A tale of four (postal) orders

This not a "test", because it was not really designed to be one: just an interesting "tale" about ordering miniatures all over the world, with different conclusions to be drawn about consumer services -- mostly, very positive conclusions.

In the evening of March 23rd I submitted four orders for WWI miniatures to complement my Turkish and Australian/British/Indian forces for the Middle East theatre. The four orders were not exactly comparable, as I picked and chose missing elements here and there. From Eureka in Australia I ordered a few Light Brigade mounted figures. From QRF, a mix of infantry and mounted troops both for ANZAC and Turks, plus a couple of guns and some MG sets. From Peter Pig, some WWI Indian bags plus a few other bags from the Sudan range, and some heads in sun hat for swapping and conversions. Finally, from Minifigs/Caliver a variety of items including more mounted Light Brigade and Indian infantry, plus British infantry in sun helmet, some Yeomanry troops and a Rolls-Royce armoured car. And a few bags to check out (Circassian cossacks, uh?) Minifigs was probably the largest and most diversified order, with QRF coming second in variety, Peter Pig third with a couple of unusual items. Eureka was probably the simplest, most straightforward order to fill.

The submission of orders and payment went very smoothly, with prompt email replies with payment receipts from Peter Pig, QRF, and Minifigs. For Eureka, I had to check back on the website. All in all, it was a total of three orders from the UK and one from Australia to be shipped to Chicago, USA.
[By the way: can you tell we just experience a dollar rally in currency markets?]

That was in the evening of Tuesday, March 23rd. On March 24th, an email from QRF announces that my package has shipped! Good, that's promising... I wonder how this little contest will play out. On the very same day, an email by Minifigs/Caliver tells me to expect the package by mid-April. ...mmm... this sounds a little optimistic. During the winter, my orders to Minifigs took about three weeks to ship, and other three-to-four weeks to be delivered: based on that experience, I was not really expecting my miniatures before early May, but we'll see.

A couple of quiet days follow, and on Wednesday March 31st... the Peter Pig order shows up in the mail! WOW, that was fast, five working days! On Friday April 2nd... surprise! Eureka package is at the front door, too! This is even better, seven working days from Australia! And yesterday, Monday March 5th, the large-ish QRF models are delivered! Excellent!

There is very little to say: these three companies showed a fantastic consumer service... it makes me want to go back and order more! Bravi! to all the gentlemen involved: Nic in Australia, Martin and Geoff in the UK.

Now I am rooting for a prompt delivery from Minifigs/Caliver. These are miniatures I love, and I know the staff at Caliver has been struggling a bit during the transition from the previous ownership. I have been a big fan of this line for several years now, despite the sluggish delivery performance. I can only hope that, by now, Caliver has successfully turn the situation around, and they will indeed succeed in having my package delivered by next week.

Overall, a very satisfying customer experience. Let's knock on wood about the final parcel.

Happy Easter!

It has been almost 40 days since my last post. In the meanwhile, business took me almost on the other side of the planet for a trip to the Persian Gulf, and then a few days in Washington D.C. Unavoidably, traveling has slowed down my wargaming stamina. Although, there has been something else going on. The hobby flame comes and goes in spurt, and about every two months or so I feel the need to take a break from the current project and refocus on something else, different, or new. For financial reasons, I try to limit the new project at one per year, while old ones come back into the rotation cyclically. From November to February I was very much into Napoleonics, but after my traveling I felt the need to take a break from it, and direct my energies somewhere else, at least for a short while.

So, where do I stand right now? There is an old project gaining strength, and a couple of ideas about a new period to start in 2010.

Old project back on the workbench. This would be WWI Middle East -- Sinai & Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Gallipoli. I have almost completed a full Turkish regiment; I have a mix ANZAC brigade on foot ready and available (Australian and New Zealand troops), and I am currently working on a Light Horse brigade as well. Arabs were already available from my colonial collection. Assorted guns are also being painted. Also, being slowly worked on, a Indian brigade with one British battalion and three Indian ones, plus a Gurkha battalion just because nobody can make it without Gurkhas. I got some missing elements for all the above by filing a few small orders with UK Minifigs, Peter Pig, QRF, and Eureka. At the end, this should make for an interesting collection of troops for a fascinating area of operations. Pictures and progress report to follow soon.

