Shinyloo quickie.

A few more shiny dudes finished means that this is now a four company French "regiment". Still some way to go- the rest of the Tete de Colonne for a start and for the look of the thing I want 5three centre companies at least. then with those and the Grenadier company the regiment will form an attack coloumn 2 companies wide and 2 deep. This should be pretty meaty under "Charge!"- which have become my go-to rules for gaming with this collection. Actual models are a mixture of Stadden  Hinchliffe/ Foremost and a few Connoisseur which last I have a bundle to paint.... when  I get the time .

Fifty years and still looking good.

 A few pictures of my very few Les Higgins 30mm Jason cavalry. Mostly ECW and two Marlburians- both the same figure in different colour schemes. . These chaps have been out of production since the mid 1970s. They still stand comparison with many of todays models. .

ECW Cavalry by Les Higgins. These are the now unavailable 30mm Jason range- compatible with much of today's so called 28mm. 

 

 The chap on the grey horse is supposedly King William III. - Though the Les Higgins figure is actually Marlborough.

The two more or less identical castings together as Marlborough and William. 

Keep Calm and Carry On !

 More like Carry on  up the Government- without the bad 1970s jokes. Aye well,

An Officer of an Austrian- Hungarian Infantry regiment- now all I need to paint are about50 or so blokes to follow him- 28mm Old Glory. 

  Right up 'em - but never mind the everyday story of farcical folk. I'm currently trying to avoid entering "Thickies R'us" aka the House of Conmans (is that a typos I see before me? Perhaps not.)  So we shall move swiftly on to toy soldiers- they look more lifelike .

Been a bit of a thin time on the painting desk recently. Of course I did receive some lovely Drabant 28mm Saxons painted by David Allen  which I just HAD to base up  see the results on the Old Glory Miniatures UK Facebook page.  But my own painting has suffered a bit simply because my wife and I were getting all the back orders out after unpacking a shipment from the USA and frankly at the end of a days work there are times when I am simply sick of the sight of the little lead gits and cannot face picking up a paintbrush.

 Does not happen all that often but it does happen.

Nevertheless I have painted a few individuals over the last couple of weeks. 

Bizarre image of 3 40mm TYW pikemen that simply will not flip. 

Connoisseur Colonel on Willie Horse and an Artillery Officer of unknown make- Both French Napoleonic and both for "Shinyloo".

A couple of 40mm TYW Pikemen. The chap at "Charge for Horse was a bit of an experiment. I've had the body in a mould for some time but never made one up . Quite pleased with the result.

Another view of the same chaps with a couple of musketeers- one with a cat hair on his hat ! -and a Sash and Saber ECW officer who is doing duty as a Spaniard.. The rest are from my own Romanoff 40mm range .

As for actually gaming with any of these - well thanks to a mixture of brain-dead piss heads and government incompetence that is not going to happen soon. Even if I had enough painted 40mm TYW .

 Ah well  If you can't take a joke .........  

Izzy- whizzy - we ARE busy.

Anyone remember Sooty? or Sweep or Sue or even Ramsbottom the snake?  I suppose it depends how old you are.  The man who had his hand up Sooty was Harry Corbett in my childhood and I - at 6 years old was a fan. When he was casting a spell with his magic wand the cry was always "issy-whizzy0 lets be busy" and mayhem would ensue.

 Well the little furry bugger must have been waving it about something fierce  because we here at OGUK HQ are more than a little busy. A shipment came in this week so we have sorted it and made a good start on the back orders. Almost 80 parcels this week alone. I'm knackered ! More in the queue for next week . We will get there. Another order goes off to the USA in a few days to cover the next load of stock I need.  You might have guessed that in the time taken to get this lot from the USA other stuff has  sold out since. 'Tis always the way when you have such large and varied ranges as we do.

Ah well back to the grindstone ...... 

Catching Up On My Reading 2

 

 This one is my friend Mike McNally's latest in the Osprey Campaigns series.  Now apparently some fellow has given it a bit of a spanking - which I have not read and don't want to. I shall form my own opinion thanks. 

So here is my own opinion.  Physically the book is what you have come to expect from this series and if you are an 18th century dude then you will want it on your shelf- assuming your read the books as well as push the little men about and roll the dice. Colour plates by Sean O'Brogain are well up to the mark.- my personal favourite being the Mouquetaires.  These plates are backed up by some reproductions of contemporary maps and paintings- some at least never seen before outside Germany. As usual Mike does his research- and I should know the amount of time Mike has spent bending my ear to  bounce ideas off me and let me pick holes in his theories- which sometime I have. All that does is make him go off and find more evidence to make me shut up or agree with him  or indeed to change his mind where such is needed. 

