Making up and painting models from kits and castings is a faff. What about buying die cast models ready assembled and painted? A bit more expensive, but not that much, and less trouble. For my most recent project I decided to try a couple of models from Oxford Diecast. These were a Bedford OYD 3-ton truck, and a Dorchester Armoured Command Vehicle (ACV). The former was to provide a bit more variety to my transport (dominated by Bedford QL trucks), the latter to act as brigade command vehicle for my British at Medinine and doubtless subsequent scenarios. Here’s what I found.
Firstly these are marketed as collectors’ items and not as wargames models. They come in nice plastic display boxes, screwed to the base. For tabletop use you have to unscrew them – and you then have the display boxes to throw away or repurpose (or leave hanging around while you try and think of how you might repurpose them). Once out, the models are nicely detailed and beautifully finished. They also handle nicely. The Bedford even rolls one its wheels. Unfortunately the Dorchester’s front wheels don’t fit properly and are jammed against the wheel arch. They are quite small – true 1/76 scale I would guess without measuring them. Alas I’m finding that “20mm” models come in a range of scales. If the 20mm is meant to come up to eye level – itself a bit of a scale creep definition (it should really take you to the top of the head) – then the scale should be about 1/80. All 20mm products are bigger than this that I have seen. Plastic Soldier has 20mm in the range description, and 23mm in the instruction leaflet (about 1/70 in my book) – and maybe a bit bigger even than. So these models are at the smaller end of the range, but consistent with Airfix vehicle kits, old and new, for example, and models from the likes of Milicast and SHQ.
Here’s the OYD next to my Airfix QLD to give an idea of size:
One obvious difference is that the die cast models come with windows – though in fact I could have put these into the QLD in this case. Most wargames models either have the windows completely open, or, now more common in the age of 3-D printing, moulded solid. There is no driver model, and adding one would mean disassembly and potential damage. You would also struggle to find space.
The next issue is finish. These models are painted in authentic colours (they match precisely to the colours in my reference book on WW2 colours). That means there is no attempt to lighten them up to replicate the scale effect, which is something I like to do. This is a complicated topic with “that depends” type answers – it basically means that they look best representing originals in in strong light, and this is clearly the standard for display models. On the wargames table they will be a bit dark. There is also a slight off-matt finish – appropriate for a parade ground rather than the battlefield. The tilt on the Bedford is plastic, and the finish a bit plasticky. The decals are lovely and intricate, going down to serial numbers, etc, which I don’t bother with.
So how about incorporating these vehicles into my 1943 tabletop army? Take the truck first. This is modelled on a vehicle in the 15th (Scottish) Division in the UK in 1943 in the artillery. The paint scheme is fine for 1943 First Army in Tunisia. And second-line vehicles might well not be repainted for later campaigns. The divisional marking is not correct – but this can be removed rather than replaced, as these aren’t very 1943 in theatre. Perhaps it should have a roundel on the roof for air identification (the white stars were not used by the British in this theatre, even later in the war). Removing the divisional decal would be quite delicate work, though – but I do have some very fine sandpaper. To integrate with my army at large the model will need to be weathered – though this feels a bit sacrilegious on such a nicely finished model. I think this would take the form of a little white oil paint, brushed very thin, which would help lighten it up, as well as representing slightly uneven discolouration. And then dusting with powdered pastel. I don’t think there is the need for a wash.
The Dorchester is another matter. This represents a vehicle in use by the Polish Armoured Division in Northwest Europe in 1945. In fact the camouflage scheme is similar to the Bedford (brown and blue-black) and OK for 1943. But unlike the trucks, these vehicles were nearer the front line and surely would have adopted one of the standard or ad-hoc camouflage schemes. This might be the Desert Pink (appropriate for Medinine), Light Mud (Sicily and Italy) or plastered with lighter coloured paint ad-hoc (First Army Tunisia). But it does look as if I should repaint this, using the airbrush. That gets round the issue of the decals, which would be overpainted rather than sanded off. At least I don’t have to worry about the windscreen and windows.
So the models will need some work to be table-ready, and I should reserve my final judgement. I don’t see myself buying many more, though.
The three Bedfords. The QLT on the left; the QLD on the right is the metal SHQ model; the others are Airfix
My third article on my latest batch of 1943 British covers the vehicles: three Bedford medium trucks, three carriers, two Quads with limbers, and a CMP 15cwt light truck. I’m not showing the Quads or the OP carrier in this post – but you can see them in my previous one, along with the artillery.
First the big trucks. These Bedfords were one of the mainstays of the British war effort, and the easiest medium trucks to acquire as models in this scale (20mm, 1/76 or 1/72). I had an Airfix kit of the QLD (general purpose) and QLT (troop transport) trucks, and a metal SHQ model. The Airfix models are proper, detailed kits with lots of parts, that require intricate assembly. The SHQ model is much cruder, though also requiring assembly, but with many fewer parts. Neither came with crew. For the Airfix models I used AB figures, though they weren’t an easy fit. For the SHQ model I took a very crude figure from a vintage Airfix Matador I had in stock. That was actually fine – it’s waste of good quality models to put them in an enclosed cab. The Airfix models are nice – they are modern ones, rather than reissued Vintage classics, which I’m going off a bit. The SHQ model, though, was simpler to put together (though vague assembly instructions didn’t help) and looks very similar at distance. Incidentally, the Airfix models came with clear plastic for the windscreens, etc., but I couldn’t lay my hands on them at the critical moment – and would have made it even harder to fit in the crew. None of my other models have clear plastic windows so I wasn’t going to stress about it – though they did turn up later.
After my initially negative impressions of SHQ, I find they are growing on me – they look much better than you would think when they arrive unassembled, and have a nice weight when handling. Their figures are growing on me too – though I prefer the beefier AB ones. Unfortunately SHQ have ceased business. They have been bought by Grubby Tanks/Britannia. As it happens, a few weeks ago I was helping the owner of Grubby Tanks to unload his stuff at the Cavalier wargames show in Tonbridge (put on by my new club); he says that he’s going to put the SHQ items back on the market later this year. I took the opportunity to buy some items of light artillery from his Britannia range – which look quite similar but are significantly cheaper. None are assembled/painted up yet, but include one of the 2pdrs I will need for Medinine (I also bought a German 20mm flak gun and a 75mm infantry gun).
Here’s another view:
The SHQ model is in the middle
And now for my models in desert colours, the CMP light truck and two carriers:
These are all from Plastic Soldier. The CMP truck was easy enough to put together, but it is hard to get excited about it. It’s a very basic model with no options. I left the tilt loose so that I could play it without should the urge take me. This vehicle has no clear role in my set up, but it is available to shift 2-pdrs or Vickers guns if needed. The carriers are a bit more interesting. The are from the PSC Carrier Variants set. The one on the left is the 3in mortar transport. The mortar couldn’t be fired from the vehicle (unlike the German equivalent with the SdKfz 250), but is stowed away at the back. The crew are the standard crew for the PSC “generic” carrier. The one on the right has a 2in mortar in firing position – this weapon could be fired from the vehicle. Since the light mortar was part of the standard equipment of a carrier platoon, this vehicle will stand in as transport for a carrier platoon in my setup.
Another view
The Carrier crew are those supplied by PSC. I’m not a fan of these – a lot of PSC figures seem to be sculpted in 15mm and scaled up, looking a bit clumsy. AB make carrier crews, which would be easier to fit into these models than the slightly smaller Airfix ones – but they are rather pricey and don’t have the 2in mortar in action. From a distance the PSC crew work OK. The generic crew are appropriate for NW Europe with scrim on the helmets; the driver comes with a beret, though the head is separate and easy to swap. I hadn’t woken up to the idea of sawing off heads from the desert uniform to use on the NW Europe bodies yet, though the desert heads would have to come from other PSC models – so I left the scrim helmets on, which isn’t realistic either for 1943 or this theatre. The supplementary figures on the Variants sprue are OK in this regard, though not especially nice mouldings. I added a few boxes and bits to make the carriers look a bit more used. The models worked well, with one exception – it’s hard to fit the Bren gun in the front slot when there is crew in the front seat. You have to skew it a rather awkward angle fairly early in the assembly process.
On the subject of the Carriers, I made up a third one from the Variants set, as an OP (visible in my previous post). This is extremely useful on the tabletop, and it is modelled with a heavy-duty radio set and lots of cable for the field telephone – and a ladder, presumably for accessing vantage points. I only have two niggles; one is that the officer with binoculars is rather crude; the second is that there is no range finder amongst the equipment stowed in the vehicle – even though this does seem be there in the picture in the assembly instructions. These instructions, incidentally, tell you which parts belong to which variants on the additional sprue (the set consists of seven generic sprues and one variants – it would have been more useful for the balance to be 6-2 or 5-3…), but you have to work out for yourself where they go based on a rather basic pictures of the assembled models; in my case even this instruction sheet was missing, and I had to find it and print it off from the website. There are complete instructions for the standard generic carrier though, which is just as well as this is much more complicated. There are alternative parts for Mark 1 and Mark 2 versions; I used the former, based on pictures of the vehicles in theatre.
