Crimea: Talking about Russian greatcoats

 

 I made a video talking about Russian greatcoats during the Crimean War. 

Some of the sources I used in the video are: 

https://www.authentic-costumes.com/product-page/russian-overcoat-1854-77

https://en.topwar.ru/198456-uniforma-krymskoj-vojny.html

https://www.matakishi.net/crimean-war-2021.html

https://talesfromghq.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-battle-of-arzov.html

 

In short, I am trying to make sense of the pictorial and written sources available to me, and finding it all a bit of a mess.

The Crimean War - A Wargamer's Reading List

Ever since watching Ralph Astley's excellent YouTube playlist for his Crimean War 18mm wargaming project, I have had this bug for a "thin red streak, tipped with steel". I then discovered Paul Ward's fantastic collection via his "Matakishi's Tea House" channel on  YouTube, and then the website that goes along with it. I then made the mistake of watching the 1968 film "The Charge of the Light Brigade", and I was utterly undone.

My brain went into overdrive trying to put together a project of my own, which is now underway. I was immediately captivated by the utter disaster (from a command & control standpoint) of the Crimean War and of course the visual splendour of a war, that at least for Britain, was the last gasp of the Napoleonic uniform aesthetic, and for all sides, the last pretense that the technology of war had not changed since Waterloo. 

Besides a general survey of the Crimean War, I have focused my reading on individual battles as well. My first focus being The Alma, which I believe offers the wargamer many options as a scenario. It can be tweaked here and there, tinkered with, and so has much to recommend it to the wargamer. 

Below is my reading list for the Crimean War, with some notes as appropriate. The links lead to Amazon where you can purchase the books.

 Note that this page will be updated as I read more.

General 

• The Russian Army of the Crimean War 1854-56 (Men-at-Arms) by Robert Thomas & Richard Scollins (1991) - 
• The Russian Army of the Crimea (Men-at-Arms) by Albert Seaton & Michael Roffe (1973) - 
• British Army On Campaign (2) 1854-56 : The Crimea (Men at Arms Series) by Michael Barthorp & Pierre Turner (1987) - 
• The Crimean War: 1854–1856 (Essential Histories) by J Sweetman (2001) -
   

Battle of the Alma

• The Battle of the Alma by Peter Gibbs (1963) - This book contains some interesting maps of the battle, specifically how British divisions went from march to line. The narrative is heavy on little details and moves along at a clip, without getting bogged down in minutiae. A quick and easy read. Highly recommended. Note that it is very Anglocentric and very much a product of its time.
  

• The Alma, 1854, (Knight's battles for wargamers) by Henry Harris (1971) - A slender volume written with the wargamer in mind. The author provides a very thorough survey of the topology the battle was fought on, which is most useful to the wargamer in terms of designing a scenario. The maps are top notch and the book manages to be succinct and provide everything a wargamer will need to put on the battle.

• The Battle of Alma and Its Incidents: By an Officer - Another slender volume. This is a essentially a poem that was written in honour of Emperor Napoleon III after the Battle of the Alma. Interesting as a historical artifact, but limited as a source for the Crimean War or Battle of the Alma, except that it provides an insight into the contemporary Victorian jingoism of the day. One would recommend reading this, but not purchasing it, unless one is a collector.

A Long Due Update (Happy New Year 2024!)

Blog Update

First of all, Happy New Year 2024! I haven't updated this blog since January 2020 in favour of releasing YouTube videos, however, the more YouTube videos I release, the more I realise that blogs and videos are very different media that serve different purposes. Based upon the traffic this blog gets, it is clear that blogs still remain much more searchable than videos. I suspect that it has to do with limitations on how YouTube videos are scraped for words, versus the written text of a blog. 

Anyway, enough shop talk. 

Life Updates

A lot has happened since my last update on the blog in January 2020. First, my wife and I managed to secure excellent employment with a tech company in California, which later morphed into a role that is largely on the road. This then led to us making the decision to move to the cooler climes of Washington state. The impetus behind this was my wife's family moving en masse to the Dallas area in Texas. Since we weren't keen on swapping the dry, hot Bakersfield climate for more-or-less the same, we moved North and were able to purchase our first home. 

We are now a household of 2 dogs near the sea, and loving life up in Washington.

