Be Careful What You Wish For

 A slightly unusual tale.

Here's a photo borrowed from the late Clive Smithers' blog. It is one of a set of pictures he took at my house in June 2010. He brought a stack of his own soldiers with him, and we fought a Peninsular Battle here, using a hex board and my own rules (this was pre-Commands & Colors).

In the right foreground you will see two units of [Hinton Hunt] Portuguese (blue uniforms, dark green bases). They are mounted on borrowed sabots, which adds to the confusion a little, but they were part of Clive's visiting army, and he thought it was a nice touch to bring these particular soldiers on a visit, since he had obtained them from me about 5 years earlier, in a swap deal.

In 2005 I had been in the process of replacing my Portuguese troops with more modern 20mm castings, so the Hinton Hunt boys became surplus to requirements, and Clive was keen to get hold of them. At the time, I had a brief twinge of megalomania, and quite fancied the idea of hanging onto them, so that I would have extra Portuguese [you can never have too many Portuguese]. Anyway, I thought better of it, and happily passed them on. The swap took place in the cafe of the Brocksbushes farm shop, near Corbridge, I recall, accompanied by pie and chips. Clive subsequently rebased the Portuguese and added in a few other castings he had already.

I was pleasantly surprised to meet them again briefly when he brought them on his visit five years later, and then I subsequently forgot all about them. 

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I saw them on eBay. My old hand-drawn flags are just as awful as they were all those years ago, and instantly recognisable. The seller had obviously bought them from the recent auctions of Clive's collections. After some pondering, I made an offer for them, and was surprised to be successful. They have now reached me safely, I have removed them from Clive's replacement bases, and am now thinking what I might do with them. I could put them back into the front line, in which case my new house standards will require some extra command figures and a change of facing colours, or else I could use them as siege troops, in which case they are fine as they are. 

In the meantime, I have to say that they are exactly as they were in 2005, and I shall put them safely in a storage box while I decide what to do. In another context, could this be construed as "getting my own back"? I am pleased to have them, though the circumstances are very sad.

Anglo-Portuguese Army - as at 18 Feb 2012

Wellington's army - from their right flank towards their left, you see here the cavalry, the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 7th and Light Divisions, with the siege train and supports in the rear.

This army is patently smaller than the French, but then the French have to fight the Spanish as well. "Anglo-Portuguese" is surely an overly simple description of an army which also includes Hanoverians, Brunswickers, and French royalists - not to mention Scots and Irishmen. Mind you, it's probably no worse than describing their assorted opponents as "French".

It will probably be a month or two before the photo of the Spanish army appears - there's a lot of work going on in that department.

Portuguese Cavalry - done!

Very pleased to have my Portuguese cavalry brigade finished and fit for action. As discussed previously, no-one makes proper figures for these in the scales I can use, so the best I could manage was converted Dutch cuirassiers from Kennington.

The whole effect is enhanced greatly by Matt's very fine paintwork. Here they are, ready for The Cupboard - the 1st and 11th regiments, with the brigade commanded today by Lt Col Loftus Otway (later Maj.Gen Sir Loftus Otway, from Tipperary).

I originally intended to use the more correct brigading of 1st and 7th regiments (or was it the 8th? - can't remember), but the facings differed only in the cuff colour, and with gauntlets on they would be indistinguishable. Thus I went for the Salamanca line-up of 1st and 11th, which is more satisfying all round. I consider that deciding the order of battle by comparing facing colours is a fine wargaming tradition!

Portuguese Artillery

Another new vehicle takes its place in the cupboard. This is a Portuguese howitzer on the march, circa 1811. Mules are by Jacklex, limber is Lamming, the gun is (I think) S-Range Minifigs, and the driver is from Kennington.

The British caisson which is officially next in the queue is on hold while I sort out my stock of horses; it is painted but awaiting final assembly while I put together a sensibly-scaled team.

This morning I finally lost patience with my collection of brushes, and weeded out the ones I don't use any more. I've never understood paintbrushes. In the days of Humbrol, I used to wash them out in Polyclens and similar - I realise I was supposed to use an exotic patent thinner, or turpentine, but neither of these ever seemed to work properly. Polyclens was very like using battery acid to wash your brushes, and I just got into the habit of replacing them frequently. Mostly I used cheap, short-handled brushes from the model shop - sometimes Humbrol's own brand, sometimes unnamed products at half the price, which may well have come from the same factory. Maybe even from the same cat...

In these enlightened days of acrylics, the whole operation is much more like watercolour, and - possibly incorrectly - I have developed the idea that I should pay the extra and obtain good brushes - even buying the posh stuff from my local art shop. The results have not been brilliant. At any given moment, I probably have about 2 dozen brushes in total, of which about one quarter will currently be behaving nicely. I tend to have a few brushes - a couple of size 0's and some larger ones - which are producing a decent point today. I try to look after them correctly, periodically curing them in hot water and lipping the points like a good chap, but it is a haphazard regime. This morning my favourite lining brush decided to start misbehaving, and it is almost like losing a close friend - very disconcerting.