Now for some notes on my painting of these vehicles and the artillery discussed in the last post, including the Quads and limbers for the 25-pdrs (good basic models from PSC, about which there is not much more to be said – no whinges here). There are two schemes: the Light Mud scheme used in Italy, from Sicily onwards, with Blue-Black as a contrast colour; and the desert scheme of Desert Pink, with Olive Green contrast, used by the Eighth Army in Tunisia (but not the First Army in Tunisia, which had darker UK colour schemes, overpainted ad hoc in many cases). The first of these is well explored territory here. I mixed Light Mud from Raw Sienna and Titanium White, with some Prussian Blue. These are the same pigments I use for Khaki, but with a bit more white and a bit less blue. The Blue Black can be made from the same pigments, with only a touch of white and a lot more blue. In fact I think I just dived into another mix I was using that was lurking on my palette, adjusted slightly. Incidentally, I use a wet palette, as I have for many years. Not the expensive one marketed by one of the usual suspects in the hobby world, but a Daler Rowney one that has been going for many years. Mixing paints from artists’ acrylics, this is a bit of a no-brainer, as you want to keep your pigments going across a multi-day project. In fact in the winter (my studio is only heated when I’m using it), the paint kept going for weeks. Which was just as well given all the interruptions. For the tilts on the trucks I used the Khaki mix I had been using for the infantry for both schemes.
The desert scheme was new for me – this being the last of the three main scenes used by the British in the desert (Coulter and Light Stone being the earlier ones). For the Desert Pink I simply mixed white into Raw Sienna. This is a touch less red than the usual portrayals of this colour, though I suspect (for no particularly good reason) that the pinkness softened with weathering. The Olive Green was a mix based on Sap Green, into which I threw various mixes used for the uniforms to dull down and lighten up a bit. The result may be a little dark. Greens are the hardest colours to mix. The schemes themselves were based on a variety of sources, including the official guidelines (which generally didn’t cover the vehicles I was painting and which were usually simplified in practice), photos (giving only one angle) and otherwise guesswork.
Apart from the basic scheme I painted the tyres and radiators (a variation on the dark grey-black mix) and tracks (ditto with some added silver). And that was pretty much it (apart from the crews, painted as infantry). I took the view that other detail (the lights for example) weren’t important enough to pick out. After this came the decals. I put roundels on the truck and Quad roofs, filched from old aircraft decals, and a couple from some an Italeri halftrack kit that I had recently acquired. I also put some arm of service markings on where I could use appropriate ones. I used the ones in the Airfix kit for two of the Bedford lorries. The others were from some I had printed myself a few years ago – but these were tricky and I lost a number of them in the process. Some models, like one of the carriers in the picture, had to do without. I did not bother with divisional markings (these often weren’t used in 1943 in this theatre).
After this came the weathering and high/low-lighting. I wanted to simplify this from the multiple stages of earlier versions. First I used small amounts of white oil paint brushed into a very thin and slightly uneven layer. Then, as an experiment, I mixed some ink into some new acrylic matt varnish that I recently acquired to make a wash. Previously I have used dark oil paint mixed with a slightly glossy medium, to get into the crevices as a glaze (which, in my parlance, is thicker and stickier than a wash) – followed by spray-on matt varnish. But the matt varnish is a very harsh matt, and the effect is too uniform to my taste. So I was trying to combine the two steps with the new, very liquid varnish, which dries off-matt. The basic concept was sound enough, but unfortunately I used some very powerful black ink. This enhanced the crevices beautifully, but made the models too dark. I had to light brush over the lighter colours on the original paint work again (which the wet palette has preserved); even then they still look a little on the dark side, especially the desert scheme. Finally I applied some powdered pastel in a sort of light dusty mix, with a brush. This served to matt-ify the off-matt varnish, without the harsh uniformity of the spray, and create a dusty texture. Apart from the matt varnish wash being a bit too dark, I’m pleased with the results. I have nice weathered finish, and the decals look well and truly integrated – and the method is quite simple.
My next project is the Medinine Germans – which I have now started. But before then I will do a quick post on some Oxford Diecast models I have acquired.
This time I continue with my description most recent batch of figures and models for my 1943 project, as I build up enough forces to run a scenario for Medinine, by talking about the artillery. These comprised two 25-pdrs, three 6-pdrs and a 17-pdr Pheasant. The above picture is of four of the six weapons, together with two Morris Quads and limbers and the carrier OP. These are items I painted in the Light Mud and Blue-Black scheme introduced after Tunisia, ready to be used in Italy. Missing are the two 2-pdrs that I will need, because I didn’t have the models when I started the batch, and found that I needed a second crew assemblage anyway.
Let’s start with the 25-pdrs. These were the workhorses of British artillery in WW2. In the desert, and on at least one occasion in the Tunisian hills, they served as direct fire support, taking on a role as antitank gun. I’m not sure how much of my artillery I will actually use on the tabletop – because even at Rapid Fire scale they would mostly be off the table – though I think Rapid Fire players like to stretch things and put them on. Still I’ve been buying the models: I have two more 25-pdrs and two 5.5in guns in stock, and a number of German guns too. In the Medenine scenario the antitank guns looks a little thin (though more than adequate historically), so I thought it appropriate to have at least a pair of 25-pdrs ready to act as a last line of defence.
My 25-pdrs. The one in the foreground has an AB crew; the other has a PSC crew with a head-swap.
I had a box of two 25-pdrs with a Morris Quad in hand (together with another with the CMP Quad, as PSC had run out of the Morris sets). I used this. The first decision was whether to use the parts for the later version, with muzzle-brake. I didn’t have definitive information for when this was introduced. A lot of pictures show the earlier version in North Africa – but there are pictures of the later version in Italy in 1943 (or so the picture captions say) – so I decided to go for this, painted up in the Light Mud and Blue Black scheme. Next was the question of crews. I bought one set of eight figures from AB; I only wanted four on the base, so I hoped to get both crews. But they only had one seated figure, and I thought this was critical – otherwise it would be just a group of people staring at the gun. I decided to use the PSC figures for the second gun. These aren’t nearly as good, but good enough, I think. They supply two versions: Western Desert with men in shorts, and North West Europe with late helmets and scrim. I wanted neither, so I decided to head-swap the African heads onto the later bodies. This wasn’t actually that hard. The AB crew have the later helmets too, but I decided to overlook that (as I have on half of my infantry) – and it wasn’t as blatant as on the PSC figures.
Next come the 6-pdrs:
The two 6-pdrs in Light Mud. The one in the foreground is Valiant; the other is an old Airfix one. Both crews are Valiant.
I needed three more of these to go with my one existing model, one of my old Airfix ones. I had another old Airfix one that just needed a paint job. The cheapest way to source a couple more (with crews) looked to be to get the Valiant models, for which I found a decent review. Alas I think they look wrong, when compared to the photographs in theatre. The Airfix ones look better, though I have no reason to think they are particularly accurate – that wasn’t an Airfix strong point at the time. But it looks low and mean, just like the pictures. A second issue is that I wanted the earlier version of the weapon, with a shorter barrel and no muzzle brake. I followed the advice on the Valiant box, but it just didn’t look right either! I am so dissatisfied that I have bought the PSC box of two 6-pdrs with Loyd carriers, hoping these will look better. The Valiant crew figures were OK, though, and in the right uniform for 1943 – though they are too big. Four were provided, though I only used three. For the third crew I used bought AB desert castings with a crew in shorts, just for variety.
Finally there was the 17-pdr Pheasant. Here it is with the third 6-pdr:
Old 17-pdr Pheasant conversion with SHQ crew, with the second Valiant 6-pdr in the background, with AB crew
As I said in my previous post, the Pheasant was something of an afterthought. I don’t think that this weapon was used in Medinine, but the 7th Armoured did have them at the time, and they would have been an option for the British. Actually they probably weren’t that suitable. Their big virtue was their range – but if they had opened up at long range (and the 17-pdr went off with a very spectacular flash and bang) they would then have been picked off by the German artillery and mortars. Plus they were bigger weapons, harder to conceal in the desert. This model is one I made back in the 1970s from and Airfix 25-pdr and a Panther gun barrel. Very basic, but I adjudged it good enough. I had plenty of SHQ crew, which I brought into play. These are slightly smaller than AB figures, and so more appropriate for this slightly smaller-scaled model. Here’s a different angle, including the three vehicles I painted in desert camouflage:
I will describe how I painted the models in my next post covering the vehicles. The process for figures I have already described – they were painted alongside the infantry.
