Kelly's Heroes (SYW Style)

My title refers to Le Noble's Frei-Korps. I can't find a great deal of information on this unit, but the manner of its ending seems to give a fairly major clue as to its character. A unit that has to be disbanded at gunpoint must possess qualities that, if not laudable, are at least interesting. Certainly a general fortunate enough to command such troops will never have to search his mind to find excuses should he lose a battle.

I am intending to use this unit as light infantry. I'm not sure how historically accurate this is as I won't be modelling the unit's jager detachment, only the troops in 'double-blue' uniform. That's a decision based on aesthetics: I like the distinctive double-blue, while the green of the jager uniform looks distinctly 'un-prussian' to me.

The Stadden prussian SYW figures are not ideal for modelling this unit, due to the poses available. The officer marching in parade order with sword upright and the musketeer in march-attack both seem altogether too formal. The officer with spontoon has the right sort of pose. One can almost imagine him shouting "this way you scum" as his troops attempt to sneak off to the rear. But the weapon is altogether too cumbersome, so a simple conversion to using a sword is called for. He also needs lapels added.

The problem of the rank and file is rather greater. A suitable figure with correct uniform and equipment, sculpted by Charles Stadden (or at least with the same elegant proportions), animated 'at the ready' is simply not to be had. I don't like the firing pose (which is the only alternative given to march-attack) as this always looks odd at the start of the game when there are no enemy near enough to shoot at. The Stadden FP16 Prussian Grenadier charging is suitable: but this has the grenadier mitre cap: hence the tricorne modelling discussion in the previous posting.

Modelling tricornes has proven to be a most frustrating process: I think I have made one of these articles with each and every modelling mistake possible (brim too thick, crown too bulbous, fold misplaced in every various fashions, etc.). Currently about one in six comes out as usable: at least by my standards, a professional would probably reject them all. It might be sensible to make a mould from my best attempt but the only way to get better at this is to practice, so I will persevere. The entire experience means that me and the King of Wittemberg are entirely in sympathy.

The photo shows the two figures converted and then undercoated. I am not altogether happy with the converted grenadier: as usual with Stadden prussian grenadiers the figure appears slightly over-sized. I think Charles Stadden may have had the Potsdam giants in mind when he sculpted these.

Tricornes

One of the great virtues of our blogs is the manner in which ideas can be floated, discussed and developed. In this case I refer to a posting by Adderphue which gave his method for creating tricornes - by creating a wide-brimmed hat and folding it to shape. This is a solution to creating a tricorne that seems to be within my limited sculpting abilities. One of my current projects (of which more another time) might be solved if I can make tricornes in this manner, and so I am currently experimenting with it.

The big question is: how does one fold a tricorne? Looking into this one very quickly realises that the question itself is rather inadequate to the problem. The hat's shape evolved over time until it finally became the bicorne. So the initial geometry of the unfolded hat, and placement of folds, changes according to which period we are trying to model. A useful starting point is to look at the tricorne at its simplest. This has folds in the form of an equilateral triangle, and gives us the hat worn by these gentlemen.

Gentlemen Pensioners

The maths for this is simple. The figure below shows that the ratio of the hat's central and outer radii is given by r1/r2 = cos 60 = 0.5. All other shapes can be gotten by slight variations on this. For example, if we want each side to have a concave curve to it then we reduce the inner radius slightly. To mimic the tricornes on the Stadden figures, we need to also to raise the front of the hat and pinch the rear corners of the tricorn.

Tricorne Geometry

Guards, Grenadiers And Waistcoats

If there was a church near me with a conveniently ill-guarded set of bells I think I would be ringing them now in celebration. My third regiment of infantry (fusiliers) is complete. In retrospect, the tactic of painting en masse did not suit me at all: I did manage an unprecedented 36 Olley painting points in just over a month, but painting large numbers of figures was not as enjoyable as my usual method of painting in small sub units. So I will return to my old routine of a company at a time.

Now what does a wargamer, of a certain age, do when he finds himself in possession of three regiments of infantry - each one boasting forty-eight bayonets - in all their glory? Well, at least in my case, he finds himself attempting to resemble 'so far as a slightly bulging waistcoat permits, an eagle about to swoop'. I don't actually possess a waistcoat, nor any bulge where the waistcoat should be, but those are the precise words from the book. Of course, if you are not familiar with Charge! you are left at this point wondering what this fellow is blathering on about. For you it's a bit like the US cavalry spotting Indian smoke signals: you know there's something up, but you don't know quite what and you really would rather like to know if they refer to you.

