardie regiment.  Behind them, two units which were described by the seller as Swiss regiments in the French army.  The possible Picardie figures are painted in a somewhat 'rough and ready' style and had some bases flocked and some just painted, while the Swiss are painted to a much better standard and all had flocked bases - which I'm not a big fan of, I'll admit (it is better than the 'Polyfilla' look, I suppose ).  Anyway, they all went for a paddling session in trays of water  to loosen-up the old bases: 

 

That seemed to do the trick pretty well, and the flock came off with a little light scrubbing from an old toothbrush.   Before putting them on their new bases, a little research was required on the Swiss,  since I had no clues as to which regiment(s) they might represent - and this is where things became interesting.   

 My first port of call for uniform and flag information in this period is of course the excellent  Kronoskaf Seven Years War website, which naturally has a section  about Swiss Regiments in the French army.  What slightly puzzled me was that the uniform illustrations showed the Swiss regiments wearing red coats and blue breeches - but mine have white breeches. After a little more reading it appears that from about 1762, the blue trews were replaced by white - here is a nice picture from the Kronoskaf page on the Erlach (formerly Jenner) Infanterie, showing the new look

Source: Pagan Collection

 For comparison, here is one of the figures I was dealing with (please excuse slightly poor focus with my phone camera):

 

I think  these are rather nicely painted, given that they may be 1980s or 1990s vintage!   

It looks therefore, like we have post-1762 uniforms, which is interesting especially when considering that the figures look to be from the AWI range rather than 7YW. As far as I know, there were no Swiss regiments in the French contingent sent to America - so  I'm thinking we may be in an 'imagi-nations' or 'what-if'  situation, where the previous owners were imagining a post-1762 European conflict. Or more prosaically, and understandably, uniform information was not so easily available several decades ago. And maybe it was just that a bulk order was placed for AWI figures  - maybe poor availibility of 7YW stock, or discounts for big orders!

Next, what particular regiment(s) do we have? There are two units, with slightly different facings and buttons etc,  essentially one has  mid-blue facings and one pale blue facings.  With a bit more investigation of the various tunnels making up this little rabbit-hole , I found a Wikipedia page giving a List of Foreign Regiments in the French Royal Army  which gives nice pictures showing facing colours etc, and seems to confirm the 1762 change to white breeches. Looking at this list enabled me to narrow down the choices to three regiments with mid-blue facings and two with pale blue - I'll be honest, at this point I thought I'd go with the units with the nicest-looking flags!  Speaking of which, of course I should mention the fantastic blog Not By Appointment who's author David Morfitt has created an amazing resource of flag templates for a large number of Seven Years War regiments of many nations. You can copy and print at home to create flags for your units, in return for which David asks for a small donation to his Paypal account - I will most certainly use this excellent  resource and make a donation, thanks David! 

David's blog also gave me a nudge as to which regiments to choose, as he includes the following in his entry about the Regiment of Planta,  which was one of my candidates: 

Christopher Duffy says little of the conduct of Planta at the battle of Rossbach in his book Prussia's Glory; but there is a legend associated with them and Diesbach: "The two Swiss regiments [Diesbach and Planta] were like rocks in the swirling sea of fugitives and Prussians as they steadily carried out a fighting retreat. Frederick is said to have remarked, "What is that red brick wall that my artillery cannot manage to bring down?", and, being told it was the French Swiss infantry, he silently saluted them by doffing his hat as they marched off the field with colours flying and drums beating." Osprey Campaign 113 Rossbach and Leuthen 1757 by Simon Millar, page 35. There is no definitive evidence for this story but it is an attractive one!

Having seen that,  Planta (later, from 1760 known as D'Arbonnier) with mid-blue facings  and Diesbach with pale blue, it had to be!  I could have chosen the Reding Regiment instead of Diesbach, and indeed it seems that Planta and Reding were even brigaded together at Rossbach, but I couldn't resist the above - Print the Legend, as they say!   Readers with extremely logical brains will have spotted that if the uniforms are c. 1762, then it's D'Arbonnier rather than Planta, but with a bit of wargamer's license I am illogically sticking with the Rossbach-era name (I bet the old sweats of the regiment didn't change the name they used for themselves..).  

