'Bring up the Guns. The British are Landing' - Egypt, 1801

In the early spring of 1801 General Friant, commanding approximately 2000 French along with 10 guns, obstructed the British amphibious landing at Abukir, near the Nile Delta, causing serious casualties amongst the Redcoats assembling on the beach. 

Under the hot Mediterranean sun, enduring a fierce bombardment, the British managed to gather enough men, send them forward with the bayonet and force the French away from the heights commanding the landing area. This campaign ultimately led to the French surrender at Alexandria on September 2nd and their ejection from Egypt (and, as part of the spoils, securing the Rosetta Stone for the British). 

This small 28mm vignette is from Brigade Games. The palm tree is home-made: wire wrapped with medical gauze, painted and then topped with hot-glued artificial leaves (my thanks to Brian H for the recipe for this).

The group  images show some mounted troopers from the French Dromedary Corps which I painted last year. The obelisks are from Scotia Grendel the desert mat is from the good folks over at Barrage Miniatures.

 

The Limerick Twins - 'See You in the Funny Papers...'

(Please excuse this cross-post from the Challenge blog.)

We played a big game of ‘Strange Aeons’ the other night and I quickly realized that, while I have quite a good collection of nasty beasties, I'm woefully short of heroes or, well, at least humans unencumbered by eyestalks, creepy robes and tentacles. True, I have a few figures set aside for my continuing ‘Carro Family’ pulp project, but my collection needs a big injection of two-fisted heroes and savy heroines to do the heavy lifting for the Good Guys in our games. So I put on my winter boots, toque and parka and tromped off to the ‘Lead Shed’ to see what I could excavate as possible candidates. 

As it turns out I have more than a few castings from Copplestone, Pulp Miniatures and Musketeer that fit the bill, and all of them are just crying out to be introduced to a paintbrush. 

As a result, I present to you the first pair of figures of what I hope will be an expanding series of guys and dolls from the interwar period: ‘The Limerick Twins’. 

The Twins are Sean and Sioban Ryan, a pair of talented ‘cleaners’ who have recently emigrated from the Emerald Isle to make their fortune in America. 

The Ryan twins are known (or perhaps notorious) for their preternatural connection with one another and as such are very difficult to surprise, always working in tandem, covering each others' back. We’ll have to see if they have the Luck of the Irish when they make their debut on the tabletop. 

These figures are from Copplestone Casting’s excellent ‘Gangsters’ range. I’ve decided to paint them in an over-saturated, quasi ‘Dick Tracy’ style – something I may try to continue with a few more figures just for the fun of it.

In watching the last season of ‘Boardwalk Empire’ one of lines that stuck with me was 'Lucky' Luciano saying, ‘See you in the funny papers.’ So as a tip of the hat to this I thought I’d add a few pages of discarded newsprint at their feel along with some still-hot spent .45 shell casings from their Thompsons. 

'Here's looking at you, kid...'

Proof of Concept - 3mm ACW Regiments at 1:1 Scale

(Note: This is a cross-post from the Challenge blog.)

Alright everyone, this post exhibits a certain amount of nostalgic obsession and nerdy madness so please bear with me.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated by miniatures and their relative scale. I have great memories of packing my Airfix plastics out into the garden and placing them at distances relative to their size (or the best I could determine, as math has never been my strong suit). So when the British were deployed amongst the peas and potatoes, and the Germans settled in amongst the corn and cabbage, they all somehow related to one another and therefore seemed more real to me. 

Anyway, when I started getting into historical wargaming in my teens I understood the need to abstract scales in order to fit scenarios onto tabletops, but I still held a desire to see these historical formations in their true form, at distances that reflected how the men of the various periods gathered, moved and fought.

Don Troiani's work seems to capture what it must have been like to live within the chaos of black powder battles...

These 3mm (1:600 scale) ACW figures (yes, they are very, very tiny) are from Pico Armor. I picked these up a few years ago in a fit of madness knowing I could finally indulge my fascination with 1:1 scale formations. I started working on a few bases, but soon became distracted by other projects (I know, how typical). Nonetheless, I found them tucked away in a drawer the other week, so pulled them out, the spark took light once again and so here we are.

What you see here is two American Civil War Confederate regiments. The one regiment on the left is made up of close to 500 figures while the other is about 340. These numbers align roughly to the historical strengths of average, campaign-strength ACW formations.

Each regiment is made up of 10 bases, with each base being a complete infantry company at 1:1 scale.

Below is a great educational photo. You can clearly see the incredible length of a mid-sized regiment drawn up into line (with another regiment in the distance). When I see this I’m immediately struck by what must have been a huge challenge of command-and-control for officer to exert their will over such a strung-out formation. I look at this and understand that having a good cadre of experienced NCO’s and junior officers was an absolute necessity for having any kind of battlefield effectiveness. 

Both regiments drawn up in line.

