Happy Christmas

I wanted to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year and in the spirit of giving (even tiny ‘giving’) a list of most (perhaps 80-90%) of the Prussian Generals of the WAS and SYW, with their regimental numbers. This is a slightly more complete list than I have provided in the new Prussian painting guide and I hope you find it useful if Prussians of the SYW are your ‘thing’. This might help you in giving that individual the correct uniform. Click on the image to expand. If you want a better image then let me know and I'll email you.

One final note. Many of you have purchased one or both of the new Uniform guides I mentioned above – thank you. They are experiencing shocking weather in the UK I gather (I’m in the SW of France where we have had no snow to speak of) and I think Terry has or will be writing to all of you suggesting that we delay posting. He will post on Monday if you respond to his email asking him to do so. Otherwise booklets will be going out in the post before the year end. My apologies for the delay but this is as perfect example of ‘factors beyond our control’ as possible

Greenwood & Ball are out!

These are now out and can be purchased individually or together (at a discount) so please go to www.18thcenturypress.com

Thanks for your interest.

Savory Christmas Sale

Just to let you know, we are having a 16% off Christmas Sale at 18thCenturyPress for the Savory book. This is a repeat of the very successful sale we had last year.

Just go to www.18thcentury press.com and click on the Savory tab on the left hand side.

Next week I’ll be putting the Greenwood & Ball SYW uniform guides on the website.

IR12.1 von Finck

The top three pictures show the first battalion of the Regiment von Finck (No.12), a regiment highly rated by Frederick when he reviewed the performance of his army after the SYW.

The bottom pictures shows both battalions in line. They are, if you missed my previous post, 40mm from Trident.

On the subject of the re-printing of the Greenwood & Ball SYW Uniform guides, I think we are now about a week away. One of the things I have included in the Prussian booklet is this rating system of Frederick's mentioned above: one star or two stars given to just a handful of Infantry and Cavalry units that may help you rate your wargames units.

Hordes of Gauls

The Roman Army for the invasion of Aquitania is finished. The Gallic army is almost finished – all that remains are some slingers and archers (Old Glory) which are rather uninspiring figures and which I will finish soon. These warbands are based slightly wider than usual to reflect the fact that they are hill tribesmen with the ability to move fast in a looser order.

This post is about the five warbands. I was uncertain as to what I should call them and in the end I have given them names after their standards. It’s not an entirely satisfactory solution and I would rather have named them after locales but most names have changed significantly and a place called, for example, Nerac (a nearby town) was probably not called Nerac two thousand years ago. There is a nearby town called Eauze and that was where an allied tribe called the Elusates was located but that is the only tribal name I have been able to track down – besides the Sotiates of course.

There is a temptation, reinforced by terms like ‘warband’, to consider Gauls to be barbarians in comparison to their sophisticated and sometimes effete Roman neighbours. But this is misleading on a number of levels.

Gallic society was surprisingly sophisticated. It traded throughout the Mediterranean, both importing and exporting and it farmed sufficiently well enough to feed a growing population. The fundamental unit of Gallic politics was the tribe, which itself consisted of one or more of what Caesar called pagi. Each tribe had a council of elders, and initially a king. Later, the executive was an annually-elected magistrate.

The tribal groups, or pagi, were organized into larger super-tribal groups the Romans called civitates. The Sotiates were a pagi within the civitates of the Aquitani but they may also have been a civitates themselves with lesser tribes within their collective. Although the tribes were moderately stable political entities, Gaul as a whole tended to be politically divided, there being virtually no unity among the various tribes. Caesar divided Gaul into three ethnic groups: the Belgae in the north (roughly between the Rhine and the Seine rivers), the Celts in the center and the Aquitani in the southwest and the first two spent much of their energies opposing the expansion of the German tribes into Gaul.

The Aquitani had the luxory of being distant from the German threat and their focus lay to the south of the Pyrenees. They were Celto-Iberians and as Crassus’s campaign continued after the defeat of the Sotiates, the remaining Aquitani pagi called for, and received, help from Iberians who had helped Sertorius in his rebellion against Rome.

