Huge relief...

St John's

Things have been very tense over the last ten days at the Villa Hedlius as my son, Guy, has been doing his common entrance exams and we have been waiting to hear about his result. We have been helping him with his revision for the last month and so I have had very little time for painting. Him passing these exams was by no means a foregone conclusion, as he is quite dyslexic (my daughter sensitively calls him "Yug"). He needed to get 55% in his core subjects of English, Maths and Science and an average of 55% in the others. We got the results today and despite failing French he managed to get enough on the others (including an A for physics: shock!) to get his place at St John's, Leatherhead.

Where I used to work

St John's alumni include the architect Richard Rogers (who kindly got his studio to make a scale model of the Lloyd's building, where I met my wife, for our wedding cake) and Anthony Hope, the author of the Prisoner of Zenda.

Serious uniforms in Ruritania

From a military point of view the most interesting old boy is Lieutenant Geoffrey Harold Woolley, who was the first Territorial officer to win the VC. He was a member of the Queen Victoria Rifles and his unit was posted to Ypres where on his first day at the front a hand grenade was thrown into his trench. Woolley calmly picked it up and threw it out saving six or seven men.

Woolley on Hill 60

On the night of April 20th-21st 1915 the Germans launched an attack on the trench held by the QVR. Soon all his superiors had been killed leaving him in command of the forces on Hill 60. He was ordered to withdraw but refused, saying he would only pull back if properly relieved. Waves of German troops attacked the position but Woolley stood on the trench parapet in full view of the enemy throwing bombs at them and encouraging his men to hold on. When eventually they were relieved their unit had been reduced from 150 to 20 men. Woolley was promote to captain two days later. He survived the war, served in North Africa during WW2 as a chaplain and died in 1968. His brother, who also went to St John's, was the famous archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley who excavated the Sumerian city of Ur.

Leonard Woolley (right) with TE Lawrence in Carchemish where they were excavating between 1911 and 1914

Now of course, I have all the expense of getting Guy's uniform and sports stuff so that will cut my wargaming purchases a bit this summer !

On the Workbench..

Black Scorpion pirate girl

After a rather disastrous May, when I only completed four figures, I have already had a much better first week in June getting nine figures finished this week. Apart from my Baluchis and my Elizabethan cannon

I also finished another Black Scorpion lady pirate and a Trojan War figure. The Black Scorpion figures are bigger than my Foundry ones but their girlie pirates are just irresistible! Next up I have some very Pirates of the Caribbean marines and skeleton pirates to do.

Ajax by Wargames Foundry

The Trojan is a Foundry Ajax figure and, like many of that range, is based on the illustrations in Peter Connolly's The Ancient Greece of Odysseus. Although this is a children's book, the pictures inside are wonderful; alternating between telling the tale of the siege of Troy and the Odyssey and sections on costume, warriors buildings etc.

Ajax from the Connolly book

I first got to know the story of Troy from a book about Greek heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green, which had evocative pictures of warriors fighting outside the walls of Troy. The Greeks wearing turquoises and blues the Trojans in red. The problem of differentiating armies for this conflict remains so I am considering, for my Trojans, giving them earth colours such as terracotta, red browns and ochres etc. A book I had as a boy on archaeology, by CW Ceram, introduced me to Heinrich Schliemann and the historic background of the legends.

The best hats in cinema history: Helen of Troy (1957)

Next, I remember seeing the film Helen of Troy (1957) at my uncle's house in about 1972. He had a colour TV a long time before we did (I think it cost £400!). The impact of the colourful Mediterranean backdrops, girls in very short pepla and thousands of extras attacking Troy with siege towers imprinted it in my memory and for weeks afterwards my Airfix Romans became Greeks as they tried to get into my Lego Troy. I even made a Lego Wooden Horse!

I'll be your dog! Brigitte Bardot in Helen of Troy

Watching it today, it seems, appropriately, rather wooden but contained some good battle scenes and a very young Brigitte Bardot as a slave girl. Actually, I have stopped being a fan of Brigitte Bardot since I lost my Ray Bans. We had anchored in the bay outside her house just round the corner from St Tropez and suddenly her dogs started barking. Unfortunately I was just climbing into our dinghy and the cacophony (she has a lot of dogs) made me jump causing me to lose my sunglasses into the sea.

I even enjoyed the 3 hour American TV version of Helen of Troy (2003) with the luminous Sienna Guillory.