The description in Charge! of the stand of the 'Pultava Guards' against the combined might of the 'Douro Grenadiers' and the 'Musselburgh Fusiliers' was a part of the book that I read over and over in my youth. If I read it now, I find I am so familiar with the words that I hardly read them off the page at all. So it was a delight to finally be able to play it out. My Guarde Grenadier regiment took the place of the Pultava guards, my Fusiliers the Douros (as they have pointy hats) and my musketeers were the Musselburgs.

The Guarde Prepares to Receive The Assault

I shall not attempt to recapture the prose of Young and Lawford in recounting what happened. However, the Guarde mounted a magnificent defence, total casualties to the attackers being 51 shot down and 6 prisoners taken, while losing only 12 men in return (the 'fusiliers' were left with only the unengaged company standing). The dice did take a decided bias towards the Garde and 'salty expressions' would have been the order of the day if this had been played against someone else. But there was more to it than just the dice. Company strengths of only twelve men left the power of the attacking columns greatly diminished while increasing their vulnerability to musketry.

The Columns Make Their Assaults

This leads me to speculate over the reasons for one apparent consistency in the Charge! rules and why it was there. If we look at Light Infantry and Pioneers they both use 12 man company establishments. This would appear to be the natural organisation for line infantry too: four companies form a square far more readily than three. It is notable that, later in the book (ie. at Sittangbad), four companies are indeed adopted, although this is done while retaining a strength of 16 men.

The Defeated Columns Prepare To Hand Over Prisoners

Fighting this action has finally laid another childhood dream to rest, and at the cost of only a few uncomplaining metal lives. I am not a reader of Horace, but I do read Kipling and it was in 'Stalky And Co' that I found Kipling quoting the following lines from Horace, Ode 17, Bk. V, which seemed to me to be a suitable (if somewhat pretentious) way to end this blog entry:

How comes it that, at even-tide,
When level beams should show most truth,
Man, failing, takes unfailing pride,
In memories of his frolic youth?

Those Fusliers Again

When I'm getting near to completing a batch of figures, I start keeping a list of all the painting stages still to be done before varnishing. That's a simple precaution needed if, like me, you have a bad habit of forgetting small items until after varnishing. I started making my list for the fusiliers five days ago, at which time there were nine items on the list.

So its rather a disappointment to find I still have six items on the list to do. I have been lazy I admit, but there's more to it than that. Because that list grew to seventeen items while I was working on it. If my painting was up to it, I think I'd add a slight smirk onto the faces of these figures.

The Legion Of The Damned (many times over): Stadden Fusiliers

If I do decide to try painting another unit as one large batch, then I think I will try mounting multiple figures on a strip - as many of you have suggested. Well, at least if they are infantry. I rather suspect that Stadden/Suren cavalry would be too heavy.

Foliage

I suspect it is a rule of life that if you don't want a green bathroom sponge then the things are everywhere. Local supermarkets offer special deals for bulk purchases of them, small children try and sell them to you through your car window (I'm guessing here, I haven't driven in 20 years), charities give them away to needy and deserving people. But as I actually did want one, there were none to be found in the neighbourhood. My original plans thwarted by the negligence of local shopkeepers, I resorted to using that kitchen essential: the pan scourer. A pack of three 4"x 6" pads, costing 49p, provided enough material to cover three of my monster-sized trees.

The scourers were chopped up into small cubes. The first of these were pushed onto the bare metal wire remaining at the tips of each bough, the wires being coated with PVA to provide a permanent bond. Other cube could then dunked into PVA and pushed onto cubes that were already in place, being held there by their tangled fibres until the PVA dried. Given the small size of the cubes (due to pan scourers being rather thin) this had to be repeated in a lot of stages, taking rather more time than I'd prefer.

Once happy with the amount of foliage added, it was pruned with a pair of nail scissors to try and remove the more visible corners of the cubes and thus give a more natural effect. The final step was brush on some light green paint to soften the deep green colour of the original pad. The net result of all this is shown in the photo.

Do Painters Have Morale Throws Too?

I usually buy figures in small units: a company of musketeers, one of grenadiers, and perhaps a squadron of cavalry all in one purchase. I find this lessens the drudge factor in painting by providing a little more variety. But there is a downside to this. There may be an interval of a month or so before I paint a second set of figures of the same type. And this means that much of the familiarity with the figure has been lost: the same old mold lines may not be noticed (again), and details of which features to paint up and which to ignore, what to highlight, what to line, all have to be remembered.

