Thursday, October 6, 2022

Mark's Little Soldiers

 I have rather bought into the concept of Faux Nostalgia since Mr Copplestone first started to talk about his Little Soldiers. In recent years with the emphasis being on ever more realistic figures and complex diorama style games I confess that some of the joy of gaming has gone out of my hobby.  Yes I have still enjoyed games and many have been inspiring (expensive) and thought provoking (expensive and involving the purchase of books) but somehow the playful element has been missing.  I remember knocking bits of scenery up from ripped up sponges dipped in green paint, old cornflake packests and chunks of balsa. 5 minutes later the |Airfix figures were swarming over them. 

So these simple, well proportioned and elegant figures have been a joy to paint, the only delay is in completing the infantry organisations and that will depend on release 2 and the choice of rules. 

I have opted for the Panovians and the Slovskans.  The Berglanders are too obviously germanic for me and the the objective is to field some small nations that fell out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

They have however been swept into my own alternate version of the 1930s that perhaps owes much to the style of the film Grand Hotel Budapest, the Sally Lockheart novels of Philip Pullman, and the wonderful and half remembered BBC Puppet Theatre programme of the 50s and 60s Rubovia. Here the King and Queen dressed in the style of Queen Anne, lived in a Heath Robinson equipped palace and were followed everywhere by the pet dragon "Pongo". 

So Not Panovia is now Rubovia (thanks BC), and Not Slovkia is Raskavia (thanks Philip Pullman) and I can even place them in the world with the help of the The Writer's Map, a useful book edited by Huw Lewis-Jones. 

Painting was intially quite fast. The figures cleaned really easily and were given an undercoat and base coat with a suitable olive green for the Rubovians, and a olive violet drab for the Raskavians. 

The high command, artillery and MGs for the Robovians look like this;




Those for the Raskavians will take a little longer, I am concentrating on one side at a time. 



Sunday, May 22, 2022

The Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp

 Tuesday last saw a visit to the Signals Museum at Blandford. I have been meaning to go for a long while but as with all things on ones doorstep as one can always go one never quite gets round to it.  

My cousin was eager to come along. His father had served in the Signals - 12th Air Detachment.  Their job was air liaison and they had need of GPO telephone engineers to manage the necessary land lines.  

The museum is interesting, especially for me the early part of the history of signalling in the British Army. One summer when I was about 12 my Great Uncle Son who had been an Engineer signaller in the 1st world war taught me semaphore and morse by flag.  We used to send across the valley from his home in East Haddon to my Grandparents' house in Ravensthorpe.  So the early telegraph systems and the admiralty version.  The wiring carts were interesting that were used to lay cables between telephone systems. Laid at the gallop with an out rider spooling the wire off the drum using a modified lance - well the video alone was worth the price of admission.

It was interesting too to see the development of the radio car, from a 1935 Austin 7 through to the vehicle radios and integrated command networks of today.  The set up of a Dorchester ACV in desert bivouac put things in place, as did the more modern Austin Truck. However after a while radios become black poxes with nobs on, or today sophisticated computers nestled into black rubber boxes to allow rough handling. 

Enough, some pictures


An admiralty pattern shutter telegraph from the Napoleonic wars


A wiring trolley from WW1 used to lay land lines.  These needed to be laid six feet deep so there was much digging.



Trench art; a chess set made from bullets and shell cases.


A 19thC heliograph


An early 20th C harness for a horse or Mule back "portable" radio.


A mock up of a telephone exchange in the trenches.

One of the Centre pieces of the WW2 exhibit, a Dorchester ACV


n Austin 7 Radio car from the 1930s. The first vehicle born radio system in the British Service


Portable Radios for the SOE - and Michelle of the resistance of course. 


Mule or Horse born set from the early 20thC  complete with its harness
 


And parked next to a Jeep a hand pulled radio cart which I think were used at the batttalion net level. One just stabilised using the drop doan stands at either end, and then put up the antennae. 


Slightly dark but this is a WW1 Horse drawn wiring cart that was probly pretty constant from the 1880s. Effectively a limber with the cart behind it  See the comments above. 


And finally round off your visit with a nice cup of NAAFI tea. The cafe was good if with a limited choice of food. And situated about halfway around the Museum at a convenient point, as it were. 

















Monday, May 9, 2022

A Grand Day Out

Finally. I went to the first War Games Show since I retired in 2019.  Legionary, run by Exmouth Imperials club. It was held in the livestock centre in Exeter.

|A small show with about a dozen or so games, and about the same number of traders. 

There were a couple of Wars of the Roses fights, Blore Heath and I think Hexham.  The first to some home made rules that had been massaged to take account of the peculiar circumstances of the battle, and the other to Never MInd the Billhooks.  Both look to have been good games and were moving at a fine pace with obvious enjoymnet by the participants.  Noth Devon had put on a Napoleonic Naval game at fleet scale. They were using the TooFatLardies Kiss Me Hardy! rules. The models were from Warlord Black Seas series, but mounted on clear plastic bases. The painting was super.  At the other end of the scale was a group who had set up a game of Epic Waterloo.  The figures were unpainted and the scenery was basic to say the least. But that was the point of the game.  To show that you can have a great game and huge enjoyment without all of the painting and preparation many of us go in for. It was certainly engaging the familes who had come to the show, and reminded me of the games with unpainted Airfix figures that were so much part of my growing up. 

