A Zieten Figure Does Exist - Minden Miniatures
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A couple of days ago I was rather gobsmacked to to look at my Facebook feed
and read a post by someone lamenting the lack of a von Zieten personality...
Farewell to Shogun
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*I am unsure what the Japanese for ‘a bit like the curate’s egg’ is but the
good parts were very good indeed!*
A day later than usual I managed to watch ...
Moving forward and an arrival
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An arrival. See here for more info-
https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2024/04/24/backyard-battalions-usa-and-three-man-sorry-kid-patrols/
...
Carry On!
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At a time like this, there's nothing like carrying on like usual.
My ACW armies have not been out in some 18 months, the only active
collection that has...
Bed B, Side Room 4, Ward 22 (Part 3)
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I slept from midnight until 3.30am and again from 4.00am until 6.30am …
which is a distinct improvement. Perhaps - after many years - I was finally
getti...
Retrospective: Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms
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I remember being very excited about the imminent release of the *Oriental
Adventures *in 1985*. *Aside from the obvious reason – the introduction of
play...
This will never work...
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My 30YW armies nearing completion, methought to try out my ideas for the
Battle of Lutzen (1632) pitting probably the two greatest commanders of the
conf...
All change!.
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Due to vast amounts of unwanted attention I am taking this blog down
permanently. But fear not, I have copied most of the posts onto a new blog My
"Old ...
Decepticon Medic
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After playing the first game of Xenos Rampant with this guy's and using the
Medic rule for the Autobots, I thought it would be a good idea to create a
D...
ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 72
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This drawing by James Montgomery Flagg is as confident and brash as Flagg
himself.
The drawing is large-- nearly 30 inches (76 cm) and appears to have be...
Blood on the Sands at ShireCon
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Had a great day at ShireCon, or the Little MOAB, as I like to call it. Had
a lot of interested people play a game or two and got to play test some new
g...
I have been to... HMS Warrior
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Time for another update..
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Time to take advantage of my yearly dockyard ticket, this time with a visit
to HMS Warrior...
New Nassau Infantry from Frank
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Our Hobbymate Thomas Mischak asked Frank to sculpt him some Nassau
Grenadiers for his Waterloo project.
These figures will be available from Hagen soon...
More Staff for the Duke
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I did say that the Belgians would be up next however, I realised a while
back that I had never finished the personality figures for the British. So
as a ...
Foxholes
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I found a bag of these resin-cast troops in foxholes in a batch of stuff I
was given a couple of years ago. A few weeks ago I decided to try painting
so...
Traffic Chaos on the Autobahn.
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A collection of no less that 5 of the Tantobie Warfare and Tactical Society
met last Saturday at our new venue of Stanley Masonic hall. (Does the
change of...
Easter Big Game - Grave to Nijmegen - Days 3 and 4
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Easter Monday past by very quickly and I failed to take enough pictures of
the action. At last Guards Armoured had arrived but their progress was
slowed by...
An Italian Wars scenario for Pike and Shotte
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What follows is a short report on a recent game at Steve's. It is over
two years since an Italian Wars game featured on the blog, so a
reappearance was...
Battlemasters with Kinchlets
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*"Pay attention Sir Harry, the Hun is here, here and here." - LadyBaby*
Finished up a practice game of the old MB Games/Citadel miniatures game
Battlemast...
Merry Christmas 2023 and Always
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This painting arrived as a Christmas card a few days ago. It is the most
beautiful depiction of love and adoration of Jesus by heavenly angels and
his...
Very Sad News
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I'm very sorry to be making this post but I've just learned that Dale past
away from a heart attack on November 5th.
Most of my relationship with Dale wa...
Happy Birthday Joseph Morschauser III
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Another year is almost in the books and today is Christmas Day… This isn’t
a Christmas story, but it is a story (article) written by a man born in New
York...
Trying Something New
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Based on what I said last time, I’m going to try out something new. Check
out my posts at Medium – one test you can ignore, one discussion of why I
chose t...
Wargaming the interwar period
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*CROSSPOSTED FROM WARGAMING MISCELLANY*
This year’s VCOW (Virtual Conference of Wargamers) took place over the
weekend, and I was able to take part in se...
