...more on Warblington...

...a little more info has come to light, but before I launch into it, first off a small correction as it's been pointed out that I got my Mary's hopelessly mixed up in the last post - it was Mary Tudor who was the daughter of Henry VIII (later to be crowned as Mary the first), not Mary Queen of Scots (thanks to my missus, and also Will, for this!!)

...anyway - as promised, a little more info has come to light...

as we know Warblington .."was restored in 1514 to Margaret (Polk), countess of Salisbury, sister and heir of Edward, the Earl of Warwick, with other lands. She was living at the castle in 1526. She was a staunch papist, and from her house her son-in-law, Lord Montagu, and others sent frequent messages to their friends on the continent, especially to Cardinal Pole, using as an agent a certain Hugh Holland of Warblington, who had already been convicted of piracy" (! I'm guessing he was probably a smuggler rather than your actual yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum type, as there have been stories about the lane that leads down to the harbour from the town for some time as having smuggling origins which around here would have been brandy, lace, and other goods from France). "After her attainder in consequence of her share in these conspiracies Warblington was granted temporarily to William, Earl of Southampton, and to Sir Thomas Wriothesley, the King's secretary. In 1551 it was finally entailed on Sir Richard Cotton, knight, whose son George succeeded to it at his death in 1556. " (The coat of arms is that of the Cotton family - more on these guys later)

"George Cotton was living at Warblington in 1596, and died there in 1609 or 1610, leaving a son and heir Sir Richard Cotton. In 1635 a Richard Cotton died seised of the manor leaving a young grandson and heir of the same name who was a staunch Royalist."

...now comes the first of the interesting stuff...

"In January, 1643–4, 'the strong house at Warblington' was captured by sixty soldiers and a hundred muskets, and Richard Cotton was obliged to compound for his lands. He is said to have bequeathed them to his only surviving son William, who died in 1736."

My reference quotes a letter from Wilmot, the lord-lieutenant of the Royalist forces, in which he states that 'he has not yet had a reply to the message sent to Arundel Castle' (then besieged by Sir William Waller), and that 'they have taken the strong house at Warblington … which commands a pretty port, and will be of good advantage.'

It's an ambiguous entry - he probably knew who he mean't - but safe to assume that the sixty soldiers and hundred musketeers were probably Parliamentary. Begs a few questions though - why does the source differentiate between soldiers and muskets? Perhaps the "soldiers" were pike? Or mounted troops?

Most of this post by the way, is from the following excellent source ''Warblington', A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3 (1908), pp. 134-139. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41943. In the meanwhile, the search continues...

===================================================

On a separate subject, I've recently completed loading the majority of the original JPG's of the "table top teasers", so that you can now see the original articles. There were a couple missing - I'll add these soonest. Next will be the PDF's...

..bits and pieces... Warblington Castle...

..it certainly doesn't seem like a week has passed but the calendar doesn't lie; even so it doesn't seem like I have got very much done in the intervening period.

I failed significantly in my efforts to get any paint on metal; doubly frustrating as we had a quiet Sunday and I was sure I'd be able to weigh in on the next War of the Spanish Succession cavalry unit (which are going to be Cadogan's I've decided - buff coloured facings). As it turned out thought the weather was good so I ended up helping my wife chop out 8 large bags of dead foliage from the front garden - which I then took to the tip... only to find out when I got home that she had another 6 bags waiting for me! Ah well, I wouldn't have been able to focus on the paintbrush with all that activity going on downstairs...

So what have I done in the intervening period - well a little bit of everything really..

• I'm reading an excellent book which I picked up at the library - "Band of Brigands" by Christy Campbell is an early history of the Royal Tank Regiment, detailing how they came into being, how the first tanks were developed, and about their early battles, first on the Somme (not wholly successful, but good enough to get Haig to order a thousand of them) and later, more successfully, at Cambrai. I can count on the fingers of one (maybe two) hands the authors of military history who for me have the ability to make me keep turning the pages (Richard Holmes, Mark Urban, John Falkner, David Chandler...........) and this guy has joined their ranks. Immensely readable, very enjoyable, and a real page turner... not my period vis a vis wargaming but a fascinating account and absolutely recommended to anyone who enjoys military history.


