The Weekly Sitrep....Number 30

I have often started the Sitrep with the phrase 'It has been a busy week/weekend (delete as applicable)' but the last seven days have been exceptionally so! To begin with I have finally packed and posted the last of the Front Rank/Foundry 25mm late 17th and 18th century figures from Eric's collection as well as some of the Minifigs Seven Years War and ECW figures. A large number of Essex, Dixon and Hinchliffe Turkish and Polish figures are also heading out the door - some 18 Kg of unpainted metal! I reckon I have accounted for just under half the figures which is pretty good going and, as mentioned previously, I am now looking forward to having a tidy up in the man cave and to be able to catch up on some of my own bits and pieces.

On Sunday SWMBO and I undertook our annual boot sale which was reasonably successful although it seemed like a lot of hard work this year as we were both feeling it the next day, as well as getting a light dusting of sunburn!

Broadside, the wargames show organised by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club and held at Sittingbourne in Kent, is in a couple of weeks (09/06 to be exact) and I am looking forward to going this. I enjoy this show but have missed it in recent years as it has coincided with my holiday. This year we are going after the show - two days to be exact - so it is a win, win as far as I can see! I do not have a shopping list for the show but I will have a modest war chest to use. I suspect that Dave Lanchester and his marvellous book stall will see some of it as he usually does!

Without a doubt the biggest news of my week was taking delivery of some painted Spencer Smith ACW figures from Bob the Old Painter and so making plans involving these wonderful figures has assumed a far more prominent place in the project list. I even went so far as to buy a pack of large sized craft sticks to jig some figures up with - painting figures? Me? Whatever next....?

In the interests of getting a gaming played I have been looking long and hard at my Memoir 44 collection to achieve this. I would not use the Memoir 44 rules for this although I would certainly make use of the scenarios. I suspect that the Portable Wargame will feature and the plan is to tackle something at the weekend. I rather fancy taking a look at the 1941 Crete campaign file I have downloaded. Then of course there is also the Vercours Campaign of 1944 as another option.

I noticed that Dan Mersey of the hugely popular 'Rampant' series of rules is working on a Sci-Fi set which is great news and will give me a chance to dust off some suitable bits and pieces I have lurking around - more of which in a future post.

The Largesse of Wargamers

The Union Infantry and their mounted commander. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures as the light was not as strong as I thought!

The Zouaves. Repainting the baggy trousers with a blue and white stripe will be sufficient to pass muster for the Tigers methinks although the headgear is a little awry.

The Confederate Infantry, Mounted Commander and the Cavalry.

The painted plastic contingent.

The unpainted plastic contingent

In my experience most wargamers are a generous lot. I am quite sure that any reader of this blog has at one time or another either given or received something of interest - usually as the result of a particular project lying forgotten and unloved in the dark recesses of a cupboard somewhere. We have all been there at some point.

So it was that a chance remark set in chain the motion of events that led to yours truly taking delivery of the the material you see in the pictures above.

The figures are all Spencer Smith 30mm ACW figures and the collection consists of the following:

Metal figures

1 x Union infantry regiment of 20 figures (painted and based)

1 x Confederate infantry regiment of 20 figures (painted  and based)

1 x Zouave infantry regiment of 20 figures (painted)

1 x Confederate cavalry regiment of 6 figures (painted)

1 x Union General

1 x Confederate General

2 x Cannon (semi painted)

3 x Confederate gunners (painted)

3 x Union gunners (semi painted)

Plastic figures (yes, that is correct - PLASTIC Spencer Smith figures!)

20 x Confederate infantry (plastic, painted)

43 x Infantry in kepi (plastic, unpainted)

On many levels this is an incredible piece of good fortune. The painted portion of the collection (and I am not including the plastics in this) could easily be used for something Portable Wargame related with a little tweak here and there. The first thing would be to rebase the figures and also to repaint the the bases themselves. I will also need to finish the paint jobs on the on the two guns and the Union gun crew. I will also tweak a couple of paint jobs so 3 of the cavalry may well become Union troopers and half of the Zouave unit will become Confederate - the Louisiana Tigers probably. It would not take too much work to get the figures to Kurz and Allison standard which is another area I will need to take a closer look at.

