First up, I'm having a problem. Something has changed in blogger, or in safari or in some settings somewhere and now I can't post on many peoples blogs. It might be at my end or it might be at theirs or it might be both but I am stumped, having fichered and fiddled with my settings I can't get it fixed. So apologies to anyone whom I've popped round to read and not left a comment to, (Aly, Chris, Graham and others).
I said in my last post I would have a bit more head space and clearly I do. I have two projects on the go at the moment, the first is building up forces for the Marian Civil War and Gordon-Forbes Feud in North East Scotland in the latter half of the 16thC. On this I have three things to report.
The first is the purchase, as a bit of light background reading and to support an excellent bookshop, of Rizzio, by Denise Mina . This short novella deals with the murder of Mary Queen of Scot's secretary David Rizzio. It is fast, brutal and atmospheric and reads like a screenplay for a cop thriller....as it should coming from an accomplished crime writer. I read it in a night.
The second is the following of the Renaissance armies posts on Matakishi's Tea House and his use of Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames for battles with landsknechts, conquistadors, elizabethans and lately border reivers. Currently my figures are based singly and used on movement trays for this period, but I was impressed with Matakishi's posts as he built each of his armies up and his use of roster sheets to track casualties for what are a very simple but very effective set of rules. Following his example I have decided to rebase my16thC figures using his model.
On that topic I bought some of the rather nice Peculiar Companions resin figures, specifically the Demi Lancers. These arrived earlier this week and are very well sculpted, cleanly printed and very well proportioned. Although they are marketed as a replacement for GW Empire types they lack the fantasy styles, skulls and other embellishments so are perfect for 16thC figures. Other figures in the range are useful as landsknecht halberdiers, reiters and fully armoured men at arms. Their landsknecht foot with arquebus are nice too, but the guns seem a bit large. Mine were printed and supplied by Sundered Studios
The second project is a fictional 19th century campaign based on a Russian invasion of Scotland in the early 1830's. I have tried a simple conversion of using Warlord Crimean War plastic bodies and Warlord 1809 Russian Shako covered heads to represent the Russian infantry and it seems to be a close match to the pre helmet, but post napoleonic Russian uniform illustrated in the various Viskovatov prints. Graham H is working on British, specially some 72nd Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders, converting Perry Carlist war figs to highland bonnets.
As background to the Russian army I bought a copy of John Sheldon Curtiss's book The Russian Army Under Nicholas I - 1825-1855 which covers the Polish, Persian and Turkish wars as well as the Hungarian uprising and the Crimean war. Not a cheap buy at £50 but it's interesting nonetheless.
Last but not least the sharp eyed will notice I have added a new page to the blog. As my original posts for the Sugar Islands and Against Spain books were many months ago I thought this was a better way of keeping them to the fore.
5 comments:
Good to read of your projects Stuart and I'm particularly intrigued by the Russian fictitious invasion. I agree that Blogger has made commenting more difficult. Failure to comment in my blog might be my settings, though others seem to manage it. Just send me an email and ask me to post it if you'd like to comment on any of my blogs. It is great to know you have visited and read it. On your books page thanks for mentioning my drawings though please change the spelling of my name from the Scottish Greig to the irish Gregg. Don't want someone else to get the credit! Thank you Chris
Ah...apologies for the misspelling...funnily enough I remember changing it to greig as I typed. I ought to know better, having gone through life having to spell out both myfirst name and last! I shall make the change.
As it happens I have fixed my problem with posting - the "cross site tracking" button on my iPad browser was set wrongly. So posting can continue again.
The Russian Invasion......keep your eye out for Alexey Greig (correct spelling!), Admiral of the Russian Fleet at the time.
Ha Ha right Alexey bring it on!
CG
Interesting stuff all round Stuart…
I like the look of that book….
All the best. Aly
It's a surprisingly good read for a chewy subject.
I'm through the Persian war...won despite Russian high command being permanently engaged in trying to get one over the other and neglecting the basics of logistics. Now on the Turkish war where Russian command is still trying to get one over each other but now compounded by not having the funds or resources to prosecute the war fully AND having Nicholas at the front with his suite disrupting the chain of command and consuming all the fodder....I suspect this is going to be a repeated pattern through to 1855.
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