The Constantinov Regiment
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Whilst I have, for the most part, 'moth-balled' my Classic Wargaming
collection over the past few years, occasionally I get the urge to dip back
into it....
Alas - no more ....
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After a lot of thought I have decided to stop my gaming project in the
Caribbean for the foreseeable future.
The bulk of the completed units will become in...
The Fritz Leiber WIKI - [Currently Reading]
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---------- The Fritz Leiber WIKI Welcome to the Scrolls of Lankhmar. It
contains information on the writings of and also the RPG Guide to Nehwon,
which is ...
A Tale of Two Battles - Part the Second
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After the battle recorded in the previous post, I felt I had unfinished
business with Paul and his Russians, so I challenged him to a game the
followin...
Problems with Jackson Gamers Web Site
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We are having problems accessing and updating the Jackson Gamers web site.
Evidently the main page has been "stolen" by a French language pharmacy
site. ...
Hot Reception
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Gun and crew by Hinchliffe (SYW range)Christmas is an anxious time if
you're Hessian - but this year we're ready for you Mr Washington!
Battlegroup Tobruk Goes Strong into the Desert
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Pavlov's dogs, famously, were conditioned to salivate when hearing a bell
which they associated with food. I have been similarly conditioned to
associate...
Happy Winter Solstice!
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I decided I might as well face the truth, that this blog and project is
pretty much over and done. It was fun while it lasted, but my gaming
interests lie ...
Sky Pirates of Venus - Teaser
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Sky Pirates have been the scourge of the Worm Empire of Venus for years,
and the Great Worm has had enough! He sends a team of four crack worm
commandos to...
Stephen King’s Threshold
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“There is probably no dedicated fantasy fan in America who doesn’t have at
least one of those distinctive black-bound volumes upon his or her shelf .
. ....
High time...
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It is high time I posted here again. The project has stalled. Last night I
decided to have a read of book 2 after many years away from it. It begins
so wel...
La Passeggiata
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Artist: ItalianTitle: La *Passeggiata*
★Thank you for Visiting!★ ~ Return to Website ~ Return to Blog
Thank you for subscribing to the Orientalist Gallery!
Deadbeat Advertiser?!?!?!?
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I just noticed that I have been listed as a deadbeat advertiser at The
Miniatures Page. I asked Mr Armintrout over 12 months ago to cease the
advertising d...
Memories, Tangents and the Power of the Pastoral
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*Charles Stadden 30mm BEF released fifty(ish) years ago*
It occurs to me that wargaming the Great War is not going to be a straight
forward thing.
L...
Second World War comparisons on "World War 20mm"
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Piers Brand has recently posted a side by side shot of several figures
painted in his inimitable style. They represent a number of different 20mm
metal ma...
Byzarbia at Ayton Game.
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Once again it's been a while, though in my defence I plead that I have been
busy painting figures for our second Ayton Weekend Game, even forgoing two
of o...
Buy my e-book and save the police (again!)
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*Wasting Police Time** is now available on Kindle.
You don't need a Kindle itself to read it - you can download an 'app' onto
your iPad/laptop/whatever.
U...
10 of the most beautiful things I've ever seen
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1. The sun setting over a still sea, woven to silk, and the swimmers,
silhouttetted wading back to the shore like merman returning to land.
2. My br...
Why the WAR OF 1812?
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I just received two of the more recent Osprey Men-at Arms books on the War
of 1812 in the mail the other day (not really that recent - 1998 and
2000...but...
I've been extemporising Horse artillery for the last while, using an ADC figure and two chaps from the foot batteries. As a stop gap, it sufficed and there was little doubt as to which were the horse batteries and which the foot. But it rankled, so I have just mustered two new gun crews into the French service. These are Newline Designs figures and are a touch small, but they do well in units on their own. I had toyed with HATs offering, but wasn't convinced by the sculpting. I also wanted each horse battery to have at least one mounted gunner so that the difference between horse and foot batteries would be clear.
Up close for a whiff of grapeshot
My readers are all no doubt familiar with horse artillery, but in case Tim Gow has had a sudden rush of blood to the head and momentarily forgotten anything that doesn't have a jet engine on it.
