Gabriele Esposito has written a fine Osprey about the Italian Wars of Unification. In fact he has two: Part 1 covering Sardinia/Piedmont plus the two Sicilies while part 2 covers Papal States, Minor States and Volunteers.
They are Men-at-Arms series Nos 512 ansd 520.
This quartet of Ospreys are excellent resources for Italian Wars of Unification.
This particular unit is based for my preferred rulesets by Neil Thomas and Piquet Field of Battle.
With only 12 figures for a battalion they may not be to some people’s liking. Equally they are 1/72 and plastic so 28mm metal fans will have no joy here.
I am quite taken with MAA 520 because it is not just the colour plates that offer so much opportunity and variety. Often in the past Ospreys offered little on uniforms beyond the text for the plates – much of the other text dwelling on potted histories and organisation. These MAA’s offer lots of uniform detail. The black and white plates are very relevant (not always the case in Ospreys), well chosen and in the case of volunteers lots of choice.
I have discovered that there was an English battalion of volunteers in the Sicily campaign of 1860 during the Second War of Unification. It was followed by an English Legion which saw no action. They were all part of the Brigade or Brigata named Dunne after its English Commander.
Plate H1 showing an english volunteer of Brigata Dunne also figures on the front cover of MAA 520.
I used Strelets 1877 Russians in summer dress as they offered the nearest thing to this figure in my view. You might say – well there are plenty of ACW figures that would fill the gap. Well I did look and somehow none looked the part when compared with Strelets 1877 Russians.
Plastic Solder Review complained about the missing bayonets which applies here as well.
I can live with that – 1/72 plastics is often about compromise. I am pleased with the result. In this case Guiseppe Ravas’ illustration made the job easy.
In my last post I mentioned some pesky Bersaglieri – so here they are. 1848/1859 and all that………..
The figures in the line are Strelets 1/72 based to Piquet Field of Battle (I use 40mm square bases) – three figures to a base just like Wesencraft and Peter Pig – the rule of three works quite nicely here.
My own preference these days is to have command bases even where the rules don’t require them. Impetus rules tempted me away from the rigidity of DBA and with its larger bases plus the variable figure poses offered by 1/72 I really like the combination.
Yes these chaps are the slightly maligned Lucky Toys which stand at almost 26mm high.
In build along with some Piedmont Line Infantry and Red Shirts, so you know what is coming down the line sometime……..
Read the Plastic Soldier Review, be horrified and then pay about £4 for 30 odd figures which you have to build yourself just like Perry plastics!
These Bersaglieri are meant to represent Piedmontese/Sardinians in summer dress (white trousers) and will work from the 1840’s to 1870ish.
I paint the bases in burnt umber followed by a yellow ochre heavy dry brush and finish with a pale yellow highlight. I prefer the clumps of grass which to my mind looks right even though Lombardy can look just like the bright green fields of England on its day.
The first milestone is complete. I have a unit of Piedmontese for the period around 1850. Probably the first figures in this era I have painted (well since the year DOT Airfix ACW figures that started me off wargaming).
ok so these Union ACW Strelets Firing Figures are from the wrong continent but hey there were only these kepis in the depot and their regulation tunics had to be swopped for something a bit longer! Oh and they left all their packs behind when they went chasing some Austrians…………On a pedestal nothing is too good for Strelets despite the frankly accurate reviews in Plastic Soldier Review. The thing is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.In PIQUET 1700-1900 Field of Battle rules, 2×2 equals Attack ColumnThe Firing Line from PIQUET 1700-1900 Field of Battle rulesI like a few figures with my scenic crumble (courtesy of woodland scenics – no I am not a shareholder)
Next up on the painting board are some Austrians looking quite serious and on the other hand Bersaglieri – complete with capercaillie feathers.
Well we are at the end of a year that will become notorious.
A year when humanity staggered from the blows of a simple virus. It is perhaps a reminder that nature always has the upper hand no matter how sophisticated our societies have become.
