Posties Rejects

For a couple of months I've been trying to make some kind of badge for our club "Posties Rejects". I've experimented with all different styles and shapes from heraldry and coats of arms to Postman Pat pictures!! With a little internet help, I finally came up with this design, plain and simple, much like the members of the Rejects really,  not counting me of course, (mainly Fran).
How does it look??

Ray

Recently Painted No 32 Hompesch's Mounted Rifles

During the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain raised regiments from European countries to augment the crown forces fighting the French around the world. One such regiment was The Hompesch Mounted Rifles.

Hompesch Mounted Rifles, also known as Hompesch Light Dragoons, were raised by Ferdinand de Hompesch, in Sept 1796 three companies were posted on the Isle of White,  these formed the basis of a new corps “Hompesch Mounted Rifles”, from 9th January 1798. The unit consisted of Swiss, German, Belgian, Royalist French and Dutch, in four troops of 114 men each. They were sent to Ireland from April in 1798, to counter the Irish Rebellion of 1798, where they received their mounts, they were engaged against the Irish rebels at Wexford, and  a small detachment fought at The Battle of Vinegar Hill on 21st June. They also took part in the pursuit of a small French force helping the Irish in August of that year, earning themselves a savage reputation.  In July 1800, 164 officers and men were sent from Ireland to participate in abortive raids on Ferrol and Cadiz, in Spain. A detachment of 179 men were sent to Egypt until being sent back to Cork, Ireland to rejoin their regiment in mid 1802. The unit some 450 men strong were then transferred to Portsmouth and disbanded on 28th September 1802.

The figures are from Posties collection, painted by myself and are from Minifigs range.

Ray

The Doctor and Pond

My pal Keir has been moaning and groaning for months, "When are you gonna put my Dr Who figures on your blog!!" So I've finally given in and posted them.

For his birthday earlier in the year me and Fran, bought Keir, a non-wargaming Dr Who nut, a few figures for his shelf. Fran painted The Doctor figure, but I had to re-base and re-paint some bits as they weren't the correct colours, now I don't know whose to blame here, they're both blaming each other, so I'm claiming painting credit!! Amy was a difficult paint, I just couldn't get her ginger, (yes ginger Fran!!) hair to look right, but I'm happy how it turned out in the end. Both the figures come from Heresy Miniatures, but I can't remember who made the Tardis model??? Any ideas?? 

I've previously posted Keir's Daleks that I painted up here.

Ray

Keir, the Dr Who Nut!
I'd just told him I was turning Dr Who off the TV

NYW - Danish regt Prince George Flags

I've still not decided what way to paint Prince George's regt, I'm still leaning towards the green, cuffed orange I'm afraid. While the idea was ticking away in my noggin I knocked up the three flags in this post. The three flags appear in the Sapherson booklet, "The Danish Army 1699-1715. Again the Orange flag, (I seem to have a thing for orange at the moment), may be a little late for the NYW, but it looks great to me, so I may use it anyway!!!!!!!!

NYW - Danish Regt Prince George Question?????

Morning Campers!!
 I'm in a bit of a dilemma, I know I said in one of my last posts I was going to paint up two more Dutch units for my NYW army, but you know what's its like for us gamers................
My plan is to paint up four Dutch and four Danish units to add to the English infantry I've already painted up, now here comes the dilemma,  I decided to paint the Danish Guard, Prince Georges regt plus two others.  After trawling the net and reading countless books, I've got to decided upon a uniform colour for Prince George's regiment, its either grey coat with orange cuffs or a green coat with orange cuffs, see image below.

The problem is the uniform changed from the green to grey in approx 1691, (or 1701 in other books?), which is all fine but I'm painting up my army for the Battles of  Steenkirke in 1692 and Landen/Neerwinden 1693. Also there's so much conflicting info, its also written that they didn't where green, but blue and that the original translation was wrong, so now we have a blue coat, cuffed in orange as well???? Confused? Me too!!!
So really I should paint it up in grey...............but I don't want to????????

