The Art of Coarse Painting (6mm Style), and looking forward to 'Cavalier'

After all the excitement of storage boxes last time  ( something of an unexpected 'hit', going by the response in comments ), it's been a quiet couple of weeks hobby-wise, not helped by several  'real life' issues - for example door-locks have had it in for me, on both house and car. Oh well, must have rolled low for initiative that week.. 

So, limited time available, but some progress on painting 6mm MDF figures for the 1859 Risorgimento project : ten battalions ( 240 figures ) of Austrian Line infantry all painted and stuck to bases. 

 As you can see, they need flags adding and bases painting and flocking, but essentially they are done, and regiments IR11, IR17 and IR39 should soon be ready for service. A couple of Feldjager units and some artillery will complete the 2nd Austrian division - then on to the French and Peidmontese. 

A bit more of a close up so you can see my rather minimal/sloppy painting style and the semi-flat, stylised look of the Commission Miniatures MDF chaps: 

Looks like a few of the skirmishers have gone a bit skew-whiff before the glue set, they may need re-fixing to straighten up the skirmish line, or the sergeants will be getting annoyed ( 'du schrecklicher kleiner Mann..'  says  google translate ). 

One more picture to let even more light in on the 'magic'; I thought I'd try for a really close-up look with my phone camera - which had interesting results.  Some of you are may  be horrified by this! 

 The lighting is pretty harsh, and the close-up shows not only my very basic 'blob'  painting but also the slightly  textured look of the MDF! Hopefully you can see some of the etched detail of cross-belts etc; I may need a finer brush for hands next time.  The main thing to bear in mind, however, is that the picture above on a laptop/PC screen probably shows the figures at about twice their actual size - in real life, no-one will EVER  see them this close without a magnifying glass, and that would be very bad form at the gaming table, and may provoke a slapped wrist.. The pictures of them on their bases are much more like a table-top view, and I think they are fine.  Equally, I think you can see that a really careful, patient painter could probably put a surprising amount of detail on these - just not me, or not yet, at least.  

So that's about it for a progress update, but there is something to look forward to - this Sunday I hope to get to Tonbridge, Kent for the 'Cavalier 2026' show organised by Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society. The show's website lists 18 games and an impressive 28 traders, and I've enjoyed visiting this show in the past couple of years, so here's hoping for another good one. There is  a  slight tinge of sadness attending this, as TWWS founder and all-round hobby hero - see the title of this blog - George Gush  passed away last summer. I never met him, but have always treasured his Renaissance Armies book (which I chose as a 'Fourth Form Prize' at school in about 1978!)  and his Airfix Guide to the ECW, among many other inspiring books and articles.  Who could forget his WRG 1420-1700 rules, certainly my first 'Pike and Shot' set: 

thanks George,  and R.I.P. 

  

And finally, a little humour suitable for wargamers  - saw this on Instagtam the other day:

Clearly a master strategist of the future.. 

 [ Credited to one 'Scott Alexander' but shared on another account, so I can't tell you any more about the author or point to any more of his humour, sorry ]

That's all for now, but I hope to bring a few pictures of the Cavalier show in my next post, sometime next week.  Until then, from wet and windy England,  keep well, everyone.    

    

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. 

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. 

Epic Celts, anyone? And Going to Partizan

I recently bought the May 2025 issue (no. 449) of Wargames Illustrated  magazine, which included a free sprue of Warlord Games Epic Hail Caesar  Celt Warriors, which I believe are 12mm or 13mm scale. I was interested to have a look at them, but I admit I don't have a use for them -  I have dabbled in Ancients, but am pretty much committed to 20mm scale for the period.  So, would anyone like them? 

 

First come, first served - leave a comment on this post, including a contact email ( I won't publish that on the blog, of course ) and we'll arrange for me to post them to you (UK only, please) - or even better, are you going to the Partizan show on Sunday?  If so, I can hand them over in person!  

