Backstories for my Belle Époque imagi-nations: The Kingdom of Schwarzenberg

The figures that form the bulk of this army were bought from Irregular Miniature's back in the early 1980s and painted not long after the 15mm Minifig Union Infantry that are now in the Army of Burgundy. I had the idea of fighting some Franco-Prussian War battles, but once the figures were painted, I lost interest in the project and they languished in storage until I began my Belle Époque project.

What marks them out as a bit different is that they were the first figures I ever painted using water-based acrylic paint. I tried out some that had I bought in a now long-gone model shop in Greenwich, like the results, and have pretty well stuck with acrylics ever since.

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The Kingdom of Schwarzenberg

The kingdom was founded not long after the revolution in Burgundy saw the replacement of the monarchy by a republic. Such an institution was anathema to the ruler of Neumark, a small duchy within the area now known as Schwarzenberg. He persuaded the other local princes and dukes to form an alliance that became known as the Confederation of the North. In the subsequent war with the new republic, the Confederation was invaded and partially occupied, but under the leadership of the Duke of Neumark, the forces of the Confederation rallied, and eventually the Burgundians were thrown out of the Confederation's territory.

Not wishing to suffer a further invasion, the leaders of the Confederation decided that each principality and duchy would contribute military units to a Confederate Army, and that the Duke of Neumark should be its commander and he should be elevated to the rank of Prince of the Confederation. The units adopted the style of dress and drill used in Neumark's small army, and within a few years this unified army was well placed to protect the Confederation.

Enmity between the Republic of Burgundy and the Confederation simmered for many years, with occasional outbreaks of border warfare not being uncommon. Leadership of the Confederate Army passed to the son of its first commander, and when the Burgundians tried to invade the Confederation for a second time, the Confederate Army beat then soundly. As a result, the Prince of Neumark enjoyed immense popular support, and the leaders of the Confederation voted to unit as a kingdom under the rule of the Prince of Neumark. He became the first king of the newly-created country and chose to name it after the highest peak in the country's main mountain range, the Black Mountain.

The flag of the Kingdom of Schwarzenberg.

The country’s economy is a mixture of heavy and light manufacturing industries, mining, forestry, fishing, and agriculture.

The country's army is composed of a number of well-equipped regular troops who are supported by conscripts who have undertaken two or three years of training with the regular army before passing into the reserves.

Another health update

Yesterday I had an appointment with a consultant oncologist at our local hospital. I expected that the discussion would cover what treatment I will need to undergo to deal with my prostate cancer … and I was not disappointed.

It appears that two lymph nodes near my prostate show signs of cancer, and these need to be stopped from growing any further. This will require me to undertake a further thirty-day course of hormone tablets in conjunction with my three-monthly injections, and at the end of this treatment a decision will be made about how much radiotherapy I will need to undertake.

So, it’s a mixture of some good and some nor so good news … but I remain positive. I always try to remember that far more men die WITH prostate cancer than die OF the cancer, and they must think that I stand a good chance of survival as the drug I am going to be taking for thirty days costs €4,532 in Europe and $14,235 in the US.

COW2022 was great ... and I can hardly wait to go to COW2023!

This year's COW2022 was a great success ... and I know that I and every other attendee I spoke to is already looking forward to attending COW2023!

For the first time in its forty-two-year history, the Conference of Wargamers (COW) was held at the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire ... and it proved to be an excellent venue. The accommodation was of a standard that one would expect to find in a university Hall of Residence or one of the chain of budget no-fills hotels. In other words, it was clean, a bit corporate-looking, reasonably equipped, and each room had en-suite facilities. The food was of a similar standard, but the surroundings we ate in were more like those found in a university refectory.

The sessions were all held in the so-called Tech Centre of the Defence Academy, which houses a lecture theatre, a large multi-purpose room ... and the Academy's own private museum of weapons! I will write more about the latter in a future blog post but being able to actually look at both the outside and inside of several modern armoured fighting vehicles et al was worth to cost of attending the conference!

The only downsides from my point-of-view were getting to the venue and getting around it. In the former instance, this was down to the fact that I live in southeast London and had to use the very crowded motorway system to get there, and what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive (according to both my satnav and Google Maps) took over four hours. The second problem was due to the very spread-out nature of what is effectively a university campus, and that since my recent operations, walking much more than a couple of hundred yards can be very tiring ... or very slow!

