What's going on...Samurai, Sikhs, Colombians and ModelZone

Everyone's regular blog posts are really encouraging me to get back to painting at present.  I took a whole load of wargames magazines to Cowes with me and even managed to read some of them.  I'm back in Cowes for a few days while my son does a powerboat course at the Royal Yacht Squadron.  Looking at the magazines there seems a big buzz about Samurai at present but, I feel, it's always going to be a minority interest because of the time needed to paint an army.  It's like the Hundred Years War; you pretty much need to do nothing else. As a wargaming period it has seemed like it was always going to the next big thing for about forty years now.  It's like hypersonic aircraft. We're still waiting.  That 1973 cover of Military Modelling with that huge samurai archer figure being the start of it.  A few years ago my friend bought a computer game Shogun: Total War and had me try it out as he wanted to see how a (not very active at that time) wargamer would get on against a non-wargaming computer gamer (slighly better it turned out, after a few tries).  I was tempted when the Perry Figures came out and I had a whole selection of Stephen Turnbull (the Samurai answer to Ian Knight) books but it never came to anything (like most of my projects) so my Samurai Wargaming was confined to one game I had years ago.

Skirmish Samurai is something else, however, although I am not an aficionado of Samurai films.  I admit to never having seen The Seven Samurai (I have never seen The Magnificent Seven either!).  I have seen Ran and Kagemusha and that's it (well, apart from Ai no korîda which I went to see with S-A some years ago.  She was...surprised but delighted with it's, er, alternative look at Japanese culture).  In fact this is one of the issues I have with Samurai Japanese wargaming - I just don't identify with the culture.  This is why Divine Wind was the only WAB book I never bought.  I am also not interested in Koreans, Mongols, Ancient Chinese or those elephant war games that appeared at the shows a few years ago.

Despite, my anti East Asian wargames stance (although I love my Chinese back of Beyond Army) however, I am still considering the new North Star figures to go with Ronin but then of course I would need to buy some buildings.  It is the availability of these in laser cut form that may tip the balance for me and, indeed, others, I suspect.

Studio Miniatures Sikh Wars

The problem is that not only did I buy all the In her Majesty's Name figures and rules I bought in to Empire of the Dead and Wargods of Olympus (over £350 worth for the latter).  Last week I also joined the Kickstarter for Studio Miniatures Sikh Wars Range.  My interest in this being engendered by Flashman and the Mountain  of Light and the fact that I have a tiny, tiny bit of Sikh blood myself (something like 1/64th). These figures are looking completely splendid and it has got me getting some of my Indian Mutiny figures out to finish.

Orinoco Miniatures British Legion now based

I am also pleased with the way Orinoco Miniatures South America wars of liberation range is progressing with peasant uniformed Colombians promised soon, they tell me.  I got the British Legion figures I bought based today.  So far I have a set each of advancing, firing line and command. They have now come out with flags too. One thing I think about firing line figures, though, is that I feel that half of them should always be in firing poses, rather than the two out of six we have here.  I will get sand on the base and undercoat them soon although I have to concentrate on my Roman Galley for Big Red Bat's game at Colours.  

Anyway, all in all I don't need any new figures for a bit, I just need to paint some of those I have got!  Just before I left for Cowes I did put the base flesh colour on some of my In Her Majesty's Name figures so hope to get a faction finished in the next few months. 

Going, going...

One thing I discovered on the Isle of Wight was that Hurst, the local ironmonger, has changed the supplier for their washers and my favourites are no longer available. I've probably got a hundred or so left but after they are gone I will have to start using, unwillingly, one pence pieces which are exactly the same diameter but rather thicker.  These work out cheaper, actually, than the washers but I don't really approve of defacing the Queen's currency and I think it may be illegal!

