Some British Cavalry

These chaps started out as some Perry Plastic American Civil War Cavalry (link to the Perrys' shop here). They're nice sculpts, of course, because they're Perrys', and easy enough to work with, but they are only 4 to a sprue (you get 3 sprues in a box) and they come with head, body, legs and left arm all as a piece so 'out of the box' there's not much variation going on. You can add different hats (the sprues come with slouch hats and those little caps that might be called kepis or might be forage caps but what do I know?) and right arms (a selection of right arms is provided so you can give your cavalry swords, pistols or a few other options - there's a bugle-arm and an open hand for holding a banner pole) but that's it.

Here comes the Cavalry... I shall have to look at the lists of Fictional British Army Regiments but an early contender is (Prince Rupert's Own) 43rd Regiment of Horse. Mainly because it's the only fictional cavalry regiment I can recall off-hand. 

We all know by now that if you have a red coat and  Pith Helmet you must be British, so I painted their jackets red and stole a dozen Pith Helmets from some some Wargames Factory Zulu Wars British Firing Line troops (no link as it seems these don't even exist any more) that I have lying about. I also tried swapping some arms but the Perrys' are a bit smaller so it wouldn't be possible. The uniforms are also different but I wouldn't have cared - I'd paint over any details that didn't fit anyway. The cavalry minis have plain sleeves and the infantry minis are sculpted with a kind of pointed cuff surrounded by some curlicue like the following image:

British Infantryman, Anglo-Zulu War, c.1879 - don't know the source as I found it on Pinterest and can't read the signature, sorry. It may say 'Girard '69'. It may not.

Anyway, the majority of my British Infantry look something like this (but with white Pith Helmets, and also blue rather than green cuffs, as they're the 'Royal North Surrey Regiment', and 'royal' regiments had blue cuffs). Had the two sets of arms been compatible sizes I'd have maybe had to scratch off the cuff detailing for the cavalry, and paint something suitable for the infantry - but it was not to be, the arms were too different in scale.

So, back to the cavalry. I gave them red jackets and painted a white band around their cuffs - what I think are referred to as 'jampot' cuffs. I painted the troopers' helmets khaki and left the officer's white. Though the uniforms are ahistorical I don't really care - they're close enough for my purposes as generic 'British' cavalry of the broad period 1870-1885.

I have an Officer (white hat and sword), I painted a Sergeant's stripes on the arms of a chap with a pistol, I gave one a bugle and another a staff for some kind of unit flag (these last two options are included on every frame). There are 6 regular troopers here, most with unsheathed swords, but one with a pistol.

At the back are two chaps who don't, as yet, have right arms. What I'd like to do is give these two VSF-y weapons - preferably, something that can be used as a lightning gun or galvanic projector (or what might be called, in a sci-fi context, a 'laser-rifle'). My plan at the moment is to use the two spare arms for holding the unused banner-poles. These are open-handed right arms supplied one per frame.

The two chaps who will hold the Lightning Guns, to my broken old eyes anyway, somewhat resemble Christopher Plummer and Sean Connery. 

Two of the cavalrymen, destined for life as Galvanic Dragoons, probably. Sorry about the terrible picture, I'll try to get a better one...

This I think will be enough to give the unit a bit of VSF clout, but also allow me to field 10 perfectly normal British cavalry if necessary. However, what I don't yet have is the Lightning Guns. I shall have to try to bodge something together as I did with my UNIT force (whose Sergeant Benton carries a peculiar device constructed from bits of sprue). However if I can find a source for something suitably laser-rifle-y, perhaps I can use that instead.

Of course I also need to fix up the flag for the flagpole. Maybe it's time to flesh out the early history (and iconography) of (Prince Rupert's Own) 43rd Regiment of Horse...

Whoever I decide these chaps are, I guess I'll be statting them up for GASLIGHT and IHMN.

British Army organisation

50 Brigades
150 Regiments (= 3 Regiments in a Brigade)
450 Battalions  (= 3 Battalions in a Regiment)
1800 Companies (= 4 Companies in a Battalion)

According to Journey's End that the Younger Orc is watching (he's been studying it as an English set-text), that's a guess at the strength of the British Army in France.

