I guess the Bavarians are historically often allied to the French against their northern or eastern neighbours.
These figures date from the early 1970’s and are by Hinchcliffe
Tag: 20-25mm
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Battleground -on -Tees
Stockton on Tees and nearby Thornaby played host to a very friendly and inviting show I had never previously attended.
Located in a Sports Hall on the University site I was a bit late arriving so only just got a parking space in the adjacent carpark, although in fact there is plenty of parking around the site generally. The Railway Station at Thornaby is 800 yards away plus there are bus services to be had according to the well detailed Pendraken Show website. It even has pictures of the road junctions you will encounter on the way in.
And I have not even talked about the event itself!
I found the venue bright (something I struggle with at the Fiasco black hole in Leeds). There was less catering than many shows but enough – coffee/tea and snacks plus an outdoor food wagon. With a big shopping centre nearby you were not going to starve.
But it was the wargaming we had all come for in terms of food for the brain.
This is not a big show in the sense of a Salute or a Newark. However it has some particular aspects which make it a rich experience. Quite a few reenactors, living history groups were dotted across the show – I guess the point here being a lot more than you might normally see.
Then there were two talks in a dedicated room – one about the spanish civil war and one about anglo-scottish border warfare. I failed to get to either simply because there was so much I wanted to see elsewhere in the show.
The Sponsor is Pendraken and entry was not only free, you also got entry into a prize draw – some 20 odd prizes being offered.
So what about the show – traders, games etc.?
In that respect you would be right to say it has the same sort of mix as many other shows.
Here are some selected photos
All in all a very enjoyable day out (that was prize enough) and a show that will be on my list for 2024.
Next week if all goes ok I plan to go to Recon 2023.
I did not go to Battleground with a shopping list and as it happens none of my usual interests drew my wallet out. However I did pick this book up at the bring and buy – yep I don’t do desert war in any scale!
Happy Wargaming……
These figures are by Warrior Miniatures and John@just needs varnish https://justneedsvarnish.wordpress.com/ prompted me to dig them out. They date from the mid 1970’s and they are one of a kind because I had already switched my interests to WRG Ancients plus D&D and then left the hobby altogether for a couple of decades.
I kept some of my old collection including these fine chaps. They had the weight (heft) and style I have always liked. Probably more so as 28mm ranges tend to be well overfed.
During lockdown I even managed to paint some of my Warrior figures!
https://wordpress.com/post/thewargamingerratic.home.blog/3582
Next up are some more Napoleonics of yesteryear.
It’s not often you get a major historical movie these days and even less by a mainstream producer. So Ridley Scotts “Napoleon” is a good excuse to get some figures on the pedestal.
First up is the man himself – Napoleon – as imagined back in the early 1970’s by Miniature Figurines (the Warlord of their day).
Next up is one of a kind for me…..
*the painting of the same name by edouard detaille hangs in the New South Wales art gallery showing the charge of the 4th hussars at Friedland 1807.
Every now and then I get a bee in the bonnet and have to paint a figure or unit not in the plan.
In this case my sizeable paint queue from last summer has reduced, yet there are still units now 12 months on the table, and counting.
So of course it’s madness to start a new set of figures. Undeterred I have managed to get these six completed in a day with the help of high temperatures drying the paint rapidly.
Next up should be some more rule tests.
My current preoccupation is mid nineteenth century warfare. You can’t travel far without meeting the resurgent French Empire. Here is my offering on french artillery around the time of the Franco Austrian War of 1859. Being a few years before the American Civil War it can be argued that conflict obscures the war which inflated French self belief and probably contributed to their Prussian undoing by 1870.
In the Spring of 1848 a provisional government sprang up in Milan after the Austrians under Field Marshall Radetzky withdrew their troops eastwards to the “Quadrilateral”.
The Provisional Government sought protection from Piedmont under King Charles Albert.
At the same time they raised their own forces.
Here are the Milan Line Infantry of the National Guard in field attire.
* Prior to the Austrians retiring, protests included the Milanese refusing to smoke as the Austrian Government had a monopoly on tobacco sales!
Within a year the uprisings were squashed and Field Marshall Radetzky was a hero of the Empire – complete with Johann Strauss Senior composing the Radetzky March to celebrate the Austrian victory at Custoza in July 1848.
Piedmont, after the French defeat of Austria in the Second War of Italian Independence, organised popular plebiscites in the central duchies with the forces of Modena opting to follow the Austrians into exile while the army of Parma collapsed and that of Tuscany was reformed and reorganised.
Many new volunteer units were raised including one battalion of Bersaglieri in Modena drawn from the Emilia and Trentino lands.
The Battalion was incorporated into the Piedmontese Army as the 23rd Battalion of Bersaglieri in 1860. It retained is unique facing colours.
