Garibaldis Army 1860-7 - Troops on Parade

 

With all the World Cup match ups underway there's time for some figure stuff. I managed to put together a Troops on Parade review of the #28mm Garibaldi Collection on the Utubes. (Link at bottom of page)

Around 550 figs from the (Award Winning, but I don't like to mention it) 😉 Mentana Game 

A really interesting collection to put together, Gringo40s were the mainstay of the army with 12 of the 20 Battalions. I've then needed to go "off piste" for other units using Perry ACW and BIF for 6 and 2 Battalions respectively. There are also a smattering of Shako 64, with the Artillery and some of the named officers. The video explains it all.

There are a couple of shows Mentana hasn't been to, so it may see the light of day again. I have long term plans to add a Bourbon Army and do the Battle of Volturno which would also require at least doubling these. But that's a years away with other projects underway in front of it.

This part of a project is always the best for me, flopping it all out on the table, makes all the time and the effort worth it.

Link to vid in comments 

Regards Ken 

Yarkshire Gamer 

#wargames #tabletopgaming #history #Risorgimento #hobby

Troops on Parade - Papal / French Army for Mentana 1867

 

I've put together a video covering the 28mm Army I put together for the Papal French Forces at the Battle of Mentana in 1867 available now on the Utubes 

I've used figures from Wargames Foundry, Perry Miniatures and Gringo40s to put the army together and had to go to various ranges outside of the Risorgimento to get the figures I needed. A lot of them have been released by Shako64 since which is a real pain !

The French are from the Perry Miniatures Franco Prussian War range, part plastic part metal.

The Papal Zouaves were made from Perry ACW plastic Zouaves with Steve Barber head swaps

I used figures from The Perrys Triple Alliance to represent The OIC of the Papal French General Kanzler

I'll do a similar thing with the Garibaldi next week

Some size comparisons, Foundry, Perry, Gringo40s 

And Cavalry Gringo, Perry

Papal St Patricks Battalion

 

Sometimes you can trace a Project back to a long held burning desire and this is one of those, I have always been fascinated by those who leave their country of origin to travel far overseas (in a time when such a thing was uncommon) to fight for a cause they believed in. From the Volunteers of the International Brigades to the Irish Battalion in 1860. Add to that I'm a suckered for a lost cause !

I have been reading about the St Patricks Battalion for many years but never really had an excuse to buy any. These wonderful figures from Gringo 40s came on the market a few years ago and have always been at the back of my mind (link to figures below)

The Commander of the unit was Major Myles O'Reilly who I would like to think was some distant uncle 😉

http://www.gringo40s.com/papal-states-infantry.html

But with this Project I can also locate the exact amount that I started it. At the end of my Reet Big Wargames Podcast I get my guests to ask me a question. At the end of episode 6 with Utubes Star Von Ketteringham he asked me "what unit from history that you haven't painted would you like to ?" It was then that I remembered the St Patricks Battalion, next thing I had ordered the figures from the Internet and the rest is History. 

What a joy the Internet is for a Wargames figure addicts perspective 😀 

The unit was made up of Irish Volunteers and was only around for a very short space of time, many of the men went on to join the Papal Zouaves or returned home to Ireland after 1860.

If you want to learn more about the history of the unit and the men who volunteered then I can recommend the book "Victorian Crusaders" by Nicholas Schofield which is published by Helion, link below, with a link to my Utubes review of it.

https://helionbooks.wordpress.com/2022/08/10/victorian-crusaders/

For the pendants amongst you, 

The unit never fought as a single unit as depicted in my photos

Most of the unit never received the wonderful uniform the models I have painted are wearing.

The flags are not correct and I have added more generic Papal States flags until I get more information.

The green is a base of Vallejo Luftwaffe Green Camo, washed with a 50 50 mix of Army Painter Dark Tone and Military Shader, then drag brushed with a 50 50 mix of Luftwaffe Cam Green and USA Uniform, finished off with a light drybrush of USA uniform. Everything else is my usual style, no wet palettes or contrast Paints have been injured in the preparation of this unit 😆

A lovely looking and most unusual unit for the table, for the American readers this went no where near Mexico ! See you again soon when the blogging bug strikes again 👍

28mm Papal Dragoons for the Risorgimento

 

I've finally put the finishing touches to my Papal Army for the Battle of Mentana by adding a unit of Papal Dragoons. The figures are from Gringo 40s, they aren't always avaliable on the Website but I managed to sweet talk the owner Gd Cronin to get some made up and it was well worth it.

I've done them as 12 figures, there were 106 Dragoons with the Papal Troops and another 50 with the French Column so that's a figure ratio of about 13 to 1. Most of my Infantry units are around 15 to 1 so that works perfectly.

The flag for the unit is known and should be green with a very complicated coat of arms on, but as with the other units in the force I've used a simple Papal States flag for now and if I can source a "proper" flag I'll substitute it in later on.

