Gamer in Exile

I wanted to have a 40mm “lace and big hats” army. I already had Napoleonic armies in 6mm, 15mm and 28mm. I thought it was too much to start Napoleonics again in another scale since I have already invested so much. I want to game the Seven Years war, but in 6mm and 28mm. I am building 10mm forces for the War of the Spanish Succession.

40mm S&S AWI01 2nd New Hampshire Regiment

Casting around I thought of gaming the American War of Independence. There are a wide variety of uniforms to paint for AWI which makes building up forces less boring.

40mm S&S AWI02 9th Foot

I was too keen to sit down and decide on a rule set, proper ORBATs etc. so I just went ahead and ordered the figures. I bought Sash and Sabre 40mm figures from Old Glory. This is what I bought

• Two American guns each with six crew
• Two British guns each with six crew
• Six British line infantry unit packs each of 20 figures
• Six Continental infantry units packs each of 20 figures
• Four Highlander unit packs each of 20 figures
• Two American Milita unit packs each of 20 figures
• 20 British skirmishers of various types
• 10 Jaeger skirmishers
• 20 American skirmishers of various types
• One British light cavalry unit of 7 figures
• One Tarleton legion (Loyalist) cavalry unit of 7 figures
• Two American light dragoon cavalry units of 7 figures

40mm S&S AWI05 Continental Light Dragoons (with head swaps)

Now I am not sure if I want to increase the size of the infantry units to 40 figures. But I can do that somewhere along the road.

40mm S&S AWI06 Tarletons Legion

I bought two “spare” highlander units to give away as individual sample figures. People in Bangladesh like to have big figures. They aren’t impressed with a 15mm figure and 28mm seems a bit small to them. After painting the figures I think they look too good to give away to people who will pack them away in a drawer gathering dust. I can use them to enlarge the highland regiments as 2nd battalions.

40mm S&S AWI07 42nd

Sash & Sabre (S&S) 40mm figures come with separate heads. This facilitates head swaps. I swapped the heads of one of the American Light Dragoon units for spare tricornes so I could model the 2nd Connecticut regiment. Cavalry men also have separate arms for either swords or pistols.

40mm S&S AWI14 American Militia

Being a lunatic I decided to solder all the bits on. I have invested about a hundred pounds in low temperature solder and am determined to exact value from my purchase! The soldering took a hell of a long time. I don’t recommend it. Stick with some kind of rapidly setting two part epoxy like Araldite rapide. The only plus for soldering is that you can solder broken bayonets so that they are fixed to hats as well we the top of the gun.

40mm S&S AWI111 Jaegers skirmishing

After I had started cleaning, prepping, soldering and soldering the figures I thought about which units I should model. This is what happens when you get over excited on a project! I decided on painting for Saratoga 1777. I had quite a bit of uniform information from Ospreys, the Baccus miniatures site (done lots of 6mm AWI in the past) and TMP.

40mm S&S 2nd Maryland 1st Artillery Company

I finished painting these figures a couple of months ago but have only just gotten around to taking photographs.

40mm S&S Royal Artillery

Here are the rest of my units. I didn’t bother to photograph multiple skirmish sets.

2nd New York

40mm S&S AWI01 3rd Massachusetts

40mm S&S AWI01 4th New York

40mm AWI01 8th Massachusetts

40mm S&S AWI01 14th Massachusetts

40mm S&S AWI02 20th Foot

40mm S&S AWI02 21st Foot

40mm S&S AWI02 47th Foot

40mm S&S AWI02 53rd Foot

40mm S&S AWI02 62nd Foot

40mm S&S AWI05 Continental Light Dragoons

40mm S&S AWI07 71st Highlanders

40mm S&S AWI08 British Light Dragoons

40mm S&S AWI14 American Militia

40mm S&S AWI105 American riflemen

40mm S&S AWI107 British skirmishing

40mm S&S AWI108 American Militia skirmishing

40mm S&S Continental Artillery

I have been a fan of the Napoleonic Bavarian army ever since I saw a spread page article on the war of 1809 in Wargames Illustrated. Cornflower blue uniforms and distinctive crested helmets make the Bavarians an attractive army to collect.