As an example, here are the colours  of the regiment Planta, from David's page : I particularly like this regiment's colours

Many thanks to David for his fantastic website, and his dedication in producing so many lovely pieces of artwork - both useful and beautiful, as William Morris might have agreed..

Having gone through the above, I got on with the actual work - here are the figures in the process of being glued to their 40x40mm MDF bases with 16 figures  per battalion, which seems about right for my taste. These units each started with 24 figures, so I have a good number of 'spares' left over - I should be able to make up further units with some of them, given some judicious re-painting of facing colours where necessary.  

 

And the (almost) finished product after the application of 2 coats of  B&Q's 'Ribbit' green paint to the bases.  I just need to print the flags for the two Swiss units, give them flagpoles (bristles from a plastic broom) and attach them to the waiting standard bearer figures.  

I'm pleased with these, and have pulled the next 3 or 4 units from their box, ready for the same treatment. Onwards and upwards..

And that's about it for now.- there's a bit of 'real life' this week which will probably mean little hobby time, barring maybe a bit of reading, but I should be able to get back in the swing soon enough. I need to set up some actual gaming, however simple, and it might be nice if some of these newly-based units could be involved.  

A final thought, suggested by  'the current world situation' as we might  call it.  I gather  there is a long-standing debate about the 'Great Man' theory of history, which Wikipedia summarises as follows : 

The great man theory is an approach to the study of history popularised in the 19th century. According to it, history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes: highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, extraordinary leadership abilities or divine inspiration, have a decisive historical effect. The theory is primarily attributed to the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who gave a series of lectures on heroism in 1840, later published as On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History,...  This theory is usually contrasted with people's history, which emphasises the life of the masses creating overwhelming waves of smaller events which carry leaders along with them. 

If say Napoleon, Alexander or Hitler had not been born, would history have been very different? Or would the prevailing currents in their respective societies have simply thrown up some very similar leading figures who would have followed very similar policies, with very similar results?  It's an interesting idea, and one that seems very apposite to those like us who take an interest in history, and especially military hisory.  I claim no expertise, in fact I know nothing about this subject, but I reckon that makes me as well-qualified as many a politician currently directing grand geopolitical strategy.. Full disclosure - I only read the first couple of paragraphs of that Wikipedia page. I am so very  modern...   

I hesitate to describe any current leader involved in what's going on in the Middle East as a 'Great Man', (let alone having superior intellect!) but it is interesting that even in a world where governance and geopolitics seem fantastically complex, and where government agencies involved  have very large staffs  carrying out analysis and offering advice to leaders, it is seemingly very  possible for  those leaders to ignore all the analysis and advice and just 'wing it' and go with their gut feeling, taking very little notice of the information they are presumably given.  If this is true, then  a very large part of the responsibility for all this ghastliness belongs to just a handful of men.  Does this bear out Carlyle's idea?  Or does it show that the inevitable result of trying to prove him right is - well, where we are today. Time will, presumably tell.  Meanwhile, keep well, everyone     

Back to (Basing) Basics

After the excitement of the Cavalier show, hobby activity has been somewhat limited. But I have made a start on what I suppose I must call  'The Great Re-Basing',  having come to the decision that my recently-acquired hoard (or horde?)  of vintage Minifigs 7YW / AWI figures are going to have to be re-based to a standard format. There are at least 3 different types of base painting/texturing in the collection, from simple cardboard to heavily-textured with household filler (and then sealed with gloss varnish!), and even aluminium machine-cut bases (someone had access to metalworking tools several decades ago..), and non-matching base colours too - sometimes in the same unit!  Here's the 'worst case',  Polyfilla and gloss varnish:

 

