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.

Return to Picardie - and belated D-Day

A bit of a miscellany this time, as hobby time has been rather short, alas. I'm afraid it's been almost a year since Rob of Eastern Garrison fame was so kind as to sell me some rather nice 7YW period 25mm Garrison French, and to my shame I have done nothing with them,  Well, having completed enough WW2 figures to be going on with for the moment, I wanted to keep up the (tiny amount of ) painting momentum. My acquisitions of books at Broadsde the other week pointed me back to the 18th Century, so what better than to get some of these French painted? 

So, I have made a tentative start on the Regiment of Picardie - sixteen figures, which will make two units for The Portable Wargame. After a rather miserable and wet spring, the Longest Day has brought summer, and I was able to have my first outdoor painting session of the year, sat in the garden late  this afternoon. Progress was not exactly rapid, but I did slap some paint on to the general area of their coats! But what colour to use?  There does seem to be a slight dilemma - many sources suggest a plain white coat, but others posit the famous  Gris-blanc  or 'Grey White', carried over from the earlier armies of Louis XIV.  I decided on my own version of the Gris-blanc,  at least partly just to differentiate my French from my other white-clad figures, both Austrian and Saxon. Rather like an interior decorator, I've ended up with a sort of 'white with a hint of grey' produced by mixing Army Painter Uniform Grey with Titanium White. I was tempted at first to just leave the grey spray primer exposed for the coats, but that seemed a bit too strong - more 'Gris' than 'Blanc'. 

 

Not much to look at as yet, perhaps, but it's a start, and the figures are rather charming, with simple detail (not excessive) and better proportioned than the rather podgy  Minifigs that have made up most of my collection so far.  I think these will look rather elegantly chic, very French.. We'll see how I do with them. 

I can also report a slightly belated addition to the 'D-Day 80'  anniversary. My WW2 'D-Day Dodgers' project is by definition not about Normandy, of course, but I thought it would be nice to pay my wargaming respects of a sort to the event being commemorated  the other week. I have a copy of the boardgame Memoir 44 , so I thought I'd get that out, and why not use my figures and vehicles in place of those from the game?  Ideally  I would have set it up as a full-scale figures game, but alas I don't currently have enough hex terrain to replicate the full  Memoir 44 board, so I came up with a sort of boardgame/figures game mash-up, which didn't look too bad, I thought.  The model tanks only just about fitted into the hexes on the game board, but they were (just) OK.  

This is the 'Sword Beach' scenario, which was the obvious one to try given that I have British and German WW2 forces but no Americans so far! For infantry units I simply swapped my painted figures for the unpainted models in the game, for armoured units and artillery then one model gun or tank sufficed per unit, with artillery unit strength represented by the number of crew figures, and hits taken by tank units marked by simple tokens (pennies, in fact). And so to the game - the British pushed their 3 'DD' tank units up the beach promptly, using them to clear barbed-wire obstacles as they  went, but they took hits from the defending artillery ( in a protective bunker ) and the lone German armoured unit, and two of the three Sherman units were destroyed. However, weight of numbers ( and a few lucky hits on that artillery unit and other bunker-bound defending infantry ) told, especially in the central  sector.  After about a dozen turns a successful  British 'Close Assault' on the central village objective gave  the British their 5th and 6th 'Victory Medals' and finished the game in their favour - which was only right, I felt.  Here is the final situation, with the British looking very sparse on the left, but having pretty much cleaned up on the centre and right. I was glad to see a historically appropriate result,  and Memoir 44 proved to be simple, but challenging and fun.

Must get more Hexon terrain, and go for a 'proper' figures game version!

Finally for today, more D-Day - the ladies of the village handicraft group produced their most spectacular 'Pillar Box Topper' yet, in honour of the anniversary. Complete with landing-craft! 

That's all for now - as I said, this is a bit of an odds and ends post. I hope you'll forgive that, and I promise to keep on with painting those French! Meanwhile, keep well, everyone.

Punjabis Painted (almost) and an Italian miscellany

I have, at last (almost) completed painting my Indian battaltion for the 'D-Day Dodgers' Italian Campaign 1943-45 project.  So here, on parade for the camera on what looks suspiciously like a stopover in rural England before deployment, are the gallant men of the entirely imaginary  11/8th Punjab battalion:

 

They comprise (from the front )  the HQ company with Battalion commander, PIAT team, 2-inch mortar team and truck;  three  rifle companies each of 8 figures with a truck;  a fourth company with 8 figures and 2 Bren carriers;  and the Support Company with 6-pounder A/T gun,  3-inch mortar, Lloyd carrier and Bren carrier. 