Old Glory 1st Edition 25mm Napoleonic Bavarian infantry

I was ordering some figures from Old Glory anyway so I decided to bolt on enough Napoleonic Bavarian figures to make ten thirty six man Bavarian battalions. These battalions are organised along the French six company system which the Bavarians adopted later in the Napoleonic wars (I think it was from 1811.) Most people organise their Bavarian infantry units this way.

OG Bavarians come in command packs of twenty (five sets of command figures including one standard bearer), flank packs of thirty (plumes for grenadiers and lights), and center packs of thirty.

Old Glory 1st Edition 25mm Napoleonic Bavarian infantry

Some of the figures in each pack are without helmets, either bare headed or bandaged. This gives you some flexibility in allocating figures between the flank and center companies. This may save you buying extra packs of figures you don’t need. Plumes can also be chopped off flank company figures if you need support for your center company rankers.

The figures are very animated. There is a lot of variety in the packs which is a contrast to some ranges, like Foundry or Front Rank.

Packs of 30 figures are $32. Packs of 20 command figures are $23. So you can add a division of Napoleonic Bavarians to your army without breaking the bank.

These figures are just painted to my regular standard. But if you wanted to go to town you could do a really nice job.

The basing is for “In The Grand Manner” but it works for “General de Brigade” and some other systems.

My friend Peter recently came to see me in Bangladesh. I decided to build him an army (worthy of Mordor) to celebrate this reunion. He said he had always wanted to game the English Civil War and was interested in the early period of the war. I decided to do the job in 10mm and to model the forces on Edgehill.

English Civil War Generals

Edgehill is an odd battle in that the Royalists were more “uniformed” than Parliament, which is the reverse of the trend in the rest of the war. We also have better uniform details for the Royalist. The Baccus site is a good source for ECW uniforms (most of the ECW figures I paint are Baccus 6mm.)

Royalist Foot

I find that painting English Civil War figures is more work than most other commissions because of the paucity of uniform information. At times you only have a flag colour for a regiment and have to make up everything else.

Royalist Foot

I ordered figures from Old Glory’s “Magnificent Little Soldier Co.” range. I actually ordered all the figures before properly reading the Polemos rule set for which I was basing everything. Polemos has five types of infantry bases from pure shot to pure pike and mixes in between. So I had to puzzle out how to use all the figures I had ordered once they arrived.

Pike come without cast on pikes (very sensibly). I cut up wire, drilled the figures, and then glued the wire in place. Next time I will buy pikes which OG conveniently sell and save myself the trouble of cutting wire to the right length.

Parliament pure shot base

Dragoons require three bases for each unit. One mounted dragoon unit becomes two bases when it dismounts.

Royalist Dragoons mounted

Royalist Dragoons dismounted

Before doing thorough research I bought a couple of bags of Cuirassier. It turns out that there were very few Cuirassier used during the ECW, and they were mainly on one side (I forget which!) But lets not allow facts to stop us using perfectly good Wargame figures.

Parliament "trotter" Cuirassier

I left the armour on the Cuirassier gloss and only matted down the other parts of the figure and the trumpet / standard bearers as appropriate. The armoured parts of the figure were painted black and then dry brushed with black mixed with silver. Most armour in the ECW was painted black.

Royalist "galloper" Cuirassier

Polemos differentiates two systems of cavalry warfare for the English Civil War. There are “trotters” and “gallopers”. I gave the rule book to Peter (who got the army) so here goes from memory! Gallopers follow the Swedish system favoured by Prince Rupert (Royalist). The Galloper horse form a compact body, charge the enemy, and try to break up their formation and then use pistols in the persuit. Trotters follow the Dutch system and discharge pistols at close range before closing with the enemy, who hopefully has a broken formation at this point.

Royalist Horse "Galloper" in helmet

Parliament tended to use trotters and the Royalists tended to use gallopers. This is a convenient way to tell the forces apart on the table. When I first thought about representing gallopers and trotters I had planned to put gallopers in two lines (which they are in) but to make them a more compact mass. Somewhere along the line I forgot this and had them based in the asthetic spaced fashon shown.

Royalist "Galloper" horse soft hat

The base size for Polemos is flexible but the larger dimension, for bases which aren’t square, should be double the size of the smaller dimension. I chose 9cm x 4.5cm because I could an attractive number of figures onto each base.