As you can see, there is a nice mix of warband infantry, skirmishers, cavalry and even one chariot. One amusing feature of the warband figures is that some of them depict naked warriors.  Their modesty is of course  covered in front by their large  shields  ( and you know what they say about the size of a Celt's shield..) but from the back, it's all on show: 

 

So, if you are of a nervous disposition, be warned, you may find these a bit too 'cheeky'. I also wonder if a rules amendment might be required to give an extra  minus 1 on their combat die roll if attacked from the rear..

I have to admit I never thought I'd be having to say I bought a wargames magazine 'because of  the interesting articles of course, nothing to do with  the nudes'. 

*** UPDATE : they are taken already! Alan 'Tradgardland' has offered them a good home, I look forward to seeing what he does with them.  ****

Meanwhile, as already mentioned, I am planning to visit the Partizan show at Newark on Sunday, and look forward to an interesting day. Looking at the website, it seems we can expect  to see no less than 70  games  ( about 40 demonstration to 30 participation ), which is slightly mind-blowing!  Also over 40 traders, so plenty of shopping opportunities.

Browsing the list of games, there is a very wide range - all periods from Ancients to the Sci-Fi future and the realms of fantasy, and all scales from 6mm to 60mm ( Blitzkrieg Miniatures '60mm Ancient Battles', may look impressive!) plus aerial  and naval games.  Among those I will be looking out for are : 

-  John Kersey               1/72nd Russo-Japanese War    Nihon shugi: Assault on 203 Metre hill 

 - Anschluss Wargames           10mm WW2                                 A Small town in Italy 1945    

- Ardhammer Group               28mm French Dutch War 1672-1678       The Battle of the Windmill

- Boondock Sayntes               28mm Anglo-Sikh wars                           The Battle of Aliwal, 1846 

-  Glasgow Tradeston Club     15mm 30 Years War                                The Battle of Rocroi 1643

-  Gordon's Gophers                15mm WW2                          North Africa Rapid Fire Reloaded 

- League of Augsburg        28mm 17th Century Caribbean    Dutch Raid on Hispaniola circa 1675

- Nick Hindley                        Epic scale Napoleonics                         The Battle of Waterloo 1815

 - Simon Miller                       Lust for Glory        28mm “To the Strongest!” Horse’n’Musket 

 - South London Warlords       6mm WW1              Crisis on The Marne, September 1914 

  -  Steve Jones                         6mm Napoleonics                                 Wagram 1809

- The Yarkshire Gamer            28mm AWI                                       The Battle of Germantown 1777

 ..'and many, many more', no doubt! 

 And of course I would hope to meet a few friends, old and new   I know Postie's Rejects will be there, for starters, always good to see them.

Finally I can report some painting progress : I now have a small Italian village in 6mm scale for my 'Risorgimento' project, couttesy of Timecast miniatures and my very average painting skills. 

Something for Piedmontese and Austrians to fight over..

 

Now for the roads, rivers, railways, walls and trees...

I strongly suspect that my next post will be a report from Partizan - let's hope it lives up to expectations! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.  

 

The (almost) Finished 1859 Armies

With apologies for the lack of posting recently, I wanted to wait until I had finished painting my 6mm Risorgimento armies for Italy 1859, but that took a bit longer than expected - 'real life', and all that. However, I have finally painted my way through the 'MDF pile' of the semi-flat Commission Figurines* figures I acquired at the Warfare show in November, and these combined with some  Baccus figures I had previously completed have given me ( I hope ) useable Austrian and Piedmontese 'starter' armies.    And here they are - Piedmont first : 

These are based for Neil Thomas'  19th Century Europe rules, with most units having four bases - I decided on 24 figures per line infantry unit ( 2 bases of 8 in line, and 2 bases of 4 skirmishing) and 16 figures per cavalry unit, with 8 figures in a skirmisher unit ( 2 bases of 4 ) and a single base of one gun  and 4 crew for an artillery unit.  The Piedmont army currently has (front to back of picture)  5 Line and 2 Grenadier infantry units,  2 units of Bersaglieri skirmishers,  2 line and 1 heavy Cavalry unit, and 3 artillery units.  