New projects being considered. Fundamentally, there are two. Two and half, to be precise. One of them is WWII in the desert. I have a lot of scenery for this setting, again thanks to my colonial collection. I have some unpainted figures already, sitting in some box in the closet. I am holding back only because of the cost of adding armour. In 15mm scale, the quantity of tanks, armored cars, and various mechanical gadgets required for this front can be intimidating. I am almost tempted to mix 15mm infantry figures (which, in the case of Eureka and Peter Pig, tend to be on the smallish side of the scale, i.e. "true" 15mm) with 12mm tanks from GFI. In general, I am not fond of this type of mixing. But , ehi, I might try with a few vehicles, just to check whether the "feeling" is acceptable, or just plain wrong. Any comments?

Alternatively, project # 2 would be the Thirty Years War. Again, there are miniatures sitting in the closet, and again, I did some stimulating readings on the topic in the past. Here, the question mark relates to the size of those early war tercios, and I also question how a game of the period would "feel." I have a couple of good rules that could easily work: "Father Tilly" (the new edition), "Piquet - Anchor of Faith", "1644". The temptation is definitely there.

Finally, the "half" project I mentioned would be the the Russian Civil War. I can pour some enthusiasm in leading a White Army, but overall I find the military dimension of the whole affair somewhat lacking; or, maybe, I just need to study it more. This would be a natural progression from my WWI project (not the Mesopotamia/Sinai/Gallipoli: the "other" project about the European theaters.) And some of the miniatures could be used for any type of troubles in the 1920s -- Germany & Weimar, Poland, maybe even a pre-dated Very British Civil War, which appears to be the latest fad in wargaming. This theater would be very playable with any WWI rule set, and it would be a perfect way to test the Perfect Captain's "Red Actions" rules that I read with some interest some time ago. I'll keep this idea in the backseat for the time being, but it is not completely off yet, despite not being completely on, either.

More pictures: Austrian and French infantry

Tonight I will post a few pictures from the set I took yesterday. this time, it's the turn of the infantry units, French and Austrian.
Austrians first. Each individual unit is painted to represent an historical
battalion. You will recognize below troops from from IR 23 Erzherzog Ferdinand (red facings), IR 10 Ansbach-Bayreuth (green/paperlgrun facings), and IR 16 Terzi/Erzherzog Rudolf (violet facings), among the others. Flags are from Warflag, resized. Somewhat I nailed down the correct technique to resize and fold a flag only later, when working on the French. You will notice the difference.



Finally, no Austrian Army should be allowed to take the field without deploying a unit of *pink* infantry -- in my case, IR 38 Wurttemberg. I was bold enough to use a bright, Magenta fluo color... what to say: you notice this unit.


Now, the French. By the time I started working on these units, I figured out the proper way to fix the flag, and courtesy of Warflag again I was able to create a couple of cool stands.


As previously explained, in my French Army I use a mix of color-code and grenadiers and voltigeurs to identified individual units. The color-coding part is still a work in progress, in part because of the delays in the shipment I am waiting from the UK. But at least some of the grenadiers are in place, as you will see in the next pic.

And finally, let's not forget the officers! Very likely, you have already recognised a General Lasalle look-a-like in the picture above, but a second officer is portrayed here as he stands in front of a battery (... maybe not a great idea...)

I hope I will have the time tomorrow to share a couple of pictures of my french artillery and cavalry. Thursday I am leaving for a business trip overseas, so blogging will be once again to take a backseat. Fortunately, I am well-prepared for the 15 hours flight: I have already packed Fredrick Kagan's "The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805", on the Austerlitz campaign, and the first volume of John Gill's trilogy, "1809 Thunder on the Danube: Abensberg". A lot of Napoleonic readings, and a lot of food for thought about my future French vs Austrians battles.