I guess there are plenty of historical parallels to this type of massive societal correction. Not in the same vein but I read recently about how the particularly bad 9th century weather or should I say mini climate change dealt the Carolingians numerous bad harvests damaging their always vunerable Empire. Except even if it were decisive, the roaring vikings is a much more exciting concept of Empire destruction.
Yet right now the Dark Ages have become just that – the Dark Ages as in a box with a lid on it! Right now it is the 19th Century that dominates Wargames in the mind of Norber the Wargaming Erratic.
Before we go and embark on another year there is just enough time to reflect on the fact that 2020 has proven to be rather a good year for my wargaming.
The year got going with a trip to Vapnartak, notable for the fact that it proved to be my one and only show of 2020.
Lithuanian Knights gather to charge the Teutons – figures by WillWarWeb I believe
Playing (LIVE) the Lance and Longbow Society game of Tannenberg 1410 made it all the more important as it turned out. It was my last face to face gaming of 2020.
I was into Carolingians at the time of Vapnartak.
The scary plastic soldier review horses of Carolingia!
so which soldiers marched across my painting table in 2020?
well in 2018 I had managed zero painting while in 2019 I painted and based 32 “normans in the south infantry” and 11 “normans in the south” archers.
in 2020 I managed
12 Carolingians including the man himself – comprising the much maligned (by plastic soldier review) horses which actually give my bases some nice dynamics – in my humble view
10 Anglo Norman archers
24 Normans in the South (NITS – I can’t resist an abbreviation) Cavalry
21 Ottonian foot which look very much like anglo danes or could pass for NITS foot soldiers
43 Anglo Danes were my biggest effort
A fine array of some Anglo Saxons, Anglo Danes and Ottonians
I finished the year with 4 slavs posing as Picts in my “to be” great army of Danes, Scots, Northumbrians and Norsemen which would fight Athelstan again at Brunanburh
And then the proverbial wheels came off the Dark Ages cart.
Right now the painting table has plastic Union Infantry posing as Piedmont Line Infantry along with some venerable Warrior Miniatures French Dragoons posing as – well French Dragoons. And they are metal!!!
Piedmontese in frock coats – shame about the squished stove pipe hats
I must say I had a good year with basing – finally getting a look for my mediterranean NITS – ok Normans in the South project.
Vikings aka Ottonians aka Anglo Danes aka NITS – the beauty of dark ages
In fact I have decided it will work for pretty much everything dark ages.
On the gaming front I started solo gaming with an unexpected purchase. Neil Shuck had recommended War & Conquest shortly before jumping ship with another ancients ruleset.
One of the many offspring writers/thinkers that Games Workshop brought to our wargames world.Sea peoples and desert tribes close in on Libyian bowmen
I gave it a go with my bronze age one hour wargame figures based using my hybrid impetus basing of 80mm x 60mm for 1/72 plastics. Ever awkward – probably just as well I don’t need to satisfy a live opponent. I rather liked the feel of the rules even though the play through was so limited.
And then with Covid19 lock down in full swing and some fine weather I had other distractions including lots of gardening .
I really like simple flowers with a few petalsThe colours are just fantastic
INTERMISSION
Intermission even surprised me – that was not in the plan
INTERMISSION
And of course there is always some track laying to do……………..
Eventually the dark ages gaming started in late August with numerous shieldwall rule tests – I did really enjoy them all. The biggest surprise was playing gridded wargames using Mike Smith’s Table Top Battles.
My lst shieldwall battle took place in late October and many games and rulesets later was swiftly followed by a thoroughly enjoyable game of Dux Britanniarum by Too Fat Lardies.
My vintage Garrison Vikings got a run out.
I fleshed out some campaign plans as per the rules advice and then…………nothing. I was just starting some Pictish Warriors when I read the wrong article.
On the way the renaissance troll introduced me to Faux Napoleonics for fantasy – here is my own 1970’s era Faux Fantasy Orc veering towards napoleonics?