Keen readers may remember that I was unsure how to recruit the fourth company, having limited numbers of figures with Punjabi Muslim style turbans or British steel helmets - I am grateful to Neil from the excellent aufklarungsabteilung blog who suggested that I could consider a Sikh company in a Punjabi battalion.  I had enough Sikh-turbaned figures to do that, and it seemed a nice idea, giving a bit more interesting variation in the battalion. So we now have 'A', 'B' and 'C' Companies of Punjabis, and 'D' Company of Sikhs. I'm quite pleased with them

 As I said, they are 'almost' complete - if you look very closely at the back, you'll see that the 6-pounder crew are in need of a change of uniform colour and skin tone. So indeed not quite finished yet, but almost! Also the transport is 'from the pool' so to speak (specifically the vehicles bought recently from the collection of the late Eric Knowles),  hence their carrier crews also look distinctly White British. So the next step is to provide some more appropriate crewmen - which should be simple enough. 

If you'll excuse my 'impressionistic' painting style (as ever, button-counters should look away now), I'll risk a close-up :

 hmmm... those HQ company bases may need a little work. You may notice that the only White British figure is the  battalion commander - as far as I know, this is pretty much true to reality (note that this is a battalion for Rapid Fire Reloaded, in which one figure represents about 15 men). Anyway I am quite pleased with them overall, and hope they acquit themselves well when they finally get to the gaming table! 

When  painting them, I decided to be a little more adventurous than a very simple 'block-painting' style, and found  some useful tips in Andy Singleton's book Painting Wargaming Figures: WW2 in the Desert

 

I liked this book, as it starts from the very basics and really assumes no prior knowledge of various painting techniques, hence great for beginners.  He also has step-by-step instructions (with plenty of good photos)  for painting figures at each of three levels of skill, which he calls 'Conscript' ( block colours and a little dry-brushing )  'Regular' ( some dry-brush highlights, and shading to finish ) and 'Elite' ( using layering and spot-highlights ).  My chaps are somewhere between Conscript and Regular, I think, and that will do nicely for me. We'll have to see what level they fight at..

This week has coincidentally provided some more Italian-related interest and events, as follows: 

(1) a trip to the BFI ( National Film Theatre, as was ) in London for a showing of  Roberto Rossellini's  Rome, Open City , which I had shamefully never seen before (and I call myself a film fan?). Absolutely  relevant to the 'D-Day Dodgers'  period, this neo-realist classic depicts life in Rome under the Nazi occupation of 1943-1944, and the hazards of involvement in the political/violent resistance movements. It's famous for being filmed very close to the time it depicts, and as the program notes say it was 'made on the streets of the war-ravaged capital with stolen electricity and scraps of 35mm stock supposedly sourced on the black market'.  It was first shown in September 1945,  less than a year after the Allies liberated Rome, and only months after the German forces in Italy had surrendered. It struck me that the people of the areas where filming took place (and the allied troops in Rome) may have been pretty shocked if chancing across the filming, as tenement blocks were surrounded and 'residents'; rounded up by parties of SS troops in full uniform, distinctive helmets and fully armed! There must have been some delicate negotiations between the film-makers and the authorities, and the locals. It's a great film, well worth catching. 

 

 

(2) Picked up at a neighbourhood 'give a book, take a book' box,  A Walk In the Sun  by Harry Brown, a slim novel recounting the experiences of a fictional US Army platoon landing on an un-named  beachhead in Italy in 1943 or 1944,  Harry Brown was a US Soldier, but not on the front-line - he was a writer for Yank magazine ('the army weekly')  from 1942. He went on to be a film screenwriter, with Sands of Iwo Jima among his credits.   I was pretty suprised to learn that this novel was published as early as 1944, as it is not in the least 'gung-ho' and does not paint a romantic picture of war, quite the opposite indeed. The platoon finds their commanding officer incapacitated before even reaching the beach, and then try to follow what little they know of their orders, given  no  contact with their parent unit. The writer  must surely have interviewed real-front-line troops, and the story 'rings true' in its depiction of ordinary men in the  extraordinary situations of war.  I haven't finished it yet, so no plot spoilers, please!  

 

 (3) Last but not least,  a different period but also Italy-based, I was lucky to take part in another of Jon Freitag's remote games, this time recreating  the battle of Bassignana, 1745.   

