A Battalion in line..........and column

In the last post I said I was interested to see what a battalion in line looked like. Well tonight, after watching Bastarden I set out the recently acquired troops in a three rank line.

18 bases each with 30 musketeers (or grenadiers in the case of the bases at the two ends), plus an officer and NCO per two bases, a mounted chef der battailon, 5 company ensigns in the centre, plus corps of drummers (4 in the centre and 2 at each end). I didn't put out enough NCOs and officers - should be roughly double - or drummers. 

A Prussian battalion at full strength in 1756 should have 560 privates, 18 officers, 36 NCOs and 20 musicians. I had 480 privates, s 1/7 down. However, the bases were a bit too wide for 30 men, so the overall frontage (108cm or 42 inches) was about right. There were only about 1/2 the number of grenadiers there should be for a Prussian battalion. On campaign the grenadiers would be detached to form composite grenadier battalions.

The 18 bases would work though as 18 British platoons of the WSS. Ignoring the two grenadier bases, this would also work as 8 Prussian pelotons.

You can't see much can you! To get the whole line in I had to zoom out. For context the table is 8ft by 4 ft. Sorry, I forgot to angle the overhead lights on to the line.

The mounted officer is invisible!

As I said, it's dark and you can't make out much, but at least you get a sense of how wide these formations where. And that is just one battalion. Imagine a brigade of 4-6 of these in line, let alone an army.

Battalion in column of platoons. The intervals allow enough space for the platoons to wheel into line.

In the afternoon we took a trip to Ikea to get the Youngest-of-the-Youngest the stuff she needed for uni. She's going into self-catering accommodation in halls. Whilst there, I splashed out on a new storage container as I'm running a bit low on Ferrero-Rocher boxes, and they stopped selling them in the shape of boxes I use. Should the need arise, these boxes are stackable.

The internal dimensions of most of the compartments are in multiples of 3cm, so good for my bases. The box, at c 5 cm, is very deep for 6mm figures, so I might decant some 10mm figures into it (not that they need higher boxes than I have). But at least that will keep things uniform.

I enjoyed the film by the way. I got annoyed at a couple of silly translations/bad scripting. The hero, Mikkelsen's character, was supposed to have been a captain promoted from the ranks with 25 years service. Now the film was set in Denmark roughly around the time of the SYW, and the hero had served in Mecklenburg. But the translation was given as he had "served in the German army". WTF!! In the offending section I heard them say "Mecklenburg" in so why they translated it as "German" God only knows. And later on they referred in a couple of scenes to people "serving in THE army" - to a bunch of German settlers. WHICH army? Oh, and the German settlers looked a bit well fed. Having said that, these were minor irritants and I would recommend the film (if you don't mind misery!).

Oh, nearly forgot. The title in English may have lost something in translation too. "Bastarden" became "The Promised Land".

Space Saving

At SELWG the other week I mentioned to David-in-Suffolk (a.k.a. the Ragged Solider) that my collection doesn't take up much space due to the small scales that I game in. Some time after I checked how much space. Well here's how much:

Under 3 feet wide. 34 inches or 87cm in new money.

To be a little more precise, there are 32 plastic boxes c.21x21x4cm and 7 thick card boxes 24x30x6cm (internal dimensions). A fraction of cubic metre. In fact about 10% of one cubic metre!

In those boxes are 11 'armies', all of my buildings, castle sections, river sections, woods (2 of the card boxes alone), hedges, fences, earthworks, bridges, and my unpainted lead pile. The 'armies' are:

Period	No. of painted and based figures	Armies	Scale
SYW	3520	Austrian, Prussian, Russian	6mm
ECW	1482	Parliamentarian and Royalist	10mm
AWI	305	American and British	10mm
Napoleonic	1956	Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish and Prussian	6mm
WWII	160	Finnish and Soviet	10mm
Total	7423

Guns, limbers and wagons are not included in those totals. The WWII stuff does not include any vehicles yet.

Quite a modest total by some people's standards. But my wife thinks it's enough, and who am I to disagree. Openly.

Kabin(et)'s Krieg

So the painting's done. The aircon/heater unit was installed Wednesday. I've actually been using it for work the past week and a bit. Still some more work needed before it can become my war room.