• I also took delivery of broadband last week - a real first for me - but in addition to (successfully!) setting it up this allowed me to set off on my other main activity of the week. I cycle to work, and on a daily basis I pass this place which is called "Warblington Castle".. I've always been fascinated by it so decided to see if I could find out a little more about it. By way of an occasional series therefore (and I'll post more information as and when I find it), I can tell you that the ruins are all that remain of a large fortified house built by Richard Neville's (the Earl of Warwick, better known as “The Kingmaker” during the War of the Roses) granddaughter, Margaret Pole, who was Countess of Salisbury. It was built between 1515 and 1525, and was a moated house, with staterooms, a chapel, apartments, and an armoury surrounding a courtyard. Margaret Pole was responsible for the early upbringing of Mary (Queen of Scots) Henry VIII’s daughter. The King himself stayed at the Castle in 1526, but Margaret was a Catholic and opposed Henry’s plans to divorce his wife Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn - not surprisingly, perhaps, she was executed for "treason" in 1541 at the Tower of London. Apparently she was quite a feisty lady as records tell us she fought all the way to the block! In 1552 the Manor passed to the Cotton family, who were connected to the royal households of Edward VI and Elizabeth I (both of whom are believed to have visited the castle). During the Civil War the Cotton family supported the Crown against Parliament, and in 1644 after two separate sieges the castle was razed to the ground. All that remains is the single gateway tower in the picture.... It is this later period of the history that I'm most interested in, specifically the siege, and also a story about a running skirmish between Parliamentary and Royalist forces between the castle and nearby Havant (where I work)... as I say - more later, when and as, I find it... amazing what goes on in history just on your doorstep, isn't it?

Warfare 2007...

..so here I am fresh back from Warfare which, for me at least, is the last show of the year - and how was, it you may ask?? (and to be honest, if you're not interested, this is the point where you go to the next Blog!J)

..well, in summary, I thought it was "OK" which on a scale of excellent to awful is on the right side of the halfway point, not excellent, and probably not as good as last year, but still well worth it and an enjoyable day out. I think they were missing a few traders which I would have hoped to visit and spend money with if they'd been there, so from a personal perspective that lowered the overall score, I thought that the display and demo/participation games were not really much to write home about. The show has always been primarily a trade fair & competition weekend, but they usually put on a couple of good display games, and with some exceptions those seemed to be missing this year...

....so what did I buy? Well in the absence of Keep Wargaming (who in the UK carry Minifigs at the shows) I had to miss out on some new stocks of WWII 12mm to feed the "Blitzkreig Commander" fires, instead I spent the money on Stuart Asquith's new book "War in the Sudan 1884-1898: A Campaign Guide" at the Caliver stand (picture to the right) - I've been meaning to buy this for some time, but usually I've already spent my funds by the time I get to it - this time with no WWII to buy I had the cash.... I'll review the book more fully in a later post, but suffice to say that having had a quick flick through, and a light read, it looks to be the business and exactly what I was hoping for..

...following the recent success with Wood's regiment of horse, I also took a visit to the Freikorps stand and bought enough new lead to make up another two regiments of cavalry for the Marlburian forces, and with some spare cash left over, I also bought some cavalry from Essex. The Marlburian project, more than any of the others, seems to be one where I am buying figures from all over the place, but enjoying the whole process enormously! I'll update the project page with some comparison pictures soon, but I think that means I now have samples from about 6 or 7 suppliers for my horse.. 

..and that was it as far as purchases went - so what about the games? Not a lot of competition but my game of the show in the face of the far more professional Touching History game (of which more in a moment) went to the guys from the "Wildgeese and Galloglass Gamers" who presented the "Battle of Knocknanuss" for our delectation - a Warhammer ECW game in 25mm. I just thought it looked really nice... a real traditional looking game, actually being played, and which I for one would have been happy to join in on, and last of all in a period I've always liked... here's an overall view (apologies - not the best)
...and these are some closeups of a couple of the units in the game - I especially liked the infantry unit - blue coats, and very effective en masse...


