Just in Time

Sorry logistics dudes. This isn’t about JIT, as such. Though it does concern the closing out of one process just as supplies arrive for the next.

I finished the bases on the Celts and the Carthaginian host are sitting on their magnetised bases and are boxed up. Except for the elephants.

So they got painted early this evening, and have had their bases textured with Chinchilla dust and covered in burnt umber paint. All that remains is to do the 3-shade dry brush stage and sprinkling of fake grass. And re-boxing! Yes, I underestimated the space they will occupy. They take up a tad more than 2 Ferrero Rocher boxes but 3 looks too much. So I might swap out the Anglo-Hanoverians from their big box.

Colonel Hathi and friends

The completion of painting has worked out perfectly as I had a message today to say that the big SYW order from Heroics & Ros has been despatched. Weather for the next 7 days is forecast to be dry. So I expect to be prepping the new arrivals and undercoating them.

For the latter stages of preparing the SYW re-enforcements I need some more burnt umber paint as well as the flock that I mentioned yesterday. Out comes the order pad again.

Post Script:

Here is a better shot of the Nellies, without the black board and with the bases finished. That's meant to be the sign of Tanit on the cloths but I haven't done the base of the triangle. Oops.

For scale, the bases are 30mm square. It's just occurred to me that I could have put some foot figures on the bases too. Maybe skirmishers.

Barca preparing for el classico

All units painted and based, except for the elephants. And the bases for the Celts need finishing off. The flock just about lasted. I'm hoping that enough shakes off when this lot is dry to cover the Celts.

Slingers, javelinmen, Celtic swordsmen, Numidian cav and citizen cav on the flanks. In the centre: Spanish swordsmen, citizen spearmen, Liby-Phoenician spearmen, and heavy cav.

Més que un exèrcit - or Hannibal's Army Are on Their Way

Barca's lads are taking shape. I've painted 6 units (5 based, but not 'textured') with 4 to go. The unpainted units include 5 elephants, Spanish cavalry, Numidian cavalry and Celtic swordsmen. I'm going to enjoy painting the plaid trousers!

Colour choices are more slapdash than usual because I have very limited knowledge of the period. So if everything looks like something out of a sword and sandal epic, I make no apologies.

The heavies: Libyan Spearmen and Liby-Phoenecian Phalangites. What I like about these models is I can use them as hoplites.

Spanish Scutari & cavalry with spears. The Scutari came with the heavier looking guys at the front (also swordsmen) so I figured they would be in the front, with the guys with small round shields (targes?) behind in looser formation ready to nip in to stick it to any unwary Romans.

A better view of the cavalry

Last but not least Balearic Trance Slingers. They're not all grey-haired old boys, they're meant to have some sort of fur caps (in my imagination).

After all the excesses of the SYW acquisitions, 10 units seems trifling.

Complaint to the Maréchal général des logis

The supplementary supplies mentioned in the last post have begun to arrive. First the magnetic bases on Tuesday, then the polypropylene boxes yesterday, and today the MDF bases, scatter material and sticky labels.

The Maréchal général des logis needs a kick up the derrière  because look how he sent them. Bear in mind the plastic boxes and the labels were on the same order to the Range. What a waste of wagon space.

The tiny little flat white thing are the labels.

You have to go out of your way to do something this stupid. It's actually harder to do this than do the common sense thing. Why put that much effort into getting it wrong?

************

More happily some progress has been made on painting the Carthaginians and re-boxing the SYW figures. Just waiting on news on the arrival of the reinforcements.

Supplementary Supplies and Clearing the Decks

Right, having placed a big order for more SYW/AWS figures*, I did a check on the ancillary supplies that I would need. This resulted in several more purchases:

• Black spray paint for undercoating, picked up with yellow and orange acrylics from Warhammer locally.
• MDF bases - I had just about enough for the figures on order but not enough for the Carthaginians that I hadn't got around to yet.
• Some 'Summer grass' scatter material.
• Magnetic squares for the underneath of bases to hold the figures in place in their boxes.
• Polypropylene storage boxes, internal dimensions 310x335x25mm.
• White sticky labels for the boxes (I'm forever picking the wrong boxes out and desperately need some name tags).
• An incidental with the MDF bases from Pendraken, a couple of buildings which might suit my Ancients.

* Of course I realised afterwards that I had overlooked the Palatines and Würtembergers that fought with the French in Westphalia, though the Reichstruppen would probably do for these.