Modelzone Holborn

While I was away last week I read that ModelZone had gone bust.  I used to go into the ones in Holborn and Kingston quite often and have bought from them a whole load of model kits I have never built.  As usual internet shopping was blamed (along with an over-zealous expansion strategy which was the more likely reason) but, oddly, I have never bought a model kit on the internet. My purchases were always impulse ones at ModelZone or Addlestone Models.  What I did use ModelZone for was stocking up on Humbrol paint and plastic filler which I use for the bases of my figures.  Six months ago I noticed that they had started stocking Flames of War and Warhammer for the first time.  I was worried that the easy availability of the former might tip me that way (and that would also be Scott's fault!).  It seems that the former owner of the chain wants to buy a number of the stores but administrators Deloitte only want to sell them all in one lot. Ten shops have closed already (five today). Hopefully it will be like HMV and we will see it survive.  Sadly, I suspect that in a recession most modellers have sufficient backlog at home (yes Fraxinus I am thinking of you!) to make stopping spending on kits fairly painless. That, and of course surplus kits can be bought and sold on eBay, hitting sales further.

So I am looking forward to getting back down to doing some painting but have very little time.  I am away for the Bank Holiday at a grand house party for my mother in law's 80th birthday.  I have to take my daughter to university in Edinburgh (if she gets the grades tomorrow - or the Day of Doom as it is known in our household- there was one dodgy paper everyone was ranting about) which is another weekend lost.  In October I am going to Poland again and, possibly Denmark and then in November its back to Colombia and possibly Panama and Costa Rica.

Anyway, I need to go and buy some super glue so I can finish the main parts of the Roman galley and get it under-coated this week!

Military Museum, Bogota

When in Bogota recently I had the chance to go around the small but interesting military museum there. It's built around a courtyard which holds some examples of artillery used by the Colombian armed forces over the years.

Not surprisingly, given the nature of the terrain in the country, it was largely of the mountain gun or heavy mortar type.  I was pleased to see an example of the De Bange mountain gun there which will feature in my Zambezi Campaign in due course.

De Bange

Other artillery there was of German or Czech manufacture.  The Colombians seem to have bought their equipment from a variety of sources over the years.

Rheinmettal

Skoda

There were a couple of aircraft outside the museum including a Lockheed T33.  Colombia bought some of these Canadian-built Silver Stars, which is what the Canadians called their version of the Lockheed  Shooting Star, in 1954 as the country's first military jets.

I think that the Colombian space programme needs a little bit more work, however.

Inside there were a number of rooms devoted to the navy the airforce and several to the army.  I hadn't realised that Colombia had 4,000 troops that fought in the Korean War!  The first historical room featured the Colombian struggle for independence with a lot of uniform prints of Simon Bolivar's army and even one of his cloaks.

The Battle of Boyaca in Colombia by Martin Tovar y Tovar

They had several full sized uniforms as well. In the earlier period the Colombian troops were not exactly well equipped and many didn't even have firearms.  By the time of the Battle of Boyaca in 1819 they were  equipped with British muskets however.

By the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 the armies of what was now known as Gran Colombia (consisting of Colombia, Venzuela, Ecuador, Panama, Northern Peru and North West Brazil) were more formal in the typical, colourful Napoleonic style.  

Gran Colombian troops at the battle of Carabobo (in what is now Venezuela) by Martin Tovar y Tovar

Needless to say I thought it would be great if someone made 28mm figures for this period.  No sooner had I got home than I saw on The Miniatures Page an announcement about the fact that Orinoco Miniatures in Prague had just released some figures for the British Legion for the period.  Up to 7,000 British (and Irish and German - ex KGL) fought in the British Legion of mercenary troops in Simon Bolivar's army and their contribution was critical to Bolivar's victories at Boyaca and Carabobo.  More British than Colombians died in the battles for Colombian independence, I was told on my recent visit to Bogota.

I placed an order Friday night and they arrived the following Wednesday morning.  These are really lovely figures; virtually identical in size and proportions to Perry Miniatures figures.  The detail is superb with no flash and hardly any discernible mould lines (North Star take note!).  If anything, the detail is even crisper than the Perry figures with none of that guess work you sometimes need on an obscure strap or belt. Very, very impressed with these with Spanish on the way (see their blog) and Gran Colombia troops next.

I was over at Mike Lewis' house (of Black Hat Miniatures) this evening, picking up some of his old scenic boards (more on which another time) for my Zambezi project and he told me that Parkfield Miniatures also did some nice South American Wars of Liberation troops.

Just what I need, another period!