More shopping and the penny drops!

It was all going so well.  My increased productivity on the painting front was making an impact (albeit an infinitesimal one) on the lead pile but in just a few days that all went horribly wrong.  First up, I bought some Great War Miniatures Crimean War British.  I know, I was going to not bother with this but it's down to the novel I'm currently reading.  

Next up were two packs of steampunk figures from Brigade Games.  These actually came out a couple of years ago but haven't been easily available over here until now.  Lovely sculpting from Paul Hicks but not in his usual slimmer style so they will go very well with the North Star figures.  There are some Russians which, with the addition of some Copplestone sailors, will make a nice company.  I also got a set of some British characters. I then ordered the Sleeping Dragon, Rising Sun IHMN supplement too, as it contains a company profile for Russians and, indeed, Afghans.  

Then a box I have been after for some time; the new Peninsula British from Warlord which have, at last, come into Orc's Nest.  I popped in there after having had a very long lunch in the Tate Gallery's excellent Rex Whistler restaurant yesterday.

Then I spotted on eBay something I had intended to order for some time: the Rorke's Drift set.  This was new with everything sealed or on the sprue and so for £84 instead of £175 was a positive bargain.  It was my first sight of the plastic British and they look rather better than I had imagined.  I will have to make a couple up to see how they compare with the excellent Empress metals.  The buildings will also see service on the Zambezi!

Finally, I found a pack of Foundry Darkest Africa tribal musket men on the floor while rooting around for the prize draw figures I should have posted seven weeks ago before my wife dropped half the contents of the utility room in my study while the builders were in (they are now on their way, winners!  I grovel in mortification at the delay).  I need these for my not at all forgotten Zambezi campaign.  Having run out of washers I actually put a couple on one pence pieces as an experiment and do you know, once painted you can't tell the difference of course.   Stress about washers solved.  Now where on earth can I get enough one pence pieces?

Last week

I've not had much time to paint in the evenings as it's that time of the year when all the City law firms have their client parties so I have been spending many evenings on rooftops in the city eating canapes and drinking usually rather good wine. 

Last night

Despite the excellent view of the City from the venue of last night's effort I left early to get some base colour down on my African musket men but not before someone from the government approached me and said they wanted me to go to Peru at the end of the month.  I need to dodge that one!  I actually haven't had an overseas trip for seven months now and I don't miss the international travel a bit, although I've been invited to Istanbul in November to judge an industry award so might do that one.  Only a four hour flight and I can stay in the Pera Palace!

One thing about not having an office any more is that you can have meetings in much more convivial locations.  This week I was interviewed by a magazine who also want me to write some articles for them.  

It turned out that a mutually convenient location was the South Bank so we managed to polish off a nice breakfast sitting outside Giraffe whilst watching all the fit young ladies running to work in the City.  I can't remember the last time I had breakfast outside; Poznan last year I think!  Another lunch out tomorrow, near St Pauls.  I think I better get back on my bike!

Shopping, shopping, shopping!

Oh dear, the lead (and plastic pile) has had some substantial additions over the last couple of weeks.  I've been very good about not buying much lately but the fact that I have actually completed a few figures has engendered a mad rush of purchases.

First off is Gripping Beast's "limited edition" Skraelings for Saga.  I saw these at Salute but they had run out of them so when I saw some on eBay I had to get them on the basis that they may disappear before I got them (which I am sure was Gripping Beast's cunning plan anyway).  I've always wanted to do Vikings v American Indians but could never find any suitable figures.  I'm not sure how historically accurate these are as they appear to be standard woodland Indians but with stone axes and spears.  I'm not sure they would have had buckskin leggings a thousand years ago but they are very nice figures at the bigger end of 28mm.  The only slightly disappointing thing about them is the comparatively limited number of poses which means quite a lot of duplication: not very good for skirmish figures. Still, I've based some and will try to get one painted in the next week or so.

Next up I went into Orc's Nest and they had a set of the new Victrix plastic Hoplites in there so I had to buy a box of those.  I haven't made any yet but they seem to be somewhere in size between the old Immortal (now Warlord) ones and the large Artizan (now Gorgon) Spartans.  I suspect that once painted they might all actually go with each other quite well.

Unfortunately I seem to be having meetings in and around Pall Mall quite a lot lately so Orc's Nest is never far away.  My latest trip into its gloomy depths saw me emerge with a box of Warlord's British Crimean infantry.  I had bought a set of eight of these some time ago and started to paint them but stopped when, annoyingly, I broke off one of the figures bayonets.  They are very delicate and I will have to watch this in future.  I had held off buying any more of these as it looked like they had abandoned the period but latterly we have had some wonderful cavalry figures appearing and the promise of plastic Russians.

