Saturday 19 December 2020

The Lead Pile

 


Army

Infantry

Cavalry

Other

Total

Spanish

66

27


93

Companions


36


36

Persians

256

21

6 chariots

299

Imitation Legionaries

32



32

Thessalian Cavalry


48


48

Theophorus

80



80

Moors

120



120

Parthians

48

112


162

Celts

80

21

4 chariots

105

Bolt Shooters



4 (Greek)

4

Marian Romans

48

12

4 bolt shooters

64

Macedonians

32

18


50

Germans

136



136

Dacians

120

18


138

Totals

1018

313

18

1349

Ancients


Army

Infantry

Cavalry

Other

Total

Irish ECW

276



276

Scottish ECW

144

117


261

Anglo-Dutch WSS

52

30


82

Danish GNW

8



8

Bavarian WSS

64

24


88

Polish GNW

48

48


96

Unassiged WSS

88



88

Totals

592

219


899

Early Moderns


Overall Total: 2248


I told the Estimable Mrs P. That I had counted up my lead pile. ‘I am not sure,’ she told me, severely, ‘that I think that was a good idea.’ She may well be right, that it was not such a good idea. All I can say in my defence is that my box containing the ancients lead pile has felt a lot lighter since painting the second Sarmatian army, and my shoe box of shame, containing unpainted terrain items, is nearly empty.


The above tables show the results. I confess that the numbers in part intimidate me, and in part are rather fewer than I expected. On the other hand, most of the ancients lead pile is over a decade old, and the WSS and GNW armies are very old Baccus 100 AP DBR forces which, a long, long time ago, I suggested that Mr Berry create and sell. They are quite nice starter armies, or at least they were for me. However, I do get a bit fed up painting uniforms. I also get fed up painting in general, as well.


It is as well to look on the upside of such tables, I feel. Many of the ancients are left overs from constructing the armies in the first place, and then doubling them. The Parthians have not been doubled, admittedly, but they are the only ones on the above list. The Celts, Marian Romans and other bits are just that, left over bits. The un-doubled armies are the Persians, for whom I have plenty of infantry (for the early brand, anyway) but not much cavalry.


The ECW purchases are new. I mean as an ECW fan who can resist the Irish, even if they are, I presume, destined for Montrose’s army. And the Scots need a bit of beefing up with specific cavalry (the Armada Abbeys Campaign has run on Scottish lancers to date), and I need to double the number of musketeer bases, and may as will finish the remaining highlanders while I am about it.


On the other hand, I can point to some solid achievements this year. I just do not write them down, so cannot tabulate them that easily, but it is a fair bit by my book. I have, for example, more than doubled the Sarmatians; as I recall that was about 160 figures or so, all cavalry. I have painted a load of Hussites as well, which are a bit difficult to assess in terms of the above analysis – 12 war wagons with 9 crew each, plus sixteen bases of flail wielding men, assorted cavalry, generals, Polish war waggons and two carroccio wagons. I estimate around 220 figures for that. I also painted a load of spearmen, crossbowmen and handgunners for the Reconquista campaign, which seems to be about 280 figures if memory serves correctly.


So on that estimate painting totals for this year are around 668. However, there are also 90 cuirassiers and 48 Irish infantry to be taken into account, some siege engines and, I think, 48 crew, some buildings (two mosques, two donjons and some castle bits, at least), and twenty-eight small boats from new and twenty-four repainted. I have also painted some terrain and a load of hedges. For someone who does not like painting, I seem to have done quite a lot.


The rebasing project has nearly finished. All of the main armies, of whom the Danes are the last, are rebased. I have some Heroics and Ros artillery to redo, and I am, as mentioned last week considering re-rebasing the Aztecs to reduce the number of bases and make them usable. Mind you, I also managed to drop the Aztec boxes and damage some of the bases, so a few do need redoing anyway.


Overall, then, I reckon I can paint, say, one thousand figures in a year, which means my lead pile will last just over two years. It is a wee bit more complicated than that however. There is a limit to, say, the number of scythed chariots that I need. I already have four, I think, painted and based. There are another six in waiting, but for a twenty base army do I really need ten? That does not, of course, mean that I will not paint them; after all, the term ‘need’ when applied to wargame figures is a bit of an odd usage.