I finally got round to preparing the Carthaginians. All are now based for painting, undercoated and 'fleshed'. Hence the need for the black spray paint.  The flesh is probably too pale (OK for the Celts but not the North Africans) so I'll claim I'm going for the look of the Italian made sword & sandal epics (Steve Reeves appeared in a ton of these). Incidentally, sticking the crew on the elephants was a right pain in the neck, with superglue all over my finger tips.

With Hannibal's lads on all of my lolly sticks and several MDF bases ready to paint, I realised I needed to crack on with them to make room for the new SYW recruits. I finished a couple of bases of Liby-Phoenecian heavy infantry already, but have 90+% of the army still to do. I'm using the old Osprey book I bought a few months ago as my guide. Having decided not to dig too deeply into this as very much a secondary period for me, I didn't want to invest heavily in books or spend too much time on 'research'. 

The boxes came from an idea from Richard in a comment on my previous post. He suggested some boxes similar to the ones I ordered, only A4 size and slightly deeper. I'll see how I get on with the square ones. If these work out I might undertake a full-scale re-boxing, just to keep everything neat.

If this wasn't enough, on the back burner, I've been toying with the idea of an Ottoman army (the Twilight rules cater for 'Eastern Horse' etc), but seeing the aforesaid pachyderms reminded my of Steve's Indian armies of the SYW period. Hmmm!

First Dutch to muster

A unit made up of odds and sods. A line of H&R Austrian musketeers and an assortment of pike wielding figures from Irregular (mostly 1690-1721 I think). The pikemen have had their weapons cut to size. For uniforms I read the Orange and the States vol I, the SYWA page shared by Neil Patterson the other day, and the Obscure Battles article on Fontenoy. My conclusion was that the vast majority of Dutch infantry were in blue coats by this period. I've opted for a medium blue tone, though I might vary the shade with different units to add a bit of variety.

Flags were a bit harder to find, so I've based these on ones shown in a colour plate for a unit in the WSS period. Don't look too closely! The unit painted doesn't represent anything in particular - given the preponderance of red facings in the units at Fontenoy and the difficulty of showing regimentals on 6mm figures, it would probably be a pointless distinction.

Mystery Dutch unit, with even more mysterious infantry and cavalry undercoated and 'fleshed' in the background.

Given the loss of my former supply of storage boxes (Ferrero Rocher changed the design which makes them smaller and less secure to stack) I need to find an alternative solution. I might decant some of the 10mm figures or maybe even my 6mm Napoleonics, as I'll need another 3 boxes to accommodate the 60 bases worth on order.  One each for the Dutch, Reichsarmee, and Hesso-Brunswick forces. Stocks of bases are sufficient for this lot, but it looks like I'm short for the Carthaginians if I ever get round to painting them. Could do with some more flock and magnetic bases too, so out with the order pad again.

Brief Walking Post

The Margravina and I had our constitutional this morning, walking across Richmond Park to Petersham and the River Thames. We stopped off for hot drinks at the Hollyhocks cafe in Terrace Gardens. Surely one of, if not the, most beautiful spot to drink coffee in London.

We naturally had to pay our respects to the local deity.

The river is just beyond the grass

I love these roots. Looking like something out of Tolkien

This floral display, obviously dating from 5 months ago is still clear. Just beyond the hedge is the statue of Old Father Thames

The cafe

Fascinating explanation of the early industrial period of the site, before it was converted to a park. Maybe the clay quarrying explains the form of the landscape, which has some very steep banks in parts (see the picture of the roots above).

'Grotto' entrance to the park, from the riverside path. This runs under the main road in to Richmond from the Kingston direction.

The river rolling along down to the mighty sea.

Having crossed Petersham Meadows we looked in on the graveyard at St Peter's Church. The war memorial maintained by the CWGC

By my reckoning Captain Stuart was great nephew of Napoleon. It soon becomes clear that this is a graveyard for well-connected/influential people.

On a previous walking post, I mentioned the count, who was remembered on a bench by the riverside path.

More aristocracy, this time, German. 

Lots of members of the Tollemache family here, including many who served their country and in some cases made the ultimate sacrifice (see the third picture of the war memorial).

Hard to read the name, but I do remember this was for a colonel of the Oxon Regiment (Ox & Bucks?)

Clearly many Canadians visit. There were signs pointing towards this grave. I was surprised by the date. I would have assumed he was around in the early 19th century.

The food in the cafe looked tempting, but it was a little early for lunch, so we made our way back to the Schloß. Bar the stop to walk around the graveyard, we strode home at a goodly pace. Round trip of c 8km/5 miles.