Horse artillery are simply put, batteries of artillery where the gun crews ride rather than walk. The idea behind them was that they would provide fast mobile firepower where it was needed. Foot batteries, which typically carried a greater weight of metal, were more powerful, but couldn't be relied upon to get to the key point quickly. Horse artillery, sometimes called "flying batteries", though I've only heard this used when referring to the American arm, were most numerous in French service. They were expensive to train and raise as they required more horses then a foot battery and men who could ride as well as shoot. The first batteries were raised in 1792 under General Mathieu Dumas.
Sadly, this is not Alexandra Dumas father, who was the rather more imposing Thomas Alexandre Dumas. But the French artillery and horse artillery especially certainly shared his aggression. Paddy Griffith covers the "artillery charge" in passing in his Osprey on French Napoleonic Infantry tactics, but essentially it boiled down to getting in close and shooting fast, delivering murderous close range fire to rupture the enemy line.
We will never see a horse artillery battery in action in earnest, but to give you some impression of the speed, precision and dash of these men, have a look at this footage from the Royal Tournament in 1985.
Stragglers
While Command & Colours Napoleonics gun crews (at least as I organise them) come with only three crewmen and a gun, that seemed a rather scanty number of gunners. The Newline Design packs came with more figures than I needed, so should I ever need more crewmen (I won't say a full crew), these fellows are waiting in the wings.
I suppose that these pictures are part of a larger project to document my collection of figures, for my own satisfaction and so that I can insure them. I posted (as I usually do) a link to my blog entry on the subject to The Miniatures Page recently and received some interesting and not so interesting responses.
The discussion spiralled out of the bounds of reason and decency shortly there after and considerable time and energy that could have been more profitably spent calculating how many angels may dance on the head of the pin or perhaps ironing the undersides of cats was expended on the subject of whether it is right or proper to murder someone who is burgling your home. For a variety of reasons, I shall not go into my position on the subject here. I can only steal another man's eloquence.
"It is a big step to take another human life. It is never to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they live with the Mark of Cain upon them."
You're right:HaT's French horse guns are horrible and Italeri's are really Imperial Gurad horse artillery, so there's not much in the way of plastic 1/72nd stuff.
I've been wary of buying Newline as I've always thought it too small. I have been tempted to try SHQ's artillery, though haven't yet go around to it.
I have too little time in my life to even think of visiting the TMP site based on what others have said... on to more interesting subjects, I have seen the RHA in action at the Royal Tournament as a child, and I specifically remember the sheer speed in such a confined space - magnificent horsemanship - those guns skid as they go round the corners...... fantastic.
Rosbif - isn't it? Stirring stuff. I have a set of the Italeri Guard that'll get done eventually, but it's not exactly priority.
Steve - TMP is a curates egg and I wouldn't write it off entirely. As the the RHA, I've only seen our own mounted unit in action once and they were incredible. I can't but imagine what seeing a team would be like.
Tim - Gow, see me after class.
Ross - I couldn't agree more. If we ever meet in person, there's a funny story I must tell you about a home invasion.
Excellent footage Conrad!
ReplyDeleteYou're right:HaT's French horse guns are horrible and Italeri's are really Imperial Gurad horse artillery, so there's not much in the way of plastic 1/72nd stuff.
I've been wary of buying Newline as I've always thought it too small. I have been tempted to try SHQ's artillery, though haven't yet go around to it.
I have too little time in my life to even think of visiting the TMP site based on what others have said... on to more interesting subjects, I have seen the RHA in action at the Royal Tournament as a child, and I specifically remember the sheer speed in such a confined space - magnificent horsemanship - those guns skid as they go round the corners...... fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by the mention of jet engines in a post about Napoleonic horse artillery. Now there's an idea...
ReplyDeleteHmm does make one wonder if rules for horse artillery should make them fast but require them to always move in circles.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite troop types though.
Possibly home invaders should be forced to sit and read TMP threads.
-Ross
Rosbif - isn't it? Stirring stuff.
ReplyDeleteI have a set of the Italeri Guard that'll get done eventually, but it's not exactly priority.
Steve - TMP is a curates egg and I wouldn't write it off entirely. As the the RHA, I've only seen our own mounted unit in action once and they were incredible. I can't but imagine what seeing a team would be like.
Tim - Gow, see me after class.
Ross - I couldn't agree more. If we ever meet in person, there's a funny story I must tell you about a home invasion.