Zulu Wars Diorama

I finished making this diorama last week, which was quite apt as it was close to the 133rd anniversary of both the Battle of Islandlwana and Rorke's Drift. It was made for my Dad on his 70th Birthday. I try and make him a model a year, either for Christmas or on his birthday in January.

The figures are Plastic 54mm but I haven't a clue who made them, (do you?). I searched the web for answers, but just can't find them anywhere. I bought them when I was on holiday in the Lake District, SHMBO, dragged me out of bed early on a Sunday morning for a visit to a Boot Fair, where I found these figures, for the princely sum of £1. There were another three figures in the bag, but they were damaged and to be honest I couldn't be bothered to fix them, and  I would've needed a bigger base as well!! So I just kept to the 8 figures. 

The British are painted to represent the B Company,  24th Foot, (The 2nd Warwickshire Regiment of Foot)

At Rorke's Drift, eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded. Seven to the 2nd Battalion, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot, one to the Army Medical Department, one to the Royal Engineers, one to the Commissariat and Transport Department and one to the Natal Native Contingent.

Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead were both awarded the Victoria Cross, as were the redoubtable privates Alfred Hook, Frederick Hitch, Robert Jones, William Jones, Corporal Allen, James Langley Dalton and Pte. John Williams. Surgeon Reynolds got the Cross for tending the wounded under fire; and the Swiss volunteer Christian Schiess - the first to a soldier serving with South Africa forces.

I entered this into the Analouge Painting Challenge, and was awarded 100 points!!!! 

Recently Painted No 49 NYW Huguenot regt de la Meloniere

Between March and June 1689, three Huguenot battalions of foot were raised. Isaac de Monceau de la Meloniere had been the colonel of the French regiment Anjou in Louis XIV’s army, but in 1686 he was committed to the Bastille for his refusal to disavow his faith. Meloniere contrived to escape to the United Province, where William of Orange  made him a Colonel in the Dutch army and his personal Aide-de-camp. In 1689, he transferred into the British Army as the Colonel of one of the new Huguenot battalions. Meloniere commanded his unit throughout the war in Ireland and Flanders and was raised to the rank of Major-General.

Once again the figures are from Essex Miniatures and the bases are from Warbases.  Earlier this month I posted the flags for this unit, here.
At the Battle of the Boyne, it is believed that the unit had no pike element, but I've included them for my unit as they fought in the later battles in Flanders and may well have been issued with pikes by that time.

500 Followers Huzzah!!!

Yesterday, my eagle eyes noticed that I've finally gone past the 500 followers mark!!!

I've been stuck in the 490's for ages and thought I'd never get to the D.

Thanks to you all for following my humble ramblings and figure madness!!!

And a big Thank You to my 500th follower Jescan Collections, whose Spanish figure blog's name translates to Rubber Dolls. I'm sure he may gets many visitors who may not be interested in his painted figures, but are after something entirely different!!!!

I prefer the pre Google translator name of  Munequitos de goma!

This made me chuckle, I'm afraid it also makes me a Geek, are you????

Thanks again everyone

I raise my cup'o' tea to you all in Salute, 

well I am at work.............time for painting me thinks!!!!

Recently painted No 48 NYW - Coy's Horse

Trying to find info about this unit has proved very difficult!!

They was raised in 1685 as The Earl of Shrewsbury's Horse, then was led and known as, Langsdale's Horse in 1687, Hamilton's Horse from 1687-88, then John Coy's Horse from 1688-91. In 1691 they were then numbered and known as the 6th Horse. In 1697 they were known as Arran's Horse (do not confuse this with the Earl of Arran's previous regt, like I did!), the after the NYW they were known as Cadogan's Horse.
In the list of  The Army of James II encamped at Hounslow Heath in 1686, they are quoted as wearing a scarlet coat with buff cuffs, then in 1688 they changed to white cuffs, but in 1692 they were back to wearing buff cuffs again. So as you can see by the photo's I chose to have them buff. There is no recorded flag for Coy's Horse, so I used a generic pattern and coloured it a light brown. There is a recorded flag for the earlier incarnation as the Earl of Shrewsbury's Horse, which was yellow with a silver lion rampant in the centre, so why a yellow flag with buff as the lining colour??? I don't know!!!
Coy's fought at The Boyne, Steenkirke, Landen/Neerwinden and Namur.
As per usual the figures are from Essex and they're based up for BLB2.
Unfortunately, I started painting these a few days before the Analouge Painting Challenge began so they're ineligible................shame, I could have done with an extra 72 points!!

Flags of War - It pays to ask questions??

It pays to ask questions?