So I spent a bit of time thinking about what house standard I should use, and I think I am going to go with 40mm x 40mm MDF bases for line infantry, four figures per base,  with the bases simply painted 'old-school' green, just like those in the Charles Grant/Young and Lawford books. I've always liked that unfussy look, and the base size fits with both Black Powder and Honours of War rulebooks - and probably most other sensible rule sets!  Another consideration is of course, how many figures per unit?  After a further  bit of thought I am leaning towards 16-figure battalions, 4 bases per unit - the above-mentioned rulebooks would suggest 24 and 20 figures respectively, but I felt that would give rather large units for my expected table size (and those are also only suggestions, they don't seem to have any impact on the rules mechanisms).      

Having decided, I've had a trial run with one battalion, being from the French regiment Saintonge, and here is the result:  

I am pleased with them, I think they will do nicely. The basic musketeer figures are Minifigs AWI18 French Line Infantryman Advancing,  The original unit 'as bought' had 23 figures, 6 of which were in a different 'firing' pose, and on aluminium bases, so they didn't really fit with the rest anyway!  They can go to a 'spares' box and may join a different unit later, with possible adjustments to facing colours etc.  For any real details nerds out there, I can confirm the bases are painted with Valspar paint-matching shade X117, the splendidly-named Ribbett, available in the UK from the  B&Q  chain of DIY stores.  

 

Another reason to prefer 16-figure units is that they can be broken into two 8-figure units which fit nicely into my 100mm Hexon terrain hexes, and which therefore work fine with my existing Portable Wargame units.    

I also had a little trial with a few figures which are mounted on Polyfilla and gloss varnish bases, to whit these three fine officers. 

 

They have spent a couple of days soaking their horses' hooves in water: 

After which I'm glad to say, the filler could be mostly broken off and the figures released from their heavily-textured captivity - see below for how much material came off them! Rather a messy job, I admit, and may be hard work for a whole battalion, but I think well worth it. 

 

There is obviously a lot of work to be done to sort out this whole collection (over 1000 figures in all!), but I'm fairly happy that I've got the right approach, and a decent standard which will pull them all together.  Now I just need to get going on it! Meanwhile, I still hope to set up a simple game to get them on the table regardless of basing - watch this space. 

I've also been doing a spot of basing on a smaller scale, working on the 6mm 1859 Risorgimento armies. I've painted and flocked the bases for a couple of brigades of the future Austrian 2nd Divsion : 

 

I have a couple of Jager units painted and just needing basing, then I need to add a couple of artillery pieces and the division will be ready for action. Of course it will need some oppostion, so I will need to get started on further Piedmontese, and French.

Finally a couple of other things to 'plug' - first I attended  a very interesting talk at the National Army Museum last week - the subject being  The Imperial Training Network: The Armies of Britain, the Dominions and India, 1939-45.  Essentially a walk through a PhD thesis by its author ( so sorry I did not make a note of her name!), this covered the development of training for the 'DUKE' armies  in WW2, after the shocks of Blitzkrieg in 1940 and Singapore etc in  1942 - taking in Britain, the Middle East and the Far East commands, each of which developed training for their different theatres but always emphasised inter-operability between the different national contingents. Fascinating stuff, and it should eventually be available on the NAM Youtube channel, which of course has many other excellent talks. I also had the pleasure of meeting and having a chat over lunch in the museum cafe with  fellow gamer and blogger Chris aka Nundanket of Horse and Musket Gaming fame - always good to see you, Chris! 

I should also mention another blogger - that being Elenderil (another David, I think!) of the Small But Perfectly Formed blog, who has posted a really fascinating series of discussions on the  tactical formations used by 17th Century  ( 'Pike and Shot') armies, the latest covering the Catholic League, Bavarians and other Germans in the 30 Years War. He's clearly done some serious research, and the result is a great resource, I think - I suspect that many Pike and Shot period gamers are not so well-informed about how the troops actually deployed and fought (I am very sceptical myself about the formations that seem to be suggested by the Warlord 'Epic Pike & Shotte' system, for example!). Many thanks to Elenderil for this series, a really good example of how useful blogs can be. 