Another intriguing facet of Gallic life was religion and the practice of the Druids. The druids presided over human or animal sacrifices that were made in wooded groves or rude temples. They also appear to have held the responsibility for preserving the annual agricultural calendar and instigating seasonal festivals which corresponding to key points of the lunar-solar calendar. The religious practices of druids were syncretic and borrowed from earlier pagan traditions, especially of ancient Britain. Julius Caesar mentions in his Gallic Wars that those Celts who wanted to make a close study of druidism went to Britain to do so. There is no certainty concerning the origin of the druids, but it is clear that they vehemently guarded the secrets of their order and held sway over the people of Gaul. Indeed they claimed the right to determine questions of war and peace, and thereby held an "international" status. In addition, the Druids monitored the religion of ordinary Gauls and were in charge of educating the aristocracy. They also practiced a form of excommunication from the assembly of worshipers, which in ancient Gaul meant a separation from secular society as well. Thus the Druids were an important part of Gallic society. The nearly complete and mysterious disappearance of the Celtic language from most of the territorial lands of ancient Gaul, with the exception of Brittany, France, can be attributed to the fact that Celtic druids refused to allow the Celtic oral literature or traditional wisdom to be committed to the written letter. They also encouraged the practice of of headhunting as the head was believed to house a person's soul.

The other thing that is worth noting is that the Romans were hard as nails. Under Caesar their ruthlessness was quite a shock to the Gauls. Caesar’s war was a war of conquest not a war of retribution. By the time the Gallic tribes had united under the chief of the Arverni tribe, Vercingetorix, the game was largely over. As many as a million people (probably 1 in 5 of the Gauls) died, another million were enslaved, 300 tribes were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars . The entire population of the city of Avaricum (modern day Bourges) (40,000 in all) were slaughtered. During Julius Caesar's campaign against the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) approximately 60% of the tribe was destroyed, and another 20% was taken into slavery.

I take no credit for the painting of these figures as they have marched in from overseas. But I had to sort out all the shields (if I never do another transfer it will be too soon!), paint them with Armypainter to give them that dirty, muddy look and then base them. Figures are mostly from the excellent Warlord Games.

Re-printing Greenwood & Ball SYW uniform guides: 1) Prussia 2) Austria

As some of you know, we (18th Century Press – see our link on the right) are re-printing the SYW Uniform guides. The good news is that the Prussian one is finished and the Austrian one is being worked on at the moment. I want to be able to release both at the same time and that will be within the next four weeks. I want to be able to release then together so that you will be able to buy both together at a better price than buying them individually. They will be priced at £10 each plus post and packing (quite small as you will see shortly) or £18 for the pair. I will be letting readers of this blog get the news first as to actual availability and as to when the website (www.18thcenturypress.com) is taking orders for these booklets.

If you have never been fortunate to own these, let me tell you about them. They are 26 pages long, in booklet format with colour front and back cover and also have four pages of colour plates in the centre. There are also many black and white illustrations. The Prussian booklet has additional information (more flags are shown, we have added information of regimental commanders, grenadier battalion convergence, Fredericks own assessment of their performance etc) and the Austrian booklet will contain charts of WAS Uniform facings and a large new section on flags. The core of the work remains the Greenwood & Ball publications but there has been a serious amount of up-dating, editing and additions.

I said I’d mention postage rates. To give you an idea of these, the UK will be £1 for one booklet and £1.50 for two. Europe will be £1.80 for one, £2.50 for two. The Rest of the World will be £2.50 for one and £4 for two. As I hope you can see we have tried to keep postage to actual cost.

I’ve posted pictures of the new covers. I’ll let you know when these are ready.

Austrian GM von Kottendorf

I thought it was time to paint an Austrian Brigade General in 40mm but nobody makes them for the SYW.

So I looked for a Trident Hessian to convert and my main criteria was that there should be no gorget as this would be difficult to cut away from any metal figure. Voila, this gentleman appeared and he looked like a suitable candidate.

The model came with a bare head and a separate tricorne which, I suppose, was to be placed somehow in his outstretched hand. But the hand position looked wrong and I could not see any way of putting a tricorne into his hand. So I filed his head down and glued his hat to his head in a somewhat rakish angle. Then I had to cut away the cord that held the cane to his coat lapel (this is an error on the designer’s part as I am sure that officers in the Hessian army of the AWI – that is the period the range is designed for – did not have a cane suspended from their lapels). NCOs did though. But Austrian officers carried a black cane so it is now just being held in his hand. Then he needed fuller cuffs so I used greenstuff to fill them out.

