John Niblett, original designer of Airfix soldiers.

As promised a post regarding unsung heroes of Wargaming and collecting toy soldiers in general.

John Niblett is the man who started the whole wargaming thing for me. In 1956 he joined Airfix. He was the original designer of the HO/OO range of plastic soldiers that began with the release of the British Guardsmen in 1958. Figures from is initial box had originally been released by Hummel before being re released as the first of the Airfix soldiers range. 

Niblett worked for Airfix until 1974 and produced many of the company's ranges including their beautiful Napoleonic and historical character range in 54mm, my favourite being the wonderful French Imperial Guard Grenadier. He also producded their 1/32nd range of figures.

Niblett also was commisioned to produce models for the wonderfully named government department, The Ministry of Public Buildings, but it was while working for Mettoy that he met and became friends with Les Higgins. An another amazing talent.

Niblett originally started sculpting model soldiers shortly after the war, making 54mm and 65mm figures. However after 1956 he concentrated on sculpting beautiful 20mm figures which were painted and sold by Hummels House of Miniatures, a figure shop based at the Burlington Arcade in London. Niblett covered a number of military subjects including the English Civil War, Romans,Normans, and for me his best, his beautiful range of knights. These were originally by Hummels for the princley sum of 9/6d for foot figures and 17/6d for the mounted figures.Quite pricey in the early 1960's.

Niblett continued producing large 150mm and 175mm military figures in white metal. 

In 1975 John Niblett set up producing figures in an independant studio producing figures for Britains, Lesney and the tourist shop at the Tower of London. In 1977 he re-released his lovely 12th and 14th century knights and his final range, the English Civil War in 20mm.

I remember carefully studying images of Niblett's knights but was put off by their small size, 20mm. It appears only Greenwood of Greenwood and Ball fame and John Niblett persisted in producing 20mm figures in the UK. while the accepted scale was fast becoming 25mm as producded by Les Higgins, Hinton Hunt and Jack Alexander. The only comprable 20mm figures were being producded by Jack Scruby in the USA and there was no way I could have ever afforded those.

John Garrett, the acknowledged expert on model soldiers believed that John Niblett's 20mm ranges were the finest of the small figures ranges produced and who am I to argue with that.

                             

                         The last range Niblett produced, the English Civil War in 20mm.  

                        

A review of the new English Civil War range was printed in the March 1979 Military Modelling magazine

"John Niblett of 50 The Broadway, Herne Bay, Kent has added some attractive
English Civil War subjects to his 20mm scale wargames figure series this
month. The new figure comprise an assortment of six foot figures and three
cavalry types, and on all of them the degree of detail is remarkable and the
casting superb.
The mounted figures include an Ironside trooper and his Royalist counterpart
and there's a beautiful little mounted cuirassier in three-quarter armour on
a rearing horse discharging his pistol. The horses are moulded in two halves
for epoxy assembly and on all the figures the diminutive weapons (and in
some cases, an arm) are moulded separately for the purchaser to stick together, thus making possible a fair degree of personal animation. Among the foot types are pike and musket men from both sides,one of the latter firing his musket on its rest, and there's a choice of positions for the pikemen as well; an attractive little drummer rounds off the collection. Niblett tells us that, depending on popularity, they'll be expanding the range, so if wargamers want more of these nice little 20mm's then its up to them to give these new ones the reception they deserve.

Sadly John Niblett died in 1980 a relatively young man and his ranges were purchased by a small company called Rosedale Figurines who also bought the Les Higgins range of 20mm figures and sold them under the Tribute Figures range. After a couple of years the owner moved from England to the West of Scotland and somehow the majority of the masters were lost in the move!

Sadly the beautiful ranges of 20mm figures produced by a master sculptor ceased to exist and are lost forever. 

With thanks to Vintage Wargaming Blob and various snippetts from the internet.

Blogging? Its an imperative.

This is a first and its something Im not proud of its the first time I didnt 'do' a Christmas Annual to welcome in the New Year. Basically I felt it wasnt something I needed to do. Who wants to know what a wargamer plans to do and then realise twelve months later that they havent achieved anything they said they would do.  

But then I felt guilty about the lack of effort and the fact that all bloggers need to put more effort into their journals. Im not going to berate anyone who religiously collates what they are doing as wargamers and Im always envious of the bloggers who post very regularly. 

  I know some think that hosting a blog is a dying art and that everyone has moved on to podcasts etc. But I think there is definately a place for blogs and sometimes they serve a purpose, such as my tribute to Peter Gilder. Unless I continue to put information on there the next generation of wargamers wont have a scoobies who the great man was and what he contributed to the hobby.  

