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..