tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87721891008681702942024-03-18T21:14:23.190-07:00The Molgravian Gazette18th Century Imagi-Nations Madness somewhere in Central Europe, after Hyde, Young, et alThe Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-48351957825479100062016-01-19T15:43:00.001-08:002016-01-19T15:43:08.257-08:00DifferencesThere are a fair few between the Foundry and Crusader command figures. The Foundry ones are bigger, with floppier hats, and a little more detail - or so it seems. Nothing so enormous that it will be noticeable in the end, but an interesting curiosity nonetheless.<br />
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A side note, that may interest some of you (and it may not); I have begun to publish the poems that I have been writing for a long time; you can find my works <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childhoods-Ending-Patrick-Cullen-ebook/dp/B0075VUPIE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452897313&sr=8-1">here</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Paradise-Patrick-Cullen-ebook/dp/B01AKTPLKY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453244782&sr=8-1&keywords=secret+paradise+patrick+cullen">here</a>.<br />
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Now, back to Molgravia!<br />
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I haven't done much to them; but the basecoat at least makes them look a bit more like paid-up members of the regiment. I like the colonel, a lot, although he really needs a name.The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-22437117666127685432016-01-13T17:20:00.002-08:002016-01-13T17:20:56.505-08:00Gentlemen - Advance!Today I made much great progress towards getting the command of the second battalion of the Liebgarde finished, as you can see:<br />
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Well, they're standing up and de-flashed. That's a start, right?The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-58351990401717322142016-01-12T17:30:00.001-08:002016-01-12T17:30:38.026-08:00Officers and GentlemenToday, I had a long day at work (having overslept, and getting Worker Jr out of the door to school ably assisted by AlFront, I just got the train on time - not an experience I wish to repeat), followed by an evening's silliness with friends in the form of the absolutely excellent board game <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rio-Grande-Games-60451-Shogun/dp/B000QHUIT0">Shogun </a></i>by Dirk Henn, and then three rounds of the sublimely ridiculous <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cash-guns-Second-Board-Game/dp/B00KU10OUU/ref=sr_1_1?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1452646467&sr=1-1&keywords=cash+n+guns+second+edition">Cash 'n' Guns</a> </i>- it has foam pistols, and you point them at each other.<br />
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Anyway, I staggered out of the horseless carriage and got home to find a nice little package from Wargames Foundry waiting for me! Hurrah!<br />
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Unfortunately I have no black spray - I finished the last of my previous can on a load of techno-future-space-warrior chaps and will have to make a journey into the nearby burg of Leamington Spa tomorrow to furnish myself with enough undercoat to do not only these fine gentlemen but next month's batch of musketeers.The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-64941410876361898552016-01-04T13:55:00.001-08:002016-01-04T13:55:31.859-08:00An Osprey Arrives!Before Christmas I ordered Osprey Men-at-Arms 298: Russian Army of the Seven Years War (2) and it arrived today, at last! Hurrah and rejoicing!<br />
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I have been having a nose through it and I am struck by the mono-colour uniforms of the Hussar regiments - at least, apart from the Serbski Regiment's red-and-yellow uniform. "All red" or "all blue" with black trim. Very striking - if somewhat disconcerting as a painter. Still, it'll be a while yet til I get to the Molgravian Hussars.<br />
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What I have done is to place an order with Wargames Foundry for some command figures to go part of the way towards finishing off the Leibgarde zu Fuss (as I was advised to do so by <a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/13116967655904601740">Tradgardmastare</a>, Musketier and Chris Platt in the comments*) and - a pack of foot command, and a pack of three mounted officers. The prices! £12 a pack! I'll get the remaining 16 infantry next month from Crusader Miniatures, but I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get Foundry for most of the rest of the project just because they have such an enormous range of figures.<br />