Clearly the lawn needs 'doing'. That table might come in handy in the meantime. And it could do with some guttering.

We moved a bookcase/cabinet from the house to store my milhist/wargaming books in. It fits in the space nicely. I've got 4 linear meters to fit in to 4.8meters of shelf space, which, being the astute mathematicians that you are, you will readily realise is going to be sufficient. Subject to the height of some books. There's another couple of meters worth of general history, football books and Grimsby history books to go somewhere. Maybe they'll have to stay in the house.

This into....

...this, does go

Then there's the small matter of my terrain boxes and 30 Ferrero Rocher boxes of toy soldiers. 

I also still need a table or tables of some sort. A couple of 4 foot by 2 foot (120 x 60cm) fold-up jobs would do, if I use my desk (about 4'6" by 2'4"/140 by 70cm). 3 such fold-up tables would be better. Finding something sturdy enough is the problem. I was tempted by the 'bar tables' and stand/sit desks in the big blue and yellow shed near Croydon*, as they would be easier on the back whilst playing games, but they wouldn't have got past the stern eye of the Ultimate Authority on Interiors. Incidentally, I treated the UAI to a slap-up, no expenses spared meal in said furniture store. Well it was Saturday evening and a chap's got to spoil a lady.

* Other furniture stores are available. In theory.

The Command and Control Centre

The central battle area

From a wider use perspective we still want a sofa unit for the corner opposite the desk, but the preferred model, like more and more things in the UK,  is out of stock with no indication of whether it will ever be back in stock, at least until next year. The object we have in mind is an indoor/outdoor modular unit than can easily be moved.  With the shortages, it seems that as a country we've opted to become the Soviet Union without any of the benefits of actual socialism.

Summat along these lines would do nicely for the wall:

http://www.paineproffitt.com/football.html

In other news, Grimsby Town's start to the new season continues to 'surprise and delight'. Four wins and a draw, including Tuesday night's 3-1 victory in front of a home sell-out crowd over 'Ryan Reynold's Wrexham' (tm all the national football media). It's always nice to beat a moneybags team. In terms of tier 5 in English football, Wrexham FC is a moneybags team. And yes, in typical messy British fashion, Wrexham is actually in Wales but compete in an English league. The last three games have involved Grimsby sportingly given the opposition a head start. That's class! No predictions about the season as a whole, but there's a buzz and togetherness not seen for many a year. What a nice way it would be to mark the 50th anniversary of the (locally legendary) promotion winning side under Lawrie McMenemy. I'm too long in the tooth to get that carried away, but cannot help reflecting that last month marked the 50th anniversary of my first match (a 4-3 win versus Doncaster Rovers, who we also gave a head start to). No! I'm determined to just enjoy the moment.

The one draw so far. I think a little bit more happened than the BBC's 'Live Text' service thought fit to report. But kudos for the Beeb in being strictly objective.

To do list / Boxing

Been thinking about expanding my ECW horse (and maybe dragoons) but had a look at my unfinished bits and pieces while I was re-boxing the other night.

Not massive numbers of anything in particular, but these are all the jobs that get pushed back whenever I acquire more horse or foot.

1. Finish ECW 'clubmen'. Just 'texturing the bases and a bit of touching up paint. Tempted to get more. Can double-up for the Monmouth Rebellion (in fact they're from the League of Augsburg range).
2. Texture ECW casualty marker bases.
3. Finish ECW musketeers. Probably at least a regiment's worth. Maybe have as firelocks?
4. Finish ECW command figures. A few to paint and texture bases.
5. Finish ECW odds and sods, e.g. limbers.
6. Paint bridges.
7. Finish AWI. Quite a few Brits done but no Yanks. Brits need cleaning up too.
8. WWII Finns and Russians (10mm) - lots of infantry (some painted and based by Old School Tony) and AFVs. These are for the Continnuation War as when I made my first order and anxious to get something Pithead Miniatures didn't have Winter uniformed Finns. Probably a good thing really as the Continnuation War has more variety of scenarios.
9. Touch up and base 6mm siege train, pontoons and transport. These I kept pretty generic so they could be used with any army - not that I have a fortress or a ruleset I'm happy with.
10. Paint and base 6mm cattle/bullocks - Baccus, bought with my Naps. Too big for my SYW (H&R and Irregular).
11. Base Leven hedges so they don't keep falling over. Corner pieces will be ticky unless I want to fix them permanently to the 'straights'.
12. Finish 6mm gabions. I bought lots of dowels - thicker for my 10mm figures and thinner for 6mm. Cut into appropriate lengths they make cheap and half-decent looking gabions. Which are needed in large numbers for sieges.

