Roman 'eye-candy'

 

I will only torture some of my strictly historical followers with this final example from my ‘historical’ skeleton armies.

I was given these…sign posts?…telegraph poles?….with the request that he would like to see that I could come up with something.  To me they are kinda crosses.  I dug around my skeleton bits box and came up with straight arms with open hands and torsos and heads.   Crosses, well, crucifix I would imagine.  No legs left from all the other builds; but, hey, they are skeletons... the legs fell off at some point in the past!

“Eye-candy” for the Roman supporter.  Don’t mess with the Empire or this will be your fate…..

a Waterloo Square

I don’t usually start the new year with the traditional pledges to one-self regarding the hobby. These promises often (never?) come true and, like so often seen in military history, generals, as we wargamers, are often fighting/collecting the last war/our last impulse, only to be met with unexpected new weapons/toys to fight/paint.   Well, I have enough weapons/figures to keep me going without even thinking of what other wars/projects I might do!

So just trying to ‘clean-up’ those already in the to-do tray, including the many Napoleonic era Highlanders that friends have so kindly given me.  Decided to paint up two large formations of them, the 93rd and 42nd and mount them on 20mm rounds going them an individualistic look for a large square formation. Finally finished the second lot (the 42nd) on the first day of this year. This 97 miniature strength formation will form an interesting eye-candy ‘terrain’ piece for any large Napoleonic Waterloo all-cavalry affair our group might come up with after this Covid thing subsides.

Victrix plastic Highlanders.  To facilitate the easier painting of the kilts (ha!) I attached the arms with the interfering musket after doing the torso and the and painted them last.  

The Gordon's Square

Before the last convention - seems so long ago - I was given a bunch of Victrix Napoleonic era Highlanders so had gathered enough for a sizeable contingent.  As we were doing a Waterloo cavalry clash scenario I thought a square of infantry, or as it turned out a half-square, would be a good 'ground-filler' and obstruction for the swirling masses of cavalrymen.  I tacked these upon a chevron shaped board and had them in the battle.  However it seemed that most ignored them entirely, including myself apparently as I took no photos of them on the table! None. hmm. 

Fast forward to the recent days when I was playing around with the groups of miscellaneous "petal" bases a gaming buddy and entrepreneur had cut for me as samples ( as I am planning to order more in the near future!). 

3D-DZYN website for these bases and other good stuff.

I started arranging these and found that all the various 20mm rounds could be set up as a two-deep alignment and long enough to form part of a square formation, essential for facing a cavalry attack.  In this case, the rest of the square can be imagined off-table.

Of course the groups of bases can be placed in a line for those big-battalion games.

I would have liked more 'fill' in the square's centre (dead, wounded etc) but the piper keeping up the boy's spirits, plays his part.

French Cuirassier charge past

A couple of the lads show their contempt of the French efforts (old Westphalian Miniatures "rude Highlander" figures) 

If you look closely you can see the various groups of rounds.  I love the look as they do appear individual but can be moved as groups - good for aging wrists! See the link in the text for Ron's offerings. Added the dice frame on the Colours stand just in case it is needed in future games

Stretcher Bearers

The Perrys have created wonderful vignettes including a few ‘casualty’ scenes which I have painted.  The Russian one (link: post ) was built around their Apothecary Wagon to which I added their wounded.  The French Larrey’s wagon is marvellous (link: photo ).  Their ACW wagon (link: Perry site) I converted some of the figures to create one for the Belgian contingent of the 100 Days Campaign (link: my post ).

And so I wanted to continue the theme for my other contingents of Napoleonic armies.  So far no Prussian offerings.  Sigh.
For the British also nothing era related.  The new range of Cape War does offer a stretcher party. (link: photo ) I could work with that.

original Perry model from their website.

While the cuffs are wrong, that was easily remedied with removal and the lace painted on. The coat tails are longer but I left those; as too the rolled blanket-pack which I merely painted black to match the trotter style packs of the rest of my British collection. The very era looking heads or caps were cut off to be replaced with correct plastic versions.  I liked the stovepipe look better so went with those as they were used at Waterloo by some British and Hanoverian regiments.

While probably more just for eye-candy for the tabletop and fill in some of the open spaces, it could be employed to identify the zone of retreat for the army should it be required.