And if you'll excuse the slightly poor photography ( late afternoon sun a bit strong ), here are the Austrian opposition :

 

The Emperor's force comprises (again, from back to front of picture)  6 units of Line infantry, 3 of Artillery and 3 of Cuirassier cavalry. This is where the 'almost' in the title of this post comes in - having lined them up for the camera, I realised that I have omitted to include any skirmishing infantry in the army. So I need a bit more painting, of a couple of units of Grenze or Croat skirmishers. Back to the painting desk, I suppose.. 

I'm quite pleased with these, and found the painting less challenging that I expected - essentially there's no need to worry about trying to paint tiny details on the figures, because even if you could, no-one could see them at tabletop distances!  If you really insist on seeing the full horror of what I think I can get away with, here is an extreme close-up of Austrian Cuirassiers: 

I will admit I think the 'flock' I have used on the bases is probably too coarse for this scale - but again, no-one is ever going to get that close to these figures, and in the previous pictures at more normal distances, I think the basing looks good enough. I will try to improve that in future units, though, using a finer flock if possible.  The figures here are from  Commission Figurines Napoleonic range - unsurprisingly enough, Austrian Cuirassiers  ( for examples of much better-painted figures from the same ranges, see Richard's My Wargaming Habit blog ). 

 For background reading I found Solferino: The Birth of a Nation by Patrick Turnbull (1985) 

 

This was a good read and an nice introduction to the Italian campaign  of 1859, culminating in the bloody battle of Solferino and covering the engagements at Montebello and Magenta too. One of my main impressions from reading the book is that frankly the standard of generalship exhibited by all three main protagonists ( Austria, France and Italy ) left a lot to be desired - the three armies more or less 'bumped into each other' at Solferino, having encamped the night before very close together but unaware of each other!   All three were commanded by their heads of state - Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria,  Emperor Napoleon III of France, and King Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont-Savoy, but none of the three were suited to command of large armies.  The author says that none of them lacked personal bravery, and would have made really good regimental commanders, but no more!    If anything, Louis Napoleon perhaps comes across as the most sympathetic and human character,  beginning his first war  with hopes of attaining 'glory' like his illustrious namesake, but being shocked and horrified by the scale of the bloodshed and suffering involved in a big battle.  Immediately after Solferino he determined to make peace, probably to his credit as a human being. Of course, we can discuss why he had not realised just what his ambition for power was getting him into during his rise to the throne, and how far out of his depth he was when later pitted against Bismarck's Prussia.

From a hobby point of view I rather like the ruritanian ineffciency of the armies, it probably puts them on a fairly level playing field and may well suit my own level of tactical and strategic skills! 

Now I just need to acquire some suitable terrain - starting from scratch rather, as this is my first essay with 6mm. There are some buildings coming to me from Timecast, I hope, next we are going to need roads, rivers, trees etc. I also need to get some Austrian skirmishers painted, as mentioned above - the Commission Figurines ACW Confederates in broad-brim hats may come in handy for those.  Once that is all in hand, we'll set 'em up and see how they do, using Neil Thomas' rules for the period.   In the meantime, there may be some gaming in other periods which haven't had a good run out for a while -watch this space.  Until then keep well, everyone. 

 * It seems that Commission Figurines website is no longer available - I am wondering if this is bad news for them and their customers?  Is anyone aware of any news about them? 

 

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.    

  

Painting Progress and Partizan Preparation

Real life got a bit busy last week and hobby time was reduced, but things are looking up a bit now, and I have made a little progress painting (very) little metal men.   Having acquired a few packs of Baccus 6mm figures for the Italian 'Risorgimento'  period at Salute back in April, I've now painted the two packs of infantry - Piedmontese and Austrians. 

The Baccus infantry packs comprise 96 figures each, and I have organised them into units of 24 figures, hence 4 units from each pack. I have based them as specified by Neil Thomas in his excellent Wargaming 19th Century Europe book - that is 4 bases per unit, each base 20mm by 30mm, with two bases representing the 'main body' of the unit and the other two bases the 'skirmish line' which would be out at the front doing the shooting.  

Four units 1859 Austrian Infantry

 

Painting was quite easy, more or less following the guide provided on the Baccus website - 'keep it simple, stupid' is definitely the way forward and suits me fine!  