It’s been a long absence since my last post. I don’t tend to post until a project is complete, and my most recent project has been a big one. As usual lots of life has intervened to slow things down. But I also have a lot of half-finished projects lying around, especially on the rules-writing side, which is not conducive to regular posting. Still, I now have something definite to report.
Following my last post for Rapid Fire! for hexes in December, my focus has stayed on WW2. We played two games, loosely based on episodes at Salerno. They weren’t particularly interesting. Much depended on encounters between tanks and antitank guns, turning on a small number of D6 throws. Infantry proved pretty useless. The first game at least had a close finish, but the second was an overwhelming British victory as the Germans failed to make any impression on the British Shermans, while the British scored hits pretty much every time. Scenario design was partly at fault, I’m sure – but the whole thing reinforced my dislike of the bathtubbing aspect of the rules. Too much hinged on too few dice throws. But I like scaling of RF, allowing bigger battles using 20mm figures. So I have embarked on writing my own rules – which will be part of a rules family stretching from Great Northern War to Napoloenics to the 1859-71 wars and on to WW2. It is surprising how much the game structure and mechanisms can overlap. That’s the idea anyway.
But I needed a scenario to focus on. Salerno is tricky at this level, especially if you leave the Americans out (they had more tanks, which makes it easier to design good games), and I think I need more experience with the system to work out how to design decent scenarios. Similar things can be said for Sicily. But Tunisia is another matter – there are more tanks!. As it happens the Rapid Fire crew have two Tunisia scenarios (or scenario groups): Medenine and Tebaga Gap. These are among the last desert battles, as the 8th Army fought their way into Tunisia – and so fit into the desert battle series that has been designed for Rapid Fire. I picked Medenine – the last major German tank attack in Africa- though allied tanks were only marginally involved. The scenario is based on the central of the three principal thrusts, with the 15th Panzer Division’s attack on 131 (Queen’s) Infantry Brigade of the 7th Armoured. I decided to set out on two large batches of model-making and painting, first for the British and secondly for the Germans. I started with the British.
For the British I needed two four-company battalions (actually this was more than I needed for this scenario – but I’d need more troops for Tebaga Gap), each with a 3in mortar (with carrier), a 6-pdr and a 2-pdr AT gun, and a carrier platoon. In addition I needed Royal Artillery support with a further two 6-pdrs and a battery of two 25-pdrs – and brigade command, for which I wanted a Dorchester ACV. Mostly field artillery at this scale is off the table, but I wanted the 25-pdrs on the table as a last line of defence should the panzers (eight panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs) push their way through the four 6-pdrs and two 2-pdrs – although historically they didn’t. I already had all I needed for one battalion except the 2-pdr. For the second battalion I bought in AB Tropical infantry (four packs of 10 plus support weapons). These are a recent release, and work pretty well 1943 British infantry in this theatre (unlike my earlier British infantry, which are more appropriate to Normandy 1944). In addition I had PSC 25-pdrs with Morris Quads in stock. I bought in two extra 6-pdrs from Valiant, to use with an old Airfix one I had in stock, and an AB desert crew. On top of this I decided to bring into service an old Pheasant 17-pdr I had made up in the late 1970s from an Airfix 25-pdr and a Panther gun barrel; I compared it to the parts in the PSC 25-pdr kit (which can be made up into a Pheasant), and it didn’t look too far off. I had some crew available bought a number of years ago from SHQ. I needed more carriers – I still have three of my old Airfix ones (three are already in service with AB crews and look jolly nice too) – but I decided these didn’t come up to snuff. I needed crews. The AB ones look fantastic, lifting my rather ropey old Airfix models to the heights, but they took a lot of work to fit, as well as being pricey. Also I needed one as a 3in mortar transport and, more complicated, as the all-important OP for the 25-pdrs. I decided to go for the PSC variants set, which has seven models which include an OP and 3in mortar transport – as well as one with a 2in mortar in firing position, which I can use for a carrier platoon. Finally there was the question of transport. Strictly this wasn’t needed. The British positions were essentially prepared and static – the lorries would have been well to the rear. The antitank guns were carried on portees, but they were lifted off these into dug-in positions – keeping these weapons concealed was tactically critical. Still, I had three Bedford QL lorries in stock, and I thought it was time to bring these into the picture, together with one of my PSC 15cwt CMP light trucks.
So for this project I assembled some 50+ infantry and artillery crew figures, three 6-pdrs, three carriers, three Bedford lorries, two 25-pdrs plus quads, a CMP light truck, and 17-pdr Pheasant. For this post I will stick to the infantry. Here’s a different perspective on my group photo:
And another, closer up…In the background you can also see a battery command element for the 25-pdrs, which got swept into this photo:
And this one catches the Vickers gun on the end. Loyal readers may notice I have been trying to improve my photography. This now includes a backdrop photo bought from a model railway shop (online). This depicts a a very English looking winter or early spring scene – and I need to pay attention to the join! But it does make the picture look a lot better.
As I already said, these are from the recently introduced AB 20mm British “tropical infantry” range, designed to cover the Med and Far East theatres, when troops weren’t wearing shorts (North Africa) or Burma hats. This works pretty well for my 1943 project – they are wearing the earlier version of the helmet, without scrim, and they are using Tommy guns rather than Stens. In Tunisia it was pretty cold, so even the Eighth Army had abandoned their shorts (though they don’t seem to have bothered with the gaiters, and their helmets were still painted sand) – but their sleeves weren’t rolled up. In Sicily it was pretty hot, and many troops adopted shorts, though not as consistently as in the Western Desert. For Salerno, these figures are just right; later in Italy it tuned cold and wet. I’m making no attempt to get the figures, vehicles and guns to look exactly right for each scenario – and if there is one episode that I’m focusing on, it is indeed Salerno, in spite of my struggles with scenarios. So this range was perfect. I had three packs of advancing infantry, one prone infantry, and a Support 2 pack, with a 3in mortar and Vickers gun. The Support 1 pack has a flamethrower, 2in mortar, AT rifle and a PIAT – and I will doubtless get these later – but I have plenty of 2in mortars and PIATs in the later uniform. (PIATs were not in use in Tunisia – so I could probably have use the AT rifle).
The bases are mainly metal washers, but the prone figures and support weapons required bases cut out from mount board. I decided to have only two crew for the mortar and Vickers (three were provided in the pack) to keep the bees size down. These were plastered with the usual mix of acrylic medium, sand and paint (a mix of white and raw umber) to integrate the figure bases. Once mounted the figures were given an undercoat of artists’ gesso (which is white) mixed with some raw umber. The raw umber and white mix gives a nice neutral grey-brown colour, which is now my go-to base colour for figure paining across all eras. It means that any gaps in painting don’t show up. Then came the usual paint job in various mixes of Liquitex artists’ acrylics. For the uniforms this comprised Raw Sienna (orange-brown), Titanium White and Prussian Blue (not much of the last of these, but it’s needed to get khaki), plus a little green for the helmets. The flesh was based on white and Burnt Sienna (red-brown), but once I get the palette going I keep throwing in bits of this and that. This came out a bit on the dark side, but I did want to get tanned flesh, but with a slight pinkish hue. I’m not entirely convinced, but it probably roughly simulates how my own fair flesh would look in those conditions. I’m painting less detail on the figures these days, so the water bottles and bayonet sheathes did not get more than cursory attention, for example. One innovation for this batch was the use of a light/magnifier. My short-range eyesight is pretty decent, but this in fact proved a big help.
Once the basic paint was laid down I was left with the vexed question of how to finish. With my previous WW2 figures I have used ink washes or oil medium glazes, followed by matt varnish spray. This leaves a very harsh matt finish which I don’t really like – though it’s quite fashionable these days. I have recently tried to moderate this by applying a little not-so-matt varnish with a brush – on flesh, weapons and helmets, but I have been rather underwhelmed by the result. As an experiment this time I mixed some black and brown ink into some Liquitex matt varnish (which is very fluid and dries off-matt). Alas I overdid the black ink and the effect was too dark. I had to go back to the figures highlighting the paler bits, including the flesh. This took me to the margins of the level of shine I can tolerate on WW2 figures (I have a much higher tolerance for earlier eras), but brought out the wonderful AB castings very nicely. I need to go a bit easier on the black ink (the stuff I have is extremely powerful), but otherwise I think I’ve found a good technique.
For my rules system I will need to mount these men in pairs on temporary bases – as I have already done with my other infantry using lower-adhesion Copydex. I still want to be able to use as singles if I want to try platoon level games. Next time: the artillery.
Back to the 1866 project. September and October were largely taken up by holidays and gardening, and figure painting took a back seat. The result was that this second batch of 1866 troops was a bit protracted. It will be a while before I’m ready to refight Custoza.