Other than these boxes I took advantage of the newly reduced Foundry postage rates to get some African askaris for my Zambezi project, some AWI minutemen and a pack of naked Amazon hoplites for my Argonauts project.  In addition I bought the latest Hail Caesar supplement which covers the Dark Ages.

Jill St John demonstrates that the best figures are not necessarily made of metal or plastic

I was making my way back from Orc's Nest towards the National Gallery (I often arrange meetings in the excellent cafe there) when I took a short cut around the back and found a cinema book and DVD shop I hadn't seen before called, with great originality, The Cinema Store.  It had an excellent collection of film books and I picked up a series on Bond girls which had a lot of stills in it which were new to me.  It also sells Playboy (I have 546 issues in my collection), which is getting increasingly difficult to buy in the UK since W H Smiths stopped stocking it.

Orc's Nest is close to Foyles which has the best military history section of any bookshop I have been to.  Last week I picked up this book on uniforms of the America War of Independence.  I don't know how accurate it is but it is quite inspirational and has some excellent illustrations both modern and historical

Foyles used to stock pretty much all of the Osprey's but their selection, especially of the Men-at-Arms series, is much depleted these days so it's off to eBay mostly.  I picked up the Campaign Boston 1775 book, which is going to be the subject of my initial AWI units, for a good price.  I bought it for the battle of Bunker Hill (or Breed's Hill as it rightly entitles it) but notice that it also has a good account of the North Bridge action, featured as a Black Powder game in Miniature Wargames some months ago, which is what got me thinking about AWI skirmishing

I have been going to Oxford quite a bit lately and had another day there last week.  I picked up the new Osprey on the Roman Republican legionary as I am contemplating painting some more of these to go with the two small legions I have already.  Even better I had amassed enough Waterstones points that I didn't have to pay for it!

Go Bradley!

So now all I have to do is find somewhere to put all this stuff!  I did get a bit more done on my Back of Beyond Russians and they may be finished by this weekend, with a bit of luck, although I am spending quite a lot of time watching the Tour de France at present.  I can now paint and watch the Tour, however, as I have discovered I had a big problem with my internet connection.  Guy kept shouting at me as every time I went on the net it would crash his Xbox game.  He did a connection speed check and found we were getting a connection speed of 498K instead of 4-6MB.  It turns out that my useless ISP hadn't changed my line when I switched from dial-up to broadband so all this time I have had terrible connection speed without really knowing it.  It was only when Guy started playing online games that the problem became apparent.  A stiff letter is now being drafted.  But now I can watch live TV online and paint at the same time! 

Even more thoughts on the Crimea...

I am rapidly talking myself into this one, unfortunately. In the very little time I have had this week I have started to paint my eight Warlord Games figures. The Paul Hicks sculpts are very detailed in the Perry style, rather than the chunky Foundry style, which means the details are rather fine but already I am enjoying painting them.

I have now started to order some of the Gary Douglas Kilworth novels off eBay to keep me in the mood and have bought a few reference books. In fact I seem to have bought four books this week. An overall history, Crimea, by Trevor Royle which I managed to get for £4.99 instead of £14.99. Secondly, I picked up the Osprey Essential History as a quick primer. Another book The Thin Red Line, which is based on eyewitness accounts, by Julian Spilsbury has some nice colour illustrations. The Battle of the Alma by Ian Fletcher and Natalia Ishchenko covers the first major battle of the War and has some useful maps.

Finally, while sorting out the books on my shelves to find space for this new Crimea collection, I discovered I had already bought a book on the Crimea in the Isle of Wight in August so I must have been thinking about the period longer than I remember! This was the out of print Uniforms and Weapons of the Crimean War by Robert Wilkinson-Latham which has some great illustrations. I bought this in a funny little second hand bookshop in St Helens on the Isle of Wight which, nevertheless, has a great military history section. In fact, the basis of the whole bookshop business was a huge private colection of military books that the current owner purchased.

Just to give you an idea this photo is of just one of around three sections of military books they have.  I always find half a dozen or so books there when I visit, although it is by no mean a cheap bookshop. Expect to pay antiquarian prices for some of the older volumes. I have paid £60 or £70 pounds for nineteenth century accounts of the Sudan Wars.

Further good news from Warlord Games today with the announcement of a splendid mounted officer by Paul Hicks.

Off to Abu Dhabi for a week tomorrow so won't get any painting done this week. I am really hoping that this will be my final overseas trip this year but you never know...

Thoughts on the Crimea...

Laura in Bogota. Very much the acceptable face of government!