So I thought I'd ask my blog pals, that's you reading this! and see what you would do? I'd like to say I'll go with the majority flow, but I might not like the answer you give!

Here's hoping
Ray

Free flags, NYW - Dutch Blue Guard (Garde te Voet) Flags

As promised, two flags for the Dutch Blue Guards for the Nine Years War, thanks again to Bill & Barry for their help and sharing their ideas, not a lot else to say really that I didn't say in my previous Blue Guard post!!
hope you like them and can get some use of them.
I have previously posted other flags for the NYW, if your interested and have not seen them before, including,
Portland's Horse, Garde te Paard
Eppingers Dragoons, Dutch Gaurd Dragoons
Erle's and The Earl of Derby's,
Mackay's,
more Makay's,
Prince George of Hessen-Darmstadt and George St George,
Sir William Clifton's (Leslie's)
and the three Huguenots regts that fought at The Boyne.
Anyway enough of the self-indulgence...............................

Recently Painted No 31 - NYW Dutch Foot Guards (Garde te Voet)

In 1688 a third regiment of Foot Guards were added to the English establishment, (this was not the later Scots Guards as they were still on the Scottish establishment). The Garde te Voet formed the backbone of William III's invasion force of 1688,  along with a number of other Dutch regiments, the Guards were hired and paid for by the English crown, from 1688 until 1699.
The Blew Garde as they were also sometimes known, fought at the Battle of the Boyne, leading the charge across the river to attack Oldbridge. At the the Boyne and the battle of Steenkirke, they were commanded by Graaf Henrik Trajectinus van Solms, who after Steenkirke was blamed by the English foot regts for the failing to support them during the battle, which ultimately lead to their defeat. Solms was killed during the battle of Landen/Neerwinden in 1693, in the defence of the village of Landen.
During the Nine Years War most Dutch regiments were made of a single battalion, however the Dutch Guard had three. The three battalions contained nine companies in the first and second battalions and eight in the third.
The figures are from Essex miniatures, painted and based by myself. I also made the flags with a little help from an article by Bill on The Wars of Louis Quatroze blog. Check out the site for more info on William's Dutch Guards. I was unsure what to do for the second flag, so once again borrowed a few ideas from Barry's gallery on the League of Augsburg website and also from an old copy of Wargames Illustrated, sorry I can't remember which issue.
So whith the Dutch Guard finished, I've now got to decide what other three Dutch units to paint?? I'm thinking of painting, Brandenberg and Slangenberg as they were also both in English pay for the period and I've got flags for them, so only one remains, any suggestion??????????
Thanks for looking

Ray

Recently painted No 30 Napoleonic Luneberg Light Battalion 1815

Light Field Battalion Luneburg was raised in 1813. By June, it was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel August von Klencke. It served in a Light Brigade with Count von Walmoden-Gimborn's Corps in 1813/14 in the campaign against Hamburg in April and May, in Mecklenburg from June to November and saw action at The battle of the Gohrde on 16 September 1813, They were also in Holstein in December 1813 to January 1814, They were part of the force during the Blockade of Harburg from January-March 1813. It was stationed in the Netherlands 1814/1815 as part of the Hanoverian Subsidiary Corps, in the 2nd Light Brigade of the Light Division.

At Waterloo they were part of the 1^st Hanoverian Brigade, Commanded by Major-General Count Keilmannsegge, along with the Breman, Verdun and York Field Battalions, the Grubenhagen Light Battalion and the Field-Jager Corps.

The figures are  MiniFigs, British 95^th Rifles, but are a very close match to the uniform of the Luneburg Lights. we added a flag as it is known that they carried one, apparently they were attacked by Dubois Cuirassiers at Waterloo, temporarily losing a colour, whilst redeploying to assist the garrison at La Haye Sainte, but unfortunately not what it actually looked like, so we used a generic House of Hanover Coat of Arms , for the central device.

