Musing: Early 20thC wars in South and Central America

I'm not actually planning anything new just at the moment, but this is an area of on-going interest. My historical education at school was very Anglo-centric with some extension into Continental Europe and North America, and last century wargaming followed a similar pattern. Being able to branch out into the history of the other Americas is refreshing, as is the prospect of modelling their armies and gaming their wars.

Anyway, on to the specifics.

Firstly, I bought another book on the Chaco War - The Chaco War 1932-1935 - by Antonio Luis Sapienza and José Luis Martínez Peláez published by Helion. Helion have a prodigious output. They also overwhelm you with marketing emails which I was about to cancel when I saw this title. The book is nicely illustrated with contemporary photos and some coloured illustrations, and is a worthwhile addition to my collection.

I've taken an interest in the Chaco since Khurasan launched their 15mm range. There are also plenty of vehicles available in that scale. I own that prior to that I'd never heard of it. I like the Chaco War because it's offbeat and obscure, and I'm particularly attracted by the 'quirky' interwar tankettes, but these were used in such small numbers that I could really only justify their use in a skirmish-level game. 

Here I think the most promising option might be Chain of Command as this would allow for tanks and all sorts of other assets - HMGs, mortars, field guns, trucks etc - all fielded in penny packets. Using CoC for the Chaco was discussed here.

For those seriously interested, a great collection of links to Chaco War resources can be found here.

Secondly, I note Peter Pig has launched a range of 15mm figures for the Mexican Revolution. This is another area in which I've had a long-term interest. Here I would be inclined to adapt Red Actions or something on that scale, i.e. companies of say 4 bases with multiple figures on each. This would be a higher level game and require more figures.

For 'mass armies' I remain more inclined to 10mm, but there's no sign of that happening and 15mm is at least a step in the right direction. I'll stop there. I'm not hitting any 'Buy Now' buttons. Well, not yet, anyway.

Russian Civil War in 28mm

Copplestone Ragged Whites

Lockdown was to have been a period of consolidation. It started well but there was a hiatus in hobby activity in May followed by the usual Summer distractions. And so my only wargaming-related activity in recent months has been the purchase of some 28mm Bolsheviks and Whites from the Copplestone 'Back of Beyond' range using my Wargames Illustrated/North Star monthly discount and a couple of books. This is another slow-burn project as it will take me over a year to collect the figures before I feel obliged to base or paint anything.

The RCW has long been on my wishlist and I eventually decided to go with the characterful Copplestones and The Men Who Would Be Kings rules. There are many other rule sets I could use but I already know and like these Rampant rules, and extending them to Interwar skirmish ought to be fairly easy. An adaption of TMWWBK to the RCW was discussed here and using them for the Mexican Revolution here. A further mention of using them for interwar colonial skirmish can be found here.

The main issue is how to accommodate vehicles and the most useful inspiration is Pierre Aymeric's WW1 Foch extension. The original version appeared on the Wargames Illustrated website here but a newer, fuller version is available from the author's blog here. I've yet to try these out but I also have ideas of my own having already been thinking of extending TMWWBK to cover shotguns and armoured trucks for the Irish War of Independence.

Anyway, these are just thoughts and I'm in no rush. Winter is coming and it's going to be a long one...

Dragon Rampant: The Trolls/Orcs

I continue to plough through my Rampant armies adding filler to the bases. Here is another of my Dragon Rampant warbands which has recently had the bases levelled as part of the Great Lockdown Leap Forward.

Following Poul Anderson's world, these are Trolls but they're equivalent to Tolkien's Orcs (who Tolkien sometimes called Goblins). Anyway, to avoid confusion for other wargamers, I will probably have to start calling them Orcs and reserve the name Trolls for larger figures, a couple of which are also featured below.

The figures come from various manufacturers. It's been a while since I bought them, but I'll do my best to identify them. Their physiognomy is similar (I avoided very pig-like features) but clothing styles differ. I'm confident the divergent styles will be brought together once I get some paint on them.