Would I go back to the Academy if COW was held there again? Of course I would! The downsides were a mere inconvenience which fade into insignificance when compared to the boost I got from going to COW for the first time in three years!

COW2022 is over ... and I can hardly wait to go to COW2023!

It’s COW time!

This weekend is COW weekend!

The Conference of Wargamers (COW) has been taking place every year (except when COVID prevented it from happening) since 1980 … and its usual venue has been Knuston Hall in Northamptonshire. Unfortunately, Knuston Hall has been closed for essential repairs, and for a time it looked as if COW2022 would have to be a virtual conference … and then, a couple of months ago, Wargame Developments (WD) was able to book an alternative location, the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham, near Swindon, Wiltshire, although the Academy is actually in Oxfordshire. Because the venue is larger than Knuston Hall, we are expecting nearly fifty attendees, including a substantial number of newbies.

Attendees will be arriving at the venue from 4.00pm onwards, and the pre-dinner check-in will begin at 5.00pm. Dinner will be at 7.00pm, and the opening session and plenary game will start at 8.30pm. The conference will then run until the WD AGM takes place at 2.00pm on Sunday.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

I will write a report of what I see and do … but this might not appear until the middle of next week as I always find COW both an exhilarating and tiring event, especially as some of the After Dinner Games have been known to go on until late into the night.

Wargames Vault Summer Sale!

I understand that the Wargames Vault Summer Sale has started and will last until 11th July … and there are lots of titles reduced in price by up to 25%.

I have opted in all of the Eglinton Books PDF publications, so they should be included in the sale … so if you’ve been thinking of buying a PDF of one of my books, now is the time to do so!

Backstories for my Belle Époque imagi-nations: The Emirate of Khyberistan

During early 1990 my career was in a state of flux. I was working for the Inner London Education Authority (better known as the ILEA) as a Post-16 Education Coordination and local vocational education advisor, but as the ILEA was about to be abolished, I had no idea what was going to happen to me. For a time I was ‘handed over’ to the local authority (then known as the London Borough of Greenwich) which had taken over control of education in the Borough, but it was obvious that great changes were about to be made and my job was going to disappear.

I had hoped that I might be made redundant (the redundancy settlement was extremely generous, and I would have been able to pay off our mortgage and put a substantial amount of money in the bank), but Greenwich decided that they would not allow anyone to be made redundant due to the handover. In the end I was offered a job as a Housing Officer … for which I had no training whatsoever! Luckily for me, one of the headteachers I worked for needed someone with my skills, and I was offered a temporary (and later, permanent) contract to become Head of Careers and Technical and Vocational Education Coordinator.

Whilst all this was going on, I took my mind off my troubles by painting a batch of 15mm Irregular Miniatures Dervish Infantry. Over the years these figures have seen sterling service as Dervishes, Arabs, Pathans, and Afghans, and I decided that after such long and distinguished tabletop careers, they should be renovated as part of my Belle Époque project and be used to form a small native army, the Khyberistani Army.

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The Emirate of Khyberistan

Khyberistan is a small mountainous country that is ruled over by an hereditary Emir. It’s people mainly rely on hunting wild animals for their meat, subsistence farming for their fruit and vegetables, and goat herding for their milk, cheese, and wool, and the wool from Khyberistani goats is renown for its softness, warmth, and water-resistance. The local tribes also trade small quantities of gold and precious gems with the outside world, but in general, foreigners (i.e. anyone who is not a Khyberistani) is viewed with suspicion.

The flag of the Emirate of Khyberistan.

The population is split into three main tribes, each of which comprises a number of family clans. Although blood feuds between clans and tribes occasionally break out, the Emir usually arranges for them to be resolved by a system that is akin to trial by combat. Each side chooses a champion, and they are pitted against one another in a series of tests (e.g. killing a mountain lion), which if both survive, culminates in a duel to the death with knives.

Because almost every male Khyberistani is a hunter, they are all marksmen, and a large number of small artisan metalworkers are able to produce copies of imported rifles that are indistinguishable from the originals.

Each tribe provides troops (mainly infantry but also including some light artillery) to defend the county when called upon by the Emir. They generally operate as individual tribal columns and have their own supply units. The Emir has a small full-time bodyguard that includes obsolete fortress artillery, and these act as a garrison for the fortress that protects the nation’s capital, Khyberpore.

My latest Belle Époque army: A progress report.