I'll give nothing away except Jon's picture of the initial deployments, trusting him to provide his usual excellent report of what was one of his usual excellent games, which came to quite a dramatic last-gasp  conclusion!

 I was privileged to play the 'Gallispans' C-in-C Mallebois, with a small brigade command too, while Chris 'Nundanket' and Dave 'St Cyr' took the Spanish and French wings, against Piedmontese and Austrians led by Mark 'Jolly Broom Man' and Tony 'MS Foy'.  Many thanks to Jon and all concerned, as usual, for a great game! 

Next, it must surely be time to actually try a game of Rapid Fire Reloaded : and next weekend there is the 'Broadside' show at Gillingham which I hope to attend. Plenty of material for future blogging, then. Until then, keep well, everyone.

Here are the Heer - and Punjab Preparations

I'm pleased to say that my D-Day Dodgers WW2 Italian Campaign has taken another baby step forward, as I have now  completed my first German infantry battalion in  Rapid Fire Reloaded format. Without further ado, here they are: 

 

Counting from the front (left to right) we have 1st, 2nd and 3rd Rifle Companies and Battalion HQ with commander's Steyr car;  on the middle row the 4th (Heavy) Company with MGs and Mortar, Steyr and Opel Blitz, and at the back the Support Company with AT Gun, Infantry Gun and two more Opel Blitz trucks.  All in all a handy little unit, I hope, and ready to take on the 'West Suffolks'  in the battle for Italy.  As previously discussed, the only missing element is a decent name for them, preferably 'fictional but credible', though borrowing a real unit name might also be an option. Still thinking about that one! 

Next recruits for this project will be an Indian battalion - indeed I think I am aiming for an Indian Brigade, where the attached British battalion is the West Suffolks.  This will be largely built from the Strelets plastic 1/72 Indian WW2 sets (below).

An interesting challenge that has emerged relates to the varied headwear of different troops in the Indian army, and how to depict them. The Strelets boxes have a variety of different headgear, including the standard British 'tin hat' but also what looks to be 2 or 3 different styles of turban - Sikh, Punjabi  (Muslim)  and possibly also Baluchi.  Identification of these was aided (of course) by a little light web-browsing, coming up with the splendidly-named MilitarySunHelmets.com, with a page on Turbans of the Indian Army .   

As I understand it the Indian army generally had regiments recruited from specific ethnic groups, so there were Sikh regiments, Punjabi regiments etc,  so I need to reflect that. The variety of heads on the figures should help with that, but in fact it's become clear that we have an embarrasment of riches here. For illustration, here is the range of headwear on the Strelets figures: 

'Punjabi' style turban and British 'tin hat' 

 

..Sikh turban

... 'Baluchi' style

 A crucial line from the above website (and other sources I've seen ) is as follows: By the start of World War II typically only Sikhs continued the tradition of wearing turbans into combat, although turbans of various styles are used in both India and Pakistan today.   Which means that for absolute accuracy all I need are the 'tin hat' troops, and maybe some with Sikh turbans if I want a Sikh battalion. Hmmm.. 

Well to be honest that seems a bit dull!  I'm afraid I am going to romanticise things a bit, and do a bit of an 'imagi-nation' here..  I liked the Punjabi/Muslim style turban and there were a good number of them in the Strelets set, and along with the steel helmet-wearing  figures I can put together a decent selection - albeit the turbans probably wouldn't have actually been worn in combat!  But after all this is a slightly fictionalised view of Italy 1943-45, and the turbans add a lot of character, so I am quite  relaxed about using them - and they make a visual distinction for the unit, after all. I will simply assume that my Indian soldiers are brave lads, many of whom disdain the effete steel helmet..       

a mix of Punjab and Steel Helmets

 

The above selection came from one box of Strelets Indian infantry - so to make a battalion of about 50 figures, I am probably going to need another box, unless I start chopping heads off Sikhs and replacing them with steeel helmets from other unused plastic figures ( the rather disappointing Airfix 1970s British might be useful ),  or perhaps remodelling Sikh turbans to Muslim versions. Hopefully none of this gives any offence to any ethnic or cultural group!     

So, still plenty to do and think about, but this is a decent beginning to the recruitment  of what will become the  11/8th Punjab battalion - a fine body of  (entirely fictional) men. Now to start painting, and looking at how to get the correct number of troops - plus heavy weapons etc ( the 'support weapons' Strelets set seems to be heavily biased towards Sikhs, which is another challenge! ) to make a full battalion. 

