General Steiner: A Nation Mourns

The court of Bohemia was shocked to hear of the death of General Steiner, in the service of the Vereinigte Freie Stadte. The General was a much regarded visitor at court and held considerable estates and vineyards in the southern mountains of Bohemia.

Rumours persist that before his death, words were uttered by Count von Swartz which should never occur between one gentleman and another. General Steiner felt that the only way he could redeem his honour was to place himself at the head of his regiment and to seek an hero's demise. Sad to say a beneficent fate granted his wish all to easily.

General Swarz is rightly renowned for his martial accomplishments, however many officers are daily leaving the employ of the VFS to seek more relaxed and congenial conditions with the Prussian service.

For a full account of these matters and much else on the late campaigns in Germany our gentle readers are commended peruse the Lorraine Journal; obtainable bound within the 'Raid on St Michel' from the Partizan Press at Baker Road.

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An anouncement is daily expected of an important appointment to the Army of Bohemia.
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Pure Inspiration

I don't imagine that anyone reading this blog will be unaware of the Wargame Companion, indeed most of you will have had a copy for some time. I hoarded mine till Christmas and spent the holiday with it at my elbow.

I have been wargaming for 43 years now so you will not think me blase if I say that I very rarely see or read anything that really stops me in my tracks. However this book did just that. It was the way that the sheer enjoyment of the hobby leapt from every single page. Of course it made me want to jump up and start painting Spencer Smiths like mad, but fortunately my painting table was packed away for Christmas guests so I was forced to just sit and think.

And what I thought was, why am still not doing the things that are most important to me. If I am run over next week I doubt I will lie under the bus wheels regretting that I never got around to finishing that 3rd regt of Napoleonic French Dragoons so that I could field an independent cavalry corps of dragoons in 1813. I might however whisper, (Citizen Kane like) 'Stadden, Royal Welch Fuzileers' when I think of the hopelessly expensive unit I coveted for so many years and never ever got.

Well you get the point anyway! So my New Year resolution is that I will paint and model only those things that I really want to do, and the best structure for this will be 18c fictional armies. Those who read the book will remember that these differ from imaginary armies in that they are a mix of real and imaginary units brought together solely at the whim of their creator. In Brigadier Youngs case he mixed his old regt, the Bedfords, alongside imaginary 18c German states and if he liked the figures then he brought in Napoleonic reinforcements as needed.




Then a few days ago I got a copy of Brigadier Grant's brand new wargames book and what a splendid read it is. It is like a gale of fresh air blowing away the dust and revealing the Grant rules and army in all their shiny splendour. I urge you all to buy this one it is a perfect compliment to the Wargames Companion in that it displays the rules and armies in all their relevance to what we do today.

Raid on St Michel describes a mini campaign fought by the author and Phil Olley is a joy from cover to cover and is just published by Caliver Press. I regret that I cannot tell you the price as my copy was a gift from the author, but it is worth every penny.


(Note to self: must try to avoid this constant and repulsive name dropping in 2009.)

A Happy New Year

Well like everything else on this blog it's a bit late, but nevertheless I wish a belated happy New year to everyone.

Traditionally this is the time to review progress, cut out the dead wood, and stride forward reinvigorated to a new beginning. Well something like that.

As a record of the creation of a Marlburian army this blog has been a pretty spectacular failure. There is alas, no Marlburian Army to record.

I have simply failed to get it off the ground. In many ways this is hard to understand. I had an interesting project, wonderful figures, a well thought out plan. I think the reason is that I failed one of Phil Olley's rules for a successful project. I didn't get anything completed quickly. For a variety of reasons, I was unable to actually get paint onto units in the first half of the year. Inevitably interest wained and I now regard getting the figures out as a chore.

So pack it up for a year or two, learn the lessons and move on.

On the positive side I bought more than a dozen books on this interesting period and I started this blog, which I have enjoyed doing and has brought an interest and camaraderie in the doings of other 'bloggers'.