In December I commented on the Flags of War blog, when he announced he'd now be selling his flags in 15mm. Great news I thought!!!
I'd always admired the flags and thought now they're sold in 15mm I'd make a purchase. In my comment I asked what size are your flags? As my NYW home-made flags are oversized at 20mm, I know they're supposed to be quite small, but it just adds to the effect having a larger flag.
Then earlier this month in another post Iain gave his plans for 2012. He said he'd be making more Williamite flags for the Grand Alliance period. As some of you may have noticed, (maybe!) I've been painting up loads of Williamite figures over the last year.
Then very surprisingly I got an email from Iain, asking me for my address, as he wanted to send me a sample of his work, which I gladly did. Then low and behold through the post came two sheets of 12 flags, Williamite 1 and 2!!
To say I was pleased is an understatement, I had hoped Iain would send the sheet with the Brandenburg regt in............and he did!!! Excellent!!!!
So I just publicly like to say thanks very much Iain!!! 
And keep on making them fantastic flags!!!

Cheers
Ray

NYW - Huguenots Flags revamped

There's been a lot of discussion recently on Huguenots flags and uniforms on the League of Augsburg Forum . Clarence is or has made a big selection of flags for the Battle of The Boyne, including Danish, Dutch, English, Irish and Huguenots. 

In my first ever blog post I made some flags to represent the three Huguenots regiments that fought at the Boyne.  I've now updated these flags, here, adding a Huguenot cross to all flags. Barry and Clarence have been searching the web for coats of arms and heraldry to make their Huguenots flags, what these regiments really carried has been lost to history.

So trying not to step on their toes (too much) I've gone with a more simplistic view. When searching the web for Huguenots flags from earlier periods they seems to be a lot of strips, so I've gone with that effect, trying to make them look both French and English.

I've just finished painting up the three regiments myself and put some of these flags on the figures, so look out for them in a future post.

The green flags belong to du Cambon, the black belong to de Meloniere and the blue are le Caillemotte

du Cambon

de Meloniere

le Caillemotte

Recently painted No 47 Japanese 1st and 3rd Cavalry 1904

More Japanese for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, this time two cavalry regiments. The first 5 photos are of the 3rd Cavalry regiment. They like the infantry in an earlier post, were part of the Japanese 2nd Army under General Oku. They were attached to the 3rd Division, which is laid out below


3rd Division: Lieutenant General Y. Oshima
5th Brigade: Major General Yamaguchi
     6th Infantry Regiment
     33rd Infantry Regiment
17th Brigade: Major General Hamaguchi
     18th Infantry Regiment
     34th Infantry Regiment
Attached:
     3rd Artillery Regiment
     3rd Cavalry Regiment
     3rd Engineer Battalion

The next 5 photos are of the 1st Cavalry regiment, they were also part of the 2nd Army, but were in the 1st Division, which can be viewed below

2nd Army: General Oku

1st Division: Lieutenant General Fushimi
1st Brigade: Major General Matsumura
     1st Infantry Regiment
     2nd Infantry Regiment
2nd Brigade: Major General Nakamura
     3rd Infantry Regiment
     15th Infantry Regiment
Attached:
     1st Artillery Regiment
     1st Cavalry Regiment
     1st Engineer Battalion

Once again the figures are from Old Glory, and I entered them into the Analouge Painting Challenge and earned myself, 144 points that pushed me up into 2nd place, although as I'm writing this I've been pushed back down to 4th!!! Which at least is still better than my good friend Fran, (cough), who is in 8th with 444!!

Cheers

Ray

Playing Favourites

Over at Steve's Random Musings, he recently posted a list of his favourite Wargame facts. He got the idea from Too Much Lead and has invited other gamers to post their favourites.
Steve goes on to say, "We all  have favourite games, periods, inspirations and so on, the challenge then is to document what they are so we can all see what drives us....."

And so to my list!!

Wargames Period


A very difficult decision??? But I think It got to be The Age of Reason. The Seven Years War, was my first period I painted up in the early 90's. An older version of The Rejects all got together and painted up figures for a country, I choose the Brits,you just gotta love them Redcoats!!
A close second would be The Dark Ages, Norman's,Saxon's ans Vikings.

Scale

25mm is the ultimate scale, just for the visual effect, but I'm going with my favourite, 15mm.
1. It's far cheaper.
2. Unfortunately I've not won the lottery yet, so for me 15mm wins the gold medal.
3. You don't need a massive table to play 15mm.

I have painted lots of 6mm, which is a great grand tactical scale, the figures all seem to be getting bigger than 6mm now, more close to 10mm, so you may as well just go for 15's.