Working on the 4 figure infantry, 3 figure cavalry and 2 gunners and a gun Command and Colours type standard unit sizes means that I could, with a little work have a force for each side of 7 x 4 figure infantry (5 infantry and 2 Zouave), 1 x 3 figure cavalry unit, a mounted General and a gun with two crew. Now an army of 9 units and a general is a little on the small size, even by my standards, so adding to the collection to bring it up to the strength I planned would not be too problematic as I have the figures already and the painting style is EXACTLY the look I am aiming for.

One thing that has really struck me whilst experimenting with various permutations of organisation and basing etc is the fact that using armies of the scale and size I am planning is absolutely fine. I realise that seems like rather a strange comment given my fondness for the Command and Colours and the Portable Wargame ‘one figure equals one strength point’ standard but seeing it as part of one’s own collection gives the concept a degree of ‘realness’. In my case it means the system I have invested so much in (not specifically in monetary terms) looks absolutely perfect for my needs and so I can embark on my planned small scale armies with a clear conscience. They look the part in every respect.

The gentleman responsible for this much appreciated piece of generosity is none other than Bob the Old Painter to whom I must extend my most grateful thanks. Bob and I have never met personally (although should that ever happen the beers will certainly be on me!) and our contact has been via our respective blogs, emails and more latterly the odd phone call. Bob is proper ‘Old School’ in his wargaming and if you take a look at his blog you will see what he has been up to recently - including painting some very nice Seven Years War Minifigs British Infantry. I wonder where he got those from?

In many ways the receipt of these figures has, for me, served to close a theoretical door and opened a practical one - and the possibilities are enormous.

So once again many thanks to Bob the Old Painter for this quite wonderful and hugely inspiring gift!

U Turn? Moi? A Marlburian Reverse

Spencer Smith Grenadiers painted by the redoubtable Iain Burt (whom I have not seen for many a year but I am sure he will not mind me showing these quite exquisite figures!)

Most readers of this blog will know me as a level headed, stable and focused chap - always tackling new projects with an eye for detail and seeing them through to completion....

Then I woke up....(and I can almost picture the multitude of raised eyebrows!).

Whilst I am having a minor break from sorting out the vast unpainted collection of Eric Knowles I have been able to sit back, pause, draw breath and think about the next phase of my own particular brand of wargaming madness.

You will recall that in return for my efforts with this undertaking Bill, Eric's son, had very kindly offered me some of the figures for my own use and after much chopping and changing of my mind I settled on the Minifigs portion - mainly because I thought this would be the part of the collection that would be hardest to dispose. Up to a point this is true but I have certainly made some inroads into the collection - especially for the Seven Years War and the English Civil War. I would say that half of the former and all of the latter have been accounted for and so the main bulk of what is left is for the Marlburian period with a smattering of Napoleonics.

My plan was to make use of the Marlburians (of which there is a prodigious quantity) for my planned Balkanesque set up for circa 1710 to 1720. I am now not so sure I want to do this, at least using Minifigs 25mm figures anyway. For sure there is plenty of choice of figures and any shortfall could be readily addressed by an order or two to Caliver Books who currently own and produce Minifigs. I have had this nagging feeling of 'doing it because I can rather because I should' or to be more accurate, 'doing it because all the raw material has been handed to me on a plate regardless of whether or not I actually wanted it!' I am certainly not being  ungrateful at Bill's incredible generosity but I keep asking myself do I like the period enough to invest the time and energy needed to realise it on the tabletop.

The answer is probably not and so I have taken the decision to add the Marlburians to the disposal pile. I feel better in myself having decided this as receiving this unexpected windfall in terms of huge quantities of figures at no cost sat a little uneasily on my conscience.

There is a postscript though. The one thing that rummaging through all this 18th century material has done is to remind me that it is a period I really need to do something with and indeed, I certainly have an ongoing interest in many facets of it - anything from 1740 to 1780 really. If I am to tackle a project in this period (actually that should be 'when' rather than 'if') then I have my own ideas on the matter and for a variety of reasons using Spencer Smith figures is very much at the heart of it.