The figures are 10mm from Pendraken, whose range from this period is unmatched. In appearance and detailing they are closer to larger 6mm (such as from Baccus and Adler) than they are to 15/18mm. They need to be deployed en masse and not a great deal of attention needs to be paid to details. They are providing pretty much what I hoped for to recreate the big battles in the age of Bismarck. I have already introduced this project here with my first batch of Italians. Those figures were more appropriate to 1859 (Solferino, etc) than 1866. These, on the other hand, are very much on period. The infantry are in greatcoats, and the cavalry have updated uniforms.
Like the previous batch, this is a three arms package – though not using Pendraken’s army pack this time. The infantry was a mix of Germans and Hungarians (not that it is easy to tell the difference) – enough for 12 bases of line infantry and three of jagers. The cavalry were hussars (4 bases). The artillery were 4 pdr rifled guns, with one limber (there are two to pack, but I only painted one this time). In addition I painted up three generals (from a pack of 5). I bought laser-cut mdf bases from Pendraken: 30mm by 20mm for the infantry and cavalry; 25mm square for the artillery; I already had plenty of 20mm squares for the generals. This is enough for one three-brigade corps (as was the organisation of the Austrian Army of the South – the main army had four-brigades corps) under the system that I am developing.
Here is a closer look at the infantry:
And even closer:
The troops are in the regulation greatcoat which the troops had to wear even in the heat that June. Funnily enough the Italians used the same system, making the troops remarkably similar in appearance; both sides suffered from the heat. The most distinctive feature of the Austrians was the blue trousers (visible because the front skirts of the greatcoats were buttoned back – as with the French and Italian practice) – contrasting with the bluish grey of the Italian uniform trousers. At least the hats are slightly different. One more distinctive feature of the Austrians was that their webbing was pipeclayed white, rather than left dark. However the pose for these figures has the arms and musket in front of the body concealing this. With figures so small it is not worth trying to represent this, apart from the drummer. That at least makes them quite simple to paint. The jagers also wore the greatcoat – though not always, apparently – so I might do some without – perhaps to represent the elite Kaiserjäger. I painted the generals in their grey field uniform. They all came in the same pose, which means that they won’t look right if paired up to represent more senior commands. There don’t seem to be any good figures to represent ADCs, and a charging hussar (I have some spares) won’t look right either. I think will have to use infantry officers.
Moving on to the cavalry:
These are hussars. My system is to represent a regiment (4 squadrons) in two bases. One pair of bases is painted up as the 1st Hussars, which were at Custoza, and the other as either the 4th or 6th regiment – neither of which were in Italy, but which provided a nice contrast, with their light blue uniforms and scarlet cap bags (compared to dark blue and green). The uniforms were much simplified from the Napoleonic era, and not much detail was possible at this scale.
Moving on the artillery:
These are rifled 4-pounders. The trail seat on these Pendraken figures is a bit clumsy though. I may try cutting it down in future. I have put four crew figures on each base (as opposed to three for the Italians) as the Austrians had 8 guns to a battery rather than the usual 6. The mounting is a bit too tight for this though – in future I think 30mm by 25mm would be better. Looking ahead, I want to have some heavy 8-pounders as well. Pendraken don’t make these, so this might be a bit of a challenge. The woodwork was apparently not painted, unlike in the Napoleonic era – but I haven’t seen any clear colour representations of how it looked. As far as I can see it was a bit redder than than the ochre paint used beforehand – which suggests it was stained or varnished in some way – otherwise it would soon start looking a dull grey. I opted for a slight orange-brown, though I can’t say this screams “unpainted wood” to me.
How did I get the raw metal figures ready for the table? The first stage was to mount them on the bases (10 to a base for line infantry, 6 for jagers), set in a matrix of acrylic medium with a mix of white and raw umber paint. I didn’t mix any textural material (such as sand or model railway ballast) in as I do for larger figures, as I thought this would make the basing a bit trickier and slower, with the grains getting between the base of the figures and the mdf mounting. I had previously tried plaster filler, but this proved even trickier. I can’t say I have found the ideal basing matrix – but mounting such individual small figures in dense formation (6mm figures are usually come in strips) is quite tricky. I hoped I could just squish the figures into blob of matrix, but wasn’t that easy. After the matrix had hardened I painted the whole assembly, base included, in white gesso mixed in with Raw Umber paint to create a dry earth colour. After that came the main job of painting, using my usual artist’s acrylic paint. Obviously it was tricky to reach lots of places on the infantry bases, with the figures so close together – but if you can’t see it there’s no point in painting it. This was much rougher and readier than my normal 18mm painting. There was very little in the way of striking high contrast detail to lift the figures (such as white cross-belts, facings, plumes or hat pompons). It still took a few sessions. There really is no good way to speed this up. I used oil paints on the horses, mimicking the technique I use on 18mm – but it was messy and it was hard to overpaint reins, etc. With little positive benefit (the figures are bit small for the wiping technique to create high/low lights) – so I won’t be doing that again. Given that these are armies assembled in peacetime I made the horses on each pair of bases look similar with only small variations (and grey for the trumpeter).
These figures needed a wash or glaze with a thin dark colour particularly badly to bring out the moulded detail that could not be picked out in paint. Like my Italians I used a glaze made with a supposedly fast drying oil medium, mixed with a little brown oil paint. This did an excellent job of distributing the dark pigment to the lowlights, but the finish was too glossy: I wasn’t looking for ultra-flat, but there are limits. After giving it 24 hours to cure I started to apply the basing material – flock or “turf”. This was a big mistake as the basing material stuck to the touch-dry but still slightly-sticky glaze, and I had to abandon it. I then decided to apply matt varnish (which I had done for my Italians) – using some old Winsor & Newton varnish designed for oil paintings. This is nasty, sticky stuff where the flatting agent tends to separate out in the bottle and is very hard to mix back in. I had to take out a quantity of the runny stuff and the some of the gunky flatting agent to mix together in a small batch. Thankfully the result was the right off-matt finish. It was only after this was thoroughly dry that I went back to applying the basing material – just flock this time, as I decided that the turf didn’t look as good (though I used it for all my Italians). Applying flock to the tightly-packed infantry bases was still pretty hard to do with it sticking to the figures themselves. This is hard enough in 18mm! I frequently had to use a large brush and water to clean up the figures. For my 6mm I don’t bother with flocking at all, though I use a textured basing matrix. But that leaves the smooth metal bases visible and didn’t want to do that for the larger figures.
The base flocking/turfing is good enough, without looking particularly good. I will stick with the flock in future, but with variations on the bases with large exposed areas. The main thing I need to change for the next batch is low-lighting glaze. I need to get it in done one coat, without the need for an extra coat of varnish. I have acquired some acrylic matting medium to try out. This is milky when wet but turns transparent when it dries. This will make it tricky to judge the right to amount of ink to mix in. A challenge for next time.
The final step was the flags. For the infantry I used the Pendraken printed paper ones. The cavalry standard was moulded metal – which I did a rough and ready paint job on – which wrks OK at arms length. The flags are important for such relatively dull figures.
I have ordered the next batch of miniatures. I will concentrate on doing a large batch of Italian infantry. This isn’t very exciting but I’m hoping to generate a bit of speed so that I have enough figures for a decent game as soon as possible..
My top project for the moment is 1866. But while I was waiting for my next order of miniatures from Pendragon (they cast to order, which takes a little time – a small cost for such an extensive range) I thought I was tackle something from of my Napoleonic 18mm lead mountain. Next in the queue were the Prussian 21st and 29th Infantry regiments, as they appeared at Ligny in 1815.
The figures are entirely from AB – the first of my Prussians to have more than a scattering of figures from this source, as opposed to Old Glory 15s. They are wonderful castings, making up somewhat for my rather hurried painting. I had bought them a number of years ago, when I started to plan my Ligny project, and my supplier was grumbling a bit about my small order sizes (as I had asked them to provide command packs without standard bearers – which they did, to be fair). At that time my plan was that each regiment would have six bases of six figures (on 25mm squares), with some skirmish bases (two to base of 25mm by 15mm). I painted up two bases to represent each battalion. At the time I was thinking I might use rules which had two-base battalion units. My main grand tactical system has each base representing about 1,250 men – 2 to three bases per regiment – organised into brigades/divisions. Since then I have adopted Lasalle 2 for tactical games – which uses four base battalions. So six-base regiments make little actual sense on the tabletop. Also I don’t need the skirmish bases these days. I started off with three 12-base regiments (when I modelled Tippelskirch’s brigade), but went smaller after that to achieve more variety – and I am getting that. With the figures already bought, and no need to increase the overall numbers, I have stuck to my original system.