When you see the same regiments drawn up in open and closed columns it illustrates why so many generals (certainly in the Napoleonic period) liked to keep their soldiers in more compact formations as it enabled them to be better controlled and also it had a morale effect as they typically gained confidence by the closeness of their comrades. 

Column of divisions, two companies wide at full intervals.

Close column, two companies wide. Highly inefficient for combat but much easier to control.

Column, one company wide and at full intervals for ease of maneuver.

The 3mm farmhouse is from Pico as well. I’ve placed it on a pill-shaped base and made a snake-rail fence out of cut card ('Nells' the workhorse is in the paddock). 

Painting in such a tiny scale required me to rethink how I approached the whole process. The sculpting detail is surprisingly clear so it would be easy to go down the rabbit hole and attempt to paint these figures as individual models. But that way madness lies. Instead you have to think of these strips of figures merely as components of a mass and not get drawn into details that nobody will ever see. So with this in mind I primed them black, drybrushed them light grey, thin coat of brown wash, popped in three blobs of flesh for their faces and hands, brown for the musket stocks, bright silver for the bayonets and then put in some varied colours for blanket-rolls and hats. That’s it. Done. 

My first base. I has the Regimental Colours as part of a company (which is incorrect).

To me, the trick to doing microscale figures often comes down to the basing. It has to be minimalist enough for the figures to be clearly identified, but not so stark as to leave them looking simply like little nubs on strips. These come in strips of eight figures, so I mounted them in two ranks, but situated them off center on the base so players have a better sense to place facing the same direction (more on this in a moment). Then I used a smooth gel medium to build-up the base roughly to the edge of their bases so they are better masked. Once the gel medium cures I then drybrushed them shades of light brown and then use a green semi-opaque emulsion to infer grass. The only basing material I’ve used with these is a few traces of clump foliage to mimic bush and brush.

When I first started basing these I quickly realized that players needed some sort of visual queue to which way the units were supposed to be facing. So with this in mind I decided to design a special base for the colour party. As you see here it’s shaped roughly like an arrow with a rectangular tab at the rear in order to place unit identification (thanks to Martin at Warbases for manufacturing these for me). As an experiment I’ve tarted up one of these bases with a small piece of L-shaped plasticard and rare earth magnets so nameplates can be easily ‘clicked’ into place but otherwise be stored separately.

The Colour Party with arrowhead front and rear tab.

Magnetized rear 'L' tab.

I’ll be up-front right now in saying that this project is largely just a silly aesthetic and intellectual proof-of-concept, but who knows, if I get enough stuff accumulated I may try using something like ‘Black Powder’ to do a clash of brigade-sized forces in 1:1. Otherwise I think I may use four of these bases along with a colour party base to serve as a regiment in ‘normal sized’ games like Longstreet’. 

I have an artillery battery that I’m currently working on but more on that later. I’m not really sure if I’ll expand on this collection that much as what I’m really keen to do is Napoleonics in this scale. I have a suspicion that massed cavalry formations would look amazing done at 1:1 scale…

Thanks very much for sticking with me through this overly long post!

28mm Russian Civil War Sailors, Commissar & Austin-Putilov-Kregesse Armoured Car

(Please excuse the cross-post from the Challenge blog)

In 1963 the Soviet Union released the film ‘Optimistic Tragedy’.  It won ‘Best Revolutionary Epic’ at Cannes that year (though one wonders how many other films were in the running) and within the Soviet Union it took in 46 million tickets at the theatres (again, ticket ‘sales’ may have been encouraged by the state or perhaps even made free). Politics aside, it was regarded as an important film and was credited for its technical authenticity and production quality.

'Optimistic Tragedy' - Yes, only the Russians could come up with such a title for a movie...

The movie tells the story of a Russian Naval unit which comes under the leadership of a female commissar (named simply ‘The Commissar’) played by Margarita Volodina. The film centers around the struggle for the control (and identity) of a band of anarchist sailors during the Russian Civil War. This group of sailors basically has acted as a self-governing detachment until a female commissar is detached from Party headquarters to bring them under the wing of the Red Army. 

Russian Sailor Beefcake

The plot will remind many of today’s viewers of the movies in which a steely-willed teacher slowly civilizes a classroom of unruly teenagers. It's a historically interesting film, and so inspired by it, I thought it a great opportunity to put together a small vignette depicting a female commissar who is urging forward her unit of Russian sailors for the glory of the Revolution.

Historically the Russian navy provided some of the highest quality cadres for the Bolshevik cause. They were often committed to hardest fighting in both the Revolution and the Civil War – they were depended upon for their professionalism, aggressiveness and steadiness under fire.

A.Z. Zhelezniakov, a Russian sailor who became a prominent Bolshevik commander during the Civil War.