Latest Napoleonic photos -- Austrians

For the past several weeks I have been steadily working on my Napoleonic armies, both the Austrian and the French. The results are beginning to become apparent, and forces are beginning to build up despite some delays in mail delivery (in particular, i am still waiting for a crucial order from the UK, submitted on 12/15 and yet to show up in my malbox...)
Tonight I took a few pictures, and I will post the best or more informative of them over the next few days. Right now, I start with some Austrians. Today I completed four officers, and I added the final touches to several infantry, cavalry and artillery units, as well as to my windmill, which you will be able to spot in the background in some of these pics. At the moment, my Austrian Army counts two cuirassier squadrons, two hussars, one of dragoon (with two of chevau-legers on their way), two artillery batteries, twelve regiments of infantry, one of grenadiers (two on the way) and one of jaegers (one on the workbench.) In the mail, more artillery, two grenzer regiment, and some odds and ends.
Here's tonight pics. First, a spiffy officer showing some leadership:

This is one of the two cuirassier squadrons:

Next, the 7th Hussars Squadron - Liechtenstein:

Last but not least, the heavy 12lb guns from one of my batteries:

I have a couple of cool pictures of the infantry units, but for tonight I will only share a group photo taken of the whole lot in the box... it still looks cool to me!

Tomorrow I will try to post infantry pics for the Austrian and the French, and later this week some other shots of the French artillery, cavalry (the Empress Dragoons of the Guard!) and some officers (included General LaSalle!) And, crossing my fingers, if all goes as planned, in two weeks after a business trip abroad I should be able to fight a little meeting engagement!

Rant on badly advertised rules

I just posted this in a thread on TMP, in reference to a new, and apparently mysterious ruleset titled "Ridiculous Vanity 2nd." [No link provided because no relevant link is found, to further prove my point.]
I repeat here my rant almost verbatim, just to get it off my chest.

I am always a little puzzled when a new ruleset is announced on TMP, but then it results nearly impossible to get any information about how the system works. I usually repeat the same questions all the time: how does the sequence of play work? (I stay away from I-go-U-go) What basing is required for miniatures? How many units do you need for an average game? What are the basic mechanisms for morale/combat/melee? Orders of battle or army lists? Or tournament point? Etc. etc. These are basic questions, and I would expect to be included by default in any presentations of new rules. Instead, oftentimes you get nothing, nada, nicht, niente.

Really, it is always the same basic questions that players ask, so you would expect that people making a pitch for their rules would care to comment and inform the public, especially when the set is priced at $35-$40... I don't spend $40 on a ruleset just for the surprise to discover how it works, nor the joy of realizing that it is not the type of game I like or I am interested in playing.

Bottom line: Sorry, rules writers/publishers: but a cool picture on the front page doesn't make it for me.

January 5th, 1970

DestoFante turns 40 today. I missed the '60s by four days and three hours, and I share the birthday with fellow economist Jean-Baptiste Say (b. 1767), German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (b. 1876), King Juan Carlos of Spain (b. 1938), and Diane Keaton. The day appears to be void of any significant event in military history, other than the battle of Colmar/Turckheim, fought on January 5 1675, which resulted in the victory of the French forces under the Vicomte of Turenne over the Brandenburgian and Austrian armies commanded by the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William.

Here an early picture of mine from August 1970.

A Napoleonic Renaissance -- part II: the French

I can hardly believe that about six month ago I sat at my workbench and I seriously considered to get rid of all my 15mm Napoleonic miniatures! What a difference six months do. There were a couple of reasons, definitely not that compelling (!), behind that thought. Maybe the idea was not much leaving the Napoleonic period, but rebuilding it in a different scale other than 15mm (6mm? 10mm?) Maybe it was a sense that momentum was lost in my Napoleonic project, as I had not done any progress on it for several months. Maybe it was an issue with esthetics: 15mm Napoleonic miniatures were my way into the hobby in the late 1980s (ouch!), and I sense I have been dragging them around too long, with too many changes of heart about rules, basing, and painting styles (I do paint much better today than in 1990... and I paint with acrylics rather than enamel.)