These larger Orcs (Reaper) will provide the Troll King and units of Bellicose and/or Elite Foot.  It's now common to assume that Orcs should be violently green-skinned. Anderson's Trolls and Goblins are both green, but Tolkien visualised his Orcs as swarthy and 'Hunnic' in appearance. I'm compromising on this by painting my Trolls (Orcs), Goblins and giant Trolls in a light olive green, but Hill and other Giants will be completed in human skin tones.

The mass of Trolls/Orcs will be fielded as Offensive Heavy Foot. Some of the more weedy ones may be drawn out as Scouts. The most appropriate Trolls I originally found were the CP Models Orc clubmen but it's a very small range, so I also ordered all the Reaper figures I thought would do, and then added some from a new range by Elite Wargames. I also bought some newer armoured Orcs and Orc bowmen from CP Models but these are disappointingly crude and lumpy designs and I won't be using them.

These Half-Orcs (ex-Grenadier from Mirliton) will be Offensive  Medium Foot. I looked at the Grenadier Orcs but they were anatomically very extreme and I think Trolls and similar are most sinister when they are closer to human form.

There are a few bow-armed figures scattered amongst the various types. These will be ignored or used to indicate units additionally armed with missiles depending on how I want to field things.

Ogres (Otherworld). Great figures but the spear arm on the lower right one was a devil to fit.

Various opportunistic Nasties as Troll/Orc allies. Front row: A Witch (Magister Militum) with Rat (Eureka) flanked by two large Trolls (North Star). Back row: An archetypal 'Fairytale' Giant and a Fantasy Viking-style Frost Giant (North Star OGAM).

Wolves (various manufacturers) as Lesser Warbeasts. They do look a bit puny now, especially next to my wolf-riding Goblin cavalry.

Dragon Rampant: The Elves

Clockwise from bottom left: Elf King, Champion,
Companions, Shaman, Enchantress, spearmen,
swordsmen and archers. The figures will
have a variety of greens and reds etc added.

As I said before, my 28mm Elves and Trolls (Orcs) for Dragon Rampant were to be based more on Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword than on Tolkien, but in actuality I've been restricted by what was readily available in the form of models.

My Elves are 'old school' Grenadier miniatures now sold by Mirliton in Italy. They're obviously Celtic rather than Viking (as I originally conceived), but they're lovely designs and the castings are very clean.

They were previously photographed in a game but I’ve since expanded their ranks and added filler to the bases.

Despite the Celtic look, organisation is still posited on Viking lines so there are Huscarls (High Elves) and Bondi (Wood Elves). I prefer to deploy the archers amongst the spearmen so that every single unit in the warband has a sting. This really unsettles opponents!

There is also a Grenadier Shaman (Druid) and a Reaper Elf Enchantress.

The Pikeman's Lament: My 1671 Spanish and Buccaneer companies

Devoid of the usual May festivities I’m devoting this not-as-merry-as-it-could-be month to work on a range of Rampant armies. My overall minimal aim is to level the bases with filler, and get them all undercoated and base-coated while we wait 18 months for a Coronavirus vaccine or herd immunity.

To kick off, here are my 28mm companies for The Pikeman’s Lament based on the Buccaneer attack on Panama of 1671. The Buccaneers are flintlock-armed veterans, the Spanish firelock-armed militia.

The figures are mainly North Star and Blood and Plunder.

The Spanish (1): Back row: Mounted Captain, Gun and crew, Horse. 
Front row: Lanceros, Pike.

The Spanish (2): Three units of matchlock-armed Shot.

The Spanish (3). Front row: Captain on foot with some extras. Indian scouts as Commanded Shot. 
Back row: Armada de Barlovento (Marines).

 

The English: Four units of flintlock-armed Buccaneers with their Welsh leader, Henry Morgan.

Using a wet palette

Too wet and the colours run. Too dry and the
colours dry out. But it's still a great idea.

While painting my 6mm Thirty Years War armies, I've been experimenting with a Redgrass wet palette.