So back to the book  Dettingen is a well known battle but probably less well understood.. The traditional view is very Anglo- centric, this is probably because the presence of King George II as "commander" of the combined Austrian/ British ,Hanoverian forces was the last time a King Of England  commanded his army in the field - so became a lodestone for Victorian  historians such as Fortescue. The traditional view is that the British simply walked up to the French shot at them a bit so that they ran away in the usual style. Mike chucks most of the tradition out of the window and examines the facts and the ground- there are a good number of photographs of the battlefield today-   to give a different narrative of events. 

 Now I'm not going to give any kind of precis here- pointless- buy the book if you want to know how it ends ! But a few taster might be in order. The Allies do not seem to have had much of a coherent plan for the engagement and were  somewhat confused by events. What is clear is that the Allies were caught  somewhat unawares by the French who then proceeded to squander most of their considerable  advantages.  This allowed the Allies to escape by the skin of their teeth. The detailed order of battle for both sides is very useful indeed from a wargamers point of view- somewhat more detailed that the one I have in the aged(1972) Knights Battles for Wargamers  slim and traditional volume on the battle.

 Other delights in the book are the rather nice selection of photos of reconstructed uniforms. Some of these appeared in Mikes previous Fontenoy title in the same series but some did not .

Overall I liked this some of the political lead up to the campaign is a bit tortuous but it is stuff you need to know to put the action into context. If you are only interested in the battle- skip that bit. The usual biographies of the commanders are also useful for context but if you only want to lift the scenario for the battle- which would make a rather large but splendid game you can skip that bit too.

 Now I've almost got enough troops to refight this .........  

 

Catching Up On My Reading .

 As you may have gathered it has been a bit hectic around here what with one thing and another. My painting has suffered  and indeed slowed to a crawl but not only that but so has my reading. Now I know that some wargamers out there don't do reading- unless it be rule books or "games"  but I do. After all without period knowledge how can  you tell if your currently chosen ruleset is twaddle or not?

 So at the moment I have three  new books in hand - though I have had two of them for some time. All are from Helion and all are a bit tasty.

First up "The Kings Irish" by the ever dependable John Barratt. This is a workmanlike account of the trials and tribulations of those "Irish" troops who landed in England to  fight for Charles I in the first civil war. This book does exactly what it says on the cover. giving an account of those units who , from the English Army in Irealnd sent to  put down the 1641 rising were enabled to return to England because of the "Cessation" signed by Charles I with his Irish Catholic subjects. These troops were certainly battle hardened and  used to harsher campaigning  but by no means all supported the Kings cause- more than a few changed sides after the Battle of Nantwich.

I bought this as a counterpoint to Abrams excellent study of  Breretons Cheshire Parliamentarian army since  many of the Kings Irish units landed in Cheshire and North Wales and came into contact with Brertons forces. "Irish" troops were also involved in other campaigns and the book gives decent coverage here as well. This volume  gives a concise and readable account of a group of regiments which  the King thought might win him the war but never quite lived up to their potential . Fascinating. Recommended.  

 Physically the book is the usual "Century of the Soldier" format and a softback but otherwise sturdy. Colour  plates by Sean O'Brogain are well up to that artists usual standard as are those of Flags by Dr. Les Prince. Any other comment of mine is superfluous other than Buy the thing !

 

Next another ECW title- regular readers will know of my interest in the period. This one is Chris Scott's The Most Heavy Stroke" . This is an examination of the campaign and battle of Roundway Down. That most astonishing of Royalist victories where a force wholly of cavalry met and defeated an army of all arms more than twice its size. I had wanted to get this for some time but it was Steve Ede-Borret's review of the book in Arquebusier that spurred me to actually get the wallet out.  Steve knows his stuff so I took the plunge and was not in the least disappointed. Splendid book. This has arguably the best blow-by-blow account of an ECW battle  in print and is worth the price for that alone.  Like others in the series this follows the usual pattern and the account of the fighting at Roundway is detailed and to the point. This is the main thrust of the book . Why and how did the Royalists win such a stunning and unlikly victory- Buy this to find out. 

It has to be said that the Helion Century of the Soldier series is well... rather splendid. Personally I own about a dozen or more  of them  Mostly ECW but with some Thirty Years War and I have never been disappointed in any of them Where I CAN check the sources I have found the scholarship excellent and while I might not always agree with the arguments the authors make you think - which surely is rather the point. 