Well, I have just returned from a ten day trip to the Americas (Mexico City, Bogota and Houston) and accompanying me for much of the way (apart from the lovely Laura) was To Do or Die by Patrick Mercer.

Now I have never bothered with novels about the Crimean War (notably Garry Douglas Kilworth's books about "Fancy Jack" Crossman) as I never found it a very inspiring war (if there can be such a thing). My view has always been, informed by period photographs, that it was a very grim affair (as if any war isn't) fought in horrible conditions in a dull, treeless landscape. Perhaps it is the recollection of Roger Fenton's The Valley of the Shadow of Death taken on the battlefield of Balaclava.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death by Roger Fenton

I bought Mercer's book at the airport as I calculated that the novel I had packed wouldn't last me the five flights I had to make (correctly). The real reason I bought it was that he has written a sequel set during the Indian Mutiny, a period and theatre I am interested in and I felt I had to read the first book as a matter of course. The problem with it is that it is a very good novel indeed and so am now, not surprisingly, contemplating getting some Crimean War figures. In fact it is worse than that as I have actually ordered a pack from Warlod Games of their new range sculpted by Paul Hicks, whose Zulu War British for Empress are so characterful.

Warlord's elegant British line figures

Now, of course Great War Miniatures have just started a range as well and, in fact, have far more troop types out already. The problem is is that GWM seem to have missed the fact that 28mm figures are increasingly tending towards better proprtioned anatomy. As a result, given big bearskins and big beards some of their figures are somewhat gnomic.

Great War Miniatures Guardsmen gnomes

Warlord are claiming on their website that Hicks will create a full range of French, Russians and British (when will he have the time?) and I am more prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt as their other ranges so far have been admirably heading towards completeness.

95th Regiment troops 1855

Mercer's book features as its hero an officer of the grenadier company of the 95th Regiment and, as a former army officer commanding operational British troops he has a good eye for striking images and a good ear for the troops' badinage. It also gives a great idea of the fog of war in that the combatants have absolutely no idea of what they are doing most of the time. This is probably the key to my approach to wargaming it (if indeed I ever do) as having (eventually) enjoyed the Flying Lead rules then something using a small number of figures in a big skirmish at company level may be the answer. Possibly, even a 1 to 1 ratio.

95th Regiment 1855

Oddly, the book, which generally has such narrative drive that I finished it on one 10 hour flight, does slow a bit in the middle (he has to find a way to break the action to allow the hero to return to the Crimea for the final battles) and this begs the question as to why he didn't turn his story into two novels. Nevertheless, it is one of the best novels of nineteenth century warfare I have read for a long time.

95th Regiment

Another part of my interest in the period may stem from the Black Powder rulebook which includes a scenario loosely based on the Battle of the Alma. However, the fact of the matter is that the Crimean War contained a very few set-piece battles and little in the way of extended skirmishing (cf the Peninsula, for example) and for Britain it was, in reality, more of a naval war.

Crimean War? Surely not?

Great War Miniatures have announced today that they are starting a range for the Crimean War and so I have now started to think about whether I might get some of these figures, of course. I like GWM Great War figures without actually thinking they are (as was their intention) the ne plus ultra of World War One in 28mm. They have two sculptors and this is, I find, very apparent in matters of size and proportion. Some of the figures, such as the Early War British are lovely (although not as nice as the Musketeer Miniatures ones) but some, such as the Early War French I don't like as much. In addition they all tend to suffer from a rather old-fashioned "big head syndrome". I don't know whether the Crimean figures will have similar issues but the one they have put up on the Miniatures Page looks more than acceptable.

Anyway, in 28mm there doesn't seem to be much competition which begs the question whether anyone is really interested in the period. For me it has never been a period that appealed that much. Odd, given that it features a British Army in all its Victorian (and inappropriate) splendour. Partly, perhaps, it is too close in time to Waterloo and given a choice of two periods with redcoats and traditional cavalry I'd be more likely to go for the Napoleonic option. For a more modern war the American Civil War offers a more engaging choice with many and varied sized engagements and terrain. Basically my mental image of the Crimea is of (only a handful of) battles fought on freezing cold treeless, featureless terrain and rather too much siegework for an enjoyable wargaming period. The ultimate decision will be made, I suspect, by the figures themselves but these aren't due until 2010. If these are really spectacular (as they have the potential to be) then I may look at the period anew. Perhaps buying the Garry Douglas Kilworth novels might be a good (or bad) idea, especially given that, after the Crimea, his hero Jack Crossman ends up involved in the Indian Mutiny.

Something of a gamble for GWM I would have thought...