A company I think is conventionally made up of 4 platoons, and I believe that a platoon is generally around 30 men. So, a company would be around 120 men (loosely).

However, this is the post-1913 organisation. This is the organisation that would for example be in use in Transcaspia.

In the later Victorian period, mostly infantry regiments apparently had four battalions, two regular, one reserve and one volunteer, though this could vary quite dramatically.

At present, I have around 90 minis that are vaguely 'Zulu War British', I think. This includes about 12 in Rife Green uniforms with khaki Glengarries (UNIT/Northdale Rifles), about 36 painted up as redcoats (11 are Brigade minis with rebreathers from their GASLIGHT/Steampunk range), and perhaps 10 in khaki jackets. 11 are Dwarves in pith helmets (10 from Old Glory and 1 GW example, that presently are serving as the 'Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade'). The rest (probably about 20) are currently unpainted. The plan currently involves painting them all as redcoats. I really don't care about the Royal Wessex Regiment and as soon as I get around to it the khaki-jacketed ones will be redcoats too, and they can all be A Company of the 1st Battalion of the Royal North Surreys (except the Dwarves, difficult to see where they fit into that to be honest). The guys in re-breathers can just be regular North Surreys in Martian Expeditionary Force gear. There's no way I'm going at this stage to start faffing about with new units. Sod it. They can all be redcoated soldiers of the Queen and that will be much easier, no matter that some of the officers have newer designs of jacket (more suited to the Boer Wars than the Zulu Wars or Sudan). So, basically (as I think there's about 65-ish) that's half a company.

Because photobucket is shite

OK - this is the best photo I could get I'm afraid, as the light was starting to go, and apart from that, I'm a muppet who can barely tell one end of a camera from the other.

I'm not sure who these chaps are yet - a Royal Regiment to be sure (hence the blue cuffs) but whether they're the Queen's Own Martian Infantry (a distinct possibility) or part of the First Battalion of the Royal North Surrey Regiment in their Martian Expeditionary Force uniforms (they were there 1886-95, according to this post, though maybe the bulk of the uniform is a bit earlier than that) is still up for grabs (a bit of both, probably). Once upon a time, they were my Aetherines - apparently I undercoated them 5 years ago but never got round to painting the rest. Well, here they are. Maybe I can still use them as Aetherines but I've abandoned the planned blue jackets - they just didn't look very good.

I'll be statting these guys up for GASLIGHT and IHMN. Probably, I'll paint Sergeants' stripes on one of them and use them as a 10-man unit.

Hey! I actually posted something VSF-y!

Unidentified British Troops looking all soldierly and that.

Death of Lord Burlesdon

Full text of the obituary is...


It is with great sadness that this newspaper must report the death at his London home on Saturday last of Robert James Augustus Hugh St John Bathley Crane Rassendyll, 12th Earl of Burlesdon and 29th Baron Rassendyll.

Countess Burlesdon has confirmed that the Earl became ill during a stay at Burlesdon House over the New Year. Returning to London to consult with the Earl’s doctor, it was found that the illness had rapidly progressed, and after too-vigorous a Burns’ Night Supper on Thursday last, the Earl took to his bed, and gave up his life during the night of Saturday 27th.

The late Earl’s eldest son, John Heatherley St. John Augustus James Hannay Rassendyll succeeds his father as the 13th Earl of Burlesdon and 30th Baron Rassendyll.

Born at the family’s London residence in Park Lane in 1840 to his parents James, the 11th Earl and Lady Charlotte, daughter of Augustus and Philomena Bathley-Crane of Devonshire, and named for his late uncle Robert, the 10th Earl who had died two months before, the young Robert Rassendyll spent much of his childhood in North Surrey, at Burlesdon on the family estate.

He was educated at Rugby, Jordan College Oxford, where he studied Political Science, Divinity and German Literature, and the English University of Weser-Dreiburg. Following his successful matriculation, he achieved a commission in the Royal North Surreys, a regiment with which his family has been intimately connected, and served with distinction in the First Kamistan Campaign and then the Matoboland Wars, rising quickly to the rank of Major.