Photographing them is a bit fiendish, though - being so small you have to get quite close, and then every tiny blemish shows up!  But but they will never be so closely scrutinised on the table, nor are they meant to be.. There is an interesting effect where the (still drying) PVA glue on the bases has picked-up the light, making it look like there are bits of white material scattered across them. Admittedly I was in a bit of a hurry to get on with this blog post!   

I've given them  my usual 'old school' plain green bases for now, keeping it simple again, though I admit I wonder if the small scale of the figures means that the thickness of the figure bases makes them look a bit pronounced - rather as if  each figure is  standing on a 12-inch high step!  Step forward Baccus again, with a basing guide on their website which I am giving some consideration to. So maybe these units are not quite finished yet..  Many thanks to Chris aka Nundanket of Horse and Musket Gaming fame for pointing me towards these useful guides, and you can see lots of his nicely-painted 6mm figures on his blog - albeit I think he prefers Heroics and Ros figures! 

and opposing Piedmontese ( 1 pack of 96 figures )

 

Another thing these troops still need is some nice flags - yet again Chris nudged me in the right direciton by pointing out that Baccus will happily sell me pre-printed flags. I wasn't looking forward to trying to paint flags in 6mm scale as yet, so that looks a good idea - they seem to be a bit over £2 for 24 flags, which is enough for an entire table-top army of infantry, I'm sure! So plenty of scope for expansion.. 

 Quite conveniently I see that I should be able to acquire some of those flags in only a few days time, as I am aiming to visit The Other Partizan  wargames show at Newark on Sunday -  and Baccus will be there, looking to sell stuff..  So hopefully that's a win-win, and a massive £4 sale for them..

I'm looking forward to the show, just having a quick scan of the promised games there are lots of interesting ones - Anschluss Wargames 'Small Town in Italy' WW2 in 10mm, for example;  The Bodkins  28mm Seven Years War game 'Prussian Glory' ; Chesterfield Old Boys   28mm War of Spanish Succession ;    The Hustle Club  20mm Italian/Greek war 1941;  League of Extraordinary Kriegspielers 28mm  Lutzen, 1632;   Northants Battlefields Society 'Edgecote Made Easy' ( billed as ECW, so a slight time-shift? ) ; and Simon 'To the Strongest' Miller's venture into the Spanish Succession aka Louis Quatorze's Warses.   Plus several  D-Day/Normandy  related games, and a Market Garden  one, all highly appropriate for this anniversary year.  'And many, many more..'  Plus  of course,  many traders - I may be in the market for some scenery to suit Italy, 1943/44,  some more 6mm 1859 figures,  and  Alexander and Darius for my somewhat neglected 20mm DBA Macedonians and  Persians, perhaps?  Plus the inevitable impulse buys - there's always a tempting book or two! 

Anyone else going? Or is that a daft question?!  I'd be happy to chat with anyone who reads/follows/comments on this blog. it would be great to  put some more faces to names..  I've borrowed the floorplan (above)  from the Partizan website (hopefully they won't mind as I am giving them a free plug!) - I reckon the space just inside and to the left of the main entrance might be a good spot. So I may just lurk about there, (sort of between Empress Miniatures and Colonel Bill's/Last Valley stands), at about 1pm, if you'd like to say hello ( and if  no-one  turns up  I will  look like a proper Charlie!).  

Finally a quick pic - one of the things that happened last week was a visit to that London for  HMS Belfast,  which was a bit of a bonus having become an IWM member for recent visits to Duxford. I last set foot aboard the Belfast as a kid in about 1973.. and it was rather good! Maybe I will devote a post to it sometime soon. Meanwhile a taster: 

Right, where's that Partizan shopping list? And have I got some flock for those 6mm bases? If you are going along on Sunday, it'd be great to chat, if not then I'll try to take a few photos and post here. In the meantime keep well, everyone.

Imperfect Painting - Picardie and Piedmont

This may be an unusual post, in that I am going to show some, shall we say, 'less than perfect' painting results. I may be drummed out of the blogging society for this, but I think I'm keeping with the spirit of my hobby. .I'm doing my best, making mistakes, hopefully learning lessons, enjoying it, and maybe getting better bit by bit.  If I only showed perfect results I'd have nothing to show here! So,  you have been warned - here are the latest 'learning opportunities'...      