Sienna Guillory as Helen

Wolfgang Petersen's Troy (2004) wasn't as bad as everyone said (well, apart from Brad Pitt and granted they completely changed the story...) and I liked their take on the wooden horse. Part of Troy was filmed in Malta and I had to spend some time  there a few years ago, working with the Finance Minister. My favourite restaurant was also Brad Pitt's, when he was filming there, and this had the distinct advantage of attracting lots of young women to the place.

Frankly, if its got Mediterranean scenery, galleys, girls in Greek frocks, chariots, big walls and a wooden horse I'll watch it!

Foundry archers

Some time ago I painted some Foundry archers for the Trojan war but lost interest given the limited figures in their range. Recently, however, we have had the Newline Designs Mycenaean range and they fit perfectly with the Foundry Trojans. I picked up a pack at Salute so may add them to the never ending list soon.

Currently in the active section of my workbench I have Perry Wars of the Roses cannon and crew, Foundry Masai, Empress miniatures Zulus and British, Galloping Major French Militia, Musketeer Russian GNW, Foundry Trojans and Crusader Miniatures Normans. I'm hoping to have a good go at them this month now we have finished revising with Guy for his common entrance exams.

Artillery piece of the month: Elizabethan Sea Dogs' cannon

Slightly late again for the May artillery piece. This is a more recent purchase from eBay and is designed to give some punch to my Elizabethan Sea Dogs as they roam the Atlantic looking for trouble. They are Mike Owen sculpts for Wargames Foundry's sadly short-lived Sea Dogs range.

More pictures on my Swashbucklers blog:

http://wargamesswashbucklers.blogspot.com/2010/06/sea-dogs-cannon.html

More on WW2 Norway

Norwegians by Valkyrie

Several people have commented that they would be more interested in the less usual WW2 fronts rather than Normandy or the Eastern Front. Well, I was just looking at TMP this evening and saw a post about the 1940 Norwegian campaign and a firm who were going to make some Norwegian figures. It turned out, as I feared, that these were 15mm, but someone else posted a link to Valkyrie Miniatures who do make a 28mm Norwegian range.

http://www.valkyrieminiatures.co.uk/

The figures look a bit crude compared to the Mike Owen ones but, hey, who else is likely to make Norwegians? I do like the prone figure too. Not enough manufacturers of modern figures do prone figures; given that is a common firing position in modern warfare.

I have found a picture of a Norwegian infantryman in my trusty Blandford Military Uniforms of the World so no excuse not to get any I suppose...

Gerbirgsjager by Brigade Games

Here is a picture of Brigade Games German Mountain troops which do look nice. The postage is a bit steep from the USA but there you go. I have also now acquired the Osprey so this is looking more and more like a proper project (another one!).

A small WW2 Diversion...

Artizan Designs 8th Army

I've always been slightly dubious about gaming World War 2 (or indeed any "modern" conflict) and still feel slightly queasy about people who build, for example, large SS units for the tabletop. However, as I have said before, both my father and uncle fought (actually fought) in World War 2 and this, added to the two WW2 novels I have just read, got me searching around in the lead pile for the pack of Artizan 8th Army figures I bought in a sale at one of the shows a year or two ago.

Thinking that the Norway campaign (which my uncle fought in) might make for some good skirmishes (having just read James Holland's The Odin Mission) I also ordered the Crusader Rate of Fire Rules as a pdf, although, sadly they seem to involve counters; which I detest on a wargames board. Maybe I will use the Great War rules instead as the Norway campaign had very little armour (none on the British side) so we are really just talking about infantry and artillery. I also ordered a squad of early British infantry from BEF Miniatures which arrived very quickly.

BEF's excellent early war British Squad. Seven rifleman (including an NCO) and a Bren gunner.

Mike Owen sculpted both the 8th Army and the BEF early British but they are somewhat different in style. With the BEF figures he went for more proportional rifles which makes them look much nicer than the over-sized guns and (especially) bayonets on the 8th Army figures. However, it's a small range so I will have to look for things like machine guns elsewhere. Crusader Miniatures do early British although they don't have the characteristic chest-carried gas mask cases which the BEF ones do.

For the Germans, Crusader do early WW2 figures (including MG 34 teams) and Artizan do figures in greatcoats (although the Norwegian campaign was in April and May it was still quite snowy). The figures I am really interested in, however, are the Brigade Games German mountain troops, which will be an unusual alternative.

