Waterloo project: the madness continues with my first big battalion

When I've made big battalions before they were roughly 60-figure units for my 18th century Imagi-nation armies and were generally built up in stages. Half of our summer-long Waterloo project involves weekend refights round Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte at a 1:3 figure:man scale. Please see the previous two posts if you are new to this blog. That means battalions of between about 150 to 200 figures. I've volunteered to do four of them for the LHS games and thought it would make sense to start off with the "stars of the show" who held LHS throughout, Major Baring's 2nd Light Battalion of The King's German Legion. Since they were a very understrength unit they would be the smallest part of my madness, working out, in the end, at 138 figures. Essentially they were like the 95th Rifles but with subtle differences. Before I embark on the story of their creation here's a quick look at the lot in line with skirmishers out.

Why 138?  In the first rush of enthusiasm I noted the starting strength of 400, divided it roughly by 3 so about 135, and thought "6 companies of 20 figures each, plus command" that sounds neat. I ordered 60 x 2 figure plastic sprues of British Riflemen from Perry's and then realised how attractive the metal Hanoverian command pack was with 6 different figures, 2 officers, 2 sergeants and 2 buglers. But I would need 2 or 3 for each company to make my 135 and had to order 3 packs...so why not use them all, hence 138, and just to be equal each company has 23 figures. So blame History and Perry's for a non-standard size!

For those not familiar with these figures here's a photo of two identical sprues, front and back.

You can imagine that assembing 120 risked getting a bit tedious but I worked out a system. It seemed to me that by matching two different sets of leg/torso with two different sets of arms/rifles I could make four variations and so one for each of four of my companies. This left one company to throw together as "random" and another entirely of conversions, some of them very extensive, if not particularly anatomically sound :-)

These photos show some of the conversions and some of the metal command figures.

I didn't use Greenstuff or modelling putty as filler but brushed on different thicknesses of my favourite Acrylic Structure Gel till I was happy with the result. It dries fairly quickly and is like liquid plastic. You'll also see that I like to base my figures before painting, as it's quicker and easier I think. My watchword for wargame standard painting is "if you can't get to it to paint you probably don't need to!"

I assembled the whole 138 and then sprayed them with Army Painter "Army Green" primer.  I wasn't botherting with highlights for so many figures and Army Green is a medium shade, so I then diluted some Citadel "Caliban Green" and gave them all a wash with a big brush. When dry that had a nice effect of filling in the creases and making the ensemble appear a pleasing Rifle Green. Incidentally, the manager at Gloucester Games Workshop surprised me by his historical knowledge and recommended this colour for my "Rifles".  

It was now a long slog to do the proper painting with brushes. I'm a child of the Don Featherstone "quick fire" method of figure painting. That is - do the most obvious colours first and go through the whole lot with that colour, then gradually move on to the detail, but still do the whole lot to keep them in sync. I've also read good advice that says if you have a large number the same then break them down into manageable chunks and let each  chunk be a  stage or two behind the previous, to minimise boredom. Well, as I said in my first of these Waterloo postings, this is a new challenge to me and I wasn't going to fall at the first hurdle so I took it as a matter of honour to carry on regardless with all 138 in the same sequence. My concession to numbers was that, instead of each "colour" I painted each "item" throughout.  So 138 black collars, then 276 black cuffs etc. This does cut down on the thinking and changing brush strokes time.  I won't bore you with the stages but here they are finished and before the "marmite" stage.

Love it or hate it Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone is less like Marmite and more like Bovril!

But it certainly brought the plain grey trousers to life, without any other shading or highlighting, and gave the green jackets an extra darken which I think is appropriate. The black leather remains unhighlighted except where the light catches it naturally, but hey, it's 138 model soldiers for wargaming I'm doing here, not a diorama!

Just the bases to landscape and then a good matt spray varnish. Though there were one or two other details that I will show below.  

Here are two more views of the battalion in two rank line. Sharp eyed viewers wil realise I have not yet painted Major Baring himself - I need to find or convert a suitable mounted officer in bicorne hat with a lacy Rifle-type jacket and legwear...plenty of time yet.