 Picardie:

It took a while, but I finished painting my first  Seven Years War French Infantry - a couple of 'Portable Wargame' units of the Picardie regiment.  These are nice Garrison figures,  supplied by the excellent  Rob Young of The Eastern Garrison - thanks very much, Rob!  I liked them - rather more elegant and less 'chunky' than the vintage  Minifigs I have been painting up to now for the period. So here is a view of them - 'Button Counters' need not look too closely, as I have not  painted on any buttons...  

gentlemen from Picardie..

 However, 'belt counters' may well be clutching at their pearls, as I will admit  I have made a mistake with the crossbelts. Two factors : (a) colour, and  (b) arrangement. As to colour, I took a steer from the Kronoskaf website, which states that crossbelts were  natural leather (often whitened with pipe-clay)  - I decided my chaps would want to be smart, and use the white. But then all the examples I've seen in other illustrations ( such as a nice plate in an edition of Tradition picked up the Broadside show ) tend to show the natural leather look, so I may be out on a limb here. Yesterday I acquired the  Osprey Men-At-Arms no.302 Louis XV's Army (2) French Infantry, which states that 'from the later 1750s a growing number of regiments whitened their belts', which maybe gets me off the hook.  Where I have a bigger problem is the arrangement of belts - with a slight shortage of documentary sources initially, I rather rashly assumed they would have the classic 'two belts crossed over' , whereas I now see that in reality they more likely had a single shoulder belt for the cartridge box, with a waist belt for sword and bayonet scabbards. Oops.  I suppose I could try to re-paint the extra belt into the 'Grey-White' coat colour, but for the moment I am going to leave them, and assume a rather eccentric Colonel has provided non-regulation equipage - or 'liberated' crossbelts from fallen Prussians, perhaps? . Further units ( I have another two or three lots still to do )  will revert to the single belt. possibly in buff leather for good measure.    

Having said that, I was otherwise quite pleased with them;  I kept them in my very  simple and rather old-school  'house style' ('cos that's all I can do!);  I think I got the 'grey-white' about right, and it will distinguish them nicely from the pure white of my Austrians and Saxons. I hit upon the trick of using a fine-line black pen to outline those belts (thus highlighting my mistake, oops!) and to do the garters at the knee, and I will use that again, it worked pretty well. I even managed to get the flags more or less to my satisfaction - made from good old wine bottle-top foil, painted with acrylics, and which may be shaped a bit to give an impression of fluttering in the breeze - they are only temporarily attached for the camera.   Not too bad for a first go, and I hope the next batch will be better - onwards and upwards, etc.

 Piedmont

Now a complete change of tack - both  period and scale. A bit of a first for me: I have had a go at some 6mm figures.  Since acquiring Neil Thomas' fine book Wargaming 19th Century Europe I have been thinking about that period, and the wars of Italian unification or Risorgimento  (memories of history teacher Mr Davis intoning that word in his mellifluous Welsh tones, c.1976 - it must have stuck somehow) seemed an interesting and colourful setting (and balanced - no dour Prussians winning all the time!).   At  'Salute'  I picked up a nice book on the subject, Gabriele Esposito's Armies of the Italian Risorgimento, which has lots of inspiring contemporary illustrations of the uniforms of the time.  I also took a punt on buying some figures, having decided to give 6mm a try for this period, as a bit of an experiment. That nice Mr. Berry at Baccus was happy to oblige with a few packs of figures, so I now have some Piedmontese and Austrian infantry, and some artillery pieces.  As a first attempt, I tried  putting together a Piedmontese infantry unit ( a battalion?  Neil Thomas is deliberately vague ).  

For painting advice, Baccus has quite a useful page on their website,  the crucial point being 'paint the unit, not the figure' - don't get caught up trying to paint the detail that no-one will ever see at this scale! Armed with that, I plunged in - and I reckon the advice is good. 