Prussian infantry in 1815 fall into roughly three categories. The original regular regiments (1 to 12 I think), dressed in the full regulation Prussian uniform and with official standards. Then there were the new regiments (up to 29), formed from the reserve regiments and a collection of other corps. The men had not yet been issued with their new uniforms (though the officers had bought theirs), so they wore a wide variety of uniforms from their previous formations – they also had to wait for their standards. The third category were Landwehr – which in turn can be divided into veteran (Silesian, Pomeranian and Kürmark in Blücher’s army) and newly-formed (Elbe and Westfalian) – all in variations of standard landwehr uniform. In that middle category my plan was to have the 25th Regiment (with 12 bases) based on Lützow’s freikorps but with others added in; the 21st with British-style uniforms (which I painted up a few years ago); and then the 23rd and 29th that were the subject of this batch.
The 23rd
The 23rd Regiment were one of the reserve infantry regiments, and had a grey uniform with a tailless jacket – in 1813 there were not the resources to uniform these regiments properly, so they used either imported British-style uniforms (originally destined for Spain or Portugal) or these scratch grey uniforms. In 1815 it was brigaded with the 21st Regiment (and a regiment of Elbe landwehr). One battalion was committed (later in the day )to each of Ligny and St Armand, and the third not committed at all, and presumably part of the rearguard as the Prussians withdrew. I used AB’s reserve infantry for the men, and standard command packs (though no standard bearers) for the officers and drummers (this probably wasn’t accurate for the drummers, but never mind). Two of the reserve infantry figures were in fact in standard uniform with tailed tunic. If I’d had more presence of mind I would have painted them up as NCOs in standard uniform, like the officers and drummers. But it was too late by the time this thought struck. AB did not produce any suitable firing figures for the skirmishers, so I did not produce any. I (regrettably) have no use for them in any of the rules systems anyway. I like the visual appearance of skirmishers, but it is so hard to give them a role in games systems that doesn’t just clog things up.
The 29th
The 29th regiment. The Fusiliers (grenadiers) are on the left.
The 29th Infantry Regiment were one of two regiments (the 28th was the other) formed from two regiments of Berg infantry incorporated into the Prussian army, after serving in Napoleon’s armies. The French repeatedly urged them to desert back to their old allegiance – but to no avail. The 28th was badly mauled prior to Ligny in the rearguard actions. The 29th was committed to both Ligny (the Fusilier battalion) and St Armand (the Musketeer battalions) – and much earlier in the day than the 23rd (they were in I Corps, not II Corps like the 23rd) – and so would have seen much more fighting. The 29th was formed from the 2nd Berg regiment, and its Fusiliers were based on the combined grenadier battalion. I wanted two bases to reflect these ex-grenadiers. For the men I used AB Saxon infantry, which are a reasonably close fit. In fact, the shako cords would have gone, and there would have been a black and white Prussian cockade on the front of the shako. These might not have been that hard to incorporate – but my aim is to get these unpainted figures table-ready as quickly as possible. The command figures are standard Prussian (though again, not accurate for the drummers – such a shame you can’t buy figures individually any more). In the battle the men were told to wear greatcoats because the officers stood out too much in their dark uniforms. I bought one pack of eight Saxon grenadiers for the Fusilier battalion. Even with two command figures that left me two short – I used normal line infantry, but put them in the second rank. this time AB did have suitable firing figures for skirmishers. Since they had plumes I painted them up as Fusiliers. I will find a use for them some day!
The standard uniform for this regiment was white with red collar, shoulder straps, cuffs and turn backs – but white lapels, piped red. The ex-grenadiers had a black plume and blue lapels – which apparently all the Berg infantry had when allied to the French. The trousers for this unit are usually portrayed as white, but my of the sources suggests they were grey in 1815. That’s what I chose to represent. For Lasalle I will quite likely combine two bases from this unit with two bases from the 23rd – and the grey trousers would make this less jarring.
Technique
The idea these days is to try to get the figures table-ready quickly. So I based them first, using my standard technique of acrylic gunge mixed with sand and white and raw umber paint as the matrix. The bases are thick paper, with magnetic sheet backing. The hope is that thinner bases blend with the table better (though I do use thick bases for 6mm and 10mm miniatures, for ease of handling) – accepting the risk of warping. That’s one reason I don’t use a water-based basing matrix. I still let them cure on a flat metallic surface – but they still bend a bit.
After basing they got an undercoat. I use white gesso mixed with a little Raw Umber acrylic paint (student quality). I have seen some debate on Facebook as to whether a special undercoat is necessary. For metal figures I have no evidence that specialist paint is needed for adhesion – though plastics are a different matter. Gesso is meant to tighten as it dries, so reducing the risk that detail is swamped – a risk if applied thickly with a standard brush – but not so much if applied from a spray can or airbrush. I’m not so sure that this is a significant effect though. The best primer for shrinkage purposes I have used was a specialist metal primer from Citadel – which dried in a lovely thin coat. But the massive tins this comes in are not very convenient! With the miniatures already based an airbrush or rattle-can would have been hard to use – even with figures un-based I have never been able to get complete coverage with this method, so I only use it in model planes or vehicles. I used an old brush to apply. The Raw Umber (combined with the white of the gesso) gives a nice neutral tone than doesn’t jar if left unpainted.
After the primer I put on the basic colours: the grey, off-white and blue for the tunics and trousers, brown for the pack and a dark grey for the shakos and boots. These were all acrylic artist colour mixes, using Titanium White, Prussian Blue Hue, and Raw Umber. I didn’t use any black or grey pigments on this occasion (getting the grey by mixing the brown and blue). I also applied the flesh – using white mixed in with Burnt Sienna. After this I decided to try putting on the wash, following the experiment I ran with my 10mm 1866 figures. Except this time the wash wasn’t a water and ink mix, but oil paint (Umber) and medium. This is a great way of doing a wash (or glaze, more correctly) as it distributes the pigment better. But it leaves a semi-gloss finish that doesn’t take further paint well, and a very bad idea when there is further detailing to add! After this I applied the detailing – facings, weapons, etc. This was the most time-consuming phase of the whole project and took me about three two-hour sessions, each of the previous phases taking a single session or less. To finish the paintwork I gave the figures a coat of matt varnish – again applied with a brush. This varnish still leaves a slight sheen (unlike the rattle-can stuff).
The final step was flocking the base. I used a mix of fair standard scenic flock – mixing it to ensure that it wasn’t too dark, and not mixing it to throughly so there is a little variation. I have been experimenting with short-cut static grass recently – but since my 18mm Napoleonics mainly use flock, I decided to to stick to this. On this occasion the mix was paler than any of my other Napoleonics – I think this brings out the figures better. I don’t spend a great deal of time doing up bases – as I pack them tight with miniatures, leaving little room for anything else.
Conclusion
Left to right: 23rd, 29th and combined – organised for Lasalle
My final picture shows the new units ready for Lasalle. I have a game coming up, and I’ll give these new units an outing then. Incidentally the mat that they are standing on is a new acquisition – Geek Villain’s Autumn Grassland. I already have Geek Villain’s Sicily mat – but that has too much beige games set in Waterloo. I love the fleece material though. I chose the Autumn mat because it was the most muted of their grass offerings – and I am very wary of the colours being too bright on commercial products. Some of the greens are a bit strong, but the colour texturing is quite nice. I wish they did a mat with a pattern of fields but no roads or other terrain details! The buildings in the background are 6mm from the Total Battle Miniatures 100 Days range, painted by me.
Overall I’m quite pleased with these. The glaze is a bit heavy-handed, and some of the detailing is a little sloppy, but they meet my standard perfectly. I think I now have enough infantry bases to run a game for Ligny – and the cavalry is there too for the Prussians at least. I need to finish the artillery next. After that I have a nice lot of AB Landwehr figures which I want to paint up as Silesians, and then I want paint up the remaining bit of OG standard Prussian infantry to use these up as well as some spare flags. After that there two more cavalry units before I draw a curtain on the Prussian lead mountain.
I began 2023 determined to focus on completing projects already started, my Napoleonics in particular. This didn’t last long, as I worked on reviving my Great Northern War armies and developing a rule system to use them. That show is now done. I have now decided to start a brand new period in a brand new scale. What is going on?
The main thing I hadn’t reckoned on was a revival of my actual gaming. I’m now part of a monthly “club” of half a dozen players from my old club, South London Warlords, that meet in the home of one us. I need games that are conducive to this format. I am also in the process of joining a more local club in Tunbridge Wells. Where that will lead I’m not sure – but that I will need material ready for the club game format. I can put on a game of Lasalle 2 readily enough with my Napoleonics – but these rules are unfamiliar to my fellow gamers. And I hesitate to suggest that they buy a rather pricey rules booklet. These published rules aren’t easy to scan to distribute, even if that was legal – and the clever activation system is a bit awkward in a multiplayer format.
