88th Foot Connaught Rangers Bust SOLD

 

This is the second Stormtrooper bust I have painted up but this time it's a new release. Three piece kit, the bust, the pipe and the plume, not a great deal of work to clean up, most of it was on the cloth under the shako. I wanted to do sunburnt skin and faded clothes but in the end chickened out.

The usual wooden plinth and brass rod I tend to use on Napoleonic busts though this time I polished the rod. Oh the fun of owning a dremel. I seem to be getting the hang of the Andrea flesh set, even though I still dodged the sun burn. 

I was disappointed with the washed out image of the cloth covering the back of his head, it's quite a subtle blend of colours, still need to practice with the light tent, dimmer setting next time.

The shako came out fairly well especially the brass plate that I inked and then touched back up. The mottled semi gloss on the peak is supposed to show the wearing off of the shine, not sure it comes off. The pipe comes empty so I filled with crushed tealeaves (post dunking in hot water). 

One area I have struggled with is making the leather look worn but this is my best effort yet, still got a long way to go but I finally was reasonably happy with the results.

I still have a German MG gunner, a French cuirassier  a Red Devil mini bust (started) a Jester (started) and a farmer bust in hand so plenty to keep me going bust wise.

I also have a few miniatures I have bought that do not fit in with the normal fare I paint because I like them as well as the usual pile.

Prussian Reserve Regiment 22 Adler Miniatures

Anyone who has followed this blog over the years will have seen a few Prussian Battalions shown here. I am still working through all the regiments that did not fight at Waterloo but were involved in the 100 days campaign. 

The 22nd Regiment was part of Pirch's 2nd Corps and whilst the rest of the 7th Brigade fought at Waterloo under the command of Brause the 22nd missed the action.

I continue to add flags to battalions that all most certainly did not have them but given I was well into the originals before I realised that why not continue. I still left the third battalion without even though it's not a fusilier battalion but that's me.

The standard depiction of our units of 4 skirmishers out front with 24 figures in the main body. These being Adler you get a little more Varity in poses. The skirmishes have three poses and the main body two or more versions to buy from.

One battalion I adopted a three deep line and two battalions have a mounted officer to add to the Varity. Basing is my normal outdoor paint (bitter chocolate tester from Homebase) with sand dribbled over, left to dry and surplus brushed off. I then drybrush a couple of lighter colours then add static grass and tufts.

I still have 44 more battalions to do so no where near finished, plus more artillery and cavalry but in far fewer quantity. Not that I own all the battalions required so I will paint up what I have before getting any more. This certainly moved onto a vanity project as I really do not need to paint up the rest and will never get them all on the table at the same time. I still also have plenty of French I really don't need as well as plenty of British to paint for my son.

The next up on the table will be two units of Companion cavalry I also don't really need :-)

1812 Napoleons Fatal March on Moscow

It's a few years ago, but I read a review of this book and decided to buy it. Once bought it sat waiting for an opportunity to read it and was almost forgotten. Problem was that every time I thought about it I had a couple of books already waiting a turn. However I finally got round to reading it and have to admit I really enjoyed it. Part of the reason I took so long to actually read the book has been the idea that the part of the book dealing with the retreat would be repetitive and so grim as to wear down the reader. Whilst it is grim by the very nature of the retreat I feel Adam Zamoyski did a great job of narrating the events and kept the text fresh as he moved along the retreat.

Not that the book was all about the retreat of course, much of the book deals with the build up of events that lead to the forming of the Grande Army and how Napoleon and Alexander slipped towards a war neither really wanted and how the tragic events unfolded. Most interesting was the level of losses taken by the advancing army to which Napoleon was for the most part unaware as commanding officers gave false reports so as not to anger Napoleon. Indeed the whole venture showed that Napoleon seemed not to be his old self and the steady erosion of the army was avoidable to a fair extent and the rushed preparations and fairer to follow up orders sent was a root cause of the eventual loss of the campaign and the fall of France as the major power. Shades of Hitler's invasion from start to finish really are apparent.

