One for the album

Squad One

In preparation for a game last week, I finally finished off my Elheim Soviet Motor Rifle Platoon. The BMP-2's were painted by Krisztian, but the figures are all me. I took the TO&E from the "From Kabaul with love" scenario in the Cold War Gone Hot book, though given that my year for the balloon going up is 1979, they are a little late. I shall have to take a PKM and a grenade launcher out of each section to make them right, but that is no particular hardship.

Squad Two

The officer chap with the pistol would actually be carrying an AK, but this makes it a little clearer. The Soviets only had one manpack radio at the platoon level, relying on the radios in their vehicles. One other issue that came to me was the lack of an obviously NCO figure in the soviet packs, a chap pointing or generally looking bossy would be rather good.

Squad Three

I have some decals and weathering to add to the BMPs, but we're ticking along. 

Group Shot "Sergei, stop pulling faces, this one is for the album."

General Romana

I'm not as well up on the Spanish struggle against Napoleon in the Peninsula as I should be. However, one chap you may be familiar with from your Patrick O'Brian is General Romana. I'm not giving away any state secrets when I say that the fictional Stephen Maturin steals another real man's glory.

Romana was born in the Spanish colonies and originally joined the navy. He was educated in France and studied at the university of Salamanca, which goes to show that he was quite a cosmopolitan chap. He served in the American war against the British and finished his service on the blockade of Gibraltar. He then left the service to travel Europe.

Rejoining the colours, though on land this time, he fought against the French revolutionary government in the war of the First Coalition.  He remained in uniform, achieving general rank, and later being assigned to lead "The Division of the North". This ill fated formation was sent to Germany where it served as part of the French occupation forces, garrisoning Hamburg and later Denmark in the period 1807-1808.



The Napoleon Series has a rather fetching set of uniform plates depicting the Division of the North.


With the outbreak of hostilities in Spain, Romana communicated with the British and managed to get a substantial number of his men back to Spain on British ships. On arrival back in Spain, he took part in several rearguard actions assisting Moore's retreat to Corunna. In 1809, he led several limited attacks against French forces with rather more success than the more grandiose schemes of his Spanish colleagues.





Romana was later appointed to the Central Junta and fought under Wellington until his death in 1811 of dyspnoea, shortness of breath. Romana was unusual amongst Spanish generals of the time, for his willingness to work under Wellington and to set aside his amour propre in order to kick Frenchy in the pants. His death was considered a great loss.


A longer, much more scholarly article by Jose Manuel Rodrigeuz, from which the above was culled is available on The Napoleon Series.







This is a Falcata Spanish Officer from a set of Spanish infantry that I got from John Cunningham. The arm holding the hat is a seperate piece and was the very devil to get a good join on. Kristzian despite all his protestations that he is not really a painter of Napoleonics, has done an astonishingly good job on this fellow. I had told him that a generic Spanish uniform would do, but he got in touch with Uwe and produced this wonderful piece of work, which is quite literally a portrait of Romana (and his horse).

History does not record the name of his horse.






This chap will be doing duty as Spanish general for my Command & Colours Napoleonics Spanish in the very near future. I took delivery of some Spaniards from Mark a few days ago, so expect to see some Spanish battles relatively soon.




Really wonderful work. Very, very happy. I hope to see General Romana back on the field of Mars before too soon.


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Steel Bases from Precision Wargames Supplies - A Review

A battalion of French provisional grenadiers,

HAT figures who have some service - individually mounted. Transferring them to temporary bases is a job which oppresses my gentle spirit

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, I've been in a bit of pickle with basing of late. My figures are based individually which means that I can and have used them for a wide variety of games by slapping them on different sabot bases.

Aside: Sabot is a word meaning wooden shoe in the original dastardly French. It is pronounced SA-bo or Say-BOT if you want to annoy French speakers in the neighbourhood. Speaking with greater volume and slowly adds to the effect. Try this at home.

However, this has proven unsatisfactory for Command&Colours: Napoleonics has the current crop of bases are too big and are bodged together from card and steel paper. Their particular sin is that the troops have to be transfered to them before making it onto the battlefield. This is a dreary task and one that has actually dissuaded me from setting up games.

What I needed was a base that would allow me to move each unit as one piece. I could happily move lads about if I needed to form square as it is not that common an occurrence and the square isn't likely to be going anywhere. The base would need to be steel so that the figures will stick to it and capable of being stuck in a steel paper lined box, so that units can be stored on their sabot bases and brought out in quick time.

