This weekend saw me putting the final touches to the Imperial Estavian Army the combined forces of the Zweikreutz Crimson Throne.
After cutting, sanding, painting and labelling the bases and cutting out and black edging the flags, I was finally ready to assemble the army.
Here under the gaze of the Emperor Augustus is the army in all its glory!
Here are the flags for the Imperial Estavian army. Need a little more touching up with a lining pen here and there, but otherwise complete.
Top to bottom, the 12x line regiments, below them Garde zu Fuss, then 3x Cuirassier regiments, below them Garde zu Pferde and at bottom Dragoons and O'Hara Chevauxleger.
As noted elsewhere, the game come with heraldry for the four SK powers; a fleur de lis for Bravance, white eagle for Hrvatska, black eagle for Argozia and lion rampant for Arcadia.
In expanding the game to include the various other states I needed to come up with heraldry for each of them, which would appear on their flags. I thought long and hard about how I was going to produce flags; I never intended to hand paint them as I've done. Instead, I had great plans to produce something on the computer. Sadly I lack the necessary skills and early experiments revealed scanned colours turning out different from original prints, bleeding ink and all sorts of problems. I needed heraldic symbols and attempts to download same came to nought. I then hit on another source.
Some time back in the 1990s, I bought a pack of GW heraldic transfers, intended for their fantasy figures, but basically medieval symbols. I had intended to scan these in or to use them on printed out flags produced on the computer. Again, experiments were discouraging and the end results were not what I had imagined. More in desperation when faced with putting flags on Bravancian figures, I ended up painting them. The success has encouraged me to continue.
While in theory I could paint anything on the flags, I have stuck with the symbols from the GW transfers with a few additional Veni Vedi Vici decals (acquired when still wedded to the idea of transfers). So Naevaeron has a blue boar, Cleve a white castle, Dupanen a white unicorn and so on. Estavia sort of ended up with a Jerusalem cross; I then derived a back story from it being formed of the Hereditary Lands (gold cross on crimson / red), The Midlands (white cross on green) and the Bravacian Marches (border frontier) and being the Zweikreiss Reich, formed from an amalgamation of the two crosses into a Jerusalem cross.
For the flags, I was very influenced by Thirty Years War Imperial and Austrian WAS striped flags. So the cavalry are basic red and white with variations. The Garde a large cross on plain background and the foot incorporate their facing colours. I admit they have not turned out how I originally thought they would, although I only had vague ideas of what they would look like. They now incorporate a bit of a Venetian vibe which was never planned.
Just heard of the passing of Dr Christopher Duffy.
Co-incidentally, I have been reading "An Instrument of War" the first volume of his work on the Austrian army of the SYW as my bedtime book.
Back in the early 1980s when I developed an interest in the SYW and C18th in general, his books were the "bible" for serious scholars, although his "Army of Maria Theresa" was very scarce and difficult to obtain . I was therefore overjoyed to be offered a copy at a very reasonable price in response to a letter in Military Modelling requesting a copy.
I have copies of all his C18th titles, although I have yet to read some of them.
I'm also reminded of his tours; I was very jealous at discovering that a lot of the Cornwall wargamers had been on one, organised by the SYW Association, although their experiences had been "mixed". It appears there was something of a cultural clash between the UK and US gamers; the US gamers being much more respectful of Dr Duffy whom the UK gamers christened "Von Duffy" for the pro-German views he expressed!
In any case, I personally owe him a great debt for his works which have enriched my reading on the SYW.
R.I.P
Progress has concentrated on the Soldier King project, with work on flags for Estavia (still need work), but I've also been musing on my Arab-Israeli stuff.
A post on Tim Gow's blog prompted some of the thinking:
http://megablitzandmore.blogspot.com/2022/11/sinai-1967-megablitz-game-revisited.html
My armies are being built for Megablitz and Tim's orbats that he published on his blog were part of the inspiration. Tim has focussed on Sinai for 1967, where the main fighting occurred, although I've researched the Jordanian and Syrian fronts in addition to cover the whole Six Days War.