Not a tragedy but not a success either so no pictures. just drawing a line

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The painter rose and twitched his mantle blue
tomorrow fresh woods and pastures new.

The Imperial Gendarmes

The final unit to be shown on this blog was actually the first that I painted. The Imperial Gendarmes were created for the Game of Sittangbad that we put on at Newark almost three years ago. The bright uniform was originally intended to be complimented by black horses, but Phil Olley nipped in first and created a black horse regt so I switched them to bays and chestnuts, ce la guerre.



After the game was completed the regiment transferred from the electoral army to that of Bohemia where it is now the senior line cavalry regiment. 'Imperial Gendarme' conjures up sufficient atmosphere for the unit without needing any further history in my opinion.



So that is all that I have painted so far. The line infantry will eventually have ivory coloured coats. The facings will be taken from the liturgical calender as befits a staunchly catholic country. Dragoon wear vermilion and Heavy Cavalry Turquoise.



But all of that lies in the future, the next goal will be to get a couple of guns and the first line infantry unit completed so that I have a usable force for gaming.



The figures of course are again Holger Eriksson 30mm. To my mind their will never be figures like this around again. Not that the sculptors of today lack talent. I am blown away by some of the work of people like Richard Ansell and the Perry twins. But the way that figures are created has changed. Today people use putty and build up the figure on dolly. they are in effect creating a model. The old masters such as Eriksson carved their figures out of a solid block. In Eriksson's case they were carved from wood.



When I was painting them I was much taken by this passage from John Garratt.

"The models are conceived sculpturally and obviously worked with a chisel emphasising the planes which gives great structural strength and truthfulness...it is this emphasis on planes that gives an Eriksson figure such distinction. He paints his models in oils and leaves the planes and contours to make their own contribution without shading."



I did not want to leave the figures without any shading myself but I did think hard about the way it should be used to keep the integrity of the figure. I decided to use fairly bold strokes of lighter colour and to attempt emphasis the lines and movement of the figure.


To what extent I succeeded you will have to judge for yourselves! The horse were done either with dilute Humbrol enamel or an Acrylic ink wash. Both over white undercoat.



The uniforms were painted with Placka Poster paint. One of the few really nice turquoise blue around and a beautifully deep crimson. Most of the other colours were Vallejo acrylics which I was using a lot at that time for 20mm plastics.



Finally thanks to everyone for the very kind comments. I am course pleased that people like the figures, but I am not preaching to anyone that my way is best. I just love to see what others are doing, and if they are ploughing their own furrow rather than slavishly following White Dwarf so much the better. It is not a question of whose figures are best. The best ones are those that give their owners most pleasure.

Happy Painting!

Teutoburger Wald Jaeger

This post is by way of being a thank you to all those people who have been, patiently logging on the last couple of months. Also in response to the very kind comments on the last post. So especially for Jean-Louis, here is the unit history.

The Battalion advances in line

In the 17C the Imperial forces of Bohemia suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the lightly armed Hungarian Grenzer of their eastern frontier. In order to counter this the first established unit of Light Infantry was raised from the huntsmen of the extensive Tuetoburger forests of the western mountain ranges. This unit was an immediate success having fought in several campaigns during the first half of the 18C and can claim to be the oldest permanent unit of light infantry by several decades. Nevertheless it is with pride that the regiment claims Varrus AD9 as their first battle honour.

With drums beating and the Colonel at their head

The figures are of course Holger Eriksson 30mm. They have had slight conversion by cutting the musket and bayonet down to rifles. I had better give a formal link for those who want to look at the full range in detail.

Tradition of London:
http://tinyurl.com/5arpaq

Peter Johnstone of Spencer Smith Figures:
http://tinyurl.com/5pst3d

I tend to order from Peter Johnstone who has always been extremely helpful getting figures at short notice for a display game. but I hear good things about Tradition as well.