Another Napoleonic ambulance

Following a rather fun production of a Russian Field Station (link), I sought to do a "the after-effects of combat"  for each of my Napoleonic armies.  What this says about my phycology vis-a-vis playing war but having enjoyment with toy soldiers is something I do not want to contemplate - mainly as it takes away from the fun! But it is something interesting to look at and eye-candy to place within the blank spaces on the tabletop.

This Belgian ambulance started as the Perry ACW version ( link )  I coveted and which I saw the possibility to convert.  Surprisingly little was needed.  Of course the heads needed to be replaced as to provide the appropriate headgear.  I added tails and turnbacks to the tunics along with epaulettes and cuff-flaps. The Belgians often tucked their trousers into the half gaiters so the pants, together with  the era's mens fashion having them wear loose under shirt and suspenders, has the original ACW fellow standing at the back of the wagon not out of place and thus without need of change.

The wagon, perhaps confiscated from a hapless Brussels civilian, surrounded by the Perry casualty pack, sets the scene of the clean up of the carnage of Waterloo.

Murat

Will Murat ride again?  One of my tabletop figures is modelled after the famous Napoleonic commander which I created out of miscellaneous plastics and green stuff and which I am fairly proud.  However, as my wife loves to point out, he stays in a box much of the time.
 Then why the effort?  Indeed.

 I have too many interests and too many to do and already have too many miniatures to play with.  So why more?

Well, just as I finish typing these musings, she comes to me with the story of finding an old cook book, a treasure she once desired, by collecting cereal box tops!  She sighs as she states that she has never used any of the recipes and hasn't looked at it for years. It is stored along with the many others, mostly unused.  Enlightenment?  Nah. Probably totally unrelated.
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My Murat at the height of his game.

The Story of it's creation at:link

THE Borodino fictional character

For those who are into the Battle of Borodino ...and those lovers of classic great fiction and epic cinema ....and will no doubt recognize "Pierre" of Bondarchuk's movie "War and Peace" based on Tolstoy's work of historical fiction.  You can certainly find bits of the film on YouTube.

The figure, originally designed for the famous and usual depiction of the British General Picton and previously painted by me as an American militia commander. But I decided it was worth the little bit of effort to repaint him in the white-ish clothes of Bonarchuk's portrayal.

The figure is close to the costume and the addition of bits of tinfoil (!) serves as his spectacles. I created him up just for the humour of it as he observes the Russian forces in action.

Russian Artillery Reserve of Borodino model

The Russians love to have large amounts of their artillery "in reserve" and never more so than at the Battle of Borodino.  Unfortunately its commander forgot his duty, personally leading an attack and got himself killed, disrupting the whole command structure!

Rather than have model upon model of artillery, unrealistically filling up the tabletop,  I thought a more clever way was to have but one model (for the aesthetics alone you understand) and, as we represent the pips of the dice as a battery, to use dice to represent the many batteries the Russians could use.  The pips of these dice then are decreased as they are "moved" to replace the losses of those artillery stands in the fighting.

The two Russian armies which fought at Borodino had a combined 14 foot batteries and five horse batteries which are represented on the stand.  The Horse Batteries are distinguished on this base by the ammuntion box placed near one of the dice frames. One of the "what-ifs" of the game will be the allowance of all the Russian reserve artillery to be used.

The model is the three-horse ammo cart by Perry Miniatures and, as usual from them, nicely done - once all those little flash tags are removed from the metal pieces, of course (sigh).  I added some metal ropes which I had acquired at some point (when??) but match perfectly with the modelled parts on the horses!

Napoleonic French camp scene

Perry Miniatures has a pack called "Hired Help" which are French infantry used to help the artillery move the guns around.  These are shown at rest after their exertions.

 I added the two of them holding implements to an artillery stand with two spare artillerymen to give me an additional element.
 This left one holding a cord of rope (good for a wagon vignette) and three in rest poses.
Together with these miniatures, the Perry box pack has pile of backpacks and the addition of two half-stands of muskets to which I added a piece of wire across the two and glued a bit of jewelry chain and an extra old bucket. A few pebbles and bits of blackened balsa as a camp fire finishes the vignette.

 I thus imagined a small camp scene with a member of the Guard Train stoking a fire with two weary soldiers in conversation.

An aesthetic bit just to sit in the corner to fill some table space ....  time, as a wargamer way, well wasted.