After resigning his commission in 1867, he returned to Burlesdon and married Miss Rose Virginia Constance Heatherley, daughter of Jebediah Heatherley of Esher, the noted manufacturer of marmalade. Over the next eight years, the Countess bore him six children, John, William, Henry, James, Constance and Gustave, who were brought up at Burlesdon in the idyllic surroundings of the family estate.

Following his marriage he stood for election to the North Surrey parliamentary constituency in June 1868 for the Liberal Party, and took the seat with a majority of 3,461. A follower of the maxim ‘change is too important to be rushed’ he was also the author of several works of political philosophy, including ‘The Ultimate Outcome’, and ‘Ancient Theories and Modern Facts’.

The late Earl regarded himself as a ‘conservative Liberal’ and served under Prime Ministers from both parties. His first government position, serving under Lord Fotherington-Thomas, in the Liberal administration of Lord Marlingbury, was from 1869 as Under-Secretary for Indian Affairs, where he put his intimate knowledge of the Kamistan situation to good use. In 1873 he joined the first Conservative administration of Lord Crindlehurst, also holding a position in the Imperial and Foreign Service. He resigned from his post on the death of his father, the 11th Earl, the following year, and returned to Burlesdon.

The life of the Earl has not been devoid of tragedy. Nine years ago, the Earl’s brother Rudolf Rassendyll, a former Captain of the 27th Lancers, was killed during a visit to Ruritania. The exact circumstances of Mr. Rassendyll’s visit have never been made public but the Ruritanian Government has issued a statement to the effect that Mr. Rassendyll was working in a personal capacity for the Royal Family, when he was attacked by agents of Count Rupert of Hentzau, a notorious villain who was later killed by the late King, Rudolf V of the House of Elphberg, in a duel occasioned by an attempted assassination.

Lord Robert will be fondly remembered, especially by the inhabitants of Great Burlesdon, for his generosity and concern for the welfare of the simple folk who live there. He sponsored the provision of the electrical and gas supplies to the village, and no blame can be attached to the late Earl for the unfortunately fatal incident that occurred shortly after the supplies were connected. A patron of the Parish Church of St. Igwulfa and St. Michael at Burlesdon, his strong singing voice was a welcome addition to morning Psalms and will be sorely missed by the congregation there.

The body of the late Earl will be conveyed to Burlesdon House, where it will lie in state until the morning of the 17th of February; the funeral will take place at the Church of St. Igwulfa and St. Michael at 1 o’clock.

Shameless photography in lieu of real progress

The Royal North Surreys have been sitting in my painting tray for weeks now, without a photo of their latest paint; and also un-photographed are the (now undercoated) Aetherines I bought from Brigade a month or so back.

As the men of the Royal North Surrey check the perimeter, Captain Carruthers and Lieutenant  Pootling-Twelp confer with Captain Yates of UNIT, and sometimes the Northdale Rifles; Sergeant Bromsgrove looks on, while Colour Sergeant Jeffries guards Ensign Jensen and the Company Colours (flag from the Warflag site - a generic British flag from the Napoleonic Wars looked like the best bet - http://www.warflag.com/flags/napoleon/napbritain1.shtml ).

Captain and men of the Royal Aeronautical Corps "Aetherines", wondering why they are not currently in their habitual natty blue jackets and trousers. Simply because I haven't gotten round to painting them, that's why.

Bobbies from Scotland Yard, with their English Electric Truncheons, and officers of 'Special Branch' (I'm sure it was called the 'Special Irish Branch' at this point) with rifles, Inspector Le Strange (probably), the Good Doctor and the Consulting Detective, from North Star Military Figures' new 'In Her Majesty's Name' range.

Lord Curr's Company, a quixotic and mercenary company of ne'er-do-wells, disgruntled ex-servicemen, and aristocratic adventurers, including Lord Curr himself armed with an 'Arc rifle' (electric rifle), from North Star Military Figures.

Having recently taken delivery of North Star and Osprey's new 'In Her Majesty's Name', both the figures and the rulebook, coming so soon after my purchases of 'Various Victorians' and the Brigade Games British in Rebreathers a month or so ago, I feel quite faint with excitement at the cornucopia of VSF-y leaden goodness (they probably don't put lead in any more, probably showing my age there).

