More Albanian Infantry

This time the Albanians are not the lawless Bashi Bazouks, these Albanian Arnaut were a disciplined force. They were still a volunteers, but were organised along European lines, in the same manner as the new order units. They were well drilled and had a good reputation within the Ottoman army as hard fighters. They were renowned in skirmishing roles and were noted as excellent marksmen.

I like these guys in their bright red jackets. Several battalion sized units saw service in the Egyptian campaign of 1800-1801.

Mamelukes

The latest addition to the Ottoman Napoleonic is another unit of Mameluke cavalry. 

This is unit number six of Mamelukes, of which will be nine in total.

I hope sometime in the first half of the year to be able to mount a game based on the Battle of the Pyramids.

Over the Hills and Down to the Sea

I am getting back into my summer terrain projects: the hills and the shoreline terrain tiles.

The hills are going to be worked over a period of time, probably one or two at a time. The first thing to do was to finish off the one that I started before Christmas and I set to fixing the felt to the surface. This was done by brushing PVA across the entire surface, ensuring that the PVA is thin enough to slightly permeate the felt, but still thick enough to bond to the polystyrene. The felt has to be stretched a bit to take the shape. This is then left to set hard.

When fully set more glue is applied to the edge - the value of the rough edge to the MDF now comes into play with the glue having something to soak into - and the felt pulled tight over the edge, pinned or taped to the undersides of the MDF base and left to set. 

Then with a sharp blade the excess felt is trimmed flush to the underside of the base. Any loose edges were then re-glued. The hill is now ready for dry brushing in lighter tones, a task that will be left until I have a number of pieces ready to go.

During the times when glue was setting on hill piece, I continued work on the two shoreline terrain tiles. The first step was to fill all the gaps with some wood filler. On the estuary tile I wanted an area of rocks extending out from the shore which I made using some pieces of bark from the garden. Once fixed in place the bark was liberally coated with PVA to seal it and prevent it breaking apart later. Also since these did come from the garden the PVA coat ensures that any nasty little microbes are contained within.

Then I sketched out the shoreline and applied sand to the 'beach' areas with the waterline sitting at 150mm (dead centre) of the tile sides. There is a story behind this sand. On one of our trips around the country before our borders reopened we made a visit to Golden Bay, a beautiful spot at the top of the South Island. As we sat there with our picnic lunch, I commented "this is really nice sand". "Really!?", was the response. So under rolled eyes I 'foraged' some 2kgs of the stuff in a plastic bag and we went on our way. A few days later we were ready to fly home and the Domestic Controller decided to put the sand in her carry-on bag and that was fine and dandy until the aviation security people x-rayed the bag and took an interest. They dragged her bag off to one side and quizzed her.  To save the situation (and not to be made to look like a total weirdo) I said it was sand for the aquarium (that I have never owned or intend to own) and they were gave a sort of knowing nod and let us go on our way, but I could see from the daggers pointed at me that I was going to have to claw back from this, and I was right...But back to the beaches. I wanted to use the upward slope as dunes so I put a couple of tracks leading up through the dunes.

Once the glue was dry I painted the whole area a light yellow sand colour that I have used on some of my desert bases and washed it with a thinned down sepia. Then it was lightly drybrushed with some Wraithbone white to make it more beach than desert like. I then applied a slightly darker wash to give the appearance of wet sand where the tide has receded a little. The sea areas were given a couple of coats of acrylic paint to prevent any possibility of warping when the water texture is applied. The rocks were also painted black.

I added a few pieces of driftwood, above the high tide mark where storms would have driven them, made by painting some twigs from the garden with Wraithbone white.

Felt was glued on the edges of the tiles that conjoin with other standard tiles. This is a good way to use up the off cuts of felt from the hills. This felt will get drybrushed when I do the hills. Then various pieces of ground cover were added to merge between the sand and the felt. 

Before the water texture was applied the rocks were toned up by dry-brushing them with grey and then very lightly with Wraithbone white.

The water was made using a technique I learned from a YouTube video for model railways using toilet paper and PVA glue.  I won't go into detail about how to apply the technique, but interested readers can find a tutorial here. Once the paint had dried I applied several coats of acrylic gloss varnish. As much as I was tempted to make this a stretch of rough water, I also realised that at some point I will want to put boats on top of this, so I made it a gentle sea.

Two tiles down, three to go.