So, if I swear off buying any more figures I can probably aim to halve the lead pile next year, which would be nice. After all, at one point (I think after the small boats order to Tumbling Dice) the Estimable Mrs P., gallantly trying to take an interest in her husband’s antics, asked what else I had to paint. Upon being told some of the highlights from the above list, she responded ‘If I had known that, I might not have sanctioned the boats.’


So, solid progress on the lead pile is required, but I do need to chop the quantities up into manageable chunks. I can manage to base about twenty bases at a time, so that gives a maximum throughput, per batch for basing, of about 140 (120 – 160, depending on whether they are cavalry or infantry). On the other hand, my stated aim for my wargaming activities are to reduce time spent painting and increase that spent having games.

14 comments:

  1. That’s quite a restrained lead pile. At least if they’re 6mm they won’t take up much room.

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    1. That's encouraging. And they don't take up much room, no, but then they are easy to hide from spousal eyes and, I've discovered, from myself. Add 25 naval gunners and 13 naval guns to the pile....

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  2. That doesn't sound too bad really, especially since there are always going to be a few spares lying around which don't matter.

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    1. True; on the other hand experience suggests that having things lying around for, say, 20 years because they don't matter eventually makes them matter. something like that, anyway...

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  3. Incidentally, I hadn't realized that using DBR for the WSS was a thing that people did - was it common?

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    Replies
    1. I doubt it, but as the lists went up to 1700 you could conceivably do the start of the GNW at least. I think the later Russian list explicitly mentioned Narva.

      In my opinion, DBR worked quite well for the later period, as the interaction between pikes and muskets was less important....

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    2. With the implication that the interaction between Pikes and Muskets was the main thing that DBR got wrong?

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    3. I think that as DBR did not have units beyond the base, it was entirely possible to have formation of Sh - Pk - Sh - Pk -Sh - Pk and so on, which were (as I recall) quite powerful under the rules and quite unhistorical. You really do need a way for C17 at least of brigading bases.

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    4. Is that Pike and Shot combination ahistorical, at least on a macro level? Which combination should be better?

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    5. So far as I can tell: regiments were usually brigaded together (in the ECW) and so you'd get two sleeves of shot and one of pike, at various ratios depending on circumstances. There were variations, of course, but broadly speaking lengthy Sh-Pk-Sh-Pk type formations didn't exist, and, I'd guess, would be impossible to control on the battlefield.
      At least you need some house rules to give larger scale formations. They are kind of implied in the DBR army lists but nothing stops the wargamer from using unhistorical and, to the contemporary, unimaginable formations.
      Maybe it was sorted out in a later edition (I only have ed 1) but the DB* system doesn't really lend itself to larger tactical units.

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  4. I don't think I quite follow...
    If there are (say) 4 units of Foot in a line in the ECW, then that pattern would be Sh-Pk-Sh-Pk-Sh, wouldn't it? I suppose it might be Sh-Pk-Sh-Sh-Pk-Sh if there were many more musketeers than pikemen in the brigade.
    Or is the problem more the idea of not having the individual DBR elements 'linked' to a unit which acts as a single entity?

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    Replies
    1. Not quite. The ECW brigades had gaps - you don't get continuous lines. So Sh Pk Sh (gap) Sh Pk Sh (gap) etc. This sort of thing is quite hard to model in wargame rules, but both Dutch and Swedish systems required the brigades to be separated, otherwise chaos would ensue.
      The latter problem is also true.

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    2. Ah yes, fair enough, I had kind of assumed that DBR assumed those gaps without representing them (I have never played DBR, only read it). Peter Berry told me that was one of the drivers of the Polemos rules, to get those specific discrete units and formations back into the game since DBx games all ended up emphasizing continuous lines.

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    3. Yes, it was. DBR might have assumed all sorts of things, but the rules as written gave continuous lines precedence, and the gaps between elements of a brigade (i.e. the pike and shot) and between brigades were the same.
      I did once suggest that the bases in PM: ECW should be twice the width, so each side had half a base width sticking out to ensure brigade spacing, but I was rightly ignored...

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