I certainly have a lot to paint in the coming months - and hardly a red coat in sight (it's quite possible I will paint up one of the 'Incorrigibles', Lord Curr's men, in a Rifles uniform, so I can use him for the Northdale Rifles or UNIT as necessary).

Others of Lord Curr's men I can easily see being pressed into service should I ever get any further with my long-touted VBCW project; they're very versatile figures I think, some of them could be from any period from about 1870-1940 or there abouts.

More WIP pics of the Royal North Surreys

The First Battalion of the Royal North Surrey Regiment served on Mars between 1886-95.

After their return to Earth, they were re-deployed to Africa to serve in Kitchener's Expedition to the Sudan.



Royal North Surrey command




Captain Carruthers




Lieutenant Pootling-Twelp




Colour-sergeant Jeffries wonders if he really has anything to do, now that Ensign Jensen seems to have lost the flag




Dashing and handsome Captain Yates, seconded from UNIT as a special advisor

Royal North Surreys on Mars

What do you think it is, Captain?



 Officers and men of the Royal North Surrey Regiment - accompanied by Captain Yates of UNIT - investigate a Martian settlement, unaware that they are themselves under observation from unfriendly eyes.

I bought a new 'Insane Detail' brush from the 'Army Painter' range, and have had a fun afternoon painting in details I just couldn't do with even the best of my other brushes. Eyes, that look something like eyes, for instance. Now I have to go back and paint loads of details on the whole of the North Surreys.

Also pictured is Captain Yates, who will serve as an officer for UNIT, or when I'm feeling a little more pseudo-historical, for the Northdale Rifles. Or, when I'm venturing into the rarified future world of the Very British Civil War, the British League of Fascists' Militia.

Family tree

Whimsy's family tree This is a draft of the family tree of Whimsy Pootling, circa 1895. No painting so far this week (been ver' busy with real life), but soon I hope...

WIP of some new Chaps

Officers and Men of the Royal North Surrey Regiment

Well then - 15 Officers and men of the Royal North Surrey Regiment (affectionally known as the 'Really Not Sorry' Regiment), which (according to the 1939 film of 'The Four Feathers') takes part in Kitchener's Expedition to the Sudan in 1896. This photo must show the Regiment somewhat earlier, as they are mostly in 1879-pattern uniforms; however, their blue facings suggest that they must be from the 1880s, after the Childers Reforms of 1881 - unless, co-incidently, the Royal North Surreys used blue facings before 1881.

Captain Carruthers, doing a vital job of guarding the hats.

Group Commander for GASLIGHT purposes will be Captain Carruthers (seen in his natty and anarchronistic red jacket, even though red officers' tunics circa 1880 didn't have breast pockets like that, it should be khaki as it's of a design from around 1900).

Joining him are Lieutenant Crispin Pootling-Twelp (cousin of Whimsey Pootling) and Sergeant Bromley, and their men.

Lieutenant Pootling-Twelp and Sergeant Bromley

Men (parts at least) of the 2nd Company the Royl North Surreys...

Also pictured are Ensign Jensen (even though the rank of 'Ensign' was apparently abolished in the Cardwell reforms of the early 1870s), and Colour Sergeant Jeffries (because he looks a little like Lionel Jeffries), with their troops.

Colour Sergeant Jeffries and Ensign Jensen

Men (most of them) of the 1st Company of the Royal North Surreys...

Who the chaps in the khaki jackets are is mysterious. They were intended to be an 1880s incarnation of the Wessex Rangers (from the 1980s TV series 'Spearhead') but I later realised that the regiment was actually the Royal Wessex rangers. I'm now trying to find a non-Royal non-Guards non-Fusilier non-Rifle non-Highland Regiment, that I can use these chaps for. And then I'm going to try and work out how I got my maths wrong and ended up painting two of them as North Surreys, not in khaki as I originally intended. I may have to do another 2 khaki chaps and 6 more North Surreys to get back to where I need to be...

Not sure who these chaps are...

Fictional Army Regiments

I've been checking out the various fictional army regiments that different people have written about over the last... oh, 160 years or so, and of course there's a wikipedia page for them. As I'm not a total masochist I'm not going to type up every single one, but I will start adding a list of regiments, period of earliest (fictional) mention, and (where known) theatres of operations, for regiments up to 1900.