I had already painted the rank and file for one company of fusiliers some time ago. I decided that I would try a different approach for the rest, completing the regiment by painting all its remaining figures if not all in one go, then at least in consecutive batches. Perhaps the drudge factor would be more than compensated for by the efficiencies of the method.

Well, the figures have arrived from Tradition of London. As usual the inital reception was one of pleasure (I can't frolic like a new-born lamb anymore, though I do try). But there was a little voice somewhere in my mind doubting that painting them all was really going to be quite so much fun as unpacking them. I set them all out and admired them: admiring figures does not take much effort. But it was when I started to clean them up with a craft knife that I really began to reflect on how long it takes (me at least) to paint thirty six Stadden infantry plus their accompanying officers.

Stadden fusiliers in column of bottletop

I remember the old WRG rules sets with their lengthy lists morale of morale factors. My table for 'painter about to sit and paint' would have factors such as +1 for a sunny day, +1 for a decent programme on the radio, +2 for good anatomy, etc.. I think I made my morale throw, albeit only just.

Trees

A glance at the map for Charles Grant's Action! shows that I need plenty of trees. Perhaps not as many as at Fontenoy, but still sufficient to provide an appreciable area of bad terrain on both flanks of the field of battle. I don't have to count up the number of trees I currently possess, because I don't have any to count. So it's really high time to turn my thoughts to what's to be done about them.

I want trees that will look good, be robust enough to survive any knocks during gaming or in storage, be big enough to look like proper trees rather than overgrown shrubs, be small enough that they don't take up much room in storage, and stable enough to not get knocked over during battle. And, of course, they mustn't get in the way of any troops lurking beneath them. That's a fair number of conflicting requirements, so some compromises will have to be made.

It has to be said straight away that 'overgrown shrubs' are what the sensible wargamer uses. Large trees have a habit of getting in the way as you try to move figures. If you knock them over the tress are at best merely annoying, it they are firmly rooted then you are lucky to avoid damaging them or else impaling your hand. However, I decided that the look of thing overrides such sensible considerations, if only because I liked the novelty of bigger trees than I have used in the past.

Having decided on size, I chose to have trees that can be firmly attached to my terrain modules (for stability), but removed for ease of storage. This can be done by embedding a threaded nut in the terrain module and incorporating the corresponding bolt in the bottom of the trunk of the tree. It might be simpler to do things the other way round - with the bolt in the terrain and the nut in the tree, but this would make storing the terrain harder as the thread of the bolt would stand proud of the terrain when the tree is removed.

The tree's trunk is build from bottom up. An irregularly shaped piece of card, with a hole drilled through it for the bolt, establishes a good flat surface where the tree is in contact the ground. The bolt is pushed through the card and positioned so that the correct amount of thread is exposed. I then wrap milliput between the card and the head of the bolt, and (temporarily) screw the nut onto the bolt to hold the cardboard firm while the milliput dries. The main trunk of the tree is made out of old fibre tip pens, because I happen to have a load of these I'd never thrown away. The head of the bolt is simply embedded into milliput at the base of the trunk, the milliput also being used to build up the trunk - which should naturally be wider at its base.

Embedding The Bolt

The nut can now be taken off the partially completed trunk and inserted into the terrain module. The two layer construction of my modules makes this relatively easy - the nut is epoxied onto the 4mm thick MDF that forms the lower layer of the module. The foamcore upper layer - with an area cut out where the nut is going to go - can then be glued onto the terrain module, hiding the nut from view.

The boughs of the tree are made of twisted wire. Twist two wires together to make a bough. Twist two of these together to make a bigger bough, etc. The assembled boughs are then pushed into the trunk of the tree, wedged in with milliput to hold them in place. Milliput is then used to cover the wire, hiding the twists in the wire, and adding strength.

Component Boughs

Basic Trees

More boughs can be added using twisted wire to make the tree more convincing. I wrapped some around the outside of the tree trunks to form lower limbs for the trees. Others were added to the upper boughs to create more complex structures. You can buy terracotta milliput (intended to repair garden pots etc.) and this can be used to provide a brown base colour, thus simplifying later painting.

I have yet to decide on how to add foliage. In the past I have used wire wool dunked in sawdust. This looks good, but tends to be messy with sawdust being shed everytime the trees are used. My current idea is to use chopped up bits of a green bathroom spong - if I can find such an article in the shops. So any suggestions on alternatives would be welcome.

Nearing Completion