Skirmish order



The Battalion has deployed into skirmish order. The gentle reader will note that the formations are those advocated by the theorist J Evans Mudd in his famous drill book '38 movements for light infantry by which victory must be assured.' A best seller in 18c Bohemia.



Two infantrymen forget their drill and 'bunch' within 1" of each other. The Sergeant is about to demonstrate how this can be rectified by the use of an halberd.
Finally a word on paint.



I painted the coats with Liquitex Acrylics as I only had camouflage greens in enamel and I wanted a pure colour. Although a nice shade it had problems covering and has a strange translucent quality which with a gloss varnish looks a bit like glass. So its kept now exactly for that. The small clothes were painted with a 20 year old pot of Plaka poster paint and worked fine. However this summer I have been trying a new line of paint recommended by Mr Mike Siggins. Chromacolour, which seem to be a more user friendly substitute for the Plaka having great purity of tone and strong pigments but much more easily worked with. So far I am very impressed and will hopefully describe them in more detail in a later post.

A few extra photos.

These are for those who were kind enough to say they wanted more photos.





The camera gives a more truthful image of the horse colour than the scanner. The undercoat does not alter the colour as much as one might expect.

I would like to thank Mr Mike Siggins, for generously sharing his experience of working with oils. He is one of the real gentlemen of wargaming today.

So, moving swiftly on!

Well apologies to all who have dropped in found no one at home, especially Black Bob.

I would love to tell you all what I have been up to this autumn but as Dr Watson might have said, the world is not yet ready to know the full story of the Mongolian mountain of light and Mr Asquith's part in averting the collapse of western capitalism.

Anyway the doctors have saved the leg and I now feel strong enough to return to one of the most contentious issues of our time:

Toy soldiers and how we paint them!!!


I am not a huge fan of imaginary armies but I give myself the treat of designing and painting just one unit a year for my fictional mid 18C army. The last three years have produced units which were copied from Peter Young's 'Charge'. This year I was able to start from scratch and settled on another cavalry regt. This time one of dragoons.


Regular readers, (if any such are left) will know of my enthusiasm for the horse models of Holger Eriksson. The range that are available is really quite wide now and can easily be ordered through Tradition or Spencer Smith miniatures. A word of warning though. The legs are very delicate, don't be tempted to trim any flash from the lower legs of the horse. Just be grateful for the extra strength and paint it as foliage.



My army is loosely based in the mid 18C after an alternative thirty years war in which many states remained independent and Bohemia is a northernmost bastion of Catholicism with its independent army. One of Bohemia's oldest and proudest regts is the Winter Queen Dragons, so called because they provided the escort to the Empress Elizabeth during her campaign to consolidate her reign after the assassination of her husband..


Most of the painting is self evident. However I experimented with the horses. I am always looking to cut down the time and effort involved. I prefer to use a spirit based wash rather than water for large areas as it spreads more easily and runs into the depressions without those nasty bubbles that pop later and leave undercoat showing through. This time I wanted to try and get something of the effect of using oil paint without all the hassles of putting it on and wiping it off.


Cream and orange undercoats the same wash on top

I divided the horses into three and undercoated them with diluted washes of enamel paint in khaki, cream and bright orange. I then made a mix of about one part Vandyke brown oil paint, one part linseed oil and four parts white spirit. put in a Little bottle with a brass screw as an agitator it keeps well. Splash it all over and put aside for at least a week, maybe three. (Next time I will try quick drying linseed oil.) Overall I am pleased though the oil pigment is so strong the undercoat shows through less than I expected. Lastly I finished with several coats of gloss spray varnish to get a real porcelain glaze on the figures.


The Winterqueen Dragoons at exercise. This painting shows them manoeuvring on the harvest stubble fields south of the palace at the end of an Autumn evening. (scenery by merit, harvest field from Mrs Asquith's sewing basket.)



And finally, A Winters Evening... the view from the window by my computer desk, taken while writing this blog entry. I wish you all a peaceful and warm Sunday evening.