Details of the vast majority of these regiments can be found on the wiki page listed above. Some have an unknown early history, but their earlier existence can be surmised (eg the 'Musketeer' regiments probably pre-date the Napoleonic Wars). Some I'm making up on sketchy evidence I'll admit.

Regiments in existence before 1800:
4th Musketeers (early history unknown, but existed during WWII)
Duke of Buckingham's Light Infantry - Marlburian campaigns, Jacobite Risings
Lord Semphill's Highland Regiment - Jacobite Regiment
Royal Corps of Halberdiers (formerly Earl of Essex's Honourable Company of Free Halberdiers, founded in Elizabethan period, early history unknown, as RCH existed in WWII)
Royal Loyal Musketeers (Irish regiment, early history unknown, served in India in late C19th)

Before 1850:
6th Light Dragoons - Napoleonic Wars
Bombadier Guards
'Jackboot Guards' - regimental nickname, official name unknown
Lifeguard Greens
South Essex Regiment - Napoleonic Wars (Peninsula and Belgium): Under Major Sharpe
South Oxfordshire (Light Infantry?) Regiment - have a battle honour for Waterloo (Endeavour)

Before 1870:
27th Lancers - Crimean War
117th Foot 'The Royal Mallows' - served in India during the Mutiny? See 'Before 1890'
1st Bangalore Pioneers

Before 1880:
114th Queen's Own Royal Strathspeys Afghan Wars, after 1880 remained in the North West Frontier Province until at least 1897 - link here
Princess Hohenzollern's Own Merthyr Tydfil Light Infantry (this name has been considerably shortened from Kipling's original) - served in India
34th Bombay Infantry
77th Bengal Lancers - North West Frontier Province?
South Oxfordshire (Light Infantry?) Regiment - have a battle honour for Kabul, which may relate to this period; they also seem to have fought in Africa in the late 1870s (Endeavour)

Before 1890:
117th Foot 'The Royal Mallows' - served in India until c.1885, potentially from 1850s; afterwards stationed at Aldershot by c.1888; from 'The Crooked Man' by Arthur Conan Doyle
Royal Cumbrian Regiment (though this may be anachronistic, perhaps they should be listed as the Royal Cumberland Regiment) - Sudan (took part in Gordon's expedition?)

Before 1900:
117th Foot 'The Royal Mallows' - information moved to 'Before 1890'
'The Black Boneens' - regimental nickname, official name unknown - served in India
'The Black Tyrone' - regimental nickname, official name unknown - served in India
Lennox Highlanders - Matabele Wars; Richard Hannay's Regiment
Royal Loyal Musketeers (surmised to exist before 1800) - served in India
Royal North Surrey Regiment - Sudan (took part in relief of Khartoum?)
'The White Hussars' - regimental nickname, official name unknown - served in India
19th/45th East African Rifles - served in West Africa (perhaps based in Ghana or Nigeria?)
South Oxfordshire (Light Infantry?) Regiment - apparently fought at Mboto Gorge, 1892 (Endeavour)

Regiments that don't appear on the wiki page:
The 'Fighting' 43rd (Regiment of Horse, also known as 'Prince Rupert's Regiment of Horse') - South Africa if my memory serves (it was Captain Cadman's regiment in the stories of the cowardly Captain in the Victor comic when I was a lad - though see notes below, I may be mis-remembering)
The South Oxfordshire Regiment (from 'Endeavour') - before 1900: fought at M'Boto Gorge, c. 1892, though the painting in the regimental HQ shows soldiers in an older version of tropical uniform, perhaps from c. 1880, so it may be that they spent an extended period in Africa. They have battle honours that include Waterloo, and Kabul (possibly the Second Afghan War, 1878-1880)

I have not been able to place the Duke of Clarence's Own Clanranald Highlanders (the 'Invernesshire Greens') though I suspect that they go back at least to the mid-18th century.

Well, that's a start anyway. Of course there are regiments that are listed post-1900 that may exist beforehand... but they'll live to another day.

I've also noticed they have a list of fictional British Army Officers on wiki...

Later additions and corrections to the list are italicised.