A Converted Papal General

In my last post I mention about being short a General figure , The one mounted General I had was in full uniform - cocked hat etc and I wanted one in the more usual campaign dress . So I cut the top half off a officer on foot (pointing)and removed the mounted officers torso , drilled and pinned them together , there was meant to be a gap - but not that big ! .

The resultant waste bits - will go into my box of metal to be used for home casting.

I decided to mount him on his horse before I started filling in the gap .

I then made up some 'Green Stuff' and filled in his mid drift and gave him a frock coat , waist sash and modelled his left arm , I had lots of 'Green Stuff' left as I always mix to much up !.

Then I undercoated him and the following day painted him up and put him on a base  .

Here he is in charge of his Brigade , half of which has retreated (a fine start to his career !) , but hopefully the Papal Zouaves will save the day ! .

A General Short Of A Battle.

I thought I would try out my finished Piedmontese army of 1860 and fight the Papal army using 'Black Powder' rules . I diced for the starting positions of the various Brigades and placed them onto the table - here we see a couple of Piedmontese Brigades moving up in column (note the not entirely successful attempt at 'photo shopping' dust clouds).

The next Piedmontese Brigade comes onto the table , Lancers and Bersaglieri this time.

The Papal Line Infantry move down the road (there's that dodgy 'photo shop' again).

Things were going well and I was getting into the battle when the time came to deploy the last Papal Brigade of two Infantry units - and I couldn't find a Brigadier to go with them !? , I searched through my other Italian Wars of Unification boxes to see if he had been misplaced but couldn't find one anywhere ? . Then I started to remember that I was aware of this shortage but had inadvertently ordered the wrong figure ! "DRAT ! " . I searched in my bits box and found the wrongly ordered figure and horse and a Officer on foot , I thought - 'I wonder if I can convert the foot figure into a mounted one ?'. Now it's easy enough to convert plastic figures but metal ones ?! , so it was with some hesitancy I picked up my razor saw ............. (to be continued)

Getting There And Camera Problems.

Sorry for the very poor photo but I'm having problems downloading photos from my camera - suddenly my computer doesn't seem to want to do it (Grr ! bloody technology !) so I have resorted to my phone and Emailing it to my computer , unfortunately my phone has a poor camera . My gut feeling is to take the camera/computer outside and 'repair' it with a BIG hammer ! . On a happier note I've got over half of the Austrians done and as a treat I did one of the mounted General figures . Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible ..........

P.S. after fiddling around and finding it will not download photos from my wife's camera as well, I found I can download the contents of the camera 'sim' card plugged into the computer ! so this will do for now . I Googled about this issue and the consensus of opinion is that it is Windows 10's problem (as seems half the ills in the world).

Better - but the evening light streaming in behind it don't help ! .

First Six Of Thirty Six.

Started the mammoth paint of my last Austrian infantry unit . It is going to be Infantry Regiment No. 28 Graf Wartensleben  with grass green facings . Doing them in groups of six and once I get into the swing of things should be quite fast , the advantage of the figures being the same pose means that once you have got a few done you go into auto-mode knowing were the paint goes . I'm doing it with a black undercoat and trying to leave some of it showing to suggest shading . These are ready for a coat of gloss varnish tomorrow.

A Small Triumph Over Adversity .

Having got my new spray can I was beset by foul weather - but this morning managed to get them done - 'Huzza' - only got to paint them now ! . Just noticed on this photo that our 'wheelie bin' has 'A Coat of Many Colours'

A Modern Classic ?

,

I don't do reviews but 'The Ferryman' asked me about this book I'm reading at the moment . I got it from Caliver Books last week and I'm about 2/3rds through it so these are just my initial thoughts. Its hard backed - which I like and cost £27 I think ? which is probably par for the course for this sort of book and print run. It has been translated from German (being written by a couple of German chaps) so it has a quaint turn of phrase now and then , its big selling point (and maybe it's downfall) is that it uses a grid system for movement and ranges . Now they say this speeds up the game doing away with measuring and arguments over ranges etc , my own ill informed opinion is that it causes as many complications as things it solves . This is a bit unfair of me because I haven't played the rules yet - but can I be bothered to draw a grid on my table ? ( having thought about this it could be easily accomplished by turning my felt cloth over and drawing one on it using a green marker pen) . Units are organised in multiples of 'sixes' for easiness as they use D6s - 12 or 18 being probably the norm . Units and Generals are allotted a playing card each and these with the enemies cards are shuffled and drawn to activate things to move/shoot etc. Movement is by number of squares as is range and shooting, this is done by adding or subtracting dice per 6 figures , then throwing them and every 6 gets a casualty . The scale can be either 'big' battle or smaller 'colonial' style actions and weaponry is divided up into periods - roughly musket, rifle, breech loaders and repeaters. The rules seem to have been play tested thoroughly over several years and once you have learned the system should be quite fast and decisive to play a 'day' being 8 moves . there are ideas for army lists , solo play and points as well . There is a 'Facebook' group for the rules https://www.facebook.com/Tin-Soldiers-In-Action-1036657649708329/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED . A play sheet is in the back of the book but it would be nice to see one on their Facebook page to down load . So will I use them ?, it would be interesting to try them out especially since I have some 30mm O.S. SYW figures that are under used . It's a nice book and as a collector of O.S. type rules I'm glad I have a copy whether or not I use the rules .

Doing The Worthy Again.

I usually have a stock of figures sprayed up ready for painting but when I looked in the cupboard I found I'd run out . This then raised the question what to paint next ? - after some thought I went to the 'Corner of Shame' in the wargaming room to see what unpainted figures were there . I came across this box of Austrian Napoleonic  , they were the last figures of this project yet unpainted so with a hint of guilt I thought it would be a very worthy thing to clean them up , give them a spray undercoat  and start painting them and it would be something different for a change.

Bit of a challenge cleaning thirty six figures , but I buckled down and got them done and mounted on a couple of strips of waste wood ready for spraying.

I also found Archduke Charles and his staff so I did them as well , however they needed 'green stuff' to get them to sit on their horses properly . Pleased with my mornings work I thought "better get them sprayed up whilst it's fine weather !".

So I took them outside - picked up the spray can of black paint - shook it and thought " Hmm not much left !" - got one side of the figures done and the can ran out !!! - you can imagine the language ! (well it would be better if you can't) - don't you just hate it when that happens ! . So I will have to wait till I go into town at the weekend to buy a new tin . Oh well half way there to finishing them !.