The five company line is around 36 inches long, or about 110 metres on our ground scale.

And here they are in square 

Since sister unit 1st Light battalion KGL (less 2 companies) spent a fair bit of time at Waterloo in square it was good practice for me to see what that might look like. Also in our game we will be having at least 5th (line) Battalion KGL and the British 32nd Foot on the ridge above LHS at some stage, and they are both bigger.

Practically speaking at this scale 3 ranks deep of figures has to represent the classic four-deep British square. I've put the command stands in the centre which can pass as a sort of fourth rank if required. This amount of figures covers roughly 10 inches by 12 inches (30 x 36 metres).

Now here are some photos of my 2LB KGL alongside Kevin's model of La Haye Sainte by Hovels. It's fair to say that if he hadn't already had this model we might not be doing this project at all.  Obvioulsy he's just kindly lent it to me for this photo session and we will be putting it on a specially landscaped board for the actual event in 2015.

I'm happy that we've got the scale right. For the photos I've notionally put two companies defending the rear kitchen garden perimeter, a company on the South side where the orchard will be, and three companies within the farm itself. In fact as the buildings have hollow bases one can put a whole company worth of figures in each of the barn, stables and house. For the sake of playability some concessions will have to be made about how many rifles can actually fire out; in real life the lines of fire were quite restricted as few loopholes were made.

Here are some close-ups within the farm

 On the piggery and at the main gate. (I made these individual conversions before I saw the model and hoped they would fit on what I thought was a flat roof ----doooooh!)

 This is the stable block and the passageway through to the West side

In the last posting I waxed lyrical about the superb "95" decals available from Alban Miniatures and I decided, as I had transfer paper for my printer, to make some of my own for 2LB KGL. I have some of the wonderful re-enactor photo books in the "Europa Militaria Special" series.  Nr. 9, on German Napoleonic Armies, has a good feature on The KGL Light and here is a detail of equipment.

The back pack has a nice green horn on its side and I was able to copy that, modify it in the computer and produce some about 2mm square for the centre of  my backpacks.

That isn't just modelling nerdyness as I'm trying to think of distinguishing features on the table top to help players. In my game there might be up to 700 figures in dark green jackets from 4 different battalions. With your specs on you can see the "2" on these backpacks! I also produced some little transfers for the water canteens but these proved to be more of a liability and a waste of time, so I won't be doing them for other units.

Each company, bar the first, is distinguished by a small coloured blob of paint on the base - white, green, red, yellow and light blue and also a sticky label underneath each base to identify which company.

With any luck none of our players will be able to claim they can't track casualties as they can't distinguish companies and battalions apart.

I hope that's been of interest or some use. Next on the painting table a complete change doing my first 10 figures of one of the two squadrons of the 2nd Life Guards.

Hougoumont model leads to big project

My friend Kevin East has big ideas, and the artistic talent to match, but modestly doesn't shout about his achievements much. Little did I realise when he came back into my life last year that I would be sucked into a wargaming project that brings me right back to the start of my wargaming life nearly 50 years ago.

Something to aspire to - a beautiful model of
The Chateau of Hougoumont

1965 was the 150th anniversary of Waterloo and to mark the occasion the recently departed great Don Featherstone put on a public display in London using the 20mm troops and sculpted terrain of Peter Gilder. Other notables of the day such as Neville Dickenson and Tony Bath refought the famous battle with, I suppose, about 2000 model soldiers on what was for those days a huge table.  I went with my friend Chris Beaumont and we 13 year olds were quite overcome by the occasion. I put that event down as the time I became a proper wargamer because we saw the real chaps in action and realised how a wargame was fought in practice rather than trying to puzzle it out from Don's book.
Tony Bath as Napoleon in 1965
Close up of the 1965 style Waterloo terrain in 1970
 I bought my first bags of Spencer Smith 30mm plastic Napoleonic figures....and the rest is history.