I have been eyeing European wars of 1859 to 1871 for some time. I have been buying Bruce Weigle’s rules, playing the odd game with my friend George, leading up to participating in an 1859 game (part of Solferino) led by Bruce himself at Newbury in 2019. I am also owner of Chris Pringle’s Bloody Big Battles rules for the period, and tried to adapt them to the Napoloenic era – and acquired his extended scenario book. In addition, I have wanted to try out 10mm miniatures. It then struck me how suited this period is to the multiplayer format. On the battlefield the army command function had comparatively little influence, with corps and divisional commanders playing a more decisive role on the day (the army commander doing more to set the day up). Historically it is a very interesting period, marking the transition from smoothbore to rifled to breech-loaded infantry weapons and artillery. The battles were mainly between well-trained regulars, and the short wars meant that there was comparatively little of the complexities of attrition (until 1871, anyway). This makes the wars cleaner than the overlapping American Civil War, as well as the armies being a bit more interesting to look at, including the continued use of shock cavalry.
Three ideas converged. The first is that I wanted to play the battle of Custoza in June 1866. This was a close fought battle between the Austrian army and the Italians – and an interesting counterpoint to the disasters faced by the Austrians to the north against Prussian needle-guns. The second was that I wanted to try 10mm figures. My much loved 18mm Napoleonics are bigger than ideal for big battles, and I find 6mm (which I use for GNW) a bit wee. I wanted to see if I could get 10mm figures table-ready quickly by streamlining the painting process. Third I wanted to try basing figures 30mm by 20mm. My Napoleonics are on 25mm square bases, and my GNWs are on 20mm squares. These look fine when combined into multi-base units. Oblong bases look better when on their own – which they are for Bruce Weigle’s system, for example. This base size looks good for 6mm troops, and I thought they’d work well for 10mm too.
Perusing the Pendraken website, I saw that they did Italians for the period in 10mm. That tipped me over the edge and I made an order, to see how they looked. And I was off. There was a big psychological release being involved in a brand new project in a new period – one not weighed down by questionable decisions on scale and basing made long ago. I now understand why so many gamers do it so often, notwithstanding having failed to complete earlier projects. I have acquired a number of books, and I’m researching the history eagerly. My initial aim is to mount a game for Custoza. The starting point is the BBB scenario for the battle. BBB rules are perfectly workable (I think they work much better for this era than Napoleonics) – but they are still rules for smaller scales being made to work for big battles, with a rather artificial feel in that context. This criticism can’t be made of Bruce Weigle’s system (the 1871 rules adapted for earlier periods – which is what we used in Newbury) – which in particular allow bases to move individually without being forced into constrained base-to-base formations. But these rules aren’t really suitable for the sort of game format I’m planning – they’ll take too long. Besides they are designed for rather smaller battles (there is a Custoza scenario, but it doesn’t cover the whole field for the whole battle). So, fresh from success with my Carolus Rex GNW rules, I’m looking to make my own.
How about the Italians? I bought a Pendraken “army pack” with 90 infantry figures, 30 command figures, 30 Bersaglieri, 15 cavalry and 3 guns. Unfortunately they sent me the 1849-59 version, not the 1859 to 1866. The infantry were in tunics rather than greatcoats, the cavalry were dragoons rather than light cavalry, and I had grenadiers in place of Bersaglieri. I decided I quite liked to the look of the earlier infantry, and the dragoons were nice, and perfectly usable, too. The grenadiers were the main problem – but Pendraken were happy to send me a pack of Bersaglieri (they offered to replace the whole order, of course). So what I have is more an 1859 army than an 1866 one. Since 1859 is on the more distant agenda, that’s not a worry.
The next question was how many figures to put on a base? My first thought was 10 infantry or four cavalry. There is room. But then I thought I could get away with 8 and three respectively – since looser formations were starting to be used in this era. I mounted all the line infantry at 8 to base, except one flag base with 10, to see how it compared. For the Bersaglieri I put then five to a base. This is the result (with the 10-figure flag base):
I made up three groups of four line infantry bases and one Bersaglieri, 15 infantry bases in all. Unfortunately I think the denser basing looks better – and illustrations from the era often show dense deployments. My plan is to mount my next batch, which will be Austrians, at 10 to base (or 5 or 6 jagers),and see how they look en masse. The Austrians particularly favoured dense formations anyway. The flags, incidentally, are from Pendraken. Given the general dullness of the troops (many wore greatcoats in the filed), the flags are an important feature. The Pendraken flags are quite basic, but do the job. They don’t do cavalry flags though, which might be a problem. Talking of cavalry, here they are:
These represent “line cavalry” or dragoons – the nearest the Italians had to elite heavy cavalry, of which they had four regiments. I have representatives from two regiments. A denser basing would be justified here too – but the pack size is 15, one short of what I need for four bases. Since I will (probably) be operating the cavalry in brigades of two or four bases, life is going to be harder if I can’t get four bases out a pack. With three to a base I might even get and extra base. With the cavalry present only in small quantities, that proved decisive, and I will stick to three figures a base – the look is perfectly satisfactory. Here’s the artillery:
These are 8-pounders, the typical Italian artillery piece, which were rifled in 1866 (but not in 1859). They look distinctly like Napoleonic smoothbores to me, but Leon from Pendraken assured me that he did research them, and I know no better. Reliable information on the Italian army of the era is hard to come by, and I’m very thankful that Leon took the job of producing this range on. I have found little consistent information on the line infantry. The Osprey, which covers the topic only briefly, has no pictures of standard line infantry of 1866 – or the Piedmontese army from before. Pendraken supply four crew figures for each piece but I didn’t like one of them. I thought I might reserve four crew figures for heavier weapons.
I will leave description of how I have prepared these figures to another post, when my Austrians are done. My hope is that I can get these troops table-ready quickly. Much more quickly than my 18mm troops, and even the GNW 6mm ones. The jury is out on that. The uniforms are quite simple, and the figures small enough not to need much detailing. Piping and braid need not be attempted! Even the black facings on the Italian infantry present so little contrast to the dark blue coats that I didn’t attempt it. The Austrians wore their greatcoats in the field (removing the tunics underneath in warmer weather), which will be just as simple. This batch of 15 infantry bases, four cavalry and three artillery took a bit longer than I hoped though. I will need over 70 bases of Italians alone if I follow the BBB scenario. I think I will try bigger batches, but of one troop type. This will be pretty boring, but hopefully faster. For the first Austrians though I will do a similar mixed batch, though.
My recent game, which the Swedes taking on the Russians
How time flies! It’s been quite a while since I last posted. My hobby focus has been mainly on my Great Northern War project – though as usual the rest of life intervened to limit the time spent on it. I developed my Carolus Rex rules ready for a proper live game in April. Since then I have modified them, and they are now published on here the Rules Page. I have also painted up six more infantry units (mostly Swedish) and a few other bits and pieces. That draws a line under GNW for the time being. It’s on to the next thing now.
The game was with the monthly group from my old club, which I’d had to miss for a couple of months. There were six of us. It was a sprawling affair using the bulk of my Swedish and Russian armies (I left some Russian infantry, a lot of the Swedish artillery, and the Swedish irregular cavalry out), shown in the picture from the Swedish side. There was no serious terrain. Although the Swedes had much the smaller army, the Russians were mainly D class, and the Swedish troop and command quality showed through, especially with their cavalry. The Swedes had one hairy moment, when the Russians managed to rout both Swedish guard infantry units. If the Swedes (played by me in this case) hadn’t done well on a divisional morale check, and then managed to rally one of the units, it would have been a big struggle for them to win. But the game flowed well, and we concluded within the time allotted. The feedback from the players on the rules was very positive – no big holes were revealed, though some tweaking was needed. Cavalry was too powerful against infantry, and flank attacks needed to be a little more effective. The one issue I won’t fix is the card driven activation system, which means that the six players need to go sequentially, reducing the possibility of parallel processing. I think this dynamic adds a lot to game play.
I have made those tweaks to the rules, as well as correcting a few other details. Increasing the effectiveness of flank attacks meant I felt the need to introduce an option to form square for infantry. This is perfectly historical, in fact, but there is a risk of the unit becoming disordered as it forms up. Interestingly I also changed the rules in a couple of places to reflect what we actually played, rather than what I had written. What we did was more intuitive and made better sense. I am pretty pleased with the rules overall. s discussed before, I feel I may have tilted a bi towards playability rather than historicity, especially in command and manoeuvre, but I do think I have caught important aspects of combat in this era. It should be possible to use them for other conflicts than Swedish/Russians in 1708/09, except that I haven’t developed them to cater for the new Dutch fire discipline methods and three-deep lines, used by Britain and the Netherlands, and neither some of the looser infantry and cavalry types used by the Ottomans and others. I might also want to distinguish between “galloping’ and “trotting” cavalry charge tactics. But life is short and I don’t plan to build armies for these other conflicts. Next time, though, I will design a more interesting scenario – the one inspired by Holowcyzn that I used in early play testing is a suitable starting point.