Ironically the sailors themselves became some the last casualties of the Russian Civil War.  In 1921, when based back with the Fleet at Kronstadt, they made demands for the return to the original purpose of the Revolution, namely free elections, free speech and free right of assembly. They were swiftly labeled as counter-revolutionaries and were attacked by approximately 60,000 Bolsheviks, who stormed them over the ice at Kronstadt harbor. After fierce fighting, where they caused appalling casualties amongst the attacking Red Army, the sailors either surrendered or escaped into exile in Finland. Overall, it was an embarrassing closing chapter for the Bolshevik's revolution.

The sailors seen here are all from Copplestone Castings. Wonderful models with very little cleanup required - a real joy to paint. I’ve done them up in a mix of either their regular blue or white(ish) dress trousers.  I did this to add some variation as many of the poses are virtually identical so I reasoned that some men could have resorted to their dress trousers when they wore-out their blues.

The female Commissar is also from Copplestone. On the same base I’ve added a NCO from Footsore Miniatures (previously Musketeer). I had them both based, primed and ready to paint when I realized he had epaulettes on his shoulders and an Imperial rosette on his cap. This is a BIG no-no with the Bolsheviks, especially after December 1917 where they made it mandatory to remove all symbols of imperial rank. In fact it was regarded as a damning insult to be called a ‘Golden Epaulette’ in the Red Army. Anyway, knife and file were duly brandished and the offending insignia was removed so he could be a proper 'Soldier of Equal Rights'.

As with the squad of Whites that I did a few weeks ago, I’ve placed flowers in the groundwork which aligns with their political affiliation (though with all of these fellas being festooned with red armbands and accompanied by a commissar who's waving a honkin’ huge red banner it does seem like a bit of overkill, oh well…).

The vehicle seen here is an Austin-Putilov-Kegresse halftracked armoured car. The Kegresse variant was particular to the Bolsheviks who modified twelve Austin cars to this halftrack model.  The machine gun turrets were off-set to better allow overlapping fields of fire (and just in case you're wondering, the shields on the sides of the guns were designed to protect the barrels’ water coolant casings from being holed from incoming fire).

This 1/55 scale model is from Copplestone Castings and while a bit small for my liking, was a very easy build.  Nonetheless, when I originally unpacked it I discovered that while the resin body was excellent, some of the white metal parts were flawed in that they were missing some of their edge detail, and the existing detail was rather soft.  I sent a note to Mark Copplestone outlining my concerns to which he immediately replied, apologized for the defects, insisted on sending out another model of equal value (post free), and also stated that he would pull the Putilov model until the quality issue was resolved. Wow. Now, how’s that for excellent service?! I'm very impressed and must thank Mark again for being such a gracious vendor, he’ll definitely be getting my business again soon.

Magnetics installed for the turrets.

I painted this model in a two-tone camouflage pattern which I understand was typical to the period. Photographic evidence suggests that some of these vehicles operated without any insignia or slogans so that is what I went with here (and it allows it to be used as a captured vehicle by the Whites, Poles or even for Pulp gaming).

Next up... either some Napoleonic Spanish Guerrillas or something in micro-scale...

15mm Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) Raiders and Targets of Opportunity

Here is a LRDG raiding patrol along with some Stukas, supply dumps and fuel depots to serve as appropriate targets.

When I first saw these 15mm models released from Battlefront a few years ago I knew I wanted some to create some sort of airfield raid scenario. 

I don’t know about you but as soon as I look at a Chevy 30 cwt, festooned with all its gear, automatic weapons pointing everywhere, and packed with bearded maniacs it just screams for sh*t to blow up. 

'Yoo Halloo! Lock and load the Twin-Ks lads, we're going to partaaay!'

So, with that in mind I’ve been picking up assorted ammo dumps fuel depots, etc from Battlefront and Baueda for the raiders to mess with.  (Thanks to Nick for the tips on crate/drum colours.) I hope to make up around a dozen of these as targets as targets for the LRDG raiders.

The fabulous desert mat is from Alf over at Barrage Miniatures. It’s roughly 8x5 feet and will serve admirably for our future North Africa raiding game (and I imagine for any post apoc games). 

Alf's (from Barrage Miniatures) desert mat

...sorry for the glare on this image...

The Stukas are 1:100 scale diecast models I picked up cheap-as-couscous on eBay. I’ve dorked around a bit to dirty them up with some sand erosion and exhaust staining but otherwise they are pretty much stock. Again, they exist purely to sit on the airfield and get blown to smithereens. (I'm on the search for a 1:100 scale Ju-52 to serve as another juicy target...)

I’m thinking of either modifying ‘Formula De’ or ‘Chain of Command’ for the core rules (who knows, maybe I’ll mash them together). It will be a quasi-cooperative game where each player will command a single vehicle along with 2-3 LRDG raiders - the 'winner' being the team who amasses the most damage points, while still managing to stay alive and escape.

I need to find some sort of tents or Quonset huts for the aircrews and airfield staff. If anyone has ideas I’m all ears. I’m also working on some Afrika Korps personnel and assorted vehicles and equipment but that will be covered in a later submission.

Next up will probably be some more Russian Civil War stuff.