Then it was just a question of painting him. I think it’s a splendid uniform. He is a tad taller than the men in his brigade (Sash and Saber) but, hey, maybe he is a giant amongst men.

When Chris at S&S sends me some more figures I’ll be able to finish off Kottendorf’s Infantry brigade and maybe complete a Dragoon regiment.

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On a completely different note, I was spammed by Rolex, the up-market watch people, today. Now either they are no longer up-market or business is so bad that they have taken to the equivalent of begging on the street. I’ve knocked them off my Christmas list for shocking temerity!

40mm Trident Hessians as Prussians

These are Trident’s 40mm Hessians from their AWI range but perfectly suited for the WAS/SYW. They are not easy to paint as the detail is so crisp that there are no areas to fudge. But, nonetheless, I absolutely love them. They are slightly thinner and taller than the heftier Sash and Saber 40mm SYW figures but I think they will do fine.

Having sold most of the 40mm I’ve now decided to restart this project and I will use these Trident figures for the Prussians while continuing to use S & S for the Austrians.

The drummer comes with a separate drum and hands. Next time I’ll paint the figures first and then add the drum and hands as getting a brush into those nooks and crannies is not easy. The standard bearer figure doubles as an NCO and comes with a spontoon if you wish to use it. Again the hands are separate. The officer has a separate right hand. All the remaining figures are one-piece castings with three basic poses of the arms and numerous head variations in each body pose.

I think these are quite possibly the finest wargames figures I have ever had the pleasure to paint - and that is saying a lot as I have painted figures from most manufacturer’s ranges. The only caveat is that they are not easy to paint. They are intolerant of sloppy painting so took me a great deal of time. Army Painter has been used again, but in a minimalist way only on straps and small clothes. I am content with the result and will soon start on the second battalion of this regiment, one of my favourites, Number 12.

Preobrazenskiy Leib-Guard ‘Leibkompanie’ SYW

Have you every seen a more ostentatious uniform before? Well my guess would be that the Empress Elizabeth, no slouch herself when it came to outrageous dress, had this uniform designed by a theatrical costumier.

Kronoskaf say that “In 1742, Elizabeth Petrovna created the Leibkompanie from the grenadiers of the regiment in recognition of the help that this unit had given her when she had walked upon the Palais d'hiver.” I think that is a reference to seizing power by marching on the Winter Palace. They did not last long though as Peter III disbanded them in 1762.

These are Foundry figures by our friend ‘sausage-fingers’ and they are rather splendid. Their hats are covered in ostrich feathers – all-white for officers and red-white for rank and file. NCOs had white feathers with a red stripe down the centre and drummers the reverse feather colour. I would imagine that they would have preferred to stay indoors as ostrich feather look rather sad when wet! Of course this unit did not serve at the front in the SYW but guarded the Empress in St.Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo. They were a highly priviledged elite. Ordinary grenadiers had the rank and pay of a Lieutenant in the army and a Lieutenant ranked as a senior general.

I think I have made a couple of errors when I painted these – drummers should have been in reversed colours and the helmet itself might have had a black background to the Imperial eagle plate on the front. I have Pengel and Hurt but they don’t always present the information in a clear and legible manner. I wish someone would produce a decent guide for Russian uniforms of the SYW! Oh, and I have used ArmyPainter on these but in a very minimalist manner.

These don’t fit in my current armies so I will be selling them on eBay on Sunday. If you would be interested in buying them, please contact me or just bid. Ebay item number 110605560463.

Adcantuannus

I knew when I saw this vignette on Foundry's website (GL15) a few months back that I had to buy it to represent Adcantuannus, my Gallic chieftain, despite it’s completely outrageous price. It’s very cartoon-comic like and the sculptor (the same one who did Foundry’s SYW French and British) has certain traits that I recognized when the pack arrived – like, for example, sausage fingers. But, besides these minor things, I like the overall effect and the story it tells. Clearly our chieftain is fond of his capon as well as wine from the Republic (the aristocracy of Gaul had developed a taste for Roman wine by this time) and his four exhausted shield bearers are groaning under their portly load.