Next minute it is baggy pants Zoaves, Spikey helms and far too much rifling. OK so it is still rather pedestrian Piedmontese – these proto Italians are quite conservative chaps – very un Napoleonic.
Will they really look like Piedmontese or just Union men on the wrong continent?
And since then two battles have been fought – one with Practical Wargaming by Charles Wesencraft and the other using 19th Century Wargames by Neil Thomas.
Whats in the container? – rescued from a dim corner of the erratic’s tardis store………Warrior Miniatures – yes they are metal and yes the brown paint was administered back around 1975!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats a long time on the paint table – 45 years ish. But probably not a record.
And so I wish you all a graceful end to the year 2020 and hope that 2021 brings you all that you hope for.
This is the tip I found by chance on the “The Waving Flag” blog of Martin who runs Vexillia. I found Vexillia during my interest in impetus rules and italian figure makers.
Then I dropped out of that and very recently came to Martins blog by way of one of his recent posts and then having wandered around his blog site again I found the tips section. And wet pallettes update from 2016!
OK so I am slow on the uptake but I do remember a lot of discussion about wet pallettes a while ago (was it in 2016 though?) and it passsed me by. It so happened this time round I was in the middle of a lot of painting and well the article or should I say tip caught my eye.
And yes I followed Martins advice and it works and works really well.
I had some ochre base paint in the wet pallette box for the best part of 3 weeks – no mould in sight and the paint remained perfectly workable.
So thank you Martin.
This is also my 50th post so I can say that starting this blog and achieving this very small milestone in the blogging world is in lots of ways due to the work of others. All those other blogs I have followed over the last 10 years for example.
Here are some that have inspired my gaming, painting and an appreciation of what blogging has contributed to the wargames hobby.
Thank you to one and all. And for those omitted from the list, thank you as well – it is the variety that matters – the different tastes and interests mean there is always something for everyone to enjoy or discover.
And my whole DBA 15mm world received a massive jolt one day in 2007. I picked up a magazine in WH Smiths at a railway station. Nothing untoward you say, except it was a copy of Battlegames published by Henry Hyde.
Subsequently in one of his magazines I read about the beginners guide to blogging by Greg Horne and his Duchy of Alzheim blog. At the time with zero wargames playing going on blogging looked like a waste of good gaming or even painting time.
Much later, much much later in the atlantic publishers era I read in Battlegames Henry’s guide to starting your own blog. Still not for me. And the site link above is Henry’s consolidated site now – the guide I followed in the magazine has been removed. But his main site mentions it.
Another site Henry introduced me to was meeples & miniatures blog and Neil Shuck, and that led me to podcasts – but thats another story.
Some of my favorite blogs have been the following…………
Pauls Bods – absolutely excellent painting of 1/72 plastics and most recently metals by tumbling dice
Wargaming for Grown Ups – great all round musings and plenty of 1/72 ancients plastics that got me out of a 15mm DBx rut and into simpler gaming with plastics and even modifying them
History in 1/72 – great for ideas about what you can do in 1/72
Parade Ground – got me back into 20mm metals with the likes of tumbling dice/newline/SHQ alongside plastics – motivated my purchase of Late Romans by Miniart. excellent 1/72 ideas, painting and figures
The Eastern Garrison – pics of the much missed figures of greenwood and ball – the garrison metals I always wanted were the Carthaginians. Great archive.
Harness and Array – excellent medieval material, motivated me to do or rather start my stoke field project. Sadly it is my one 28mm enterprise and remains unfinished despite the fantastic figures.