Upcoming hobby activities will include more painting of 6mm 1859 troops, and fairly obviously I need to get into a regular habit of re-basing the vintage Minifigs collectiom - 'little and often' should be the watchword. Also a bit of actual gaming is long, long overdue: I have an idea for a quick and easy  Dominion Of.. solo game which I might be able to do next week. If that works, you'll see it here in the near future.  Until then, keep well everyone.. 

 

Cavalier 2026 Show

On Sunday I had the pleasure of attending 'Cavalier 2026' Wargames Show, presented by the Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society, at the Angel Leisure Centre, Tonbridge.  The show was dedicated to the TWWS founder George Gush, who passed away (aged nearly 90) last year. There was a nice little giveaway leaflet in his memory, with a picture on the front which I suspect was a self-portrait, as it seems George was a talented artist. 

 

The leaflet also contained short essays in memory of George by his long-time fellow gamers Malcolm Dove, Andrew Finch and Tim Freeman; a nice little tribute to an inspirational wargamer and author. 

As for the show itself,  I like Richard of My Wargaming Habit's description of it as 'a small but nicely formed event'.  There were 18 games listed in the show program, though I think there were a couple of no-shows on the day, and I  think I managed to look at and photograph just about all of those present. So without further ado here they are, in roughly the order I saw them: 

(1)  Gravesend Gamers Guild presented Hildisvini Crossing,  a  fictional 'Cold War gone Hot' game in 15mm using Team Yankee rules.  The setting was Denmark, 1985, with Soviet Airborne and East German ground forces attempting to capture a canal crossing, opposed by Danish, Swedish and American units.  These games always seem to be a bit 'wall to wall tanks', but the models and scenery looked great - particularly good to see the Swedish Strv 103 'S-tank' turretless main battle tanks. 

 and an airstrike in progress by a group of (DDR?) Sukhoi strike aircraft

 while the East German  assault forces advanced!

(2) Central London Wargames Club brought a 15mm Napoloenic game using  Emperor of the Battlefield rules, written by their member Ian Godwin. The rules look interesting, and Ian is a very enthusiastic promoter of them - good for him!  The game portrayed the cavalry combat of Liebertwolkwitz - which Wikipedia describes as the biggest cavalry battle in history.  It did look rather good! 

 

 

Now Ian was most disappointed when his initial question to me 'do you play Napoleonics?' was met with a 'No' - but in the course of our chat it transpired that before these rules, he had also produced a  set, on the same general principles, for the Eighteenth Century - 'King of the Battlefield' . To cut a long chat short, I went away with a copy of those! 

Having recently acquired lots of vintage  Seven Years War / AWI figures to add to my existing forces,  I am currently 'interviewing' rules for the period, and these look interesting - they are shortlisted with Black Powder and Honours of War.  Looks like some test games are in prospect..

(3) Shepway Wargamers showed their game An Englishman's Castle, a fictional Wars of the Roses battle set in 1483, with a Lancastrian castle under attack by Yorkist forces.  The scale was 28mm and the rules in use were Andy Callan's Never Mind the Billhooks. 

Really nice terrain and figures, and interesting that figures were based singly, which gave a nice 'irregular' look to the units rather than regimented straight lines.  Moving them may have been a little slow, but they guys playing the game were not worried! 

 

(4) Real Time Wargames were there, demonstrating their 1745 rules:

with a nice table and  10mm  figures.  
 

  

(5) The Konfederacy of Eastbourne Gamers presented their   Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro –May 1811, Peninsular War battle in 10mm using Blucher rules. 

Defending British on right, attacking French the left

French columns advance

 

Fuentes town

Each base represented a Brigade, so a 'big battle' game. The figures were really nice, but I thought it a slight shame that each unit had a laminated paper marker propped up on it - these allowed disruption/damage to be marked off, but rather spoiled the visual effect. Still a nice game, though! 