Enter Ian of Precision Wargaming Supplies, who makes steel bases for the discerning wargamer. I wrote to him asking if he could produce affordable bespoke steel bases in the appropriate size (5 inch by 2 inch). Not only did he get back to me within six hours, but he offered to send some samples to "try before you buy."

If you like your customer service prompt, friendly and seasoned with increasingly bizarre steel based puns, you'll like Precision Wargaming Supplies.

But what of the product?

Samples from Precision Wargaming Supplies - two 1 1/2 square bases and a circle

The above samples arrived the other day and I managed to mess about with them this evening. Neatly cut steel, covered in black enamel - they are neat, regular and hold figures well. They are not so thick (a touch less than 1/16 inch) as to add too much to the height of the figures placed on them, but still thick enough to be picked up by sausage fingers oafs soused with gin.

You can see above some Newline Neapolitans (actually French) lounging about on one of the 1 1/2 squares. However, the magnetic material I use, which is designed for adding signs to the sides of vans is not so powerful as to hold the figures in place in the box. Another layer of magnetic material will have to be added to insure that the sabot bases don't move around while in transit.

Layer of magnetic material added to the bottom of the base

Adding this layer this just about doubles the thickness of the base, which is not unattractive and makes it easier to pick up. The attraction of the magnet is strong, so that despite some experiment shaking, the figures didn't move around at all. One slight problem I noticed was that the attraction of the magnets was so strong that I had a bit of difficulty removing the base from the box at first. This isn't a major issue as removing them from the box is something I will have to do only once per game and it does mean that the figures are quite secure in their box. I suppose I could add a tab of ribbon to the back of each base to give me something to break the seal with, but that is something I shall have to think about once I have the finished product in front of me.

The figures provided by Ian for forty bespoke bases were as follows.

Spec Qty Price Cost

5 inch x 2 inch 40 £ 1.25 £ 50.00

40

Sub £ 50.00

P&P £ 15.00

PayPal -£ 3.25

Total £ 61.75

On the face of it, this seems quite expensive. The cost is equal to that of raising one regiment of foot from scratch. On the other hand, forty units is sufficient for the largest game of Napoleonics I am likely to play and will allow me to base up most of the units that I am likely to use on a regular basis. The bases will allow me to actually play with the figures I have spent so much time collecting without taking an age, but retaining the cast of thousands look so to dear to my heart.

I'm convinced.

Painted Chasseurs

Amongst the figures that arrived yesterday were some French Chasseurs, which I think you'll agree Mark did a good job on in such a short space of time. I particularly like the Pioneer, though I will have to think of some way of using him in C&C Napoleonics. I foresee a special card.

These chaps are of the 1st Legere, who were like my Swiss were at Maida. Hitherto fore, the French lights were represented by the Irish in the shape of the 3ieme Legione Etranger. They looked rather fetching, but it was probably a little odd to have the entire light arm of my French army hail from Mayo.

It would probably have been more appropriate to use figures in skirmishing poses for lights, but I thought the HAT marching figures were so splendid that I plumped for them instead. Pleasing oneself is one of the satisfactions of wargaming. Napoleonic infantry look right marching along.

The arrival of the French Light Infantry and British Heavy Cavalry broadens the number of Command & Colours: Napoleonics scenarios I'll be able to play with my new setup.

Two gentlemen who have been giving it a try on a similar scale are Clive (of the Old Metal Detector) and Foy (Prometheus in Aspic) - they used some lovely old Hinton Hunts to play a version of Rolica. I recommend the slideshow on Clive's blog, a sparse table with simply painted figures. Evocative of Charge!

Old Kinchs figures lie a moulderin' in a box...

A forlorn and somewhat mouldy box

I store my 1/72 scale figures in file boxes, which has been a success so far as organising them is concerned. It's not the most attractive way to store figures, but it does work - though Savage has come up with a cunning plan for adding fake book covers to them. The idea being that when placed on a shelf, the box will look like a large book.

Savage came up will all manner of smart ideas for bookcover designs that would incorporate information into the cover. The colour of the cover would indicate which nationality the troops inside belonged to, a logo which arm they belonged to and a "title" to indicate the regiment.

Therefore the box contains the 4th and 88th regiments would have a red cover (British troops), a stand of arms on the spine (infantry) and a title, "Adventures with the Fourth Foot and Connaught Rangers".

This is no doubt, a long way off as I will obviously have to organise somewhere to put them - but the grand plan develop a minor setback today, when I went to inspect boxes in advance of a game next week and discovered that some of them had mould growing on them.

The field forge of the 13th cuirassiers

I moved the boxes to a new location, have been cleaning off the mould as best I can with a cloth and hopefully while the boxes are a little damp at present - this won't effect their strength and durability in the long term.