I later converted to doing Napoleonics in 20mm, and about 6 or 7 years after that, when they were "state of the art", collected 15mm armies.  About 15 years or so after that, inpired by a lecture by sculptor Anthony Barton, I made a passable collection of my own design of 15mm French and Spanish Peninsular figures. Many other periods and scales have been and gone and I eventually off loaded my 15mm Napoleonic armies about 3 years ago but have never lost my "love" and awe for the Napoleonic period for wargaming.

In 2010 at a 28mm Napoloeonic game he'd put on for our group my friend Paul casually said "You know, I've never refought the Battle of Waterloo", and I replied, "Well. despite all my involvement in the period, neither have I ". Paul added, "I'd really like to do it in 2015, for the 200th anniversary". There were murmurs of approval round the table but misgivings that we didn't have a venue big enough to do it justice. My response was "anyway, I'd love to do the terrain", and we left it at that........

....Until 2013.....

At this stage if you haven't seen them already have a digression to look at the three Kevin East Guest Pages in my right hand side bar.   Kevin has been building up specific Waterloo units in 28mm at a scale of 1 figure = 20 men and they are staggeringly beautifully done, but he says he is primarily a collector, with wargaming a secondary interest, and had no pre-conceived ideas about what games he would  do with them. Thus he'd quietly painted for about 5 years until coming back in contact with the Cheltenham Greatfield Group via me.

Now Paul has been the mainstay of our Napoleonic grand-tactical-scale gaming for more years than I care to remember, first in 6mm, then 15mm, and latterly in 28mm as his eyesight succombed to the inevitable ageing process. He has developed a very workable set of Napoleonic rules for multi-corps battles at one figure = 100 men. So the whole of Waterloo would need about 2000 figures.

Action hots up in Paul's recent refight of the second day of the
Battle of Eckmuhl 1809 (yes I know we are not very tidy!)

So it seemed sensible to put Paul and Kevin together to pool resources for Waterloo and we had our first meeting to discuss this project in August, knowing that we'd still need a long time to get it right.

By late Spring 2014 I expect to move into my own wargames room-cum-art studio because the builders start work on our new house in about a month or so. By 2015 we should have knocked this into shape for regular gaming and I hope to have enough room for a specially designed Waterloo set up 13 feet long by 6 feet wide, and with another 12 square feet added on to give extra depth. So that's the first madness - I've volunteered to make 90 square feet of customised terrain at a scale of 1 inch = 50 yard!  Kevin and Paul seem confident they can provide all the troops for this at 1:100.

But it gets madder....and that brings me to Hougoumont.

Kevin had acquired the neally nice Chateau and also La Haye Sainte models made by Hovels in a scale for 25/28mm figures, but as I've said, had no real idea of gaming with them until Paul and I saw them and exclaimed how could we resist not using them!  But a model as big as Hougoumont needs a skirmish level wargaming scale, and after a lot of thinking we settled on one figure = 3 real men and 1 inch = 3 metres on a 12 foot x 6 foot table with a couple of add-on pieces.   And before I knew it I was into a second mad decision - to make two more base boards for the Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte (LHS) scenarios, and rules to match.

But more madness was to follow..........

I hadn't thought this through properly.  In the excitement of the meeting I volunteered to organise and umpire the LHS scenario, thinking the other guys would take care of the figures within their already scoped games. It was only in the cold light of dawn, after my euphoria-addled head came up for air out of Mark Adkin's "Waterloo Companion", that I realised the LHS area was fought over by several battalions of green-clad King's German Legion Light Infantry and Hanoverians, and we had very few of those!  So, if I didn't do them we'd have no game. Just for added fun we'd have to recreate the various escapades up onto Mont St. Jean of French Cuirassiers and Dragoons, the 2nd Life Guards, the RHA Rocket Troop and the KGL Light Dragoons across this area of the famous field and through various times of the day. Also we'd need the French 13th Legere trying to take LHS itself. Each battalion will be between 140 and 200 figures.