Parliament Dragoons mounted

The shorted dimension is always referred to as base depth (BD) and the longer as base width (BW). Artillery and Generals are on BD x BD sized bases. Other bases are on BW x BD bases. I bought and painted up some limbers for no particular reason. These are on small bases just big enough to hold them. They may be useful in the game or a scenario. I haven’t read the rules thoroughly enough to know if they are needed.

Parliament Artillery with limber

I decided to base artillery with several models on a base as I thought it looked really good. Mortars are tiny so I put three on a base. This also helped me to spread the crew about as I found I had otherwise ordered too few!

Parliament Mortars. This photo is taken from a bad angle. The models actually look better than this.

The highlight of Peter’s tour of Bangladesh was a journey on “The Rocket”. The Rocket (actually three of them) are 80-100 year old paddle steamers which take a four day round trip from Dhaka to Kulna. There are tables in the first class lounge and deck area I thought we could use for gaming using Peter’s new forces.

Another passing "Rocket" photographed by Peter as our ship passed.

The Rocket photographed from the Dhaka Jetty before we boarded.

In the end I didn’t managed to get the troops based for our journey. But now everything is complete. Here are the two armies.

This is the best picture I can get of the army. To get a decent shot I have to squeeze everything into my light box.

and the Royalists

ECW Royalist army in 10mm

I took a lot of other pictures of the figures. Here they are.

Parliament

ECW Generals

ECW Generals

ECW Generals

ECW Generals

ECW Generals in spiffy 10mm

Parliament foot

Parliament foot

Parliament foot

Parliament foot

Parliament foot

Parliament mounted Dragoons

Parliament trotter horse (helmet)

Parliament trotter horse (soft hat)

Royalist

Royalist galloper Horse (soft hat)

Royalist galloper Horse (helmet)

Royalist Foot

Royalist Foot

Royalist Foot

Royalist Foot

Royalist Foot

Royalist Foot

I ordered a large number of figures from Old Glory recently. There were twenty three medium sized ($37.55 shipping) flat rate packets containing everything from 10mm ECW, 28mm AWI, and 15mm vehicles from WW2 and Modern. I am going to be busy for a while!

The figures are great. I can’t fault anything. OG sensibly uses a good amount of lead which saves on broken swords and bayonets. Casting is excellent. Back in the day there was some times a problem with old molds. This order and last I bought lots of 1st edition Old Glory figures. They were very well formed.

I ordered some Napoleonic Austrians for a friend who wanted me to paint them. There are a dozen or so guns, three battalions of Grenz, some Jaeger skirmishers, and three units of Austrian Landwehr. I actually order five units of Landwehr as OG have five different types of Landwehr and I wanted to take a look at them. Anything my friend doesn’t want I will take into my own collection. These are pretty nice.

These figures are painted to my regular standard.

AXI19 Austrian Grenz

AXI21 Austrian Jaeger skirmishers

AXI22 Austrian Landwehr

AXI23 Austrian Landwehr

AXI24 Napoleonic Austrian Landwehr

AXI25 Austrian Napoleonic Landwehr

AXI26 Austrian Napoleonic Landwehr

AXI27 Austrian Napoleonic Landwehr

AXI28 Austrian Napoleonic Landwehr.

That’s all folks!

These figures are the first order I received for ready painted Napoleonics. Other orders have already been dispatched but these lads had to be based. Everything was ready twelve days from receiving the order.

There are twenty battalions of 48 man Austrian line infantry and four battalions of Austrian Grenadiers. Some people take years to accrue an army this size. So twelve days isn’t bad. You can’t see too much from this shot. Follow earlier posts in my blog to see detailed pictures or check out the front page of my painting service

http://www.reinforcementsbypost.com

These are some of the French Chasseurs which I’ve painted to sell as ready made units. The figures are from the Sash & Sabre range.

Ready painted 25mm French Chasseurs

I bought these lovely figures from Dave, of Britannia miniatures, at the SALUTE show in London in March of 2004. I bought so many figures that I had to bring a ruck sack to take them away again. I also had to stop on the way for a good few pints of refreshment with my wargaming buddy Mick Donahue. Hard work! I thought these figures would keep me busy for a long time. I still haven’t painted everything!

I have painted quite a few Partizans over the past year for other people. Each time I’ve learned more about which colours will work. I think these figures have turned out quite nicely.

Britannia Miniatures WW2 Partizans in 20mm. Painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangaldesh.