..this was the Touching History game - as I mentioned above it would have been the winner but for the fact that this guy is a "professional" (J), and I have to say I thought the ECW game slightly edged it for me anyway...

..last time I saw him he was doing an American war of Independence game, this time he'd shifted periods to WWII - a strong allied attack on a German fixed position... the choice was interesting in itself as his web site indicated he was going to be bringing a new AWI game (something to look forward to at Salute perhaps!) By the way anyone interested should visit his web site for some mouthwatering pictures of all the projects he's currently engaged in.. inspirational stuff, and I hope the plans for a regular Battlegames article pan out...

..nice half track model - always had a soft spot for these in my own games...

..not really my scale, as I've always had a (totally personal) view that 6mm figures are basically just boardgame counters, and that's not why I wargame, but the MADGamers put on a demonstration game featuring the American Civil War battle of Shiloh in this scale.. 6mm is quite good for a game of this size - the figures were from Baccus so were good, but it was still not enough to persuade me to collect in that scale.. it was the paddle steamers that caught my eye in this game..


....last of all, you may remember way back around April this year, that I mentioned I'd seen a game at the Salute show representing a Spanish attack on an Inca city, complete with 4 foot high temple, sacrifices etc. They were also at this show so I got a few more photo's - a quite astonishing layout and it would have come higher up my list but for the fact I'd already seen it earlier in the year!



....and that's it for this post..

...final teasers added...

..just a quick update to let you know that the final Teasers have been added to the project page - many thanks to the various, and many, people who have assisted over the months and years I've been collecting these. I'm pleased to say I now have all seventeen posted.

Any broken/missing links are entirely down to me... so please let me know! One final word of appreciation to Mike for the suggestion on Box.Net - I've been looking for somewhere to store my files easily for ages and they were just the job! Thanks, Mike....

.. I have visitors down for the weekend so I'm not going to get any time for painting unfortunately. I'm cogitating on what unit to paint next - I know it'll be War of the Spanish Succession, and I know they'll be Allied cavalry, but not which unit - I'm deciding between Wyndham's and Cadogen's, as once I've pianted those I then have representation for all the regiments present in Wood's Cavalry Brigade at the assault on the Schellenberg.

...I do have Warfare to look forward to though, which is on this weekend. I'm going up on Sunday with my regular opponent DG and am looking forward to it immsensely, as yet again, as a result of all this painting, I have a shopping list.... more anon, and hopefully some pictures as I'm taking the camera!

Wood's Regiment of Horse...

As promised, let me introduce you to the newest regiment to join the British ranks of my War of the Spanish Succession forces.. Wood's Regiment of Horse.

The regiment was first formed in July 1685 following the amalgamation of a number of separate cuirassier troops, and was known originally as the Earl of Plymouth's Regiment of Horse (following the usual practice of naming the regiment after the commanding officer).

During the Wars of the Succession they were called Wood's after their rather splendidly named commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Cornelius Wood.. I've not managed to find too much about him, I know that under his command the regiment captured a couple of Bavarian senior officers after Ramilles, that he was in charge of a major part of the allied cavalry at Malplaquet (according to Chandler), that he died in 1712, and finally that he is buried in Saint Leonard's church in Aston Clinton (4 miles east of Aylesbury on the London road).

"In this chapel is the monument of General Cornelius Wood, a distinguished officer in the reign of Queen Anne, who died in 1712: it is ornamented with a bust of the general, in white marble, surrounded with military trophies"..

The regiment itself were "serious stuff", and they carry battle honours for Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet! I haven't (yet) managed to find out too much about Wood's during this period, as they became the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards in 1757 (3rd the Prince of Wales Own from 1761) so most information is from this period forward, but I have found that for the attack on the Schellenberg (which forms the basis for my project), they were brigaded in the divison of Lt.Gen Lumley, with Wyndham's, Schomberg's, Cadogen's and Lumley's regiments of horse - 10 squadrons of Britain's finest - under the brigade command of Wood himself.