In the meantime, maybe it's time the completed British and German battalions faced off in a beginner  game of Rapid Fire Reloaded - which I will report on in a future post,  if I can get it up and running. Until then keep well, everyone.

 

Here Come the Heer : Recruiting a German Battalion

Yet again progress has been slow, with Real Life getting in the way of hobby time, but at least a few steps have been advanced:  I have an organised and almost-completed battalion of German infantry for my 'D-Day Dodgers'  WW2 Italian Campaign project. They have been recruited to fill an Order of Battle based on those specified in Rapid Fire and Rapid Fire Reloaded rules, and they currently look something  like this: 

 

Most of the figures are painted and based, but the transport is only primed and needs proper painting, so I will be getting busy with the sand/green/brown paints, probably over the upcoming holiday weekend.  We have, looking from front to back :

- Battalion HQ with Panzerschrek team and Steyr Heavy Car

- 1st, 2nd and 3rd Rifle Companies

- 4th ( Heavy ) company with 2 x MMG, 1 x 81mm mortar  with Steyr Heavy Car and Opel Blitz truck

-  A/T Company with  PAK40 75mm A/T Gun and Opel Blitz truck

- Infantry Gun Company with  iFH18 105mm Infantry Gun and Opel Blitz truck 

As you can probably see, most of the figures are my good old vintage Airfix WW2 German Infantry (1960s designs!). The heavier weapons are crewed by mainly Britannia Miniatures/Grubby Tanks, and a scattering of later Airfix and others. The Opel Blitz trucks (actually one is built as a Mercedes variant)  come from Plastic Soldier Company,  and the Steyr cars from Rapid Fire's own 'Ready to Roll Vehicles' range.  The infantry gun is  Zvezda ( bought before February 2022 - I'm not buying any more from Russian makers, I'm afraid ), and  the PAK 40 is by Revell.   These will be strong opposition for my West Suffolks ( see my previous post ), especially with the 105mm infantry gun and that 'Heavy Company' with the MMGs - the British battalion doesn't have an equivalent. So the British may require some support from 'Brigade' when it comes to a fight. 

With the potential British and Indian units in the same project I have been having fun coming up with 'fictional but plausible'  units names like the 'West Suffolks' - but the Germans give me a bigger challenge.  I would like to come up with a  fictional regiment name for these Germans, but I admit I am at a bit of a loss as to how to work something out - initial on-line searches give several pages showing lists of German WW2 Divisions ( of which there were well over 300! ) , but I haven't so far found a list of Regiments (of which there must have been many more!) - and am unsure of the naming/numbering convention used, though it looks like a simple regiment number was common. I suspect they will become 1st Battalion,  n+1th Grenadier Regiment,  and if anyone has advice on finding this sort of information, I'd be interested!          

A couple of the vintage Airfix figures brought back very nostaglic memories: as ever, 'Button-counters' should look away now ( You may cringe at  my rather basic painting style, but I'm happy it suits the nature of the figures - not much point trying 3-level highlights on these chaps,  and I couldn't do much better anyway!).   

The Panzerschreck** team strongly evokes what else but the 'Action at Twin Farms' game in Charles Grant's wonderful little book  Battle: Practical Wargaming, which is where 'My Wargaming Habit' (to quote the excellent blog by Richard!)  began, all of 50 years ago. My first wargaming book, and it's still with me:

My rather battered copy - c.1974

hmmm... Panzerschreck, surely?

 It really did all start here - this book may represent the best £1.50  I ever spent, in hobby terms at least!   Come to think of it. I was casting around for a scenario idea for my first Rapid Fire Reloaded game..

Now that is sadly about all the news I have to impart, but at least the holiday weekend may allow a little more hobby time,  and then next week I am lucky enough to be invited to another of Jon Freitag's remote games  - more Italian Wars action is in prospect.  I won't be a spoiler to what Jon will no doubt write about pretty soon, suffice it to say this looks quite an intriguing prospect. I hope to be able to say more next time; until then keep well, everyone.

 

** Update: it's been interesting that the close-up picture has made a lot of veteran gamers realise that the guy apparently holding a Panzerschreck missile is probably in truth carrying a Panzerfaust.   I hadn't really thought about it, to be honest - and interestingly I wonder if the source of the original confusion is the above picture from Charles Grant's book - note that he labels them a Panzerfaust team, even though the weapon being aimed is clearly meant to be a Panzerschreck.  I am keeping them as they are - they've been together for 50 years, after all!