 

Playing Games

One unintended outcome of the move to Washington is that I have found a regular gaming group, just across the border in Canada. How I met the main chap from the club was certainly serendipitous. In November 2022 I happened to be at Warfare in Farnborough, in the UK. I was in the UK ostensibly for work, but managed to stay over the weekend. I took the last-minute opportunity to attend the wargaming show with some purchases in mind. (I ended up spending about $500, so only small purchases) 

 

I had stopped for a pie and a cup of tea at the little snack area, when a man with a "North American" accent approached me and asked if he might share the table with me, since there was nowhere else to sit. I obliged, noted the accent, and asked him where he had come from. He said, "Vancouver, Canada." To which I said, "oh, I live 15 minutes from Vancouver." What luck! We chatted for a bit, and it turns out that I can see his town from my house, I am just across the water from him. Well, this led to emails and some sessions with the fabled White Rock Gamers, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Having a regular gaming group to play with has re-invigorated my hobby as I am playing almost every week, and more importantly, playing historical wargames again! 

Examples of the stunning games we played in 2023:

A very small part of a very large Leipzig refight using Shako 2

Canvas Eagles

Action in the Sudan, Battles for Empire

My dastardly gunman finishes off a helpless supine opponent in What A Cowboy

Painting Miniatures

2022 was a very fruitful year for me in terms of painting. Especially considering that I was jumping off from a position of inertia. 

I'll share some snaps in this blog post, but they are but a small sample of everything I have been working on. Suffice to say, the prospect of playing with my miniatures has turned up the tempo. 

 

The numbers are as follows:

• 28mm = 21 Infantry
  
• 15mm = 42 Infantry
  
• 10mm = 24 Infantry | 3 Artillery & Crew
  
• 6mm = 36 Infantry | 3 Tanks
  

By project:

• 28mm Seven Years War = 6 Infantry
• 15mm Carthaginian Army = 24 Infantry
• Warhammer 40k Eldar = 5 Infantry
• 28mm Early Imperial Romans = 10 Infantry
• 6mm War of Spanish Succession British = 36 Infantry
• 10mm Franco-Prussian War French = 24 Infantry
• 10mm Franco-Prussian War French = 3 Artillery & Crew
• 15mm American Civil War Confederates = 18 Infantry
• 6mm World War II Polish = 3 Tanks
  

Goals for 2024

The Great Hobby Reawakening™ is well under way, but these are my goals for 2024:

• Get a gaming table set up in the basement, nothing fancy, but I would like something around 8 x 6 feet-ish. Initially I will use mats or cloths for coverage, but I would like to try my hand at MDF boards. 
• Finish up the Pendraken 10mm Franco-Prussian French force that I have and begin work on the German opposition.
• Paint up the Republican Roman opponents for my 15mm Carthaginian army. I ordered some from Old Glory 15's on January first.
  
• Finish up painting the remaining Baccus 6mm War of Spanish Succession British army that I bought in 2022. 

 In Closing...

I am on holiday in Greece at the moment, in the quest for some sunlight, and will only be home again at the end of the month. I am hoping to make more regular contributions to this blog in the coming year.

An Initial Sudan War Reading List for Wargamers

Battle of Abu Klea by William Barnes Wollen (1857-1936)

I am by no means an expert on the Anglo-Sudan, or Mahdist War. However, as a wargamer I have felt the siren's song of the conflict tugging at me gently over the years. What is more grand than the khaki and serge grey uniformed line of the Queen-Empress's finest arrayed against the white clad hordes of the Mahdi across a stark desert landscape? The conflict has its moments of consummate drama and excitement, and truly marks the end of an era of warfare. The Second Anglo-Boer war would drag the British Army, kicking and screaming, into the modern age.

An easy, enjoyable read, available for free from Amazon.

I have read several good books on the topic and have slowly been gathering a deeper and better understanding of the conflict over the years. I have found the following books to be invaluable as primers.First and foremost, I would recommend The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan by Winston Churchill. I found it to be a quick and easy read, largely thanks to Churchill's writing style. It is available for free on Amazon Kindle.

Another excellent read was Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899 by Dominic Green, which I listened to as an audiobook using Audible. It is available in print from Amazon. I listened to it whilst painting and found it more systematically and historically rigorous than the aforementioned Churchill work.