Adam Zamoyski's view of Kuturzov being extremely cautious and incompetent really makes interesting reading and leaves the reader with the thought that if overall command had been given to a more aggressive and competent commander then far less of the Grande Army would have made it back to friendly bases and the 1813 campaign would have been much shorter if it had happened at all. This leads to the question of the possibility of the return to power of Napoleon and the whole 100 days campaign being a none starter? 

The book provides less meat for possible battle ideas than I was hoping for but certainly will add some flavour to anyone thinking of wargaming this campaign. I can fully recommend picking up a copy of this book though don't sit on it like I have done.

The Anatomy of Glory, Napoleon and his Guard Book Review

Originally written in French by Henry Lachouque and adapted into English by Anne S K Brown. Brown (1906-1985) was an American who as a young journalist became very interested in France and Napoleon. It's a heavy hitter running to just over 560 pages.

Lachouque is unashamedly pro Napoleon and France and it shows greatly in his treatment of some of the sticker subjects such as living off the land and the treatment of the Spanish even stating that the Spanish resisting French domination was the core reason for these acts. Not that she was uncritical of French actions but even when she admits to any wrong doings she tended to give excuses for such as if that made such actions OK.

The main focus of the book is how the Guard was dressed and at what cost and goes into great detail down to the smallest of items. Whilst this is actually the least interesting part of the book for me it was still fascinating to read of the shear scale and cost that the Guard. In uniforms alone the expenditure ran into millions of Francs and these costs were not one off's but were regularly repeated. In the later years when the Guard was at it's largest this cost was such a burden on the state that it could be argued that the day to day running costs and regular uniform orders actually helped bring around the fall of Napoleon as France struggled to keep the army equipped and the difficulty juggling the finances to keep the country fiscally viable.

The campaign details are far less detailed and as it's focus is on the Guard tends to be incomplete. That's not to say it's not of interest to the reader who is solely interested in the military campaigns but it certainly helps to have a reasonable knowledge of the battles when reading this book. 

What I was a little disappointed in was that it was somewhat repetitive. Each time Napoleon stopped for the night Lachouque goes into detail of the Palace and who guarded Napoleon and often the comments are echo's of the previous few nights. The same can be said for when the Guard was at a battle but did not fight, the comments on their disappointment just seemed to be lifted from the previous battle and inserted again.

On the other hand I have to say that the illustrations are probably the strongest part of the book. Most of them will have been seen before but these are referenced in the main body of text and as such have greater meaning than in some other books I have seen them in.

What becomes very clear in the book is how little the Guard actually took part in the battles, they being mere spectators so much of the time. Again of great interest was how the Guard coped with the retreat from Moscow and the level of losses it sustained. I was not aware that post Russia the Guard started to recruit heavily from conscripts from the army and civilians who met the height criteria of the Guard. Indeed when reformed for the Hundred Days campaign the amount of untrained men in the ranks (especially the Young Guard) had to have effected their ability to fight and sheds some light on their performance at Waterloo.

I did enjoy reading the book and recommend it to anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars as Lachouque casts light on so many details than the typical Napoleonic book may not even mention.

A Russian Perspective 1812??

I have got in not one but two games of Napoleonic's recently, first with my Prussians getting a good trouncing at the hands of Matt but I was so absorbed I failed to take any photo's but lets just say when I started to loose my right flank my attack on the left that could have changed the tide was lost when Matt came out punching and charged off his hill and routed the first line and it was enough to first stall my attack and then drive back my army. Well played Matt, victory will be mine..... one day.

The second game was playing with Loki's Russians against Kev's French. Whilst I did get some photo's of the game they were rather self central so do not give the best view of the whole battle but I will try and give a fuller account.

My task was to hold the left flank against an expected attack and thus control the bridge over the river and with my central force hold the hill allowing the French to come to me. For the two tasks I had two Divisions of infantry each supported by guns and two regiments of Cuirassiers to help out the centre.

My opposite number for the evening Glen indeed sent a Division to try and force our left. Glen's Division was a third larger than mine but had the same number of guns. In my favour was a constricted frontage not allowing Glen to use all his numbers in one go but the ability to grind me down. The other advantage was to prove key to my defence and that was the village on the tables edge as pictured above. Unable to ignore it Glen threw in two battalions against the defending one but under Black Powder it's a tough nut and whilst taking fairly heavy casualties I was able to repulse the first attack.