I don't think I have ever noticed a reliable correlation between the marketed "quality" of a brush and its performance. Top of the range sables from the art shop often have a mind of their own as soon as they get wet, while I have had years of good service from the occasional 2nd quality cheapo from Modelworld.

Biggest disappointment of the lot was a load of unused squirrel brushes which we found amongst my late father's painting paraphenalia (he was a very capable amateur watercolourist, and only ever bought the best of everything) - admittedly they must have been 20 years old, but they disintegrated into dust as soon as they were touched, so maybe squirrel brushes have a definite shelf life. Or maybe this batch came from squirrels which suffered from mange.

Tomar Militia Battalion

This evening I have mostly been fixing flags to my recent new units. A healthy dose of the commonplace after the giddy excitement of last week's Pommeranians. Here's a humble unit of Portuguese militia - I had enough odd NapoleoN and Kennington figures to make up a battalion. The more observant may notice that the Kennington boys are out of step with the NapoleoN figures, but this is the militia, after all. These chaps will come in useful for all sorts of duties, but one of their jobs is general labouring for the Allied siege train - heaving things about, digging holes, all that.

Once again, my clever but over-enthusiastic camera has brightened the colours - they are not really as psychedelic as this.

The Portuguese Cavalry Project

This has been off and on for many years. A chance discovery, and the fact that I have more time to fiddle around these days, means it is probably back on again.

No-one makes Peninsular War Portuguese Cavalry in 20mm. If you are a 28mm or 15mm gamer then you are well provided for, but 20mm, nothing doing. I have approached this problem in a number of ways. For a while, I decided the easiest approach was to assume that by 1812 the Portuguese had been supplied with British Light Dragoon pattern (i.e. French style) bell-top shakos, and I should convert some kind of cavalry wearing single-breasted jackets accordingly. I even have some Scruby British Light Dragoons which I bought specially for the purpose, with the intention of grinding off the epaulettes and shako cords - enough for at least two regiments. Alas, they are among Scruby's most primitive offerings, and I cannot bring myself to invest effort or money into them. The sow's ear/silk purse department is simply not prepared to take this on, though I have warmed a bit to Scrubies of late.

So I fell back on the safe and well-tried option of doing nothing at all about it. Portuguese cavalry (with all due respect) was not usually effective in a battlefield role, so could be a lowish priority anyway, and - anyway - I have not always been entirely comfortable that I knew exactly how these guys were dressed. There was the strange sky-blue uniform on the cover of Otto Von Pivka's old Osprey book, which I believe is probably incorrect (though it appears to have influenced GMT's counter artwork for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics), and there was a wide range of interpretations of the appearance of the helmet. The headgear situation is confused by the fact that the Legion d'Alorna wore something very similar to the helmet of a French line lancer, with a high crest, while there are descriptions of cavalry units in the Portuguese army equipped with British equipment, including, apparently, Light Dragoon-style Tarleton helmets.

We are much better informed these days - the recent Chartrand books published by Osprey are a big improvement. Just to be difficult, for a moment, let's go back to 1810, and reproduce an illustration from William Bradford's very fine Sketches of the Country, Character and Costume of Portugal and Spain.

Bradford's book includes plates of relatively familiar Spanish and French subjects which demonstrate that he was a skilled observer, and recorded what he saw. The cavalryman has his side plume removed, and the wide front stripe of piping colour is unusual, but we get the idea - there is no cause to doubt its authenticity. While on the subject of ancient history, here is a photo I took in 1981, back in the pre-digital days when poor holiday snaps really were poor, at the little military museum in Morges, Switzerland. The exhibit was described as a Napoleonic Spanish coat, but the button inscription (P. JOAO VI PRINCIPE REGENTE) and the style of the jacket identify it as Portuguese, the facings (sky collars and cuffs, red lining) being those of the 11th cavalry. The wings are odd - maybe a later addition, or a trumpeter's ornament?

The recent stroke of good fortune was that I came across some 20mm Kennington (SHQ) Waterloo Dutch Cuirassiers, and I think they will make pretty good Portuguese horse. Dutch cuirassiers, luckily, did not actually bother with wearing cuirasses, which makes the single breasted jacket a good match for the Portuguese one - near enough for 20mm, anyway. Sadly, Kennington do not do matching command figures, but the troopers are available in a resting or a charging pose, and it should not be a life-threatening challenge to produce two officers and two trumpeters with dremel, razor saw and my box of spare parts. I believe the project is back on - I would not recommend that anyone holds their breath, but I have a good feeling that my hoped-for, two-regiment brigade will become a reality before long.

To finish on a complete irrelevance, I was very taken with another of Bradford's plates, which shows a Portuguese goatherd in an ingenious straw raincoat. How about thatched guerrillas, then?

I am still having problems with Blogger which mean it is a major hassle to sign on successfully, so I have been unable to comment on my usual blog haunts, and publishing is an uncertain process. I am making use of Firefox to get by, but am not happy with it as a general-purpose browser for a number of entirely personal reasons (that should get me some hate mail – there’s nothing like a perceived religious insult to get people worked up...)