The photos are not the best I’ve taken but are definitely not the worst, so apologies for this. Not sure what's going on with the writing on this post either????????

Ray

The Great Escape - A book review

If I'm ever dragged to a Boot Fair by SWMBO, I'm always on the look out for a bargin. At a recent trip to a local Boot Fair in Strood, I picked up this book among others for the princely sum of 10p!!!  The book only took me a couple of days to read and believe me that's some going.
The Introduction to the book was written by George Harsh, it just about sums the book up for me and I was hooked within seconds.

George Harsh

" And this is the only introduction this book actual needs: Yes, it really happened,. But because every man mentioned in this book was a friend of mine, because I have shared pitifully small rations with them, fought lice with them, baited the Germans with them and because many of them are now dead, I am grateful for this chance to point out that they did not die for a senseless reason"


The book was written by Paul Brickhill, in 1951, so some of the more age challenged among you may have already read it many moons ago. The book covers the planning, execution and aftermath of what became known as The Great Escape. Other escape attempts (such as the Wooden Horse) are mentioned as well as the postwar hunt for the Gestapo agents who murdered fifty of the escapees on Hitler's direct order.

Roger Bushell, Big X

Much of the book is focused on Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, also known as "Big X", including his capture, early escape attempts, and planning of the escape. All the major participants and their exploits are described by Brickhill. Among these are Tim Walenn, the principal forger, who 'gave his factory the code name of "Dean and Dawson", after a British travel agency; Al Hake, the compass maker; Des Plunkett, the ingenious chief map tracer, who made a mimeograph for reproducing maps; and Tommy Guest, who ran a team of tailors. 

Tim Walenn, The Forger

Major John Dodge, who was related to Winston Churchill, was one of the escapees. The German officers and guards (called 'goons' by the prisoners) included teams of 'ferrets' who crawled about under the huts looking for signs of tunnels. They were carefully watched by teams of POW 'stooges', one of whom was Paul Brickhill, 'boss of a gang of "stooges" guarding the forgers'. Brickhill was not involved in the tunnel building and did not take part in the escape, due to claustrophobia. 

In the end, seventy-six men escaped. Seventy-three were recaptured and fifty of those were shot by the Gestapo. Four of the remaining twenty-three later tunnelled out of Sachsenhausen, but were recaptured and chained to the floor of their cells. One of them, Major John Dodge, was released to secure a cease-fire.

Al Hake, The Compass Maker

The book is dedicated "to the fifty".

In the aftermath of the escape, according to Brickhill, 5,000,000 Germans spent time looking for the prisoners, many of them full time for weeks.

15mm Totem Pole

I bought this fine looking Totem Pole recently from Irregular Minis to add to my growing Indian village. I previously bought the same model around a year ago but was a little miffed as the model was miscast, the lower green, red and white face had half of it missing. I left it far too long to phone Irregular up and moan, so as Postie was ordering some Russo-Japanese figures, I got him to order me another Totem Pole. BUT this one was also a miscaste, so I moaned and groaned to Postie and he said he'd have a go try and fix it, which he did, and he made a damn good job of it!!!
Totem Poles are carved wooden pillars made by the first nations of the North-West coast, they were usually made from Western Red Cedar.  A Totem is usually an animal, that serves as an emblem for a family or clan. They represent a symbolic relationship between nature and human kin groups. The figures on the pole are mythical creatures from the First Nations ancestral past. The word Totem is derived from the Ojibwe word Odoodem, which translates to "His kinship group".
The pole is based on a large MDF base from Warbases and the three figures are from Frei Korp, now sold by QRF.
The last picture is of a pole from, Stanley Park in Vancouver. I based my colour scheme on this pole, and by the look of it, so did the Irregular sculptor.

Ray

Totem Pole at Stanley Park, Vancouver