Supporting the village I had two more battalions in line one behind the other and a battery of guns. The battle started well as both the guns and infantry were able to inflict the first casualties and more importantly disorder the French stopping them closing quickly. Not that I did not suffer as well but for me not being able to move my units was far less a problem than it was for the attacking French.

On the hill I again was forcing French infantry to stall through the rolling of sixes at will. Unfortunately not only did Kev have yet more troops to step into the gaps but he was saving on almost all of his casualties and worse still a failure of two units to pass command rolls made it look like my flank would be crushed. 

Several turns later saw the village suffering it's third attack and by this point it needed help and after surviving the initial combat I threw in a supporting battalion into the flank of one of the columns leaving my own unit open to a flank attack of it's own.

Close up of the two flank attacks. Glen had horrid dice all evening but this combat was to go my way with two of the four battalions he had engaged routing from the table, another retiring badly beaten with only the fourth in reasonable condition. I in turn had one very shaky battalion but due to the French being unable to advance for a full turn I was able to bring in a fresh battalion into the village and rally back some of the lost troops, especially the gun battery that had come very close to being removed.

Meanwhile Kev's attack on my flank was causing a lot of trouble but was filing to break my line. Eventually my units would be forced to retreat back from the top of the hill but by then I had other troops in place to force Kev back.

Glen's Division was broken by my going onto the offensive and picking on a battalion that was already mauled and he was not helped at all failing a command roll to try and rally back their casualties not once but twice. Other failed command rolls and disorders meant that Glen was never able to use his numbers in attack nor regain units that had taken a beating.

My heavy cavalry about to launch into Kev's troops, I was to beat these then follow them up only to be beaten by them. Not so bad that they were out of the game far from it but it was a surprise to see such good troops could be beaten by troops that were very combat worn.

Elsewhere in the battle Loki blundered and moved his best infantry to a position where Kev's Dragoons could charge into the flank though it took a whole turn of inactivity on both sides before Kev had the ability to get the charge to go in. The Grenadiers survived the first round (but mauled to hell) and then won one melee and drew the second, again infantry doing the unexpected. My horse took casualties whilst standing doing nothing and came close to being lost as I seemed to be under disorder forever whilst Kev brought up more of his Dragoons but I managed to move back and Loki saved my blushes but in the process got his cavalry beaten up but did the same to Kev's forcing a stalemate that could only benefit us.

Less action was had by the rest of the infantry but we did enough to make the second French infantry Brigade to be unable to fight on though we had been beaten silly as well. The battle ended with us in control of the field but not in good enough order to follow up on our success.

So that was the end of my first Black Powder game and it was a blast, though having such a successful game through hot V cold dice did help. Really looking forward to playing these rules again. I have a few concerns with the cavalry but I suspect more play and some tinkering will solve any issues. Whilst they can be used with large numbers of units I don't see it working with my 6mm as we are based in either line or column and can't represent the column and line the way you can with the multi based units. 

The Recollections of Rifleman Harris Book Review

It would be fair to assume I had either given up on reading or doing book reviews on the blog but in reality it's been a mix of reading the wrong books and just not getting round to it. Expect a bit of a rush as I catch up with some of the books I should have reviewed.

Some of you may remember that I won a blog-giveaway some months ago ran by Loki on his excellent blog Lokis Great Hall. I collected the book (and a bonus second book at Blog Con two). It's a fairly slim book running to just 128 pages including the index but excluding the forward by Christopher Hibbert. The pages are not exactly filled with tiny text either so you can be sure it will rattle along at a fair pace.

Whilst most readers of this blog will not need introducing to Benjamin Harris a few will not be aware that this is the man Rifleman Harris from the Richard Sharpe books. Harris was made one of the Battalions cobblers and as such was often made to repair the boots and belts of his comrades even after long marches where all that was wanted was sleep!

Hibbert in the introduction points out that he has made no attempt to correct a few mistake is the original manuscript but also points out how well Harris had managed to remember the events that he recalled so many years later. Indeed praise should also be given to Henry Curling who took down what Harris as accurately as is assumed.