The figures are really nice but they are really big compared to other 28mm figs and they absolutely dwarf Perry Miniatures. My normal Cavalry are on 50 x 60 bases with 2 per base, I've had to put these on 60 x 70 bases.

I was trying to get the Project ready for the end of October but the Perrys still haven't released their French Franco Prussian War Infantry so I'm a bit stuck at the moment so it looks like I won't be able to put the Mentana game on this year.

The unit also features in this months Wargames Update on the Utubes 

28mm Italian Risorgimento Project

 

Running multiple social media platforms can get a bit confusing and for reasons discussed before I've not been doing blog posts as frequently as a few years ago. There was a time when most new units would have their own posts, something which I now tend to do on Facebook, the outcome of this is that I've hardly covered my 28mm Italian Risorgimento Project on here.

Above is a picture of the Project to date 6 units of 24 Garibaldi, 1 unit of 16, a battery of 3 guns and a Command Stand plus a unit of 36 Papal Troops. The end goal is both sides for the Battle of Mentana which is just over 30 units so I'm about one third of the way through.

The majority of the figures are from Gringo 40s who do a good range of Garibaldi Infantry (along with Piedmont and Neopolitan troops which I'm not using), the figures have great detail and provide a great base to build a project around. A link to the range is below,

http://www.gringo40s.com/28mm-garibaldis-war-1860.html

Outside of that range Shako 64 in Italy do a decent range and some English language uniform guides, worries around delivery from Italy has limited my Shako 64 purchases to date, the Garibaldi Artillery are from that range.

One of the challenges of the period is sourcing figures and their has some fun improvisation along the way, these Perry Miniatures British Intervention Force figures have doubled up as a unit of the Dunne Battalion, its reminded me of the old days of wargaming in many ways !

Look out for some more wierd and wonderful figure use over the coming months. Half of the Papal Army were French and I am currently waiting for the Perrys to release their Franco Prussian French plastic box set, if that doesn't happen in the next couple of months (I'm looking at doing this as a display game at FIASCO in October) then I will need to get some from another company.

My favourite unit so far is definitely my Papal Zouaves, a mixture of Perry Miniatures plastic ACW Zouaves and metal, kepi heads from Steve Barber Models and 36 figures strong to me it looks the business, I have another unit the same size to do along with Skirmish bases and a Commander to form a Zouave Brigade which I am really looking forward to getting on the table.

I will try and keep the blog updated a little bit more with this project as it goes along, I'm still not sure what rules I'm going to use as I've struggled to get anything specific for the period yet. I'm going to pick up a copy of Pickets Charge and see if I can Italian Risorgimento them !

28mm Papal Zouaves for the Risorgimento

I've been neglecting the blog recently, with so many other things competing for time with Podcasts, Videos and Paint Challenge, there just haven't been enough hours in the day.

I have been talking about my Risorgimento Project or more specifically my attempt to recreate the Battle of Mentana in 28mm for a while in other places but I haven't really covered it here yet.

There are quite a few Garibaldi units already finished and I'll get round to doing a post on those soon. First up from this project though is my Papal Zouaves, something I did a test base for back in the summer, which I posted up in various places.

I've been looking forward to doing this unit for some time and I'm glad to say I'm really happy with the result. So here is my representation of one of the two Battalions of Papal Zouaves which fought at the Battle of Mentana. These formations were 750 men strong so I've made them 36 figure units as opposed to the earlier Garibaldi Infantry which are 24 figures representing  350 to 400 men.

The unit was truly international and was made up of volunteers from all over the world. Large contingents came from Holland, France and Belgium but most European countries had some representation in the unit along with smaller groups from the Americas, Africa, India and China. Initially a single Battalion in 1861, it increased in strength to 4 Battalions in 1867-8.

The figures are 28mm (of course, I have a reputation to keep 😁). The bodies are from the plastic Perrys ACW Zouave box set, which I had lying around from a previous projects whilst the heads were bought separately from Steve Barber Models. There are some minor variations in the sources I have about the uniform so I picked a version and went for it. The flags are a research project in themselves and for the moment I've just used a generic Papal States flag,

As is pretty much the norm with all my stuff now I've extended the depth if the bases, I love the sculpting of the weapons on the Perry Plastics and its to perfect scale, it is however a touch fragile and as these figures will be gamed with and most likely go to a few shows as a display game I want to protect them.

Simply by extending the depth so the whole of the weapon stays within the boundary of the base gives a much greater level of protection, its something I've been doing for a pretty long time now, harping back to my first plastic AWI figures.

I don't have a plan for rules yet, I have had a look around but nothing has grabbed my fancy yet. There are some Italian Language rules specifically for the period (and I love that in a rule set) however I've not been able to get hold of a copy.

So I've done my usual thing of basing before deciding on rules and gone for 60 x 60 bases six figures to a base. I've also used my staggered ranks technique to make the unit look "fuller".

Most of the photos have been done with the white background I've been practicing with, it definitely gives a very different look to my usual "terrain" background and is particularly hard to light but it's growing on me.

Next up I will be back with another episode of the Podcast (number 20 !)