My obsession with the various Arab -Israeli wars goes back much further. My first attempt was in 1/285th; living in Northumberland I naturally gravitated to GHQ being sold at the time by New Hope Design then in Rothbury.
My research was minimal; Bruce Quarrie's guide and a Born in Battle magazine identified the main tanks used, so I ordered a selection of what I thought were Israeli vehicles from a paper list without pictures. The Shermans were OK, but the Centurions were probably the later version. I had also ordered "Pattons"; these turned out to be M47 rather than the M48 I was expecting.
Peter Gilder had just written a painting guide published in Military Modelling. His advice was to undercoat black and drybrush. Filled with enthusiasm, I bought a large can of black car primer from a car parts shop in Alnwick. Disaster! Whether it was old stock or I managed to buy the only faulty can in the shop, whatever the cause it failed to spray and the nozzle kept clogging! Perhaps it was an omen.....
I ended up undercoating by hand and drybrushed them grey; they looked.......OK. Enthusiasm quashed, I dug them out a few years later and played a game. Ended up passing them to a friend. I had encountered one of the downfalls of micro armour for me; the tendency to try and field 1:1 forces which ended up with wall to wall tanks, instead of using the scale to fight on smaller tables for example.
Many years later, played some more Arab-Israeli games with GHQ 1:285 again, this time using Modern Spearhead. Playing out a scenario based on a historical encounter, sadly revealed the limitations of the rules; no benefits for troop quality and no restrictions on Soviet armour firing from higher ground (in reality unable to depress their guns), no airpower for the Israelis ( umpire decided not to use).
My interest lay dormant until it resurfaced many years later. This was long before Battlefront brought out their 15mm ranges. I toyed with micro, but past experience had put me off. Then musing one day, I realised Roco Minitanks had many of the vehicles, being from the 1960s and having WW2 surplus as used by many European armies. M48s, Sherman, M3 halftrack, Centurion (rare) were all available or already in my stash (only 4 Centurions at that point). For the Arabs, T34/85, T54/55, JS3 were also available (if crude).
The downside was the fact that many needed converting. I remembered one of the earliest inspirations; an article in Military Modelling from around 1977 converting smaller scale vehicles to Arab-Israeli, mostly Airfix, but with Roco mentioned in the list of available vehicles.
Aircraft could be sourced from Heller and Tamiya in 1:100, more crude 1960s models which somehow seemed to fit. Most of the French types could be sourced.
But what rules to use? I had rejected the idea of rules requiring multiple models (due to the need to convert most) for company or platoon level. Martin Rapier had some very high level (stand = brigade) but were a bit too abstract. Then inspiration struck. What about Megablitz with 1 stand = 1 battalion with the added attraction of the ethos of bodging vehicles to look roughly like what they are supposed to?
Once started, it's taken on a life of its own as the pictures of conversions and modelling on this blog will attest. Tim's post has inspired me to get on with finishing it!
Finally finished the last two personalities (technically there's another plus a "maybe" both Hussar officers) for Estavia.
At times the army has been a bit of a slog, although at other times a breeze. Not sure if it's painting all that white!
What's odd is that I have been looking forward to painting this army for a while, way back when I started the project. I remember that this army and the Arcadian one was what I'd looked forwards to with anticipation. Instead of doing what I really wanted, I instead made myself work through the other armies.
Finishing the Arcadians was quick, so I'd thought it would be the same with the Estavian army; I'm an admirer of the Austrian and Saxon armies of the C18th, so looked forwards to what is probably my favourite SK army (although of course you are not supposed to have favourites when running a campaign). The reality was I flagged a bit with lots of correcting where I'd gone wrong.
Anyway, flags, final varnishing, basing and labels left to do. Some pictures of the assembled personalities / General Staff awaiting varnish.
Not the most interesting of posts but one to prove to myself I am making progress after some non-productive weekends. This weekend I managed...
