Having a merry little white Christmas

Season’s greetings, and here we are, or rather here I am, almost a year since I published my first blog post, almost three years since I ordered Go Strong into the Desert – where the gestation for this project began, and a year since I received my first order of figures from Perry Miniatures. Over 2,000 page views and three, yes three, followers.

Progress hasn’t been as rapid as I should have liked – even the lockdowns were filled with a major professional project, which is ongoing, and will continue to demand much of my time. Overall then, I am not too unhappy with my progress … I now have a clear idea of the structure of the project in terms of the overall scope, unit composition, army composition, modelling projects, and so on.

On the subject of unit composition, I have revisited this and decided to increase the RMLI and infantry companies to 24 figures, two half companies of 12. This was prompted while looking at the composition of the infantry unit in melee, which had been bothering me for a while. I concluded that the addition of some kneeling and reloading figures would give it more of the character of the eye witness sketches (usually worked up by the artists at The Illustrated London News or The Graphic). Rather than substitute figures I decided to add some, increasing the unit size.

I am now thinking along the following lines:
– Naval Brigade companies 20 figures
– Infantry and RMLI companies 24 figures
– Cavalry troops 6 figures, squadrons 12 figures

This allows for a standard size infantry unit of 24 (a company) for Black Powder and a regular infantry unit of 12 (a half company) for The Men Who Would Be Kings. Cavalry troops are a bit small for The Men Who Would Be Kings, but I think I can live with this, since I would rather not have expensive cavalry figures left over (given that there are three in Perry Miniatures’ codes). Much of this is about the look of the unit on the table … too few figures at 28mm just looks wrong. For the same reason I am making batteries units of two models.

Accordingly I purchased some extra figures; two sprues of plastic Afghanistan/Sudan infantry; six kneeling/receiving infantry; six firing/reloading infantry. I also bought some additional Beja riflemen and crouching spearmen.

White-out … undercoated buildings, tents for the British field hospital, and small barricades including one of sand bags … plenty of sand in the Sudan.

Undercoated RMLI (top) Naval Brigade (middle), Beja camel band, and Melton Prior, with Burnaby just out of shot … reloading, probably. (Did you see what I did there?)

Not much progress with these … I am replacing the flag bearer with a metal rifleman, since I want these fellows to be stealthy.

First Naval Brigade company

Finally! I had some time to prepare and prime my first Naval Brigade company. There are to be two, one in caps and the other in Sennet hats.

Naval Brigade organisation and operations ashore were specified with precision in the 1859 document Instructions for the Exercise of Small Arms, Field Pieces, etc for the Use of Her Majesty’s Ships. (The Long Arm of Empire, Brooks R)

Companies comprised 80 men, commanded by a Lieutenant, aided by three Petty Officers, and two Boatswain’s Mates or Midshipmen.

A ship of the line might be able to deploy two such companies, a frigate one, and a sloop half.

When companies were brigaded together they were commanded by a Senior Captain or Commander, aided by a Lieutenant (adjutant or brigade major).

Front: the first half company, commanded by a Lieutenant and Boatswain’s Mate, with whistle.

Rear: the second half company. I considered giving the Boatswain’s Mate a rifle with a cutlass bayonet, but fashioning the bayonet and cutting away the existing hilt was too challenging. Instead I equipped him with a Martini-Henry rifle without a bayonet, to which I added a tinfoil sling. The Petty Officer has had a bit of surgery – I substituted an arm and hand with revolver from the plastic Afghanistan / Sudan infantry set.

The crews for the Gatling gun battery are on the left hand end of each set.

Infantry units: to mix or not to mix

I have been thinking about the mix of figures for my RMLI and infantry companies, in particular the level of uniformity in the poses.

I have figures firing and loading from Perry Miniatures infantry firing line (SB9) and standing volley firing (SB10), and infantry in melee (SB12), so, Blu Tack at the ready once again, I thought to experiment with mixing the figures to see which I preferred the appearance of.

One of my objectives is to achieve some of the characteristics of the eye witness drawings published in The Illustrated London News, many of which are reproduced in Mike Snook’s excellent Go Strong into the Desert (highly recommended if you are interested in this era).

I also have an eye on future purchases, and the poses I am considering, particularly for Highland (Black Watch) and Mounted Infantry (KRRC) units, the former charging and the latter skirmishing. I am considering a box of plastic infantry to represent a company of the Royal West Kents, my late father’s regiment.

My preference is for a more standardised approach, for these two units, at any rate.

RMLI company with a mixture of volley firing, reloading, and melée poses.

Infantry company with a mixture of volley firing, reloading, and melée poses.

RMLI company with volley firing and reloading poses.

Infantry company with melée poses.

Infantry unit sizes and basing

I have been thinking about the sizes of my units from a number of perspectives: the number of figures specified by the rules I am considering (The Men Who Would Be Kings and Black Powder); the number of figures and different poses in each of Perry Miniatures’ packs; appearance – which will look right on the table; and cost.

With Blu Tack at the ready, and working with the figures I have so far, I considered: six other ranks plus two command figures, twelve other ranks plus two command figures, and eighteen other ranks plus two command figures. The six plus two option was for Naval Brigade detachments, since historically these units were usually small; but this just looked a bit mean when the figures were placed together on bases.

For now I have settled on twelve plus two for Naval Brigade detachments (I have enough figures for two of these), and eighteen plus two for other infantry companies (although I could see these going to twent-two plus two command figures).

I also need a couple of sergeants with fixed bayonets, so I will order an infantry command pack too. All this means that there will be a few spare figures, but I am certain these will find their way into other units or vignettes.

These combinations look right to me, should work with both sets of rules, and give a good visual distinction between the strengths of units from the different services.

I am likely to base four figures on a 60mm x 60mm base. This will give a slightly open looking deployment, which is informed by a post of Mike Snook’s on the (sadly, now defunct) Victorian Wars forum:

I have allowed a hypothetical one yard per two-rank file in calculating frontages, which is obviously an extra foot over the 24 inches of the ‘infantry drill’. There’s [sic] really two reasons for that. First this isn’t the drill square at Horse Guards, (where nobody fires volleys); rather it’s an undulating piece of rock-strewn desert. People give themselves that little bit more room to prevent the constant jostling effect that would otherwise arise from being dead shoulder to shoulder. Secondly, in order to fire, the book states that the rear rank men in the file come up on the left side of the front rank men. I have estimated the effect of these two things as being an extra foot per file. To be clear: two soldiers to each three feet of frontage where a company has turned towards the enemy and intends to fire a volley.

Naval Brigade, wearing sennet hats: six ratings plus two command figures.

Naval Brigade, wearing caps: twelve ratings plus two command figures.

The fellow on the left will be armed with a Martini-Henry rifle, which needs a sling and a cutlass bayonet.