Nobody knows what Adcantuannus looked like and I have chosen to make him an old man beyond his prime and quite possibly too old to mount a horse which accounts for this method of transportation. The question is, on the wargames table, should he be stationary or allowed to move? I suspect that if a cohort charged in their direction the shield bearers would very unceremoniously dump their august passenger and grab weapons or run for it.
But on the other hand, if the old boy stood up (perhaps not an easy thing to do) he’d have a better view of the battlefield than on a horse. A minus for mobility and a plus for the improved view?

40mm Trident figures

I'm here asking opinions. The pictures show the new 40mm AWI range from Trident - in particular, the Hessians that are suitable to use as SYW Prussians. In the centre are three Trident figures framed on either side by Sash and Saber 40mm. On the left are Hungarians and on the right are Austrians.

The question is one of size compatability. It's not a proper comparison as the grenadier mitre in the centre is so tall and a better comparison would have been against Austrians in their bearskins but I don't have any so this comparison will have to do.

The Trident figures are certainly thinner. They are also more expensive. But, do you think the look okay together or not? If I used them at all, then all the Prussians would be from the same manufacturer. Answers on a postcard please!

(On the subject of painting these figures, I've used ArmyPainter but only on areas of white and the faces. I like the results although there are inaccuracies in the figures; no shoulder-straps and I don't think that officers carried a cane attached in this way to their lapels. I think that was a method used exclusively by NCOs.)

Spanish Caetrati

Not castrati, as someone on TMP recently said, these are caetrati, or Spanish light infantry hired by Crassus to join his army for the invasion of Aquitania.

Figures are by Crusader, shield transfers by LBM studios and Army painter is by, well, Armypainter!

2nd Battalion 27th Ligne

Continuing on (if ever so slowly) with my Napoleonic project, here is another box of Perry's plastics completed. Thirty six figures in the battalion, plus the light company duplicated in skirmish order, for a total of 42 figures. Just eight more boxes to go to make the Division!

Spanish slingers

These are Crusader figures for my Caesarian Roman army. As the Roman army of this period did not have auxilia they needed to hire light infantry from whomsoever. These slingers have been supplied to Crassus by a nearby friendly Spanish tribe and they will shortly be joined by another group armed with javelins and shields.

These figures were given the quick painting job that involved using Army Painter. They were black undercoated and every colour, except the flesh, was a single tone. The weathered look comes from the Army Painter and this product, which I cannot recommend highly enough, has made this process speedy and enjoyable.

October is normally a month for tidying up my painting desk so I’ve painted quite a variety of figures which you will see over the next few days.

40mm WAS-SYW Austrians

A few months ago I sold all my 40mm Prussians and most of my Austrians. But inspiration has returned as I have been recently editing the old Greenwood & Ball Seven Years War Uniform guides for both the Prussians and the Austrians. New versions of these terrific guides will be released before Christmas by 18th Century Press, my printing company (see the Savory link on the right), and I’ll update you here on my blog with more news soon. The Austrian booklet will cover both the WAS as well as the SYW.

It was the re-writing of the Austrian booklet, with my last blog entry, plus the further correspondence with Christian Rogge on the subject of Infantry flags, that has inspired me to look again at this project. I found the late SYW uniform rather boring and I’ve decided to build a small Austrian WAS army - WAS to early SYW to be precise.

I had one battalion of IR18 Marschall unsold from the ‘old’ project so I have given them red turn-backs as used earlier on. The Hungarian battalion is new and this is the second battalion of IR37 Esterhazy, one of six new Hungarian regiments raised in the WAS.They are carrying the red flags that were issued to these new regiments which will be explained and illustrated in the Austrian booklet. Plus we will be debunking the notion that the so-called green Hungarian flag was issued to Hungarian regiments.

I would have started Austrian and Prussian armies in 25mm if I had liked the figures that manufacturers make for the former – but I don’t sadly and these 40mm from Sash and Saber are deliciously chunky and fun to paint. Plus Chris ‘promises’ that there will be dragoons soon……….

I will put the article on Austrian flags on my blog but not until the end of the year and after the booklets have been published. I hope you understand the reasons why.

Austrian Infantry Uniform differences between the WAS and the SYW

This information is largely based upon Pengel and Hurt publications and correspondence between Christian Rogge and myself.

By the end of the Seven Years War (1756-63) the look of Austrian Infantry had largely been set and standardised to what we are familiar with – the white coat, with white turn-backs and coloured lapels and cuffs. But reaching this simple and elegant uniform had not been a straight forward process and Austria’s infantry in the earlier War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) had presented a far more varied and colourful appearance.