For the Napoleonic fan and indeed those of Sharpe it's an interesting book for sure, though I would disagree that it's essential or even all that important as it really does not fill in gaps others books may have failed to fill. Not that I think it's not worth reading, indeed if you have an interest in the period, especially early Peninsular then this is well worth reading and it does add some colour to the works dealing with the wider view. This after all is an account of one man, not privy the bigger picture and unable to distinguish the truth from what he did hear. Despite all this what you do get is a great insight to what the common soldier was expected to go through and what he thought of such. Whilst Harris would not have had much of an education he still was obviously quite intelligent. Not only could he spin a good tale he was able to keep it in context much of the time. 

For such a short book he still manages to start being somewhat repetitive which in my mind adds to the account as it shows the level of mundane that takes over the troops lives when on both active and garrison duty. The retreats Harris was involved in are testament to this, Rifles lead the advance and take up the rear in retreat, something that Harris tells with a mix of pride and a sense of unfairness.

The book has had a good number of published versions through the years a testament to it's timeless appeal. The version of the book I own is on Amazon.co.uk for £10.00 new or from £0.01p second hand. Well worth the cover price but if your just wanting to read and be done then take the cheaper option. A different version not edited is also available on the Kindle for £3.20

Peninsular Cavalry General 1811-1813 Book Review

 

 

Peninsular Cavalry General edited by T.H. Mcguffie is a series of letters sent home by Lt. General Robert Ballard Long to his brother Charles. Though in fact it also covers his life up to taking up a post in the Peninsular and has a narrative from the editor. The great thing about Long's earlier life is it is kept fairly brief running to 44 pages but with enough information to be interesting and help understand Long's attitude during the rest of the book.

 

However McGuffie had an agenda in editing this book. The letters are taken from nine volumes so a great deal of Long's correspondence is missing, much of it of no relevance or use in telling the story. But on has to wonder how much material was left out that would harm McGuffie's view of Long. To put it in modern terms, Long was somewhat of a prick! Sure this comes through in the letters but given what you do read you just know so much more is left out. Now I am not saying that I developed a dislike for Long, far from that and I could see where he came from but much of what made Long of interest to McGuffie in the late 40's and indeed to me today was exactly the stuff that would get him treated as he in the end was. Long is great in his inability to hold back his scorn of others whilst taking insult of anything said against him. Add to this his inability to be a good subordinate but seemingly a rather good commander of others. Long curiously though hated war and it's cost of human life and was responsive of the suffering of the Spanish under both French and British actions. Through the whole book the breach between Long and his original commander Berisford is never far from the surface and Long's refusal to let it go was in fact the ultimate reason Long suffered the end of his career in the way the way he did. Not that this was the only friction Long happened to have with his superiors but it was the one that ran the longest (in fact long after his death).

 

What you get from this book is details of the daily life of the commander of a brigade and the little details such as coming across a common soldier burying his brother. Long actually had a good eye for what was to come but with a fair chunk of pessimism that must have drove his superiors nuts. McGuffie does a good job of supplying a summery of the coming chapter and fill in in the detail that helps make the letters more sensible. I have to admit though that to say Long was in action for the best part of three years he seemed to be in far less action than you would expect. His moaning also sometimes gets a bit much and he can be a bit of a bore but overall this book supplies a great deal of information that is not in the typical book about this period.

 

Long did not serve with Wellington until the last campaign, rather he was part of the southern army that mostly acted independently. It's purely conjecture asking the question of would Long have fared better if Wellington had a more direct contact with Long or would it have sped up his return to England? The book provides a few scenario ideas, more of the skirmish variety than set piece and I would recommend the book to anyone  who has beyond a passing interest in the period.

 

I bought my copy at a local book store that stocks many thousands of second hand books as well as a fair few new (Scarthin Books) and doing a search on the Internet it seems very likely this book only had the one printing (1951) but copies of the book are available between £5 and £20 for the most part with the odd copy in excellent condition running to £50+ I  paid £6 for mine and it was money well spent. Modern revisionist works have tended to portray Long in a better light than contemporaries and earlier works, maybe this book and the Napier correspondence have influenced this change of attitude, if so McGuffie will have achieved his aim.