For God and Kaiser

A great 600 page plus doorstop of a tome and an excellent overview of the armies of Austria from the Thirty Years War until 1918.

I will freely admit that I am a huge fan of the BalkanWargamer blog. The reason is very simple as the blog is chock full of information about the military history of my favourite part of the world – The Balkans themselves and the surrounding area. I should also point out the BalkanDave – the author of the blog – is an all round top bloke aside from being a veritable goldmine of information about the region.

Recently he reviewed the above book on his blog (see the link in the previous paragraph) and so following on from this I decided that it would be a good investment for the library. BalkanDave has a far better knowledge of the area than I and so I was confident that it would be a worthwhile acquisition. I was certainly not disappointed! 

Austria, along with Russia, has maintained a frontier with the Ottoman Turkish Empire for pretty much all of the period the book covers so it was inevitable that I would need to look at 'the other side of the hill' to place my planned armies into the proper context. The Minifigs Marlburian component of Eric's collection has a reasonable number of Austrian figures therein and I plan to use these against the Turks in due course so having some reading material about the period, albeit very much from an overview perspective, was a necessity.

I have always considered the Austrians to have something of the underdog about them in the various wars they took part in - seemingly slow to start but getting better as events unfolded. Diverse, colourful and a list of opponents that featured just about everybody means that the Austrians will work rather nicely as a protagonist in my planned early 18th century Balkan set up.

Now that I own the hardback version I am sorely tempted to get the Kindle edition for the daily commute and my forthcoming holiday - it would certainly be easier to carry around!

The Weekly Sitrep....Number 29

The classic Command and Colours game of WW2 combat....

Once again the weekend was a busy one but I have managed to get rather a lot done. As expected most of the time was spent with the ongoing disposal of the collection of Eric’s collection but even in that I had a couple of satisfying successes. To begin with the last of the Seven Years War Front Rank figures are going to be heading for a new home and I have also found buyers for the Minifigs ECW component. Eric routinely used the ECW to bolster his late 17^th century armies so floppy hatted pikemen were the order of the day. I also have a potential buyer for the Essex, Dixon and Hinchliffe Ottoman Turks and Poles. This will enable me to free up a couple of crates so I will be able to head of my holiday in three weeks safe in the knowledge that the the disposal of this part of the collection is well in hand.

Upon my return from my travels Eric's WW2 and Marlburian painted armies will be next on the list, followed by his library and collection of 1:1200^th scale ships.

....and its Great War cousin 

For my own part the need to get a game in is becoming more and more pressing and so I have taken the decision to fall back on that old standby of Memoir 44 and its first world war cousin, The Great War. I came across a very useful files section on the Memoir 44 Facebook group. Essentially there are some potted campaign PDFs that include a brief overview of the campaign itself and then a list of scenarios from all sources that can be found on the official Memoir 44 website (you have to register a copy of the base game to access the full content). The campaign specific PDF found in the files section of the Facebook group lists all the scenarios available in historical order so players merely download the scenarios as per the list and then fight the battles. Simple for sure but a very handy resource for those of us where time is at a premium.

Naturally both of the above would lead me quite seamlessly into Portable Wargame territory in due course. For the moment though, just opening the box and setting up a game has a an attraction all of its own although my long term plan is to '3D' the above with both terrain and models.

One more project then....

Pausing to Catch One's Breath....

Not so much a full commercial break but more of a 'treading water' exercise

I had a long chat with Bill this morning concerning Eric's collection and I am happy to say that he is delighted with progress so far. I was able to tell him that I had probably cleared out at least a third of the unpainted late 17th and 18th century figures with roughly half the remainder being Minifigs with the rest Dixon, Essex, Hinchliffe, Greenwood and Ball etc. The remaining figures span the entire period from the English Civil/Thirty Years War up to the Napoleonic Wars with the former being used for late 17th century militia types and the latter for imagi-nation purposes. For the most part this lot (excluding the Minifigs) will be bulk listed for 'as cheap as chips' prices on eBay on a 'sold as seen' basis. I may well be taking a few crates of figures to COW in July but have yet to make a final decision on this.