Specifically for Omdurman, Osprey provide a useful booklet Omdurman 1898: Kitchener's victory in the Sudan (Campaign) with a fantastic amount of photos, maps and drawings. Hardly surprising, since the author was none other than Donald Featherstone! Needless to say, it is a treasure trove for wargamers.

The last book is one that I am only just beginning myself, and that is Fire and Sword in the Sudan A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes 1879-1895 by Rudolf Carl Slatin. Slatin was an Austrian soldier and governor in the Sudan and is famous for having been a prisoner of the Mahdists, so he is likely to provide an interesting point-of-view.

A rather fanciful depiction from 1897. Source

That is all for now, as my own reading on the topic expands, I shall post those recommendations too. Needless to say, if you, gentle reader, have any recommendations, please do let me know in the comments. 

First Painted Miniatures of 2019

Apologies for the rather dreadful photo. Still, it is proof!

So, here we are: a week from the start of 2020 and I have finally finished painting three miniatures. An abysmal annual effort, but truly a reflection of how poorly engaged I have been with the hobby this year. In truth, it all ties in with the work and living situation here in California.

The reality is that I haven't had a space for the hobby. Our current place is rather small, and with space being at a premium, I cannot very well ask the wife to surrender some of that for little toy soldiers. So the bulk of my entertainment has come from playing video games and reading this year. On the topic of reading, might I heartily recommend Winston Churchill's "My Early Life: 1874-1904". I found the book a joy to read and a gateway to many a conflict. I know that I, for one, am keen to look further into the North-West Frontier and Sudan War thanks to this book. Read it.

An excellent book, very easy to read.

I might also mention that the heat and dryness here in the San Joaquin Valley makes for weather that is not particularly conducive to painting. When the sun is out and the hounds are keen to play, who am I to say otherwise? Only now that we have hit the rainy, cold season do I find myself in the mood to paint. That said, now that I have indeed put brush to miniature, I find myself inspired once more to get that "hour a day" in before bed. Hence the Germans above, and the Soviet Naval Infanteer lurking behind them.

One does not simply ignore these two.

In other news, I have been back to Britain twice this year, and have both times ferried quantities of miniatures and paints back with me. Having brought much lead over at the end of October, I had the makings of motivation, it just took a particularly miserable run of weather to convince me to build a rather nice little paint station my wife got me for my birthday back in June, and we were off to the races. I would highly recommend on of these handy little things to all my friends, it is very movable and surprisingly sturdy. Click on the picture to go to Amazon to see the GameCraft Miniatures Painting Station - 26mm V2, for Vallejo and Army Painter Style Dropper Bottles. Highly recommended.

Not all heroes wear capes...

Truly this paint station has been a lifesaver for me and has enabled me to get back to painting. I only hope that I can make a better effort in 2020 than I did this year. With that in mind, I look forward to creating more content for this website and the YouTube channel in the coming few weeks. However, until then, I wish all my dear readers a Merry Christmas, and I look forward to serving you better in 2020.

Painting Tutorial: Tabletop Workshop Stable 28mm

This is the latest video I have uploaded to YouTube, at the request of a subscriber, showing how I paint my medieval buildings. I hope that viewers might find it helpful.

Genestealer Done, Getting Back To Painting

My wife and I returned from our Highland adventure on Monday. It was a colossal drive from Inverness to Oxford, consuming most of our day just sitting in the car. Hardly how one chooses to spend a bank holiday, but frankly Scotland is worth it. While the West was celebrating Easter last Sunday, we were only on Palm Sunday, so this coming Sunday is our Pascha (Easter) and I cannot wait! It probably trumps Christmas as our family's biggest celebration of the year.

In the meantime, in the dark depths of the underhive, another wretched forerunner of Hive Fleet Leviathan stirs. I managed to knock out the genestealer below in a single evening, and I rather enjoyed it. I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on this monster, but the results are pleasing. Sorry for the poor pictures, I just grabbed these on my camera when it was done. 

For my painting recipe I followed some of the YouTube videos from Warhammer TV, again, I cannot emphasise enough what a great resource that channel has been.

I've moved on to some other miniatures now, a couple of English Civil War test figures, a fighting Greek Priest from the Greek War of Independence, and the Primaris Ultramarines are on the table. I've recaptured my painting mojo recently, and am really enjoying being back, brush in hand.