Back in 2021 an early unit for this project (the wars of italian unification) came from the Strelets Sardinian box plus some spare Lucky Toys figures.
My review is here Strelets and Lucky Toys
James Fisher has a fascinating blog on Napoleonics. James asked me about Warrior Miniatures. Now I will say at this point Warrior Miniatures and I go back to the mid 1970’s, however my association has only ever been as a paying customer. So any effusive comments about them is simply reflecting my enthusiasm for their products.
So James wondered about plastics and the metals from Warrior Miniatures which I would add, shown here, are from their advertised 25mm range.
Now I have chosen to show the figures randomly arranged. Previously I have posted with some attempt to show exact height difference. Yet I think that ultimately it is the opinion that matters not the maths. So do they look ok?
Just for fun here are some other figure comparisons – I think hinds and caliver books still run these “retro” minifig/hinchliffe lines. I have posted elsewhere the gross sculpture change Greenwood & Ball did between their Garrison Normans and Vikings. I think the bigger more detailed Vikings shown here sunk without trace – while the older G&B figures were rerun for a time into the 2000’s?
Here is another oddity – again a short life production from Minifigs
Now I have dug out a later 25mm 1700 grenadier – I think its a foundry chap with practically no base.
Now some finished and based figures to compare against
To sum up, when it comes to height, I have become ever more tolerant and actually it is anatomy which jarrs my view. This is why I struggle with Perry figures – they are just so perfect. Which shows you just can’t please some people.
Finally a book which started my wargaming in earnest and is a celebration of fantasy gaming – I kid you not!
I leave you with this image from that book – published in 1967 – when it really probably was bad form not to have the correct facings or turnback colours etc. Lawford and Young said “play fantasy” and in the game photos they showed that scale was not a big issue. These look like 30mm figures rubbing shoulders with 45mm figures?????
Above all if it looks right to you then it is fine – play* away.
*tournament players will not be so lucky methinks.
Without drifting too much into the issue of scale in wargaming, this post covers my solution regarding mixing metallics and plastics for my Normans in the South project.
So the lead in photo shows horsemen because this is where the most pronounced differences tend to show up.
left to right we have
Strelets 1/72 Norman cavalry
Tumbling Dice 1/72 Norman and Saxon cavalry (command figures!)
Citadel 25mm Mongol cavalry
Citadel 25mm Saracen cavalry
Lamming 25mm Norman Cavalry
Greenwood & Ball (Garrison) 25mm Viking Cavalry
Lancashire Games 25mm Malburian Cavalry
Typical BIG 28mm cavalry (ok he gets a base as well to make the point)
It is also worth noting the base thicknesses in these photos.
What I have found is that in the raw you notice height, bulk and head size. These then affect how you see the figures. Once painted and based the differences seem to be less pronounced.
The last shot shows – SHQ 20mm saracen; strelets 1/72 norman; Hatt 1/72 ElCid cavalry; Tumbling Dice 1/72 norman and lastly another Hatt 1/72 Hun.
Bases are similar thickness so no adjustment needed or to be exploited.
OK last point – my solution.
Using some maths – 12 inches or a foot being 304.8mm for my purposes. Now assuming someone 6 foot high you get the following in real height of 1828.8 mm; at 1:87 (HO) = 21mm; 1:76 (OO) = 24mm; 1:72=25mm; 1:65=28mm and 1:56=32mm (fractions ignored)
So marrying 20mm (1/87) and 25mm (1/72) figures should be tricky although apparently less than 25 to 28mm.
But here is the rub research by a top university shows that the average height of people living in england changed as follows.
167cm pre roman; 170cm roman; less during the dark ages (no figure given because it was dark!) 172cm circa 1066 and 173cm by the 1100’s. Then it drops until recovering to 173-174cm during the period 1400 to 1650. Heights then declined to less than 169cm by the 1800’s! by 1970 we were averaging 177cm.
So that means for a 1/72 warrior he could a 23mm celt; 23.6mm legionaire; 24 mm norman; or a 23mm british redcoat again in the 1800’s. In short averages throw up millimetre differences so actual variations in height will be even greater. So in 1/72 a 21mm (4foot 11inches) high figure next to a 24mm (5foot 11inches) high figure is possible. Add to that variations in helmet shape and size and freedom beckons.
Finally it really comes down to the figures you like, I like the SHQ Saracens, I like the tumbling dice norman and saxon commands and I like the strelets norman and saxons (yes with hands the size of heads!)
so my solution has to be : I will take some notice of scale, maybe more about bulk than height, and paint the figures I like. I can always squint at the jarring mismatches when they do happen.
Happy Painting & Wargaming.
postscript – scale creep was always with us and good enough in “charge or how to play wargames” anyway. Are those “half round lancers on ponies?”
The Wargaming Erratic 