Obviously this is all excluding anything that appears on the acquisition list. I could probably do with a regiment more of ECW foot as well as the horse, plus more mounted officers. Oh and throw in some civilians and peasants armed with tools. And a more permnent solution for roads (rather than masking tape) and watercourses. And a lake for the Karelian front. And expanding the AWI collection (I fancy having a go at Loose Files). And maybe the late 17th century........Oh nearly forgot high brick walls such as you'd see around a place like Hougoumont. Or Richmond Park/Ham House.

In case you are still reading.....Reboxing of my 6mm SYW and Napoleonics has been completed. I was buying Ferrero Rocher* boxes 1 at a time until last weekend I thought 'who am I kidding?' I'm going to buy more so why not do it in one go. As it was the five extra I bought are now nearly all full. I will need more for the AWI and WWII collections. My old Ikea boxes have been repurposed for terrain bits, earthworks and buildings.

For the record the FR box numbers are:

• 6mm SYW:  10
• 10mm ECW:  6
• 6mm Naps:    5

Each box is 21cm square by the internal dimensions, and about 3.5cm high internally. 

The whole lot. Not bad for 7 armies.

8/10 of the SYW collection

ECW and 2/10 of SYW

Naps

This will also necessitate re-organisation of the cupboards in the dining room which contain books, files and glassware (whatever next?) as well as the collection. In fact books around the house need a re-org too because the ECW collection has grown the female members of the household never puts things back where they belong. I have acquired a built in shelf in the new stairway, built last year for the loft extension. Conveniently positioned for my place of easement too. I suppose I could put my toys in one of the 'new' built in cupoboards upstairs but that's not so convenient for the dining gaming table. Hmmm.

* for the reason why see the old post Boxing and Basing, or ‘Ambassador, you are spoiling us’

However. All of this just eats either into gaming time or my 'wasting time' time. Maybe I should give some of the latter the heave ho and start making more productive use of my evenings.

....and a parade

I didn't get any wargaming done (fell asleep after lunch) but I did finally get around to putting flags on my ECW horse and the rest of my foot.  Once I actually got cracking I had a burst of energy and got on with re-boxing my SYW figures.  This entailed lining more Fererro Rocher boxes with magnetic paper and putting magnetic strips on the bases of the soldier. I had enough for just the Prussians. To gets the Naps and the rest of the SYW collection done I reckon I'd need about 12 more of the FR boxes. Oh dear! I'll have to make one of those pyramids with the chocolates and play ambassador.

Late edit: Oh I nearly forgot to mention that the old Ikea boxes that previously housed the SYW Prussians were re-purposed for storing my woods (the boxes are slightly too shallow for the tallest conifers, but they'll bend a little as they're made out of 'bump' pipecleaners). Fortuitously they all just fit in the two boxes. This means I could get rid of the scruffy old cardboard boot box they were previously stored in. So an overall improvement in neatness - M.Foy would be pleased, if it wasn't for all the flock.

Later I decided it was time to get all of the ECW collection out and set them up on a 1-for-1 basis. So here they are: a regiment of foot about 500 strong, with forlorn hope and guns out in front, and 4 troops of horse on each wing (about 300 in total excluding command figures). There are several more command bases in the boxes - I've just laid out one per troop or company).

Pikes are laid out 9 ranks deep, shot 6, and horse 3 deep. The foot regiment is 76cm wide with 76 figures in each rank. Going by the vertical scale (10mm) these are widely spaced (say 5 foot something per man) due to the figures being on the chubby* side and there being space on each side of the bases. * Must be all those Ferrero Rocher.