Dark Age Wargames – although it only ran from 2006 to 2016 I found this site very useful for my interests in the Dark Ages
The Wars of Wine and Cheese – another imagination thought stream that got me revisiting horse and muskest warfare – but always with a “fantastic” leaning
Vintage Wargaming – so enjoyed the old metal ranges being replayed I rebased mine and used them again
John’s Wargames page – another blog that got me convinced to go down the soft plastics 1/72 route
Heres no great matter – sustained my interest in 15mm, showed me the drawbacks but pleasure of ancient and medieval warfare (AMW) and lots of small but great ideas like dice army pics to show each turn development when reporting a game
Carpat’Land – simply amazing figures to enjoy especially in medieval period and L’art de la guerre ruleset appeared to me here
Steves Random Musings on Wargaming – consistently offers a variety on interesting ideas for me – books and war of the spanish succession to name but two
20mm figures and modelling – wargaming info provided lots of useful links plus news, rulesets views and some interesting carolingian material
the duchy of tradgardland – another imaginations find in my ealry days of reading other peoples blogs
As I say these are just some of the wargame blogs I have enjoyed – some are no longer updated but I think all I have listed can still be visited.
Thanks to every author who has committed time to share their ideas on this fascinating hobby.
I had seen these figures by Orion many times on screen and decided against purchase. But byzantines in 1/72 is not a happy hunting ground. So I have taken the plunge.4 identical strips giving you 52 figures in 13 poses. it says on the box 11th to 14th century – so for my needs – 10/11th century they should work.One strip showing the flash that plastic soldier review complained about generally. back and front with some awkward poses to deal with and the other issue that plastic soldier review mentioned – flatnessbut look at the detail – plastic soldier praised the detail on many orion products of this era, sad that poor mould/manufacture compromised these figures. The animation like more recent strelets releases is what I like Next up again Byzantines in 1/72 are few so again a set I had looked at many times were finally purchased.You get two rounds of small unarmoured cavalry plus one sprue of horseman. The infamous? flash is visible.If the flash proves to be a non issue in prep, I think I have another promising set of figures with some excellent detail on well proportioned figures.These byzantine infantry are on the edge of my project timeline – 11th century. But again some nice designs should prove useable.The dark plastic does not do justice to the design quality – I hope my average painting will not let them down.These chaps are almost too early but I reckon you have some latitude in this era – ” we have not had new uniforms here in decades the new recruit was informed by the byzantine clothing department”Again the flash is present but also again some good designs and excellent detailsAnd now for something completely different! Strelets doing Marlbrough. Despite having hundreds of Zvezda Russians and Swedes I had to try some. I think these are my preference from the BritishOne command sprue and 4 rounds of infantry. sufficient poses that are similar. Unlike my dark age figures I like a degree of uniformity in my “baroque” era armies.Some complementary reading matter from a reknowned author Paddy Griffiths – I remember a library book by him on gross scaling of simulated battles as in army level or corps level etc. Great ideas. This book will complement my biography of the master builder Vauban.And we finish up with two more books on the anglo saxons – in themselves a side project of my “Normans in the South”. One day I will read John Julius Norwich Both books are by Paul Hill and having enjoyed his Norman Commanders and nearly finished his Anglo Saxons at War books I have taken a punt on these earlier two books which having more sweeping titles. A quick look at the contents suggests Paul will stick with his thematic – episodic approach which some reviewers did not like but I think it helps in what is a difficult era to write clearly about. Now i really need to crack on with my saxons and angles.
So these figures will make me just 2 impetus style bases. I opted to switch to 80mm bases after finding an old solo wargamer article that gave some ideas for budget gaming say in a period that was not your main interest. Typically you ignored the traditional DBX rules of figures per base but still kept the frontages.
And then I discovered IMPETUS wargames rules – a great set that liberated my attitudes to basing. Essentially the rules offered a compromise between 15mm on 80mm and 28 mm on 120mm wide bases. They showed plastic 1/72 figures on the 80mm or 120 mm base widths. Either way the basing in Impetus was aimed at making the showing of your figures an important part of the game. It also promoted a diversity of figures showing more a mini diorama than rank upon rank of identical soldiers.