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Any road, until they arrive it's going to be all quite on the Molgravian Front I think, unless I dig out my back issues of Battlegames and try my hand at building a map of Molgravia and its environs...<br />
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* More comments please, I like them a lot!The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-59966929705358201132016-01-02T23:12:00.000-08:002016-01-02T23:12:43.478-08:00Frohliches Neues Jahr!<h2>
<span style="color: red;"><i><u>Happy (belated) New Year!</u></i></span></h2>
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To celebrate the changing of the year, I only went and finished (apart from that flag...!) those last eight chaps in the Liebgarde, didn't I?<br />
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So now I'm in a dilemma - do I get another company of Liebgarde to finish the regiment, or do I work on the principle of "a change is as good as a rest" and get myself a company of grenadiers?<br />
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I'm rather tempted by the idea of having the regiment completed; a couple of packs of Crusader Miniatures musketeers and a <a href="http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/seven-years-war/russian/infantry/">Wargames Foundry</a> command pack will do it nicely (although I will need to source a colonel on horseback eventually - probably be a Foundry job).<br />
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Hmmm. Decisions, decisions...!The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-46453927592842777382015-12-22T14:31:00.002-08:002015-12-22T14:31:43.100-08:00Halfway There......sort of. I have had a bout of flu, which has rather put the last few days off-kilter. I did manage to get out of bed long enough to finish off the first eight of the Liebgarde, giving me half a company plus its command to mark as complete. Well, apart from that flag.<br />
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I've started work on the remaining eight men, and hopefully before the New Year I'll have the first company finished.<br />
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Currently I am listening to The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, and a small piece on the lunacy of the Oxford Left (which is, as far as I can make out, yet another petit-bourgeois authoritarian anti-liberal offshoot of the post-Stalinist Marxist 'left') and their demands for the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes.<br />
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An excellent comment from a fellow whose name and position I didn't catch, who said "the heroic pose of these figures and the way they were seen then does not mean that we see them in that light nowadays." Rhodes' statue is a product of its time and place; a talking point and a piece of history - not just of art, but of Britain's imperial past. The terrifying realisation that there are students - students! - at that august place of learning and ideas, Oxford, who wish to destroy and delete and alter history because the horrors of the past jar with modern thinking is ... well, it's deeply troubling and upsetting to say the least.<br />
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But then I am an old-fashioned sort, who believes in the primacy of freedom of speech and thought, and who is of the opinion that universities should be filled will all ideas, no matter how rancid or insane, so they can be discussed and debated and dismissed, or agreed with, by generation after generation of people.<br />
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It is unlikely there is much place for that sort of thinking now, in public discourse. So I shall retreat into the fantasies of Imagi-nations and other games and play - it's nicer!The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-73933016472387977772015-12-18T15:46:00.002-08:002015-12-18T15:47:46.890-08:00Progress!So I've been busily painting today (I've had a day off in lieu, can you tell?) and have managed to get the first company of the Liebgarde to the following point:<br />
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The command group is finished, and the infantry have had the base colours for their coats, shirts and breeches done. I'm using Games Workshop paints (because that's what I've used since I was 10), and for the interested (and my own future reference) they are:<br />
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<i>Coats, breeches</i>: Ushabti Bone - Ceramite White<br />
<i>Facings, turnbacks, shirts</i>: Waaagh Flesh - Warboss Green<br />
<i>Belts and ammo boxes</i>: Vermin Brown - XV-88<br />
<i>Musket furniture</i>: Rhinox Hide - Flesh Wash<br />
<i>Belt buckles etc</i>: Dwarf Bronze - Flesh Wash - Burnished Gold<br />
<i>Gaiters, boots, hats</i>: Abbadon Black<br />