Finally in this fine triumvirate we come to Dr Ed. Fox's "The Commotion Time" which covers a little known campaign in England almost exactly 100 years before the Civil War.  This one is in Helion's "Retinue to Regiment " series and covers the Western Rebellion of 1549. This is sometimes called "The Prayer Book Rebellion" and saw a series of rising across southern and eastern England against the imposition of the new prayer book imposed by the Protestant government of young Edward VI and Lord Protector Somerset. There were other causes- such as the loss of the monasteries and the subsequent land grabs of the gentry at the expence of the commons (Plus ca Change?).  Other books on these rising have concentrated on Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk and Suffolk and the battle of Dussindale but this volume concentrates on the fighting in Devon  and the Battles of Fenny Bridge, Bishop's Clyst, Clyst Heath and Sampford Courtenay. Militarily this campaign has much more interest than he Norfolk fighting as the rebels were rather more than the usual peasant mob- for a start they had a considerable artillery train.  I have read this period of an on since I acquired Julian Cornwall's  rather good but now a bit outdated volume "Revolt of the Peasantry 1549"- which covers  the whole of the risings of that year. Therefore this new work by Fox was a must buy.  Again not disappointed. The volume covers the campaign well and gives us a lot of informaton on the level of m arms and armour held by the militia of the various parishes. Not only that but the battles are - in wargaming terms eminently refightable being quite small- average of around 3000-4000 men per side over the whole campaign . The Royal Army - aside from the usual English style bows and bills of the period also disposed of some numbers of foreign mercenaries including Stradiots and Italian arquebusiers. Thought the two thousand or so Landsknechts in England at the time do not seem to have been used in this campaign. 

 If I have a critcism of this book it is the lack of colour plates. There aren't any.  Don't let this put you off  as the text and the maps  cover the action in detail.

 Again reccommended. 

Differing Visual Aesthetics in Wargaming

 There I was varnishing  some refurbished old lead dudes and a thought came to me- well it happens once in a while -  and this  singular occurrence prompted another thought. Wow two thoughts joined together I'll be doing stream of consciousness next ! But no, I am not James Joyce nor was meant to be, the thoughts were in fact idle musing upon the Visual Aesthetics of wargaming and how much they have changed and morphed over the years and equally how much my own views and attitudes to the visual side of the hobby have changed .

 Now to be accurate I have always viewed "the look of the thing" as somewhat more important than the actual dice rolling.

 After all, if this was not so, then I would not bother with the model soldiers in the first place but would stick to screens or little bits of cardboard. I am aware that this is heresy to some who view the actual game play as the epitome of their hobby. Fine. No problem, enjoy yourselves, that is the point do not involve yourselves in the rest of our hobby  there is no need you can get your  painted armies delivered  to your door and begin fondling your numbered  cubes over the table almost immediately.

 Now I am not(well not much) having a go at people who use painting services. I have done so myself. and, once in a while still do. There are some fine chaps providing these services. I have units painted by Steve Skinner, James Main, Darren Taylor and Jez at Shakespeare Studios to name but four and I have never been less than pleased with their work. There are of course other fine painting services out there who do sterling work to judge by the amount of gear I send to them repeatedly on customers behalf's.

Mind you, I have also  several times encountered painters who are complete pillocks and seem to spend half a lifetime telling you why they have not completed your order on time, or even started it yet, and the quoted "6 weeks" inevitably becomes 6 months or more. This is especially galling if you have been daft enough to pay them a deposit. I know of one customer who has been sorely tried by the fact that  for various reasons "Painter X" simply will not finish his commission and has half painted units scattered about like confetti... ten months and counting for some of them .As my Granddad  would have said "Sod that for a game of soldiers". Buying it done,  is not always the simple option.

 No hopefully this goes a bit deeper. The problem , for me at least,with buying your stuff  "ready to play"  means that if you are not careful you are buying someone else's view  of how YOUR collection should look  someone else's vision , someone else's aesthetic. Now if you are a games player you may not give a monkey's about this and that is all well and good for you. But not me. Being only a games player would be to deny  much of the interesting "other stuff" that makes up the idea of the "Compleat Wargamer" (to misquote Isaac Walton) and yes in some  very small way possibly a more complete, thoughtful and rounded human being- something that seems to be in shorter supply now than formerly, though mostly(only mostly) , in my experience, outwith  the wargaming hobby.