Anyway: I am glad I did not make that mistake, and I am now working full steam on Napoleonic miniatures with a renewed enthusiasm. Lesson learned: if I am into a period, it is because I made a thoughtful decision in the first place, and despite the momentarily ebb-and-flow of my interests, there is a long-term reason for sticking with it.

One positive outcome of my mid-summer crisis is a complete rethinking of the organization for my armies. I will start today with a review of my "new" French, and will add more later about the Austrian.

First of all, I stated a goal. I want an organization that will be historically plausible, and that will provide me with an immediate identification of all the units on the terrain without having to add labels to the bases. And I want an organization system that fits well with my units, 12-miniature "battalions" each made of four 3-miniature stands. (I'll use "battalion" as label of convenience; depending by the rules, my 12-miniature unit may in fact represent a battalion, a regiment, or even a brigade.)

Here's what I came up with. I arrange my battalions into regiments, each with three battalions. In order to visualize the differences and to easily ID them, I color-coded them based on the pompom on the shako. Thus, the miniatures in the first four regiments will respectively wear red, blue, green, and yellow pompom. And in order to differentiate among the three battalions in each regiment, I made a unique base for each of them: the first unit has a command base, with officer, tambourine and standard bearer; the second battalion has a grenadiers stand, where grenadiers wear red plume -- and one of them a bicolor plume with red and the regimental color; the third battalion will include a voltigeurs stand, with green plumes but for one bicolor one with green and regimental color. It's convoluted to write, but very easy in practice: just by looking at the unit, you will spot the color of the pompon and by the nature of the fourth stand (command, grenadier or voltigeur) you will immediately know what unit it is!


This is the theory. In practice, the adoption of this new "model" has required a few adjustment. First, I had to re-base several stands of French infantry. Never a fun job. Then I had to make an order for the voltigeur, which I am still waiting, thus I am hanging until USPS will deliver the package. Fortunately, I had some grenadiers around, so I have been able to work on them. Pompoms need to be re-painted. And, since I am at it, I am taking the opportunity to add a few touches to the old Ligne infantry, which was painted years ago on... a different standard. This is a work in progress, but I can share some preliminary photos. Here I have added the Litko bases for the missing miniatures (voltigeurs, the grenadiers and fusiliers still on the painting deck.)





Not shown, there are several other infantry units that will complement my army. Two battalions each of Guard chassuers and Guard grenadiers; four battalions of infantry in bicorne; two battalions of infantry in overcoat. I only have one unit of Legere, but by the end of the year I would not mind to add two or three more.

Now for the cavalry. Currently, I have one unit of cuirassiers and three units of chasseurs a cheval. In order to keep the distribution of units balanced in historical terms, I recently ordered another unit of cuirassier, and two each of hussars and dragoons, plus one of lancers de Kleve-Berg. For the Guard, I have a unit of Empress Dragoons and I hope to add soon some Polish Lancers (New Year's resolution #2!) This should result in a good variety of units for my battles!

Finally, the artillery. Still a work in progress; I have some 4-pdr and 12-pdr, and a lot more in the order being delivered. I confess that my thinking is still evolving on this, but once my package will be here, there will be the opportunity to come to some conclusions. ideally, I'd like to have units for line foot and horse, plus at least one guard unit. We'll see how to proceed on that front.

Happy New Year!

I am writing, right now, my second post about the Napoleonic Renaissance... but while I type, for the time being, my best wishes to all of you for a fantastic 2010, filled with more and more new toys, nail-biting games, and hours of joyous painting!

A Napoleonic Renaissance -- part I

Lack of postings for several weeks doesn't mean that wargaming activities have ground to halt -- quite the contrary! Juggling night feedings, diaper changes, a real life job and an equally real multitude of miniatures projects has been rewarding and challenging at the same time, and it resulted in blogging taking a back seat as more urgent tasks took precedence... but it is now time for an update!