And so it was that I found I'd volunteered to paint nearly 1000 28mm figures in the next 21 months! That's nearly 50 a month, or 1.5 a day. Sounds easy when  you put it like that but I do have a life, and work, and a family, and a house to renovate, and the terrain to make, and other wargame periods I had hoped to pursue (did you read my Stalingrad posts?).

It look like we will be scheduling  four weekends during our "Waterloo Summer 2015". Two different variations of the whole battle, a weekend of LHS scenarios, and a weekend of Hougoumont scenarios. Although many of the figures will be re-used I think we will be getting through about 4000 figures in those weekends, so it is no small undertaking for a tiny group like ours (yes we do have a couple more volunteers so far - thanks - you know who you are).

But, the good thing is that I've just received medical advice that I'm over the worst hurdle on my recovery from cancer.......I can expect to stay well enough to see this through. But if I'd had a "bucket list" who could imagine a Napoleonic wargamer not having Waterloo at the top? And if I do die in the attempt, what a glorious way to go......

I'm sure you will hear more about this, but for now I hand over to Kevin East. Please see the new Kevin East Hougoumont Guest page in the right hand side bar where he explains all about his lovely model and how he painted it, and there is an example of a 216 figure battalion too, of which we expect to have six or seven in play on each of our 1:3 scale weekends!

Old school World War Two

Back in the 1960s my friends and I, like so many others, were inspired by Don Featherstone's "War Games" and his Airfix figures and scratch built tanks fighting across a sand table. We scraped together our pocket money and bought those boxes of soldiers and plastic kits. In 1968 we had grand plans to do Operation  Barbarossa, and particularly Stalingrad. For early war Germans you could only get a model of a StuG III in those days, and the more adept club members converted them to Panzer IIIs with scratch built turrets or Panzer IVs, not only with the turrets but also extra hull length to accommodate two extra sets of wheels. We never got anywhere near Stalingrad but had great fun and some grand tank battles along the way.

When the teenage and early twenty somethings went their separate ways the collections fragmented but some stayed in Cheltenham and saw good service in later years.  I repaired and repainted many in the mid 1990s, inspired by the "Rapid Fire!" rules, doing Greece, Crete and fictitious Mediterranean island landings. A few years later the lure of more high powered weaponry took hold and I invested time and money augmenting the collection to do something on the Allied invasion of Sicily, paratroopers at Arnhem, and a series of games on D-day and just beyond. I only ever returned to the Russian Front for a brief tour of duty - and this time with 2 mm armies. Hardly old school! But "Rapid Fire" unashamedly seems to be old Featherstone style and it introduced me to more modern ranges of figures and tanks and the realisation that, if you can afford it, you don't have to convert anything any more - just buy it complete!

Here are some photos of one of my games in 2010 of the German Panzer counter-attack on D-Day (this was when I had a sand table too)

Now life moves on and it's finally time to leave the Chateau de Grandchamp for pastures new, and the Duchess, quite reasonably, thinks it's time to thin out the old toy soldier collection. So hello EBay!  I've had some fun already and sold off my metal WW2 infantry, I've sold the stuff specifically designed for D-Day and now I've put up for auction many lots of German tanks and armoured support  - enough for a Rapid Fire Panzer Regiment and some of the fire support for the Division.
Here's a view of it all:

Most of them are painted in late war desert yellow mottled with green and dark red-brown, but some still retain the early Panzer grey - such as these vintage conversions at this EBay link
Panzer III tanks
There are 13 lots in all, including some less obvious  models like self propelled Anti-Aircraft armour and a Panzer III repair/recovery tank, just go to Ebay and search on "World War Two German Armour",  seller is 7073chrisg.

In weeks to come I'll be putting up for sale the German personnel vehicles and towed artillery and all the Allied armour, vehicles and artillery. Later there will be lots of plastic British and German infantry from those early war theatres and I'll put a posting on this blog when they are ready. If, like me, you like to do your wargaming on the cheap then please take a look as them as starting prices are very reasonable and the quality is quite nice.