 

However, let us not be too precious about this, let us simply, for the sake of discussion, assume that you think the look of the thing has some importance for you . Okay so that is decided . Where do you go next?

 

Sikh Cavalry painted in the  "received style" of the 1990s. These by Dave Jarvis.

Indian Mutiny figures. Painted and based by me again in the 1990s received style.Though I always undercoat white or grey rather than the colour killing black.

Surely the next thing to do is to decide what kind of look you want for your collection and for your tables when you use that collection. Now when you go to shows or read a magazine or up to a point browse the zillions of wargaming sites on the internet the does seem to be a certain "received look" followed often seemingly by worshippers at the "Church of the Bloody Expensive Rulebook" and those who kneel to the altar of  the "eye candy" within said B.E.R. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes this is appropriate and even necessary but somehow these days I find all of these set ups looking very similar to each other so that you can barely tell one from another- especially when they have been bought and paid for rather than built by the owners fair hand. I've done a turn at "received look"myself, sometimes alone sometimes with   significant help (though never by simply buying it done) and sometimes still do,   but I have never been a slave to convention. After all the "received style" changes every so often as a new B.E.R. appears Indeed rather the opposite- "The Resistance Lives On" so to speak. I want something a little different something a little closer to unique. Not always, but sometimes when the mood takes me, I want out of the current wargaimng rut. 

The Need for Individuality.

This is one of the reasons why I have- for some games and periods, some of the time- reverted to older "retro" rules. They have a different feel to them . It is the same with "retro" figures they frequently have more individuality. They lack the tediousness of "perfection". With many of today's plastic(or indeed metal) perryclones you are hard put to tell one make from another, still less when all are painted in the "received look"- often with extra knuckles.  I like models and units with a little  style and a little individuality so,  in some cases, I mix makers in the same army or even in the same unit. The idea of having the same army based in the same way for the same rules as every other  chap has absolutely no appeal whatsoever. One of the advantages of older figures was that you could tell a Lamming from a Minifig from a Garrison from a Willie . Variety was the spice of my earlier armies.

Even within my own pretty modest collection I don't want all the armies or games  to look the same. Up to a point each period should have its own look . Sure. there will be similarities and sometimes even a bit of crossover- especially with scenery - but the idea is to create something  with a little individuality rather than another same old same old. In terms of the look of the thing this might sometimes mean a more "stripped back" and simplified terrain more consistent with the "retro" look of some of my armies.

An example of a somewhat more "stripped back" terrain style which seemed in keeping with the  retro feel of "Charge!. by Young and Lawford. 

So my "retro" ECW collection looks subtly different from my "modern" one even though they  have sometimes appeared on the same table for a bigger game.  Its the same for the retro and modern AWI groups too. Though for these , being smaller collections by far -are not quite stand alone yet, but once they are will be used for different style games. The "modern " set being used for rules such as British Grenadier and the "retro" set for Featherstone. Of course they can, at need, come together for larger games in either discipline where a "pure" look  for either is not needed during er... playtime . 

"Retro" E.C.W. painted in the style I used in the 1970s- though these days hopefully with more skill. Most of the figures in this unit are Les Higgins 30mm castings out of production since  the late 1970s.

More "Retro" E.C.W. This time mostly Hinchliffe Foremost- still available. Again painted in the shiny 1970s  style .

You may have gathered by now that the actual game play is the bit of this hobby I treat with the least seriousness. The reason is simple, the actual dice rolling is of no consequence. I don't do competition so I don't often care about such minor matters as win or lose. Win UNHISTORICALLY mind, now that is of some matter -at least to me but  in our group that is very difficult to achieve in Umpire controlled games where the Umpire knows his period and the rulebook is merely a toolbox  for him to select the bits he needs to run the game. No army lists no points systems simply a scenario and a narrative.

The more usual "look" this time a 15mm game our group did at the Durham show in 2019. Models Blue Moon Marlburians from Jim Mains collection

 My point here is that each wargamer should be free to choose his own "look". I have for instance "gone off" - for some periods the heavy terrain boards in the Marlburian game photos in favour of the more portable cloths and "assorted things to stuff under cloths" to make hills and dead ground. For some games that approach is simpler and more effective. I have -in this case- reverted to an earlier time. 

Another demo game at Durham- this time 15mm moderns. Those MDF boards do weigh a bit- but look good. 

A similar game using the same models but with a different look.  That "desert cloth" fits in a holdall rather than a van ! 

The choice as they say is yours ... discuss!