Let's start by spending a word or two about the Napoleonic Renaissance that appears to be gaining some momentum, these days. True, the period has never really gone out of fashion: but for a few years I somewhat sensed it was stagnant, as far as generating new enthusiasm and energy in the hobby. Then, in a matter of months, if not weeks, we have been overwhelmed by several, very catchy products. Four new major rules have been released, and one fifth has been reissued in a new, expanded edition. I am talking about Foundry's Napoleon, Black Powder, Republic to Empire, Sam Mustafa's Lasalle, and TooFatLardies' Le Feu Sacre III ed.. As Mae West put it, "too much of a good thing is just wonderful"!

All these rules, for the most part (LFS being the exception), seem to share the same trend toward glossy, beautifully produced and printed rules booklet. The topic has been discussed ad nauseam in wargaming forum, and I will spare you to add my totally negligible opinion on the issue. The problem for this wargamer is that quality comes with a price, and at the average cost of $45-$50 per book I had to rethink what would have been my default course of action -- that is, go out and buy them all!

How to choose among so many offerings? Well, I look at the reviews. In recent weeks I have noticed the emergence of "playtesting vigilantes" on TMP, people ready to go out and clobber those dedicated gamers willing to share ASAP their opinions on a game, before conducting several playtests of the rules. I cannot stand these "vigilantes": yes, some playing mechanisms might make more sense after one game or two, but a lot of information -- the information we need to make an informed purchasing decision -- can be share just by reading the rules. I am grateful, therefore, to the people who did take the time to offer a peek into game mechanics, and an opinion about the rules. When considering a purchase, I usually focus on a few feature I deem important: scale of the game, how big a table the game requires (I need to accommodate my games on a 6'x4' space), how big the units must be (in the case of Napoleonic, my units are 12 miniatures based on four rectangular stands of three miniatures each), the sequence of play (I don't like IGO-UGO), how long it will take to play (I need to clear up in six-seven hours maximum), how many miniatures it will take for an average battle (I am a solo player and I cannot reasonably field more than 150-200 miniatures per side.) So, rather that rehearsing for zillionth time the basic of those reviews, which I bet many of you have already read, I'd rather offer some of my thoughts during my shopping decision-making process, with no pretence to be correct in my judgment, nor to be fully fair to the products in question.

NAPOLEON'S. I read good reviews about the book as an excellent introduction to the period, but nothing about the rules themselves really caught my attention. I am already an experienced Napoleonic player, so, while I welcome a product that will ease access into the genre for new players, I didn't feel compelled to add these particular rules to my collection. Thus, I passed on this item.

BLACK POWDER. Online reviews were consistent in stressing that these rules are for big units on a big table. That was an automatic NO for me. Other comments stressed the quality of the text, entertaining and tongue-in-cheek, with a soft "old school" feel. This was attractive to me, but not at $45+. Fortunately, Amazon is offering them for a fraction of their retail price, very much a mistake due to some confusion in regard of the currency. I could not say no at that price, even if I have to wait for the first week of February for delivery.

REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE. This set appears to belong to the family of detailed and process-oriented rules that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s: by what I read, I would associate some of their mechanisms to the tradition of Empire, Legacy of Glory, Valmy to Waterloo... I own all of these sets, that were read a lot and played not that much. Honestly, I do not have much appetite to add another one to my collection. Pass.