 

From the Risorgimento book I found this plate (above, centre) showing a Piedmontese Line Infantryman, post-1849, and that looked a nice simple and pleasing colour scheme.  Immediately a slight problem arose, in that the picture shows a man in single-breasted tunic, but if you squint hard and look closely, the Baccus figures are in longer coats, probably greatcoats! No pic of those in the book,  so I made an assumption that the  long coats would be basically the same blue colour - fingers crossed. Following the Baccus 'cheat sheet', I found I could fairly whizz along with painting, especially as I was only doing 8 strips of figures - a total of just 32 men.  Having done a basic job, and given them equally, er,  basic  bases, I have a unit. A bit rough around the edges ( and a lesson learned about sticking them to the base before trying to paint the green on - I won't do that in future, and will probably end up re-basing these! ),  but I reckon they will do fine.  I reckon I could knock out serviceable ( for me) units at a satisfyingly high rate..

HOWEVER of course, when I came to photograph them, I ran into the problem with modern cameras - they are far too good! Took this on my phone: 

 and they look terrible, don't they? Click on the pic to look closely - overlapping paint everywhere, green base colour all over the place..  BUT also note, if you click on the pic to look at them closely, you are seeing them as about 25mm tall - 4 times their actual size!  No-one will EVER see them like that in reality, short of picking them up and putting them under a magnifier - and if you do that, you will  NOT be invited back...  I think a more realistic view is something like this  ( and no clicking!) 

Looking at them like that, I am not  unhappy for a first and rather hasty attempt- I'll re-do the bases, though. And I do hope to get a bit better at painting them too, with practise. Following a hint from Neil Thomas' book, I have kept the figures on two of the bases in their strips, representing a 'reserve' part of the unit in closer order, while the other two bases have the strips chopped up and spaced out a bit, to represent skirmish order. Here the unit is in 'Line' formation as per Neil's rules, with in effect a skirmish line out front and a formed-up reserve behind, ready for the glorious bayonet charge.. 

As I said these are Baccus 6mm, largely because they were what I could buy on impulse at Salute. - but I admit I actually rather like the look of  the range of 'semi-flat'  MDF 6mm figures from Commission Figurines - you can see them in use on recent blogs such as Wargames with Toy Soldiers 1685-1845 by Steve J,  and   My Wargaming Habit by Richard,  of Postie's Rejects fame.  Commission do a Napoleonic range and an ACW range, and I think both could come in quite handy for the Risorgimento, - British shakos for Austrians, for example, and ACW Kepis for Garibaldi's redshirts? the figures have a rather stylised look and minimal detail, which I think will make 'paint conversions' very possible. 

 It so happens I picked up some of their ACW figures at a show in  pre-Covid times, and here are some - posed in front of the Baccus Piedmontese, we have a base of kepi-wearing Union and one of slouch-hatted Johnny Rebs :

Commission Figurines ACW in front of Baccus Piedmontese 

 

Sadly it looks like one of the Reb's musket has turned into a shotgun with the barrel 'broken', but  think I might be on to something here! I think the two different makes of figure don't look too different in size, so should go together on the table without problems.  Given the 'mission creep' factor ( hmm.. when will the D-Day Dodgers actually get a game? And those Picardie chaps? ), any such project needs to be quick and cheap, and I think 6mm with Neil Thomas rules may just fit the bill. Much to think about, then.. 

*** UPDATE :***

After a little thought,  I decided to re-do the Piedmontese infantry basing as shown in this picture: 

 

I simply reduced the number of figures on the 'skirmish' bases to 4 instead of 8, so they look a bit more of a loose formation. They are not 'stuck down' yet, but I am happier with them - and there is a small bonus in that with 24 figures per unit rather than 32, I should get four  units out of my pack of 96 Baccus figures, rather than only three. So, more efficient too!

And while I'm here, many thanks to Jon at Palouse Wargaming Journal for mentioning this post in his latest!   

*** update ends.. ***    

As I said, not a parade of Picardie and Piedmont perfection, but I hope this has been interesting. Next week, maybe even some gaming - he said, yet again..  Also a return visit to Duxford is planned, to include the 'Land Warfare' hall - should be lots of wargaming interest there! I will give a full report, I hope.  Meanwhile, keep well, everyone.