(6) Tonbridge Wargames Club showed  Port Arthur or bust!   Naval conflict in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, using 1/1200th scale ships, and GM Boardgames  Gods of War: Togo rules 

   

(7) Friday Night Firefight Club brought their Launch All The Fighters -  Star Wars spaceship combat. Not really my thing, I'll admit, but on an impressive scale:

(8) Crawley Wargames Club displayed Normandy Axis & Allies using 10mm scale figures, which looked rather lovely - something about the vibrant colours and clarity of the map, I think. I don't know anything about Axis & Allies, but assume this game was using the rules from the board game in some way? Sadly I didn't think to ask more!  

I noticed that each of the invasion beaches was just one small map area, which gives an idea of the large scale of the map.    

The figures were nicely painted and based - I am guessing each base represented a regiment or two

(9) And now for the most impressive table of the day, which would be my choice for 'best in show': Hailsham Wargames Club's  The Battle of Malplaquet 1709,  War of the Spanish Succession game in 20mm scale.  The game certainly did justice to the biggest and bloodiest battle of that period - we are told there were around 3,500 figures on the table! These are the life's work of club member Bill Hendley.   Rules were the club's own, and I'll let the pictures do the talking :

view from the Allied left..

French defenders in the woods..

...and Allied assault 

just masses of cavalry!

 

 

and not forgetting the foot 

You might say that the table looked very crowded with massess of units and maybe not much room for manouevre,  but I suspect that wasn't far off the truth of this huge battle (with around 200,000 participants) - here's a  contemporary image, notice the massed formations in the background.   

 

(10) Kent and Sussex D&D and RPG Club  ran a great-looking participation game:   Down at the Docktors there's something fishy going on at the docks in the small port of Pudding's End. The beer at the "Elf in the Safety Tavern" is off, the pies in the bakery be wrigglin' and as for the sewers......  This was 28mm scale, using D&D (5th Edition) . A good time was clearly being had by the players! 

 

(11)  Milton Hundred Wargames Club brought  a small game The Mogaisciou 1993 : Task Force Ranger in Somalia. Modern (28mm).

 

(12) Maidstone Wargames Society showed  The Labyrinths of Mars,  a Fantasy game in 32mm scale ( 'Journey to Barsoom and rescue Princes and Princesses' ) with a rather spectacular and suitably Labyrinthine terrain :

 

(13) Rainham Wargames Club ran a participation game  Smoke on the Water , 1/600th scale ACW river action with Hammerin' Iron rules, and I had my usual conversation with them where I tell them I was a member of their club as a teenager - in the 70s! I'm sure they're getting bored of my geriatrically repeated story by now.. 

(14)  Deal Wargames Society presented their Polish Blitzkrieg 1939 game, which I'd seen before, but it's still well up to their usual high standard and always worth a look. 

I liked the exotic Polish 'kit' , such as the aircraft and the tiny tankettes

 

 

and it's worth noting that the Deal club consistently produce superb explanatory leaflets for their games - an example for all to follow! 

 

(15) The Society of Ancients brought their re-fight of Pharsalus, 48BC, in 28mm scale with Impetus 2nd Edition rules 

The Society always has a nice spread of publications for sale, and this time a bonus of a free copy of their magazine 'Slingshot' as a taster for prospective members, so I took one of those  (a 2023 issue), but there was no-one doing 'meet and greet', the players were occupied with the game, so I just took the freebie and wandered off. I can't help feeling they are missing an opportunity, slightly. 

 

(16) Much more chatty were the guys from East Kent Wargames Group,  with their Vietnam Jungle War!  in 28mm. This was a participation game introducing Pazoot.com's  Battle Chronicle rules system - I was aware of this project thanks to Ray Rousell's   'Don't Throw a One' blog posts recently reporting on playtesting of the upcoming 1812: Retreat from Moscow  game. For this Vietnam setup, they had the great idea of setting up the same game on several different 'tables', ranging from a simple  2 foot square board with printed tokens mounted on card - which would be a great option for beginners with  the game/hobby - to a 4 foot square scratch-built board with 'show-level' scenery.  