After that I painted one more batch of figures to give me more options for armies on both sides. These were four Swedish line infantry battalions, two Russian guard battalions, a Swedish heavy gun, a small unit of Swedish Drabant cavalry, and seven artillery limbers. While I still have more metal to paint, I plan to draw a line under things for these armies now. I will only paint up more if a particular scenario demands it. If I have enough units to keep a six player game going for four hours plus, I don’t need more.
For the Swedes I painted four units from different regiments: Kalmar, Skaraborg, Västerbotten and Västmanland. Until now I have prepared two battalions from the same regiment, except for two Manning (additional draft) units. But I have the flags and in any case there is usually a bit of bathtubbing going on in my scenarios. The first two of these units are in hats, and the second two in caps (karpus). I don’t think that the karpus was as widely used as I have them in my armies, but I had bought a lot of the figures from Baccus, and they were a bit nicer than the ones in hats anyway (since then Baccus has brought out some better ones in hats).
The Kalmar and Skaraborg infantry unitsThe Västmanland and Västerbotten units
I have plenty of Russian infantry, but there was something to be said for having a couple more guard units to beef the army up. I painted these from the Semonovsky regiment, with its blue coats. Like my two units for the Preobrazhensky regiment, I attached foil pennons to the pikes. the evidence for this is pretty thin (one of my early source book suggested it), and even thinner for their use in battle (unlike cavalry lances, where the pennons were considered to add to the psychological effect). Still it helps make the guard units special. I painted them mid-blue with a red lining, like the company standards.
The Semonovsky Russian Guard units
The Swedish Drabants were Karl’s personal bodyguard, and like him were often in the thick of the fighting. I didn’t really need this unit, but Swedish armies were heavy in cavalry, and this unit gives me more options. They weren’t up to full regimental strength, so I’ve had to create rules for smaller, two-base units.
For artillery, I wanted a Swedish heavy gun. The Swedes weren’t usually big on artillery, which hindered mobility, but they did use 12 pdrs at Holowcyzn, and I had the metal. Why I bought a mortar I don’t know, as these were generally siege weapons, but having bought them I thought I’d better paint one up in Russian livery. The other piece in the picture is the regimental artillery for the Semonovsky regiment – which was a matter of covering a piece that I had already painted.
The Drabants, the Swedish heavy artillery, the Russian mortar and a light gun
And finally limbers! I’ve made light (regimental) artillery and even field guns relatively mobile, without the need for limbering – so in our game players didn’t bother with limbers, as it takes a whole turn to limber up (limbers were not under military discipline). But in my next scenario there could be a lot more movement, and I had the metal away. So I painted up seven models to join the two I already had. One of these (like both the earlier ones) had two horses; the other single horse ones are there for my plentiful regimental artillery.
For painting technique I followed the same method as my last batch, described earlier this year. The main point of interest came at the end, when I used a rather dark wash. I started to use my Windsor & Newton peat brown ink, but this has turned thick and very red in hue with age. I tried diluted Antelope Brown (Liquitex I think), but this was very yellow – so I added some black, which is strong stuff and overwhelmed the brown. As I merrily applied it (including to the bases), I thought it enhanced the look. As it dried I the result was a bit dark – it’s not just poor photography in the pictures. I felt the need to highlight some of the yellow facings on the Swedes, and some light yellow highlighting on the bases. this proved to be quite a quick and easy process, leaving me to think that perhaps the lighter colours (facings, flesh and weapons) could be done after a dark wash (with paler base colours), using a quick dab of paint. This going down the rout of the black outline style that I have dismissed as being cartoonish. But it may be more appropriate for the tinies.
My next project is 10mm figures for Italian/Bismarck wars of 1859-71. More of that anon.
Six Russian infantry units and regimental artillery. The new Swedish cavalry is in the background
After getting back into the Great Northern War, it was time to bolster my rather limited armies, and run down my lead mountain. My biggest deficiencies were Russian line infantry and Swedish cavalry. So I have painted up six units of Russian infantry, and two units each of Swedish line cavalry and dragoons. I added in some regimental artillery, and a Swedish general. It is some years since I last worked on 6mm figures, so this is quite a break from normal.
The miniatures are from Bacchus, and were all bought back in 2012. I bought a job lot from a friend who had decided to take a different route on his GNW forces. I then developed an absurdly ambitious plan to build up my armies, and bought loads more from Baccus. Then I got distracted when about half had been painted up, and the painted and unpainted figures lived in a plastic box for a decade or so, rarely seeing daylight. I had enough painted up enough for an interesting game, but choices for force composition were very limited. My plan was to paint up two more batches (this is the first), amounting to half or so of the unpainted ones, and then stop – unless a particular need arises.
My original figures were painted in a manner quite similar to my larger 18mm ones. I painted them up before mounting on bases, and put quite a bit of detail on them. Even the barrels on the muskets. But I noticed that this was taking quite a long time, for a scale which was supposed to be quick! This time I wanted to take a different approach – more inspired by Impressionist painting. Impressionist paintings are beautiful from a distance, but make a lot less sense closer up. This is harder than it sounds!
The first step was to mount them on the bases. Apart from the artillery, these are mounted on 20mm squares of MDF, which I had bought along with the original figures, and of which I have more than I will ever need. The regimental artillery is on 15mm squares. I find this system of basing very attractive – though it is what caused my friend to abandon his miniatures, and buy in others mounted on larger bases, with one base to a unit. Baccus produces its infantry figures in 20mm strips of 4 side-by-side. Three of these fit comfortably on a base one behind the other. Historically formations were four deep, with about 150 files (i.e up to 50 per base). So these bases are both too shallow and too deep! Nevertheless this basing recalls contemporary representations in pictures. This would be easy if I could simply plonk the strips on the bases. But there are two problems. Firstly the command strips (supplied at a ratio of one in five in the packs) only have one standard bearer, along with an officer, flanked by two drummers. I like a good proportion of my units (typically the first battalion of a two battalion regiment) to have two flags. That means cutting up the command strip, and then the line strips to make room for the spares. The second problem applies to the Russians only. Russian infantry at this time was armed with a small proportion of pikes (one in eight); I read now (this wasn’t in the literature in 2012) that these were deployed in every other file in the front rank. I decided to represent this, rather than just plonking a strip of pikes in the back row of the centre stand, as I did before. I decided to distribute them PMPM; PMMP; MPMP – so that the pikes would be on the corners. That means cutting up the pike strips, and also the musketeer strips for the front row. Each pair units uses three command strips, three pike strips and 12 musketeer strips. You can just about see how this works on this close-up:
My representation of the Butyrski infantry regiment
The cavalry is more straightforward. These are come in strips of three, fore-and-aft, so they have to be cut up anyway. I mounted the Swedes three to a base, the cavalry staggered to represent the arrowhead formation, the dragoons side-by-side. Actually the Swedish dragoons fought in the same manner as the cavalry; they were equipped to fight dismounted, but I don’t know of them doing this ever in a significant battle (though I know almost nothing of the later war years), unlike their Russian counterparts. Still this mounting serves to distinguish them on the tabletop. Here are the four Swedish units:
The Swedish cavalry, with the dragoon units alternating
I mount the figures in a matrix of acrylic medium mixed with model railway fine track ballast and raw umber acrylic paint. This is the same method as before. The ballast is something I have had for decades: it is finer, lighter (in weight) and more uniform than the sand I use in bigger scales. It gives the surface some texture. After the assembly is fully set, I primed them with gesso mixed with paint. I went for an overall pale grey-green shade (it has to be pale because of the gesso). This is equivalent to the ground in a canvass painting (thinking back to the Impressionists) – the idea is that the colour doesn’t jar if it shows through (modern painters sometimes use a bright ground, thinking that it adds to the effect when it shows through – not appropriate for the wargames table!). Since it was going to be difficult to paint the bases between the strips, I wanted something that would merge with the base colour comfortably – hence the green element. I was overthinking that – in future just mixing in some raw umber (of which I have industrial quantities, thanks to a mistake by my supplier) with the white gesso will be fine. I used an old paintbrush to do the priming, covering both figures and base. I gave some thought to using an airbrush, but actually it can be a little hard to get airbrush paint into nooks and crannies, and getting between the figures and rows wold be tricky. It didn’t take too long with the brush, but it looked awful afterwards, though a lot better after cleaning with brush soap.