<i>Hat lacing and bows</i>: Ceramite White (Mithril Silver for NCO and Ensign, same method as for belt buckles for the officer)<br />
<i>Gaiter buttons</i>: Mithril Silver<br />
<i>Coat and shirt buttons</i>: Burnished Gold<br />
<i>Musket barrels and bayonets</i>: Ironbreaker - Mithril Silver<br />
<i>Flesh</i>: Dwarf Flesh - Flesh Wash - Dwarf Flesh - Elf Flesh<br />
<i>Wigs</i>: Space Wolves Grey - Ceramite White<br />
<i>Pigtail ribbons and bows</i>: Abbadon Black<br />
<i>Bases</i>: Warboss Green dipped in static flock, edged Warboss Green.<br />
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I'm at work tomorrow but I hope to be able to get at least a couple more stages done on the guardsmen. Stay tuned!The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-2831768263683724152015-12-18T11:27:00.001-08:002015-12-18T11:28:24.345-08:00First Company of the Molgravian Liebgarde zu FussMy order from <a href="http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/">Crusader Miniatures</a> arrived today! So naturally I just had to start working on them.<br />
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The company in bare metal...</div>
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...and undercoated.</div>
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They're going to be wearing white breeches, green shirts, white coats with green facings and turnbacks, black gaiters, black shoes, and have brown and black leather webbing. The officer will have gold lace on his tricorne and the NCO and ensign will have silver. The drummer will have green lacing on his coat, and white on his wings.<br />
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I'm really excited about them! I just need to get hold of a suitable piece of wire to make the standard pole.The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-42881156159197941312015-12-18T03:21:00.001-08:002015-12-18T03:21:08.876-08:00The Notebook!I found it! In, admittedly, a place I had suspected it might be but not one I'd actually bothered to check.<br />
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It's not got as much information in it as I had remembered; I think perhaps the majority of the notes I made were, in fact, on scraps of paper and the like.<br />
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It has, however, got some interesting things in it:<br />
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Title page.</div>
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Initial ideas for "allies and enemies" (note the Tintin influence).</div>
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First draft of the army of Molgravia - I like the flags, but they're definitely not what I'm doing now.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3cEcVxrYmBt5QzpUqFas-GPdNZ0BUwvd83Meu6MVG8rkXsOWGPUcupDqlpq7IHFSAhRFNbHvQV_5MZqE8-n3YLPvWB_xsp2gaNlVodV3aBo_qYaaAFZ6CFIlzO0Z7mPtSGZXdg_spYGz/s1600/2015-12-18+11.07.59.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3cEcVxrYmBt5QzpUqFas-GPdNZ0BUwvd83Meu6MVG8rkXsOWGPUcupDqlpq7IHFSAhRFNbHvQV_5MZqE8-n3YLPvWB_xsp2gaNlVodV3aBo_qYaaAFZ6CFIlzO0Z7mPtSGZXdg_spYGz/s640/2015-12-18+11.07.59.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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Twelve regiments?! I was clearly being my usual over-optimistic self!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVftI_432MK01PPGpK6UMUp_q5GzHtwnTnosYVNtgNPWXw4DuSKV97G3ssGqzFdk8-8XQOaEdozOuPBXVLO441mocB-R7IB47zZY87XXHjqnDlHc4ZnvgSpJRUXrA7OWiD7k7Y6mfS6a5Q/s1600/2015-12-18+11.08.16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVftI_432MK01PPGpK6UMUp_q5GzHtwnTnosYVNtgNPWXw4DuSKV97G3ssGqzFdk8-8XQOaEdozOuPBXVLO441mocB-R7IB47zZY87XXHjqnDlHc4ZnvgSpJRUXrA7OWiD7k7Y6mfS6a5Q/s640/2015-12-18+11.08.16.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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I'd forgotten that they were going to be grey-coated originally. Green is a much better colour.</div>
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More bizzare and no-longer-applicable flags.</div>
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Dating, as it does, from about 2008 or 2009, it is now somewhat out of step with my mental image of Molgravia. But it's a fun reminder of the beginnings of this project.The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-53677764986894118322015-12-13T03:50:00.000-08:002015-12-13T03:50:09.154-08:00Learning New ThingsThe other day I happened upon an Osprey that I last read six years ago, when I had first decided to take part in this imagi-nations nonsense. I had to have it ordered specially for me by the very helpful librarians in <a href="http://www.leics.gov.uk/bottesford_library.htm">Bottesford Library</a>, one of those small village libraries that are so vital for the civic and cultural wellbeing of the little communities that populate the English countryside. It took a week to arrive and I devoured it back then, and was very sorry to have to hand it back.