I've never used a traditional artist's palette of any type to paint miniatures. I've used paints singly straight out of the bottles, or, rather, I've used a cocktail-stick or coffee-stirrer to transfer dollops of each paint onto old jar lids.

Using a 'mixing' palette encourages a dirtier approach, intentionally or just inevitably. This hasn't made much difference to the Thirty Years War armies which are block painted with dabs of bright colour, but I'm wondering if the increased spectrum of tone will add to realism when painting larger figures.

The wet palette can't be used for washes or metallics. Obtaining the right degree of wetness is tricky,  not least because the paints themselves vary in their wetness. I therefore still keep old lids (my dry palettes) and a little dish of water next to the wet palette for dealing with watery or overly dry paints.

With the right wetness paints will last quite a few days and I can quickly return to painting in an odd moment of opportunity which is very handy for fitting in my painting around other commitments. While I haven't yet optimised my use of a wet palette, it’s become central to my current painting.

Thirty Years War 6mm progress 11: The Foot

The Foot bases are particularly packed and dark so I needed to optimise the use of light/bright colours. These artificially vibrant colours are intended to make the blocks pop - shocking close up but more visible further away.

Swedish Pike-and-Shot and Commanded Shot. These represent ethnic Swedes and German Protestants in Swedish service. Scots in Swedish service are in hodden grey and blue bonnets (front rank, centre). The Swedes have a higher proportion of shot than the Spanish, Catholic-Imperialists and Saxons. This will be more obvious when I replace the pikes.

My painting reference has been Steven Thomas’s series of uniform articles on Balagan, but my painting inspiration has been the 2mm (!) armies on Roundwood's World. Yes, a 2mm approach to painting 6mm figures is quite enough for me.

Spanish Pike-and-Shot. The drummers are picked out in yellow so I can quickly identify the blocks.

Swedish blocks (i.e. ethnic Swedes or Germans in Swedish service) and Saxons are uniformed  but the Catholic-Imperialists and Spanish are not, though the latter are distinguished by particular use of red and yellow.

Catholic-Imperialist Pike-and-Shot and Commanded Shot. Here the drummers are all in red.

Most of the coats don’t really show unless you view the blocks at eye level. Once again it’s the headgear that stands out.

Saxon pike-and-shot - awaiting uniform information. Steven Thomas is painting his own Saxons at the moment and will be publishing uniform guidance in due course.

Flags will be attached to dress pins. Pikes will be brush bristles in a natural brown colour, but I'll have to wait on the Coronavirus emergency before I can go out and shop for brush-heads.

I'll be adding a little more detail to Foot and Horse over the next few days. Then they'll be put back in storage so that next month I can move on to working on my many Rampant armies...

Thirty Years War 6mm progress 10: Croats, Dragoons, Cannons and Commanders

Spaced out in comparison to figures on other bases, the Croats, Dragoons, Cannons and Commanders demand a fuller and more conventional approach to painting. The bases photographed here aren't necessarily finished but the general impression they give isn't going to change much.

Croat Light Cavalry

The Baccus figures used for the Croats aren’t exactly correct but give the right impression and will do. I cut away some of the lances to represent firearms, but if you look closely you can see anachronistic bow-cases. However, I will insist that all viewers maintain social distance. At 2 metres the problem disappears, a small compensation for the end of normal life.

Swedish Dragoons

The Dragoons are my favourite figures and I have created the bases as little dioramas in contrast to the massed ranks of the Horse and Foot. It’s tricky to get the paintbrush in, but there are only a few of these bases to do.

Some generic Guns

The Cannons are what they are. Not much else to be done on these.

Some generic commanders

The Commanders are like other mounted figures of various types - Cavalier, Roundhead or Cuirassier style. In theory I could attempt to complete the Commanders to a higher standard but it would only raise expectations. The trick is to make the whole army look good enough at a glance.

These bases have more room for static grass and maybe some other foliage. This will detract from the meagre painting and greatly add to realism.

Blogger problems

Blogger is behaving strangely and it’s nothing I’ve done! Some photos have become unavailable for no apparent reason...