 

Printed card board left, posh terrain right - same game.. 

  .  

4 x 4 version with nice terrain

Phew! Sixteen games in all - the show program listed eighteen, so I think there were sadly two 'no-shows',   from SEEMS ( Tanks in Normandy, 28mm ) and The Shed Wargames club ( Epic Battles form Westeros,  28mm Song of Ice and Fire )  - or did I just miss them in a corner somewhere? I was pretty sure I'd got round all the games! 

 

Of course there was a little shopping, always an important part of shows. There were well  over 20 traders, a really good number for a relatively small show.  As already mentioned I picked up the King of the Battlefield Rules.  I added some more 20mm Ancient Indians ( swordsmen, bowmen and spearmen ) from New Line Designs - sadly they didn't have any elephants available on the day, I should have emailed to ask in advance! I just need a couple of elephants to complete a DBA Indian army to oppose Alexander's Macedonians.   I bought some bags of MDF bases from Products for Wargamers - 20x30mm bases for my 1859 Risorgimento 6mm armies, and 40x40mm which I have decided to plump for with my Seven Years' War forces. A major re-basing project awaits for those.. 

 

And a nice find on the excellent Bring and Buy stalls - Charles Grant's 1975 book on wargaming Fontenoy, which I look forward to reading quite soon! Slightly tatty dustjacket, but a very good price, and I'm always happy to read the late Mr Grant's elegant prose. 

 

There's always the social side, too.  I was pleased to meet and chat with some  familiar faces - bloggers David Crook ( A Wargaming Odyssey ),  Richard ( My Wargaming Habit ) and Ray (Don't Throw a One ) - great to see all of you!  Also great to catch up with my old friend Tony Toms, who has recently become chair of Milton Hundred Wargames Club and is relishing the challenge of organising the club's Broadside show in June - which I very much look forward to attending.  Tony was using the opportunity to chat to several traders and clubs who will also be a Broadside - as well as finding the time to buy a lovely collection of 15mm Western Desert armour and transport at the Bring and Buy.  Tony and I also had a really interesting chat in the cafeteria  with Colin Stone, who is head of finance at Warlord Games, and also Treasurer of the Cavalier host club TWWS - quite handy for the club, as Warlord Games were thus one of the traders at the show.. Colin seemed a thoroughly nice guy, it was fascinating to meet him - but sadly he's not allowed to give any information about any upcoming releases from Warlord, sorry folks! 

 

As I think you can tell, I had a thoroughly pleasant day at Cavalier; it's a really nice 'season opener' for those of us in the South East, a very manageable size show with  high quality games, a pretty good spread of traders and a very good 'Bring and Buy'.   Maybe it was a bit quiet in the afternoon ( I left about 3.30, closing time was 4pm ),  and the demographic of visitors was distinctly 'mature' ( grey hair or no hair, like me! ) - it's noticeable that the Fantasy and Sci-Fi games bring in a younger and more mixed crowd, so it's great to have a good number of those games, and I wonder if a few of the young players of those might be impressed and intrigued  by the games from the  'historical' side of the hobby?   Meanwhile if you'd like to see more of this show, I would heartily recommend Big Lee's report on his Miniature Adventures blog and Youtube channel - Lee is clearly a huge fan of this show and is postively poetic, nay perhaps lyrical, in his appreciation of it in his report - top man, Lee!

 

I hope you've enjoyed this report, I certainly enjoyed the show; many thanks to the organisers, all those who put on games and all the traders who attended, and of course to the late George Gush, who started it all, more than 50 years ago.

 

Now I need to get back to painting 6mm 1859 units, and maybe some Ancient Indians too, and re-basing figures for 7YW/AWI, and reading books and rules. Not much to be getting on with, then! I'll hopefully have some progress to report next time. Until then, keep well everyone.