Next was the mass painting stage. At his point I treated all ten units and extras as a single batch, though no colour applied to all of them. I started with the horses, using various shades of brown, with some Payne’s Grey, so get a variety of bays, chestnuts and blacks – with a few greys, mainly for the musicians. Also I applied the main coat colour (blue, red or green), and then dark grey for the tricorn hats. For all this, I used my now standard technique of mixing artists acrylic (mainly Liquitex – as their tube design is easily the best, prolonging their life, as well as being excellent quality). No faffing with oil paints as I do with my 18mm horses. All mixes have a bit of white in them. The red was dramatically dulled down (from Cadmium Red Hue) to reflect cheap dyes and campaign weathering; the green (Sap Green as a basis) and blue (Prussian Blue Hue) were dulled down somewhat less. The horse colours (Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna) didn’t need much mixing beyond a touch of white – though the Siennas are a bit bright and I mixed a bit of the Umbers in.
After this I concentrated on finishing each unit in turn. The Russian units were in pairs of battalions from the same regiment, and each pair was treated as a batch. My worry was that if I did each colour for the whole assembly, I would start to lose the will to live, as the results would take so long to show – as well as the greater likelihood of mistakes. What did I paint? Flesh on the faces and hands; red or yellow facings on the cuffs only; brown for the muskets (where easy to reach) and the hair at the back of the head for the back row; dark grey for the pikes, cavalry boots and the scabbards for the rear ranks only of the infantry; I used a paler brown for the pistol pouches on the front of cavalry saddles . Accuracy was not a priority: blobs here and there where I could reach the spot with a brush. I ignored the legs of the infantry and the neckerchiefs; these aren’t visible enough. Finally some detailing. The hats got trim of white, yellow or gold. This detail really stands out when viewing the figures from above; similarly the karpuses had a contrasting lining colour (white or yellow – against he red main colour); silver for the bayonets, sabres and the pike trips; visible straps on the backs got quick attention too. The drummers and officers got a little more work (including the flags for the cavalry – a base colour, edging and a blob in the middle). And that was it. The final step was to wash the figures with diluted ink (peat brown or black).
Then, of course, there are the bases. I don’t go for the fashion of elaborate works of art; I don’t want the bases to draw attention away from the figures, and ideally I want them to blend with the table. At this scale my normal techniques of using flock, sand and/or static grass wouldn’t work – the strands and grains are too big – I just used paint and the texture arising from the basing material (i.e. the model railway ballast). It took me a long time (i.e. trial and error) before I settled on a shade of green that wasn’t too verdant or too grey – a combination of black, white, Yellow Oxide and just a little Sap Green. I then gave them a heavy highlight of a white and yellow mix. I also used a white and Raw Umber mix on some of them. I was left with the issue of the base sides. The MDF I am using for the bases is very chunky – typically I use much thinner material for bases, so as to blend better with the table. But I like the feel of the chunky bases, and it certainly makes handling easier – you can grasp the bases rather than the figures. But what to paint them? At first I tried a green to match with the table surface – but then I noticed that these edges were often shaded. I thought a bit of countershading might work, so I used a white and Raw Umber mix. Whether or not the countershading works (not really light enough from the pictures above), I did like the overall result.
The infantry represent three Russian regiments – Astrakhanski, Butyrski and Schlisselbergski, with two battalions each. Uniforms were subject to the colonel’s whim at this stage, and there was a lot of variation. Evidence for particular regiments is patchy, and my sources back in 2012 disagree with the most recent ones (a book from Helion), so there’s a lot of guesswork. I gave the Astrakhanski and Schlisselbergski green coats with red facings – the most common scheme, which later became the standard. I gave both of them a carpus for headgear in place of the usual tricorn – because I had a lot miniatures with these hats which needed using up (Bacchus don’t appear to sell them any more for the Russians) – these I coloured red and yellow and red and white (one of my existing regiments has a green and white karpus – allowing a ready distinction between the three units). The Butyrski regiment I gave red coats faced yellow, with tricorns with yellow trim. I haven’t given them their flags yet – I’m waiting for colonel’s flags with eagles, though I have coloured company flags from Baccus. I painted the regimental artillery crew in the uniform of the parent regiment (though with tricorn hats in all cases), but the gun itself in red, as used on the bigger guns.
The Schlisselbergski infantry.
The Swedish cavalry represent the Småland and Nyland Indelt regiments, along with the Gyllensterna and Taube dragoon regiments. These all had the standard Swedish blue uniforms; I decided not to try and represent the yellow breeches or coat turnbacks, with facing colours (yellow, red or blue coat colour) on the cuffs only. On the Swedish infantry it will be worth a dab of yellow on the front for the breeches and turnbacks for the front rank at least.
The Nyland Indelt cavalry
And that was it. Alas my photography at this scale is a bit weak, so I’m not giving much of an impression of the result. They are a bit dark maybe (but they need to fit in with my earlier figures) – perhaps an example of the rule that you should use paler colours for smaller scales. But the results work on the tabletop – the Impressionist approach works, and is certainly quicker than attempting too much detail (and correcting minor mistakes). I did need to repaint the bases on my earlier figures to make the assembly more coherent – but I didn’t like these earlier bases anyway – they were too bright and too dark. I will move straight on to next batch, which will add four Swedish infantry units, along with two more units for the Russian Guard, a Swedish heavy gun, a Russian mortar and more limbers.
And now to the last of my recent batch of US aircraft: the A-36 Apache. Unlike the other two aircraft, which were more or less ubiquitous to the US war effort, this one had limited use. But t it was one of the most important aircraft types in US use in 1943 in the Mediterranean theatre, especially in the ground attack role – so bang in scope for my project. There were very limited options for modelling it though – with the Brengun kit being the most obvious. It wasn’t a great kit, but much easier than the RZ P-38.
The A-36 is, of course, an early version of the North American Mustang, which in its P-51 incarnation became one of the most important aircraft types in the war. It was named “Apache” by the makers, but this never caught on. In theatre there was a move to call it “Invader”, but eventually the name of its fighter cousin was the one generally in use. It was powered by an Allison engine, as were the first P-51s. This rendered disappointing performance at higher altitudes, and it wasn’t until it was powered by the Merlin engine that the type really came into its own. Doubtless this led to the development of the ground attack version, where it would operate primarily at lower altitudes. This included the fitting of dive brakes, which allowed it to do near-vertical, Stuka-like, dive-bombing attacks. I’m not sure how often it used this capability, which required experienced pilots, and I think it more typically used shallower dives (like the RAF used for the P-40 Kittyhawk, its equivalent aircraft). Its successor, the P-47, did not have this capability. Some were armed with four 20mm cannon – but this option was not available in the Brengun kit, where the plane has six 0.5in machine-guns, including two in the nose. The aircraft could look after itself if it met fighter opposition, and, apparently, 86 kills were claimed in combat, with one ace. It was used as an escort fighter on occasion, but wasn’t so popular with bomber crews, as it was easy to mistake its profile for the Bf-109 or Fw-109 – as well its lack of performance at higher altitudes. A-36 was highly effective in its fighter-bomber role, apparently, but suffered from high casualty rates. That partly went with the job of tackling well-defended targets at low altitudes – but there were structural vulnerabilities, especially compared to the P-40 and P-47. They were in use until well into 1944, though.
The kit was OK-ish. There was the usual lack of lugs and recesses to hold parts in place, and no undercarriage up option. But the undercarriage doors weren’t too hard to fit. Some parts didn’t fit properly, especially on the underside. That included the air intake, and the vent behind it, which left an ugly gap. The air brakes for the underwing didn’t fit either (thought the ones on the top of the wing were OK). I ended up by bodging the intake a bit, but this is invisible from most angles. The rear cockpit was a bit awkward, as the overhanging bit of the fuselage above of the rear side windows was moulded into the canopy part. This mean it had to be seamlessly integrated into the fuselage, and then painted (which is trickier on acetate). There was no question of adding the canopy after the paint job, as I did with the P-38. But I now understand that this is usually better anyway. Filler helps integrate it with the fuselage. I didn’t do an especially nice job with the aerial, but this was tricky, as it required a hole to be drilled – not easy on acetate.
I decided to model plane 42-84067, which was included in the decal pack, and on the box art. But the decals were for 1944, when it had completed lots of missions. I wanted it as it might have looked in Sicily or Salerno. That meant the only decals from the box I used were the number and the ID stripe on the tail (which probably dated from this time). The over painted battle ID letter “A” was almost certainly later. The national insignia needed the red outline, so I used my trusty sheet from eBay. It has the yellow ID stripes on the wing, which seem to be standard on US single-engined aircraft in the Med. These stripes were painted first and then masked – as overpainting pale colours onto Olive Drab is hard work. Nevertheless the yellow paint was didn’t go on very nicely, and it looks a bit rough. As with the P-38 the red spinner is a bit bright in hindsight.
And that’s it – an interesting aircraft to support my tabletop forces, which ended up looking pretty good.