Anyway - a few pictures;

































 I rather liked the two small participation skirmish games. Small tables and the scenery were card buildings. Simple and effective. 

A lot of work had gone into the WW1 Game which depicted 2 French Battalions attacking a German trench. 2 Battalions versus 1.  The game's creator was most enthusiastic and was thinking to publish the rules.  His scale was 1 figure to 3 men, and Battalion or Brigade level games.  I could not help but think that such games would be quite stale after a few games.  WW1 is one of those genres where less is more in terms of decision making. At platoon or company level, or at the highest level where one is effectively dealing with logistical matters and artillery.

I did like the 1940 game with the crashed Dornier.  The Walmington on Sea platoon was very much in evidence.

G

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Recycling an Old Army

 Way back in 1976 when I left college Minifigs released a line of figure for War of the Roses. As I later discovered they perhaps owed more to the Froissart Chronicle and other medieval manuscripts than they did to the historical arms, armour and costume of the period.  They provided a large number of enjoyable games over several years and being a little short of archers morphed first into a Milanese Condottieri army for my one and only venture into competition gaming, and then into the basis of a Burgundian force. The collection gained more figures from Garrison - the Burgundian range, and later from Foundry. The Foundry figures were my army for two campaigns run at the Telford club. A complete fictional campaign of the Wars of the Roses Warwicke's Grate Rebellione being the second of them. My retinue was that of Stafford complete with hand painte knots on every livery coat, and hand painted banners. I still have them and will no doubt clean dust them off for photo's. 

However, I digress. The publication of Never Mind the Billhooks reminded me that in the garage I have a few boxes of plastic figures awaiting attention, so off I went. In moving a couple of boxes I cam across a couple labelled with the Cross of Burgundy, and another with Stafford in big friendly efforts. I openned the box and there and then Never Mind turned into A Load of Old Billhooks as I realised that I had enough of my original collection to field 2 forces quite happily with a number of what - if options. Still stung by the lack of archers a swift email to Caliver confirmed that the figures were still in production and a sample of archers was ordered. The first dozen WR14 are painted and based, green for the moment as befits such old school warriors. 



Painted up in blue and white they will join the Somerset's retinue.  Currently another 12 of the original army is being spruced up with an overpaint over the old enamels. So far it seems to work. In particular I need to play down the amount of armour my archers are sporting. The figures are cast with full jambes and sabots. The above have leather boots and cloth leg coverings. There is still some armour about the knees but ..  And I discovered that the hundred years war archer is almost the same figure but with less armour, and so destined for the city militias and other retainers rather than household. 

Friday, September 27, 2019

Arnhem Day 

It being the 75th Anniversary of the battle, and not being able to head up the road from Leopoldsburg this year I> did the next best thing and attended an event at the local games store/hub/thingy, Entoyment in Poole.

It took some finding as the Post Code given in the site is not that of the Business Park on which it is established.  When I got there several games were in full swing and there was no doubting the general enthusiasm of the attendees.

The shop itself carries a good range of paints and brushes plus a lot of board games. The current trend in boxed wargames is well represented and so are the usual suspects from the manufacturers.  Warlord, Perry, PSC, as well as Fireforge and a good few others including Battlefront.  Overall I am quite heartened by the fact that a short drive will get me a table and a top up on any necessary items.

So to the games and there were a goodly selection.





These were from a group called Pikeys Wargames who put on the Osterbeek map using the Rapid Fire rules . I was most impressed with the terrain but did feel that the forces were a little lost in it. But it was being played for the whole day and got much attention.




There was another game set near the Son Bridge put on by the local guys. Again it looked very spectacular and was being played using the Battlegroup rules. It was very intense and all were getting stuck in. The only complaint I overheard was when someone's Panther Zug was shot up whilst they were away getting a coffee.



I took part in a game using the RF rules with one or two tweaks that may or may not be coming in the forecast revised set. Not sure about the rules for multi basing with regards to casualties.  i.e. only full bases can be removed from a unit. Since command bases tend to have three figures ... 

Any way it was an enjoyable experience and I got to know a couple more of the local gamers.  The game was based upon the actions of the Poles at Driel.  It was very bloody and effectively ended in a draw - although I doubt if the poles couple have fought on much more. It had that feeling of last man standing.  Bullying the German armour for once was fun. They only had a half track and a Panzer II. Our troop of Shermans therefore got to do a lot of HE work in support of the infantry.







There were acouple of PBI games. For some reason I rather took to this tank in a game run I think by the Levellers

And Peter Pig reprised their Arnhem Bridge game.



IA view of the whole table; it all works on 6 inch squares

I thought the sunken barge particularly effectve



All in all a most enjoyable day!