The figures are based for Command Decision. I think they can be used for other systems no problem.

Britannia Miniatures WW2 Partizans in 20mm. Painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangaldesh.

The figures are armed with a variety of British, American, German and Russian weapons. There is a Maxim machine gun and a couple of MG34/42s for heavy fire power. There is a 120mm mortar and a British 2 inch mortar as well as a crew for a gun/atg (not shown). The rank & file are armed with german MP40s, rifles of various nation, PPSHs, Stens. There is a bazooka (could be a Panzershrek!) and a few Panzarfausts.

Britannia Miniatures WW2 Partizans in 20mm. Painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangaldesh.

This is my new system for basing which I learned from the master Chris “Itinerant Gamer” Cornwall. He uses budgie grit and speculated this was made from ground up sea shells. We don’t have budgie grit in Bangladesh so I went to the beach and bought arms full of tacky souvineers made with sea shells which we ground up and added to sand. I think it looks pretty good. Better than gaudy souvineers anyway!

Britannia Miniatures WW2 Partizans in 20mm. Painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangaldesh.

The pictures don’t really do justice to the shading and highlighting. But they do show what excellent figures Dave is selling.

Here are some pictures I took just now of 28mm Napoleonics which I have ready for sale. I’m waiting on some figures to be based according to my new super-dooper basing method picked up from the Itinerant wargamer (Chris) before taking proper photos. So please don’t get your knickers in a twist over flags or weapons which aren’t straight!

Napoleonic Austrian Cuirassier. Ready painted figures from Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

Napoleonic Austrian Cuirassier. Ready painted figures from Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

Napoleonic Austrian infantry (Ready painted by Reinforcements by Post)

Napoleonic British infantry (Ready painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh)

Napoleonic Russian infantry (Ready painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh)

Napoleonic Prussian infantry (Ready painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh)

This is just a quick post. A full announcement will follow on TMP.

I’ve finished 73 French and Bavarian Battalions for my Blenheim game. I actually finished some time ago but I was exhausted by the scale of the undertaking and had to take a break (in Indonesia for a bit of Diving!) before I was ready to photograph the units. Even photographing this many units is time consuming. Hope you enjoy. Now I have to have a bash at some cavalry and artillery. Not to mention more allies!

Most regiments have 2 or 3 Battalions. I have only photographed one Battalion of each regiment.

The molded flags are fantastic once they are painted because they won’t wear out or snap off like paper flags. But are quite a lot of work to paint free hand. They also had to be researched, which took some time. I’ve yet to paint some units because the flags, and even the uniforms, are unknown.

You can get a larger picture by clicking on an image.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession Bavarian infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

War of the Spanish Succession French infantry Battalion painted by Reinforcements by Post in Bangladesh.

There is only one main road in this city of five million people. Not surprisingly there are many traffic jams. I was stuck in traffic for some time before I espied the cause of this particular jam.

UN Road block

It is an armoured personnel carrier (APC) of the Bangladeshi army. I think it is a BTR-70 but I don’t remember the visual differences between the 60 and 70. I seem to remember that the BTR-70 was introduced as a cheaper alternative to the BTR-60, and there are surely more BTR-70s available, so I expect this is the one the Bangladeshi army picked up.

Bangladeshi BTR-70 with UN markings

These vehicles are in UN markings. They have just exited the double mooring jetty which is maintained by the Bangladeshi Navy. Presumably they are just back from one of the UN missions which Bangladesh has been engaged in.

From what I’ve seen on the roads, these vehicles drive around in pairs with the first towing the second. I don’t know if this is to save fuel or to keep maintainance down by just using one engine in two.

Oops! This laddie tried to steer through the delivery gate of the post office.

Unfortunately the driver in the following vehicle didn’t turn sharply enough out of the double mooring jetty gate and ended up face to face with a pillar of the post office delivery gate entrance. As it always does in Bangladesh, traffic piled up fast and there was a jam that extended a couple of miles down the road. This is the main artery of the country, with the Export Processing Zone and the port serviced by this road. Doh!

To be fair to the driver the road lay out is lousy. There is no crossing. The driver has to swing out of the narrow gates of the double mooring jetty, force his way across a lane of traffic that is seldom free, execute a hard right, and then turn into busy traffic in his direction of travel. It doesn’t help that Bangladeshi drivers are the worst in the world.