Most wargamers interested in the Lace wars tend to portray armies of the late SYW but I’d like to suggest that, in the case of Austria at least, choosing to replicate her army as a WAS army or an early SYW army will offer you a greater reward in both colourfulness of the uniforms as well as variety of flags. I’ll leave the issue of flags for another day and focus on infantry uniforms.

This is what Pengel and Hurt say:
“Despite regulations there is a definite possibility that until 1760, when uniform regulations were tightened up, that some regiments would have retained the various coloured vests and turn backs previously issued and therefore it can be assumed that in the early stages of the war (SYW) these would have been seen on the battlefield. This assumption is based on the fact that in many regiments, drummers retained their coloured coats to this period and even later, a few regiments retained their coloured turn backs until 1762”
Table
If regiment not listed then = white

Reg.number(1916)...Lapels/Cuffs...Vest(and trousers*)...Turn-backs
IR1.....Red.......Red.....Red
IR3.....Red.......Red.....Red
IR4**...Dark Blue..DkBlue..DkBlue
IR8.....Red.....Red.....Red
IR12.....Blue.....Blue.....Blue
IR17.....Red.....White......Red
IR18.....Red.....White.....Red
IR22.....Red.....BLUE.....Red
IR23.....Dark Blue..DkBlue..DkBlue
IR24.....Dark Blue..White..DkBlue
IR26.....Red.....White.....Red
IR27.....Light Blue..White..Light Blue
IR29.....Blue.....Blue.....Blue
IR30.....Dark Blue..DkBlue..DkBlue
IR42.....Blue.....White.....Blue
IR46.....Red.....Red.....Red
IR47.....Blue.....Blue.....Blue
IR48.....Green.....Green.....Green
IR50.....Red.....White......Red
IR55.....Red.....Red.....Red
Notes:
*Although trousers could be in the vest colour, the greater likelihood is that they were soon replaced by white.
**Sapphire blue according to Greenwood & Ball
Kronskaf don’t have many illustrations but they do agree with IR1 in 1757. They also show IR10, red facings, as having red vests and turn-backs. Please note the above chart has been altered and expanded with the latest information
_______________________
The Pengel and Hurt information seems to stem from Friedrich Schirmer's “Die Heere der kriegführenden Staaten 1756-1763”. Schirmer lists vest colour and trouser colour and he seems to have taken the information from an existing “1757 Militär-Schematismus” (N.B.: an official contemporary Austrian source similar to the French État Militaire volumes). It lists a total of 18 German regiments that had turn-backs in facing colour, and 13 with coloured vests (and breeches). This is the information provided by Dr. Bleckwenn but he does not mention which ones.

SOURCES

This is a short background on the sources.
Morier's 1748 pictures (in the Royal collection) are accurate and basically the sole image source of WAS period. Not much changed till 1756. The change to white for vest and breeches took place after the WAS and before the SYW. But, as he states, a survey of regimental records implies that the commanders responded very slowly to any instructions from the Vienna Hofkriegsrat (Court War Council). The rule seems to have been that they ignored Vienna and responding was more the exception. It was the SYW, with it's much more centralistic and organized re-supply that changed things more, within a matter of 2 or 3 years, then the eight years between WAS and the SYW.

COLOURS

As to the facing colours of the infantry in general. Bleckwenn identifies at least 3 shades of blue and possibly more. That presents all sorts of problems as accounts are rare and contemporary colour illustrations, even rarer. He does state a pale or light blue for Baden-Durlach (27) and this is confirmed by an observation from the battle of Prague. Schwerin was killed in front of this regiment, and it was identified by their light blue facings. He is sure there was only one shade of red. All variants are because of fading or poor copying by artists. From another eyewitness we know that the Regiment de Ligne (38) was seen with rose coloured gaiter belts in 1762 as it paraded out of Schweidnitz. The same witness also saw a dead officer of the same regiment, sometime before, who wore rose Hungarian trousers, half boots and a rose "Soubise" (I take that to be a richly laced vest). Now that's completely against regulation! Bleckwenn states the infantry wore both red and black stocks and as they were issued with both, this sounds quite reasonable.