For the Ramillies campaign they were brigaded with the 3rd Regiment of Horse (later the Bay's), Wyndham's (later the 6th Dragoon Guards), and Galway's (formerly Ruvigny's a regiment of French Protestants in the English service, later disbanded) under the brigade command of Brigadier-General Leveson.

The figures are 15mm, by Freikorps...very nice figures that take paint well I'll definitely be buying more.. I was particularly pleased with the grey, which I painted after seeing those splendid examples of such on Alte Fritze's blog (link to the left) ... and yes I do know that typically the greys were used by the standard bearers/trumpeters and such, but this is my regiment, and being a wargamer I have a slight thing about standard bearers for my cavalry regiments - ie. I don't have them as they just don't look right to me..

...Camel artillery and limbers in the Sudan...

...as promised some pictures of the recent Sudanese additions..

Firstly, the camel artillery train for the Desert column.. all 15mm - camels and attendants are Peter Pig, the screw gun is also Peter Pig but I had to cut the barrel away from the trail in order to make the 3 separate loads... quite pleased with the way these turned out, though the camels look a little top heavy!



...next up, the horse drawn artillery - for the Egyptians, or the British - I have two of each to pull the two Krupps guns I have, so all options are available dependant on the scenario....

First the Egyptian artillery... limber/horses and crew from Essex, gun is Peter Pig:



..next the British - details the same as for the Egyptian piece:



..lastly - the two together:



....next post will feature Wood's Regiment of Horse..

...just a quick update to announce that there are some more new Teasers added to the web page (March/August and December '78)... I've also updated the way they are presented as it makes it easier to see which one's I have, which one's are on the way, and which one's are new... I can confirm however, that as a result of the recent influx, I now have the full series, and that there were seventeen Teasers in total.... it's a bit of a complicated piece of HTML so if anyone finds a broken link let me know..

..the poll has also come to a close and many thanks for those who voted - much appreciated - not surprising perhaps given the scope of the evil empire (Microsoft, not Games Workshop! J) the majority of people wanted WORD format so I've stuck with that... what I will do however, is put them up in other formats over time once I find a better/decent file hosting site...

...painting has gone on a storm over the last few days, and I can confirm that as soon as they're based, I'll be putting up pictures of the latest British cavalry to join the ranks of Marlborough's allied army - these are painted as a squadron of Woods horse - green facings - using the Freikorps figures I bought at the Colours show a couple of months ago...

..I'll also put up some pictures of the now completed artillery limbers, and the camel train...

..next on the painting list is another squadron of British or Dutch cavalry to finally bring the allies up to equal strength with the French (after their recent acquisition of the two units of Cuirassiers); a herd of cows (15mm - found them in the corner of my waiting to paint box) which I have an idea would make a fine scenario; and a couple of small wagons (same scale and corner of the box)... and next weekend is one of my favourite UK shows - it's Warfare at Reading and I have a shopping list... definitely all fired up!J

Wesencraft review...

..as promised, I've just finished reading the Wesencraft book I managed to get on eBay "With Pike and Musket: Wargaming the 16th and 17th Centuries" and decided to put up a review...

Book is 185 pages long plus 2 or 3 pages summarizing the rules described in the book.

The actual rules section of the book comprises approx. 50 pages, the rest of the book is about army organization (he uses a few sample armies of the period focusing purely on Elizabethan, Elizabethan Irish, English Civil War, and the New Model), and typical weapons of the period. The two chapters are interesting (I hadn't realized the importance of the halberd in the earlier par of the period) but pretty basic - no in depth analysis as you would expect in what is primarily a wargaming book - he does have a good and extensive bibliography for more detail on these aspects.

The rules are very interesting - considering that they were written in the mid-70's there are a number of concepts that are not unheard of in some of the more modern rules.