This brief interlude (I am going away for a couple weeks just after Broadside in June) will enable me to sort a few things out, not least of which is planning for the next phases of the disposal of Eric's collection. Bill will be the one doing the work over the next few weeks as he will be sorting out the unpainted 20mm WW2 metal collection (around a dozen crates worth), the painted 18th century armies, the 1:1200th scale fleets and Eric's extensive library. Crucially Bill is looking to get the remaining parts of Eric's collection under one roof - his main place of residence - rather than having it split between two houses.

The plan is for the two of us to have big catch up towards the end of next month (with beers) to plan the next phase.

In the interim period I need to ensure that all the units being listed are photographed and assigned an ID number. I have drafted a template for the description and will make sure that all readers of the blog will know when it all goes live. Using the Buy it Now option means that once the units are listed they are listed they will stay on the site until sold which will take a weight off my shoulders for sure as I then only need to post out as and when needed.

The above task, preparing for listing, is easy to do but again is rather time consuming. The big advantage I have though is that I have 4 weeks to ready it all - there is roughly a hundred units or so - with pictures etc. Luckily I can spread this out and even find some time for my own 'stuff', of which the new command blocks are the obvious choice.

Although I am still working on Eric's collection it will be scaled down for a while which will enable me to draw breath and tackle some of my own bits and pieces before the next onslaught!

The Weekly Sitrep....Number 28

I have never seen a copy of this and nor do I intend buying one but it certainly looks like the kind of book I would really enjoy!

This weekend saw some fairly significant moves in the man cave. I managed to package up nearly 50 Kg of unpainted metal across 7 parcels - all heading to the same place I hasten to add - which is now winging its way to its new home. I also filled up half a large recycling bin with old Hinchliffe, Greenwood and Ball and Alberken figure boxes - all of which carried the dust of ages and scribbled notes - so at last I can see the floor in the man cave! With a couple of exceptions everything else can be re-crated and stored far less intrusively under my gaming table. Once this is done I can then hoover, dust and polish - a fact of which SWMBO has, ahem, encouraged me to do although to be fair she has a point as the entire loft looked liked something out of Steptoe's Yard!

There was thing I had overlooked. Whilst moving crates around and repacking some of the remaining units I rediscovered the Seven Years War Hanoverian army Eric had acquired. Judging by the figures used  - the customary multiple manufacturers Eric routinely employed - I am of the opinion that this is one of his earlier armies as there are a number of Minifigs S Range types present. Some are even partially painted. I shall be taking a closer look this evening and will post to the blog if there is anything interesting.

Flags for the memory (there are two sheets of the above). Rather than regimental standards I opted to use national flags. In many cases this means two or even three variants. The eagle eyed will not the use of the revolutionary war flag for the US of A with the circular 13 stars. I have the more usual version already.

Around the middle of last week a small order from Tony at Brigade Models arrived in the shape of a couple of flag sheets he kindly prepared for me. These are going to be used for the command blocks with my block armies (not the WW1 German Naval Ensign though - this the normal size I use for my ship models) in conjunction with a number for identification purposes. If you recall my plan was to use a quarter size block (roughly 15mm wide x 12mm high x 20mm deep) as a command block complete with a flag to show the orientation of the unit. Having the unit number will help with identification when using a roster to record casualties. Now that I have the flags I can press on with this stage which will mean I can use the blocks 'off the grid' so to speak although Tony has made such a good job of them I am thinking they will be used on grid as well.

This will be a simple job but it is one that I can tackle easily enough. Having the unit flags with numbers will make the battle reports far more easy to follow and will also add to the personality of the armies represented. This in turn will enhance the gaming experience. There are slightly more flags than I have blocks for but I have more than sufficient for my current needs and can get extras cut should the need arise.

The one standard I will be sticking to though is that block number 1 will always be the army commander.