The beige clothed spearman gets short shrift in the plastic soldier review
I like the strelets anglo saxons as they offer a range of armoured and unarmoured figures with perhaps a greater emphasis on swords and axes than some would like. As usual Plastic Soldier Review did have some complaints like the spearman above holding his spear awkwardly at shoulder/chin level and being a bit two dimensional. I rather liked him and kept him in even though he is one of the few in these two element groups not wearing mail.
I like the poses mid centre – a Thegn? in a cloak with upright spear and another in mail with a type of club
I have moved to plastics because my butterfly interests have caused me to pursue so many different periods and armies usually to dead ends.
So at least my budgets are low! Still perhaps that makes it easier to abandon the plan or project? Sadly I think it would be the case with metals – actually it is, as I possess plenty of 1970’s unpainted metals!
middle right and above some nice animated shieldwall figures get ready to attack
I do feel that strelets anglo saxons have a certain animation which is not always present from their sculptors. They are a bit chunky and a bit inconsistent. I can live with the chunky well fed chaps and I like height, shape and size irregularities in my figures.
The red/green/yellow colours that thread their way through this set are based on an article from Medieval Warfare
Medieval Warfare published by Karwansaray of Zutphen, Netherlands ran an article that caught my “Normans in the South” eye simply because of the date 1018. Just two years earlier a Norman pilgrimage to Mont Saint’ Angelo in Rome kick started the Norman adventure in Italy. So I was after some context and this innocent article led me David Bachrach, Count Dirk III and the Ottonians. I digress, the battle of Vlaardingen was fought between Count Dirks men and the Ottonian forces which included men from from Cologne, Liege and Utrecht as well as Lotharingians. The Ottonian or Frankish soldiers are shown in an interesting mix of red, green and yellow shield markings. I decided my saxons would look a bit like some of these men of the Empire.
Go buy the magazine MW VIII-3. Since I started taking these magazines I found numerous interesting articles and I like the mix of content – good photos, artwork and book references to expnad your reading round the subject.
As I said I get two elements here as I will put 11 or so figures on a base with some suggestion of a shield wall, maybe just forming.
So I get two options – saxons for any anglo saxon army plus these guys can be frankish troops who may even head south under the Emperor Henry II into the early years of “Normans in the South”.
So I will complete my Carolingian cavalry with my Mediterranean style basing
I use gloss partly because it gives protection as these figures are to be handled and partly because at 3 feet away on a game table it lifts the colours
The budgie grit bases will get a 3 stage paint job and some tufted plants!So that’s it for these chaps, next up are some strelets normans
Despite a bad plastic soldier review which I follow avidly Charlie and his guard have a decent look about them I am quite pleased with my light cavalry unit
Made some good progress with my Carolingian cavalry after the PVA primer problems. Even coat d’arms horse colours fell victim to some cracking.
Charlemagne not quite majestic The horses that plastic soldier review detestedAfter some care and attention and yes shiny gloss they are beginning to look quite niceThe two light horse I chose actually look ok on their dynamic horsesAnother view of the grand national contenders!If nothing else this set creates motionI have two heavy cavalry bases for my Carolingian or Frankish army plus a light base from one pack.
So next up on the painting table are some Carolingian cavalry. Plastic soldier review (http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com) slated the horses but beggars can’t be choosers as they say. Carolingian cavalry are less loved than the infantry and even those have to be nicked off your Saxons somehow.
Here are my primer choices again persisting with PVA versus VJ grey primer on soap washed and scrubbed 1/72 strelets medium plastic.
These Carolingians will double up as Franks as well. I also painted a few Normans (on the left above) into the bargain, again Strelets 1/72, being from some of their original sets.
As you can see the VJ primer shows up the detail straight away which I like.
So first I cleaned the flash – not too bad and then matched the figures as per the photo on the box art, pinning and gluing the horsemen to the horses. After priming and white undercoating, I painted the horses with coat d’arms horse colours – looking good already – followed by blacking out the metallics.
The Wargaming Erratic 