Albanian Infantry

Made up of predominantly Albanians and Circassians the Bashi-Bazouks were a volunteer force in the Ottoman army. Known for their brutality they lived largely off the land. Unpaid they lived off loot. 

I'm not certain that the Bashi-Bazouks served in the Egyptian Campsign, but they are a hard unit to resist.  

These figures come from the Perry Sudan War range.

Ottoman Deli Cavalry

With my return from my hospital holiday I have finished the work on the unit of Deli light cavalry that I started before Christmas.

Usually volunteers of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian descent the Delis were known for their ferocity in battle. Some sources state that the name Deli meant "mad head" from their fanatical approach to fighting.

W.I.A.

The New Year has not started well for me. On 2 January, I had some chest discomfort and went to the E.R. where they ran an ECG that showed irregularities. An Angiogram showed no blockages and no need for a stent, but there is still something not right...the official description is that it may be myocarditis or 'something else'. More questions, scanning, poking and prodding will be required to get to the bottom it all. The good thing is that I feel perfectly well and am in no discomfort, but it is not how I expected to spend my last day of my holiday...

Meanwhile I will be MIA for a few more days and that unit of Ottoman Turk cavalry that is two-thirds completed on the painting tray will remain incomplete a while longer.

The absolute positive is that I can catch up on the reading backlog and have started with Michael Leggiere's The Fall of Napoleon: The Allied Invasion of France, 1813–1814.

2023 - the Year in Review

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

When I was younger, so much younger than today...oh no...that's a line from a Beatles song...

I remember as a young lad thinking "in the year 2000 I'll be 42...I'll be so old..." I also remember predictions that there would be human habitation on the moon and Mars by 2020 and the fiction that was Star Trek seemed a real possibility. Yet here we are at the beginning of 2024. I am still here, I don't feel all that old (except when my sciatic nerve gives me jip), there are no humans living on the moon, Mars or beyond, and NNC-1701 (the starship Enterprise) is still a figment of a Hollywood imagination.

As usual for my first post of the year I am doing my annual wrap up. So what were the results of 2023? Well, down on 2022, but that was expected.

Seven projects were worked:

• Ottoman Turks - started
• ACW - some artillery sets added
• Napoleonic Prussians - completed with two grenadier battalions added
• Napoleonic Russians - completed with six battalions of grenadiers added
• Napoleonic Austrians - a full force added, almost complete
• FPW Prussians - all infantry, cavalry and artillery completed
• FPW French - all infantry, and artillery completed, cavalry started

The total count was 1,423 foot, 132 mounted, 34 guns and 52 pieces of terrain and equipment.

Adjusting this through the usual points system (5 for foot, 10 for mounted, guns and equipment and 10 for every hour of scratch build work) this gives a total of 9,695 compared to 11,510 from last year a drop of 15.8%. The full breakdown is below.

The Franco-Prussian French make up the bulk of the work, followed by the Austrian Napoleonics.

 

The number of games was less than last year at 18, with a broad range including Cruel Seas, Paraguayan War, WWII, ACW, Napoleonic, AWI, FPW, western gunfights, Crimean War, 100 Years War, Spanish Civil War, Sudan War and WWI Aircraft.

Checking the Google statistics I see that the number of posts has reached 887 (120 this year), followers have gone up about 30, comments just under 11,000 and the visitor count exceeds 544,000 -  although I note from dramatic spike in visitors in the last month that the bots are back.

So what is to be expected in 2024? A greatly reduced volume of production for one. With retirement just around the corner and the prospect of a drop of household income by two thirds, something has to give and that will be any expansion into any new periods. I also need to take into consideration is that the collection now consists of 15,439 foot figures, 2,376 mounted figures, 306 guns, 197 pieces of equipment and a couple hundred of other bits stored in 179 storage drawers and boxes (and I am not going to think about all the terrain pieces)...I reckon that that is probably enough...in fact some items that have never been outside the box since I finished them may be "let go".

While the days of big purchases are over some existing projects will be completed:

• Franco-Prussians some French cavalry and generals for both sides are needed.
• The Ottoman Napoleonics - I have most of the figures on hand, but there are a few items missing like commanders and artillery.
• Two battalions of Austrian Grenadiers are in the wings.
• A couple of stands of ACW horse holders are lurking near the painting tray.

There we are...here's wishing all a great start to the New Year.