Just over a week ago I mentioned on my blog that the next group of figures that I intended to renovate was the non-Hadendowa figures from my 15mm Mahdist army. I had already removed them from their original bases and decided that I needed to renovate them in manageable batches.

The first batch I tackled were the cavalry (sixteen figures) and camelry (twelve figures). These had not been particularly well painted originally. For example, the manes and tails of the horses had been left in the same colour as the horses’ bodies, and no ‘socks’ had been painted on their legs. I rectified this (and several other minor faults) when I renovated the figures.

It was at this point that I realised that I had almost run out of unit bases. I had enough to base the cavalry, but not enough for the camelry. I immediately ordered some more from Warbases, and with luck they will arrive in a day or so. In the meantime, I hope to begin work on the next batch of figures, which will probably be the rifle-armed infantry.

Backstories for my Belle Époque imagi-nations: The Sultanate of Khakistan

Khakistan came into being when I found a number of painted but unbased 15mm Essex Miniatures that had been painted in various shades of khaki. The uniforms looked vaguely like those worn by the Turkish Army during the Great War, and as a result they were used to create the Army of Khakistan ... and Ottoman Turkey provided the inspiration for Khakistan.

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The Sultanate of Khakistan

The Sultanate of Khakistan is all that remains of the once-great Sofaman Empire. The empire had once included Harabia, Sahel, Stalbania, and Zubia, but over recent years these areas had broken away from Sofaman rule, and all that was left was Khakistan, the heartland of the empire.

The flag of the Sultanate of Khakistan.

Although the Sultans have all come from the same ruling family, the title has not always been passed down from father to son. Occasionally a younger brother has succeeded to the throne, usually when the incumbent has proven to be ineffective, an imbecile, or infertile. Government is by decree, and the senior officer of the Sultan's Court – the Vizier – performs the functions of Prime Minister and head of the Civil Servant.

Agriculture is the backbone of the country's economy, but over recent years heavy and light manufacturing industries have begun to develop, as has mining. This increase in the country's wealth has seen the Khakistani Army undergo a degree of modernisation, and instructors and weaponry from both Burgundy and Schwarzenberg have resulted in the creation of a small, modern army.

I have been to … Severndroog Castle

Yesterday, Sue and I paid a visit to Severndroog Castle. It is a folly and is situated about a mile from our house on the southern side of Shooters Hill. (We actually went because there was a monthly Farmer’s Market taking place at the castle … and we bought some jewellery and homemade cakes … and Sue was able to sample some locally-distilled Greenwich Gin.)

The castle was built to commemorate Commodore Sir William James destruction of the island fortress of Suvarnadurg* (English: Severndroog) in April 1755. He died in 1783 and the folly was built by his widow. it was designed by Richard Jupp, and the foundation stone was laid on 2nd April 1784.

The castle is 63 feet tall, and is actually a triangular, Gothic-style tower with a hexagonal turret at each corner. As it is close to the top of one of the highest points around London, on a clear day it is possible to see seven different counties from the upper level (Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, and Berkshire).

The castle remained in private hands unit 1922, when it was purchased by the London County Council (LCC). It became a visitor attraction, and a ground-floor tearoom was installed. When the LCC became the Greater London Council, they took over the castles, and when the GLC was abolished in 1986, ownership passed into the hands of Greenwich Council.

Greenwich Council closed public access to the castle in 1988 and boarded up it up. In 2002 the Severndroog Castle Building Preservation Trust was set up, and two years later it was featured in the BBC TV series ‘Restoration’. Thanks to a grant of £595,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund grant, work began on the restoration of the castle in July 2013, and it was reopened to the public on 20th July 2014.

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* Suvarnadurg (Marathi: सुवर्णदुर्ग, which means Golden Fort in English) is located on a small island in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of India, between Mumbai and Goa and near to Harnai in Konkan. The island on which the fort was built is about a mile offshore and is thought that the fort was constructed around 1660 on the orders of the founder of the Maratha Empire, Shivaji Bhonsale I ... who was also known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

A more burgundy-coloured flag for the Republic of Burgundy!

In a comment on yesterday's blog post, one of my regular blog readers (Elliesdad/Geoff) suggested that the colour red that I had chosen was a bit too bright, and that a burgundy shade of red would have been more appropriate. I tried out his suggestion ... and the result was a better-looking flag, as can be seen below.

In the end I used the hex code #800020 (RGB decimal code 128, 0, 32) for the shade of burgundy that I thought was most suitable.