Rules


Sorry but I'm gonna go back to my favourite period question again. When the early Rejects decided to paint up the armies for the SYW, we play-tested two sets of rules. The first being Koenig Krieg, which we all enjoyed, but they were beaten into second place by The Age of Reason. We went on to play the campaign system, in the rules twice. I won't tell you who won, let's just say I've got good negotiation skills!!
I've also got to mention WAB, I never once played the rules from the book, we as a group adapted them, to what we thought they should be. I've not left them altogether, I'm taking a leaf out of Fran's book and adapting army lists to use the Lord of the Rings rule system, which Fran uses for his Samurai games.Mind you I've been adapting the rules for about 4 years now....one day!!
And I've got to mention my new baby at the moment, Beneath the Lily Banners 2. Which I'm sure you've seen me mention a few times on this blog already.



Boardgame


As a kid, I loved boardgames, you name it we had it, trouble is they always used to end up in a fight, because my brother Lee is a bloody cheating git!!!
My first wargamey boardgame, was Risk, I haven't played it for years, but used to love it. Pre-wargames I used to get together with a few mates and have a Risk day, quite sad really??? We then moved on to Allies and Axis and Shogun, then my neighbour Stuart invited the motley crew around his house to  play a Wargame. I must admit I was unsure? I cannot play such a nerdy game, spending all day pushing silly soldiers around.....and the rest is history!!!

Figure Manufacturer

So many to choose from?????
For 25mm, I'll go with Gripping Beast, some people don't like them for some reason, but I love' em. I bought the whole collection of their Vikings/Saxons when they first came out and they're sitting in my shed, just waiting for me to sort rules out for them. I love Front Rank as well, although I don't own any of their figures anymore. I just love to paint them, they have raised belts and features which makes them so easy to paint, you don't have to dig any detail out of them.

For 15mm, I've gotta go for Essex Minis. Just like Front Rank, Essex seem to paint themselves, they're such an easy paint. I own tons of Essex figures from many periods including, FIW, NYW, Renaissance English, Scots, French, Swiss and Italians. Trojan's and Mycenaeans. And lastly some Republican Romans and Carthaginians.


Club


I'm a member of Posties Rejects, which is not really a club, its more like a group of mates, who get together when we can. When I started gaming in the early 90's we had a group of around 8 people, myself, Postie, Richard, Smithy and Dave are the only ones left from the original 8, although we've drafted in new member as and when we could, including fellow bloggers BigLee and Fran (The Lurker).


Opponent


The other Rejects?? Without upsetting the other Rejects I like to play Fran the most, because he's a bush huggin' chicken, he may well be big and brash, but on the wargaming table, he a little cuddly teddy bear, ahhh how sweet!!! So I get to win alot, which is always good, now I'm sure he's going to put some silly comment at how many games he's won recently,blah, blah, blah,just take it with a pinch of salt, all the other Rejects do!!!

Inspiration


There have been so many films that have made me want to pick up the brush and paint or even empty my wallet on an order. I've gotta go with Steve's choice of The Last of the Mohicans, it's a great film, great use of colour and it's a film about my favourite period. My favourite part of the film, is when the film goes silent, Hawkeye runs through the forest chasing Magua, trying to rescue the two sisters finally catching and killing Magua. I find myself holding my breath through the entire sequence.

Other films that make the juices flow are,
1. Saving Private Ryan - A feast of a film!!
2. Barry Lyndon - Again its all about the uniforms.
3. Black Hawk Down - One hell of a film, great cast and great action.
4. The classics - Spartacus, El Cid, Ben-Hur and The Vikings. Four great fims that whenever they're on I find myself watching them, even though I've got them all on DVD.

Books
I read a lot of books, mainly historical novels, my all time favourite has got to be the The Arthurian Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur. If you haven't read them, do, they're a must!!!! I'd read most of Sharpe and thought I'd have a go at these. I bought the first book and read it in a day,I couldn't put the damn thing down. The next day I went back into own and bought the next two, I read them both in a week. Since then I've re-read them all three times. In fact I'm due to read them again....soon!!!





Art


Strangely enough I'm not really an arty person, unless its got some kind of soldier in it, I find most of the artwork in the Osprey series to be first class, but I like work of Mark Churms, he's not the most popular by far, but I like him, her'es a link to a post I did about a piece of his work The Charge of the Heavy Brigade


The Web


My blog's been up for a year and a half now, for great wargame sites just check out who I follow on the list on the left of this page.

As Aki  from Too much lead, said in his post, "If you like the idea, poach it for your own blog"
I did hope you enjoyed the incite into my mind!!!!!

Ray