GOING TOWARDS WHITE

On 27 October 1757, the Hofkriegsrat launched it's notorious order
that the entire infantry should be dressed in white with red cuffs
and lapels only, from 1 November effective. This order never came into effect. In December 1757 it was recalled. The Hofkriegsrat gave in and said everything could remain as it was, but it did continue to insist on white vests and breeches. We may assume that from 1758 on, after the infantry's near destruction in Silesia, many regiments needed complete new outfits as they were rebuild.

Most illustrations show the 1761/62 army. The main sources are the
so called "Albertina manuscript", illustrations done by a certain
"l'Allemand" for Raspe publishers in Nurnberg. The original is now kept
at the Vienna Army Museum. It is the master, and the Raspe coloured
coppers were done afterwards.
Then there is a different source kept at the Bauzten Museum (Lusatia/Saxony) called the "Bautzen manuscript"and it is dated from the same period. It provides some conflicting information. For example, Bautzen shows a Grün-Loudon Grenadier with an odd grenadier fur hat that Albertina does not show. Additionally, there is more information on pompoms and tassels. The latter, apparently, served the same purpose as the sword knots in other German armies. In other words there is the suggestion that they were coloured differently for each company.

DRUMMERS

By the end of the SYW most drummers looked like the rank and file of their regiments – white coats and facings on cuffs and lapels. But Greenwood and Ball show the following regiments as wearing coats of the facing colour presumably with white cuffs and turn-backs: 3, 9, 14, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 28, 30, 38, 40, 41, 48, 55, 56, and 57. The only one I have my doubts about is 14 (Salm) as that was the only regiment with black facings. I cannot confirm the accuracy though of Greenwood and Ball’s information. And Christian adds that by an Order dated 5 June 1755 all the Tambours were to dress in the same uniform as the regiment and were to have swallow nests as their sole distinction. However, Schirmer lists a good number of regiments that continued to dress in reversed colours as late as 1760 and possibly even later:
Lorraine IR 3*, Los Rios 9*, Salm 14*, Königsegg 16**, Alt-Colloredo 20, Sprecher/Lacy 22**, Starhemberg 24**, Wied 28*, Saxe-Gotha 30*, Ligne 38*, Jung-Colloredo 40*, Bayreuth 41*, Platz 43*, Clerici 44***, Luzane 48**, d’Arberg 55*, Mercy 56, Andlau 57**. Possibly also Pallavicini 15** - largely corresponding with Greenwood&Ball’s list.
In addition, Bleckwenn knows of a record in the Erbprinz of Hesse-Darmstadt “Schreibkalender” that IR 8 Hildburghausen (red facings) had tambours dressed in dark blue coats in 1746 – apparently seen in Flanders – and violating the custom of reversed colour pattern.

DOES REGIMENTAL LOCATION PLAY A ROLE?

If one looks at where Regiments were garrisoned on the eve of the SYW, it can be speculated that all regiments stationed outside the Austrian heartlands of Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia, including a few more in Hungary and Siebenbürgen, were less likely to have paid attention to instructions from Vienna concerning uniforms. It seems, all regiments stationed in Italy, Netherlands, and the more remote south-eastern parts of Hungary/Slavonia, and Banat seem not to have caught up with latest regulations.

* in 1756 stationed in the Netherlands
** in Italy
*** Hungary, Banat, and Slavonia

Regiments located in the Austrian heartlands had also been involved in several pre-war revues held in Kolin and Olmütz and they would therefore have fallen under greater scrutiny and were thus much more likely to follow Vienna’s instructions pertaining to uniforms.

SUMMARY

In summary, if you were to field an army of the WAS or early SYW you could have a very colourful army – most notably perhaps IR 22 with red lapels and cuffs, blue vest, turn-backs as well as trousers. Plus drummers in some reversed facing combination! When you add to this, the strange and unusual flags possibilities (more on that another day) you can see, I hope, that the Austrian infantry presents a more colourful variety than at first glance.

Eporedorix

Eporedorix commands the infantry in the Sotiate army. He is a strange figure because he comes from two manufacturers - from the waist up he is, I think, from Warlord Games. A 'freebie', who has been sitting legless in a drawer, he has yearned for completion! The bottom half is an old Foundry figure (late Roman Officer but 'late' in more than one sense). Put the two together and he is totally unique.