LASALLE. These rules are authored by Sam Mustafa, of Grande Armee fame. Regardless of some minor disagreements I may have with those, I strongly believe that everything Sam writes is well worth attention, and the price of the publication. Thus, I ordered and already read this excellent book, and I am very satisfied with the choice. There are some very intriguing concepts in this piece. The sequence of play is IGO-UGO, but with a twist. The size of the game is right, and the rules almost perfectly fit my basing scheme (but they are flexible enough to accommodate for almost every major basing scheme out there.) Other features are unusual for a Napoleonic game. The author tried to work out a compromise for rules that would please the traditional Napoleonic grognard, while appealing at the same time to the tournament crowd. For full disclosure, I have to confess I am not a tournament player, and I am actually very opposed to the whole tournament scene and culture. That said, cuique suum; and I would acknowledge that Sam's compromise is indeed very witty. Nothing prevents you to play Lasalle as a purely "historical" game, and nothing prevents you to play it in competitive settings; yet, Lasalle avoids all the silliness of army lists and points that, to my eyes, mar tournament rules. Instead, Lasalle introduces basic armies, standardized but historically plausible, that in turn can be beef up with additional units (think of them as "assets" in the modern jargon) for the game that are both balanced yet make historical sense.

LE FEU SACRE. This is the outlier, as a game that refrains from the bells and whistles of a glossy publication and it is distributed in PDF for a very reasonable $12. The reason why I bought it is that i have greatly enjoyed some other rules and game from TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum, If The Lord Spares Us, Troops Weapons & Tactics,Rock the Casbah, B'Maso. Thus far, I only had the opportunity for a quick read, and I noticed that LFS seems to be a more rigorous and detailed game than many of its TFL more free-wheeling predecessors. Nonetheless, some of the ideas are interesting, and there will soon be the opportunity to play test it.

TO SUM UP Here I am, sitting on my couch surrounded by two new Napoleonic games, Lasalle and Le Feu Sacre, and with a third on its way, Black Powder; on the shelf in front of me, some other classics from my collection: my favorite ever, Piquet - Les Grognards; two strong runner-ups, Grande Armee and Napoleon's Battles (the AH miniature game, a classic in itself)... you would wonder, something must be brewing into my napoleonic plans and projects... and this is indeed the case! For which, though, you will have to wait for the next post (I promise, it will come soon!)

Marlburian infantry units in review

Today I finally managed to spend a few hours to fix some final details on my Marlburian armies, and I also had the opportunity to take some long-due photos of the final results of, literally, months of work. I am very pleased by how things are shaping up in this project. of course, I would have liked to proceed faster, but overall I cannot complain. Life has been busy, really busy: and yet, I have succeeded in bringing several units to the table -- literally.

Right now, the bulk of my Marlburian forces are in two armies: the one of the Elector of Palatinate, and one French. ideally, I will probably develop an imagine-nation narrative when the time to deploy them will come, but for the time being I am glad to keep them both relatively historical.

For the Palatinate forces, I also manage to paint a commander, maybe the Elector himself. You cans ee him here, all smiles after a full staisfactory review of his troops. These are 15mm Edition Brokaw miniatures.

Thus far, I have completed five Palatinate regiments, based on 12 miniatures per regiment: IR Bettendorf and IR Rehbinder (blue coat with red cuffs); IR Haxthousen and IR Westerwald-Dillendurg (blue coat, green cuffs); IR Saxe-Meiningen (red coat, green cuffs.) Here the five units:

For the time being, only one Palatinate cavalry regiment has been completed, RR Hochkirk, while two other cavalry units are in the pipeline, one dragoons and one cuirassiers (the Gendarmes de Venningen.) Here's Hochkirk's cavalrymen:


The French units have been completed in a more free-wheeling, unsystematic manner. Thus far, I count four "regular" infantry regiments: Normandie, Piedmont, Perche, Enghien. In addition, there are two Irish units, Abermarle and Donnington, and one Swiss, Stuppa, plus some Spanish grenadiers (you can see them in the background in the second picture below, or here for a close-up during painting.)



What will be next? There are some items with very high priority. I need cavalry for the French; two units of dragoons are about to hit the workbench, and eventually one more of mounted musketeers. As I mentioned, there are two cavalry units for Electoral Palatinate that are almost completed, and I am considering an additional couple of Imperial cuirassiers. Then, I need artillery -- something is in the pipeline, but I need to hurry up... So, yes, still a lot of work is waiting for me. But, nonetheless, some very sweet progress as well!