In summary:

• Figures are single mounted
• Movement is pretty normal and as you would expect
• He deals with weather in some detail as given the armaments of the time it was important - matchlocks are particularly susceptible to wet… to track weather in the game he postulates a weather gauge. Throw a dice at the beginning of the game to decide the opening weather and then a dice throw each move will either move a counter up or down the gauge, or not - making the weather better or worse depending on where the starting position on the gauge is…
• Movement is alternative - Mr Wesencraft explains in detail why he thinks it is the better approach and I don't disagree with him! Each move comprises:
• Side A move
• Both sides fire
• Side B move
• Both sides fire
  
• Then we have a chapter on an element of gaming not touched on much at this time - Charles describes how each unit has an efficiency rating that effects how it will perform in the various actions it will take in the game (firing, melee, morale checks, etc.) The efficiency rating is diced for and kept secret from the enemy, and from that point is reduced as the game continues reflecting the decrease in efficiency of the unit. It can temporarily improve (eg. as a result of a staff officer joining the unit, being under cover etc.) but can also temporarily decrease (eg, by attack in flank or rear) or get permanently reduced as a result of casualties or running away from a melee… much food for thought in this chapter!
  
• Then he explains the role of the staff officer (primarily efficiency improvement) and the standard bearer (also efficiency improvement - something for the enemy to try and capture as taking it away will result in an automatic deduction in efficiency!)
  
• For infantry firing he uses a casualty table explaining why he doesn't throw a dice per man, or a dice per number of men - well explained… artillery strength is decided by number of crew (typically 3 crew men when full strength representing a battery of three guns) artillery throw one dice per crewman/gun - using the same table..
  
• For melee he has a pre-melee reaction test for both sides - and when melee is enjoined he has a mechanism based on the efficiency of the unit, their weapon, and the number of figures, which then re-uses the firing table… very effective…
  
• He finishes off with a section on how to work out which figures are removed as a result of a unit taking casualties, and a final chapter in the unit record sheet - which he then uses to maintain records for each of his units describing how they fought, what battle honours they won, etc. Really nice idea..

The rest of the book - 100+ pages! - is general descriptions of battles in the period, but described in terms of his rules, figure scales, etc. Irrespective of their historical context, there are some excellent sources of scenario's here, and it's worth reading them all for this reason alone!

... on the whole I would say this was well worth the money, and at the time must have been quite cutting edge in terms of some of the concepts he describes. It was a good read and I would still wholeheartedly recommend it..

..more new teasers added..

Just a quick update to let you know that I've added another couple of Teasers, head on over to the Teaser page to see:

• The Playtest of Teaser #1 “The Bridge Demolition” from "Battle" – March 1978 (this one is particularly good for the 17th Century fans amongst us!)
• The Playtest of Teaser #3 “Advance Guard” from "Battle" – July 1978

..bear with me - there's more coming, have to admit thought I'm enjoying reading them as I translate, so it's slowing progress a little! J

..new Teasers added to a new page...

...I've been a bit busy over the last few days, scanning and then translating the recent batch of "Teasers" but am happy to say that the first of the new batch (and one re-formatted one) are now on the Teaser page. I've also taken the opportunity to transfer the web page to Blogger (so you need to update your links, or use the link to the left)...

...for your reading pleasure then I can advise that you can now read:

• June '79 (Military Modelling) - Playtest of the "Railway Incident" Teaser (which was featured in March 1979)...
• September '79 (Military Modelling) - No. 10 - "Rear Guard"... "This month's Teaser centres round a blocking position occupied by a rear guard and provides the defender with the choice of a forward or a reverse slope position or indeed a combination of both..."
• January '81 (Military Modelling) - Playtest of the "Peninsular Conflict" Teaser (which was Teaser No. 14 and featured in December '80)...

...I also took the opportunity to reformat the existing December '80 Teaser to make it a little more readable. Hold steady - there are more coming! J

...separately, the tricorne's I mentioned previously didn't quite make it to the painting table - they are undercoated, however. Instead I took the opportunity to finish off the Colonial artillery bits and pieces as they were ready & undercoated... a very pleasant afternoon ensued and I ended up with six baggage camels, and handlers...