The Artizan figures are easy to paint but I did have some trouble finding suitable paints in the Humbrol range. As a reference I have Brayley and Ingram's excellent Khaki Drill and Jungle Green which poses people in genuine WW2 uniforms. The nature of photographic reproduction being what it is, however, meant that in different pictures the uniforms the troops wore in North Africa looked completely different. I suspect mine are a bit too dark but it was either that or much too pale. I am happier with the colour of the webbing which definetely had a green tint to it. Here I mixed some Humbrol 72 (khaki drill) with Humbrol 120 (pale green) for the right shade. I have now based the rest of the 8th Army pack and have already started the Norway British (I've now painted their skin and the uniform base colour since I took this picture). Finding the correct colour for them was much easier, Humbrol 26, but theire is a surprising difference from my current tin and the one I am used on my WW1 British.

Although I am not going to get that many figures done for May I have quite a lot nearly finished so in the next week or so I hope to complete my Great Northern War Russian Command, my Elizabethan gun and crew, a couple of Norman Knights, some more Zulus and Zulu War British and my Wars of the Roses cannon.

Not painting in Switzerland...

Sir Henry Havelock: hero of the Indian Mutiny

Well, here I am in not very sunny Geneva with a lot of health ministers. This is a shame as my painting was going quite well lately. I finished a Gripping Beast plastic Viking test figure and will put up something next week on my Dark Ages blog. Not entirely convinced, I have to say.

Almost finished as well is the long awaited Musketeer Miniatures Great Northern War Russian command figures I bought at Salute and, likewise, I hope to have these on the blog before the end of next week. I'm also working on some more Zulu War figures, a couple of Fantasy pirates from Black Scorpion, some Foundry Swashbucklers, a Perry Wars of the Roses cannon, some Crusader Normans and my first Immortal Miniatures plastic Greek. The usual focus, in fact! Basically, I am trying to finish some of the figures that have been sitting on my desk for far too long. The Norman knights have made an appearance because we have been doing Hastings as part of Guy's common entrance revision and I enjoyed painting the Wars of the Roses mounted figures recently. I used to hate painting mounted figures until I discovered that if I stuck the figures on the horses before painting it was a lot easier.

I didn't have anything on my camera's card to illustrate this entry with except this bust of Sir Henry Havelock which is tucked away in the basement of the Lord Mayor of London's official residence, Mansion House. The bust is by William Behnes who was also responsible for the statue of Havelock in Trafalgar Square (which Red Ken Livingstone wanted to replace with something more ""relevant"). I took this picture a few weeks ago when I took Charlotte on "take your daughters to work day" and I arranged a tour of the Mansion House for her.

Anyway, given the paucity of pictorial material available to me it leads quite nicely on to my contemplation of Mutineer Miniatures Indian Mutiny range which is coming along very nicely; with new British Infantry, Gurkhas and Highlanders out (oh, no more tartan!). Also very welcome are the first scenic items which include some houses and we are promised parts of the walls of Delhi soon. The latter has helped crystallise what part of the war I want to concentrate on. Street fighting in the city fits more with the skirmish nature of the figures, I think. Anyway, it will be back to my Mutiny figures once I have cleared the current figures I am working on.

I notice that the first of the Great War Miniatures Crimean War figures are out and hope that I can resist these. I am still thinking about the Matabele figures but they are really too similar to Zulus to think about at present and I still have a lot of Ngoni to paint too.

Currently I am reading the novel The Odin Mission by James Holland which I picked up in the airport on the way out here yesterday. Its an OK time waster and those who say it is a World War 2 Sharpe are spot on but the war in Norway makes an unusual World War 2 setting. Militarily, it seems quite accurate even including the German Panzerkampfwagen Neubaufahrzeuge VI which was used in this campaign, where it performed rather poorly.

The original Panzer VI: way before the Tiger. Photographed in Lillehammer in April 1940

My Uncle Keith served in Norway with the Sherwood Foresters before transferring to the Airborne Division later in the war so I am, yet again, toying with the idea of getting a few WW2 troops for a skirmish game (The Two Fat Lardies rules for WW2 seem quite popular at Guildford). Failing that the Warhammer Great War rules would probably work for a platoon level game.

Right, it's time for a Martini I think. Let's hope my lovely new friend from Guyana is in the bar!

Artillery Piece of the Month: Zulu Wars Hale Rocket team

Well, one day late for April's artillery piece of the month but here it is. Empress Miniatures Hale rocket team with a couple of 24th Foot soldiers to assist.

More about it here:

http://zuluwargames.blogspot.com/2010/04/royal-artillery-hale-rocket-team.html