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZiAA2hXmiAjVnePLHMvMkkJy-9eoeChbmG4VyFzuSyUhKVKOJ0tnIwjtlpbsX9gqyYfS-7pzAjZA-7SVkhAP-var01YghLiiqYxgb31gPfkEiCZf0Nc3OMsdX6ctLdVA-ipdesDwsJV-/s1600/2015-12-13+11.37.02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZiAA2hXmiAjVnePLHMvMkkJy-9eoeChbmG4VyFzuSyUhKVKOJ0tnIwjtlpbsX9gqyYfS-7pzAjZA-7SVkhAP-var01YghLiiqYxgb31gPfkEiCZf0Nc3OMsdX6ctLdVA-ipdesDwsJV-/s640/2015-12-13+11.37.02.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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So when I found it in my local second-hand bookshop, <a href="http://www.eastgate-bookshop.co.uk/">Eastgate Bookshop</a>, I snapped it up. A bargain at £5. As the Molgravian army is using Russian uniforms, and with a predominantly green colour, I thought this would provide me with inspiration.<br />
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And it has! Especially for the flags, which is jolly useful. Very interesting information in it too, I was especially taken by the Preobrazhinski Life Guard regiment, whose troopers were officers and whose officers were, it was rumoured, selected for their beauty rather than their military abilities. Perks of being the Empress of all the Russias, I suppose.<br />
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It also spurred me on to spend a few more bob on getting part 2 from Amazon, which should arrive this week. Once I've absorbed the contents of these two books I should be in a good place to fine-tune the uniforms of the brave Molgravians.The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-82820891195071057042015-12-12T04:32:00.001-08:002015-12-12T04:32:39.614-08:00Beginning the MusterI have just purchased a company of infantry to form the first half of <i>IR3</i>, <i>Duchess Bernhardt's Regiment</i> - I have decided to start with regular troops and then intersperse them with elite units.<br />
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As an initial goal, I want to get enough troops to fight Blasthof Bridge, which is (if I recall correctly):<br />
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One regiment of foot;<br />
One battery of two guns;<br />
One regiment of horse.<br />
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So for that I am looking at about six months' worth of purchases. Then I will set to with building up an opposing force - the Grand Duchy of Somewhere.<br /><br />
I have, in my possession, a little notebook filled with flag designs, regimental names, characters, and the names of states.<br />
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Damn'd if I can find it though.The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772189100868170294.post-14066108007007759132015-12-09T15:10:00.001-08:002015-12-09T15:11:13.138-08:00IntroductionFor some time now, and inspired mainly by Henry Hyde's wonderful series in Battlegames describing his 18th Century imagi-nations campaigns, and then latterly by my own father (whose blog can be found <a href="http://alfront-wardiariesofalittleenglander.blogspot.com/">here</a>), the Old School Wargames chaps, the famous <i>Charge!</i> and, well, actually, pretty much Battlegames again, I have been flirting with the idea of creating my own little corner of Central Europe to fight battles like Blasthof Bridge and Sittangbad.<br />
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So I created the Principality of Molgravia.<br />
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I have had a few half-hearted attempts at the whole <a href="http://www.spencersmithminiatures.co.uk/">Spencer Smith</a> craze, but in the end I just couldn't get on with the figures, so currently the Molgravian <i>Liebgarde zu Fuss, Infanterie Regiment Nr 1</i> stands as follows:<br />
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Which at least gives you an idea of the uniform - or at least the special uniform worn by the Principality's elite infantry regiment.<br />
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I am currently plotting an army made up mostly of <a href="http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/">Crusader Miniatures'</a> Seven Years War Russian figures, each regiment being constructed in the <i>Charge!</i> manner. I'm going to build the regiments up company by company, as that makes for a nice £25/30-a-month wargames budget which fits into my disposable income nicely.<br />
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Well, that's it for now really. Stay tuned for more, as soon as I dig out the sporadic notes I have made over six years' of thinking about Molgravia!The Workerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03548315123275465797noreply@blogger.com1