...I've now modified these camels to act as the "limbers" for the screw guns, and while not strictly realistic (they're a little top heavy) they do give a good representation and I'm very happy with how they turned out. I also finished off some artillery limbers for the Krups guns...

My research has shown that in Wolsey's Desert Column, everything was transported by camel. For artillery, the Naval Brigade had one five-barrelled Gardner gun with four camels to carry it (one for the barrels, one for the wheels and elevating gear, one for the trail, and one for the ammunition). The Camel Battery of the Royal Artillery had three 7 pdr. screw guns - each gun, plus two boxes of ammunition, were carried on six camels with one native driver allotted to every two camels (courtesy "Savage and Soldier" & Wikipedia)

The picture is from the Redoubt website and shows their "Camel Train" (click to go to the page) - I only hope mine looks half as good!

..the end of the week is nigh...

..and so we reach the end of yest another week - I can't believe how quickly this year is going...

..so what have I got to talk about in this post?? Quite a lot actually as it's been a brilliant week from my personal/wargaming perspective...


..first off, I was absolutely delighted to get an email from one of the guys on the Old School Wargaming group asking me if I'd like a whole collection of Table Top Teasers that I was missing! Silly question... J ...having almost bitten his arm off in the haste of my response, you can imagine how excited I was when I saw the big envelope yesterday, and when I opened it, it contained fourteen of the articles!!

I'll put these up on the page (and announce here) as and when they're posted over the next few weeks, but to say I'm "chuffed to bits" is a slight understatement....! The gentlemen knows who he is; my thanks for the kind help - it's fully appreciated.

...while on the subject - I've put a poll at the top of the page (my first ever) as I'm interested in knowing how people prefer to see the Teasers. When I started out I always assumed people would prefer WORD format so that they could easily re-use the text in the article for writing up battle reports, orders of battle, etc. The files also tend to be smaller, which makes for quicker downloads. I have in the past however, also posted them as straight scans ie. a graphic, or a picture of the page. I'm interested to know if I'm on the right track because if I'm not I'll change how I post them....

...second off - this week I bid for, and was pleased to win , a copy of Charlie Wesencraft's "With Pike and Musket" (pictured). It doesn't normally happen, as some eBayer more clever than me usually puts in a bid 2 nano-seconds before the end and trumps me, but in this case I was successful and have just stared reading it. The period he covers is slightly earlier than the War of Spanish Succession which is my main interest in this period, but none the less there's always something of interest in the books of the Old School "masters" and this one doesn't appear to be any different - I'll put up a fuller review when I've finished it...

..while on the subject & on eBay (and hopefully you'll have begun to see by now why it was a brilliant week!) I also got a copy of "Wargame Campaigns" by Charles Grant (the younger). When it first came out I had this book on loan from the library almost permanently - it still forms the basis for my genericic campaign rules, and I cannot rate it highly enough.

...second to lastly, I found a company on the web call em4miniatures (click on the name, to go their website) the day before yesterday. They're a UK based company that do a lot of wargaming supplies - I was looking for little dice as they're very useful when playing Blitzkrieg Commander for showing hits, morale state etc. Not only were the dice reasonably priced, but they also take PayPal. I'll advise further when I get the goods, but their communications were prompt so full marks so far...

...last of all - being a wargamer I'm fairly happy when I get a bargain and would direct people to this web site immediately if they feel the same way. The Wasatch Front Historical Gaming Society are an American group based in Salt Lake City - not only do they have a brilliant site (click to go there) they also issue a quarterly newsletter called "Warning Order" in Adobe/PDF format. Quite honestly it's of excellent quality and appearance (considering the price!) - full colour, graphics etc. What about the content though I hear you ask - well I've started with the latest (#19), and was equally impressed. I especially liked the article on "Command and Control" in wargames, and there was also a good article on "Campaigns" which has definite possibilities... Recommended - and the link will find it's way to my resources list soonest...

...and that's it for this post - the weekend beckons and I plan to get myself to my painting table - it's time for some more tricorne's to make it to the table. I'm also enjoying a re-watch of "Band of Brothers"... who knows may even get to do both at the same time!