There's some farm implement armed clubmen lurking behind with the carts

Boxing and Basing, or ‘Ambassador, you are spoiling us’

Ever since I switched to the Polemos basing convention, I've been on the search for the Holy Grail. The perfect sized storage box. Whilst there is no set size for bases under Polemos rules (at least the Napoleonic sets of rules, 'Maréchal de l'Empire' and 'Général de Division'), the standard size adopted seems to be 60mm wide for cavalry and infantry and 30mm wide for artillery. Depths are usually 30mm (60mm for brigade sized horse and foot units in Maréchal de l'Empire). I have all my SYW and Napoleonics (both periods in 6mm) on bases 60x30mm for infantry and cavalry and 30x30mm for guns. Containers that were sized in multiples of 60 or 30mm were therefore what I was ideally looking for. Height was of secondary importance, though not to be ignored if I wanted to disguise how big my toy collection was!

Out on shopping trips I'd be pouring over the 'storage solutions' section of hardware stores, pound shops, or in that well-known Swedish shop. Often cursing myself for not having brought a tape measure. Family members would ask why I needed a tape measure when the containers dimensions were on display. In case you are not already on the same page, I should point out that it's the internal dimensions that are the critical feature. Are the internal dimensions in multiples of 30mm? Very few of them are.

A decade ago in said Swedish interiors store, I came across the boxes below which were then retailing for a few quid each.

Overall measurements are 320x250x65mm, but more importantly the internal dimensions are a shade over 300x240x60mm. Enough for 40 bases. Because of the depth, I decided to store the figures double height (using bubble-wrap and newspaper bewteen layers). In 7 boxes I have an Anglo-Spanish Napoleonic army and Austrian and Prussian SYW armies. I knew at the time I should have bought more but thought 'don't be greedy, it's enough for now, you can always come back when you need more'. No prizes for guessing that when I did eventually go back the line had been discontinued.

In the succeeding years I found that boxes from Macbooks and i-Pads have reasonable dimensions, but the buggers keep changing the sizes and there's only so many devices of that price that a household of four can justify. And as with the Ikea boxes, these are on the deep side for 6mm or 10mm figures. For a few years this didn't matter as my collection didn't expand in size.

When I finally took the plunge and ordered some Pendraken ECW figures, the hunt for the ideal box was resurrected. It had never quite gone away - I was forever examining the range of boxes in Clas Ohlson (another outlet with Scandinavian origins!). Then that Christmas (2017) one of the wife's friends gave her a box of chocolates. It was a fairly simple looking, clear plastic box about 8 inches square and 1 1/2 inches high. Hmmmm! As soon as the chocolates had been finished, out came the tape measure. One of the best presents I got that Christmas! 210x210x35mm. Even allowing for cavalry standards and upright pikes they were perfect for my new toys!

On the third picture you can see the sticky-backed 'metallic paper' I line the boxes with. I stick magnetic paper underneath the MDF bases the figures are mounted on to stop them moving.

Incidentally, horse are based on 30x30mm bases, foot and dragoons on 40x30mm. Pike in the 'charge' position are on 40x60mm bases. The charging pike are mainly conversions from Pendraken musketeers firing, since no one really does figures in this pose (Irregular do pike in the receiving cavalry position).  Guns are mounted 1 per base, 30mm wide by 40mm deep, with about four gunners in attendance.

There are generally 3 ranks of four foot on each base of pike and shot (or should that be 'shotte'?) and 1 rank of 3 horse on each base. Horse bases are placed in 2 rows of bases to represent 'Dutch' style tactics and 1 deep for 'Swedish' tactics. Command figures are 3 to a base for horse (officer, trumpeter, standard-bearer) or 4 for foot (officer, drummer, 2 standrd bearers). As I mentioned in a previous entry, hose can be any number of bases to a regiment, with one base being a troop. Naturally, there is one pike base plus two of shot for each foot unit. Command stands are supernumeray but are used as markers to indicate what's going on in the unit. At 1mm to the yard, the figure scale is about 1:20.

Getting back to the boxes, UK readers of a certain age will remember this advert.

You are really spoiling us

Standing request now for me with my kids is, if in doubt about presents, get Dad a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates (but not the dinky little ones with two tiers, they're totally the wrong dimensions!). My storage solution of choice retails at around £6-7 and it comes with free chocolates!