In early January I attended ARDHAMMER, a one day event staged in Gateshead where people turn up to sell wargaming and Games Workshop stuff. As the years have progressed it has grown expotentially and this year was the busiest. Of the 80+ tables about 40% were selling wargame related stuff which is down on last year, but one can always find something to buy cheaply. This year it was paint. I came away with 20 bottles of Vallejo paint for £20, oh and a couple of books.One thing I noticed as I people watched was the age of the attendees. The majority were aged between 12 and 50 years old. Obviously a lot were there to buy Games Workshop but it was encouraging to know, well at least I thought it was, although the general fitness of the majority left a lot to be desired. 

Returning to blogging in general, because Ive been suffering from the Winter lurgy and a very painful back I sought reassurance by re-reading Harry Pearson's brilliant Achtung Schweinhund. This book is a perfect description of my wargaming life except Im not a smoggy. Thank God. But as an account of  a typical wargamer it is perfect, and the mix of humour, pathos and basically patheticness it describes me to a tee. I was lucky enough to have sat with Harry Pearson in an effort to get some information about Gilder and I found we had a lot in common. We both supported shite football teams who dreamt of a glory that would never happen but still hoped but knew we would always end up disappointed. 

  But I digress. In the book Harry described various early pioneers and toy soldier collectors who are very, very rarely spoken about and having given some thought to this I think it would be nice if someone ie me did produce a series of pieces about these people. 

Okay one could probably go onto Wikipedia aand potentially find out about some of them, but I think they deserve to be collated in one place. It will give me something to do between feeling sorry for myself. Its not a New Years resolution, more a small project I will  do something about.

I picked up a number of figures at Middlesbrough late last year from Tiger Miniatures, from their Tudor Irish wars range which I had to have for my Billhooks Irish army. I didnt need them, I have far too many anyway, but they were too nice not to buy. So I painted up some light cavalry, some gallowglass and some fighting dogs. 

I bought a small number of figures off E Bay months ago, when I reaalised they were Irish kern. I havent a clue who made them, they are big buggers but were very enjoyable to paint.

So a nice addition to my burgeoning Irish army.

And now to my second project.

Inspired by Rick Priestly and his love of old ancient Mini Figs Im steadily replacing my ancient Persian army made up of Foundry,Victrix and other more modern manufacturers with good old pre 1980 ancient Persians, and in particular using Hinchliffe and Garrison figures. 

Garrison Immortals, pretty big figures and certainly bigger than I remember but great sculpts.

And then, the well known Hinchliffe Immortal figure. Still one of my favourites. I think I maay have overdone their numbers, but I did enjoy painting them up. 

Next week its York and hopefully I will be making my trip down to the racecourse. I do enjoy the day although it can get a bit frenetic. Its only a shame that there wont be a couple of dealers off loading realistically priced old figures. Oh and a Happy New Year to all and sundry.

 

Intrusive Thoughts Syndrome.

 

Since I can remember I have always had these urges [steady] to say or do something inappropriate, usually in times of stress or when someone does or says something I think is really stupid. During the times when I worked for the Queen I was known as someone who now and again just might do something or say something that shouldnt be done or said. If you ever bump into me at a show please feel free to ask me to relay the 'Tommy' story which did get me in hot water and comic notoriety.

 It obviously caused my bosses a bit of worry and stress and could explain why I was given my own little office where they could hide me until something was happening and needed my attention.

 My yearly psycometric testing apparantly was the stuff of legends especially when the poor woman would ask about my views on bereavement, politics and the Senior management.

 I would imagine I would be unemployed within twenty four hours given the fragility of the modern police service and everyones craving for litigation. There seems too many oppourtunities for calling out moronic behaviour and views, I wouldnt stand a chance.

  I never knew that there was an actual name for this reckless behaviour, I just thought it was part of me and a bit like someone with turettes, expect I knew I was going to do it even though I knew I shouldnt. Now as with everthing in the modern age it has a name, Intrusive Thoughts. Except of course in my case its more intrusive actions. Strangely or perhaps it was the nature of the job I did, it gained me a reputation and eventually recognition that seemed to give me kudos and strangely awards???. 

Or perhaps it was just, 'oh,oh here's that nutter' type of recognition. It probably explains why I could always get a seat in the canteen, well before they closed them.

And what has this to do with wargaming one asks. Well since retiring these thoughts and actions have been my constant companion especially when wargaming, which is good right?

 Wild advances, tick. Ignoring the position and carrying on when it would be better to retire, tick. Having ones leader charging with his outnumbered troops, tick. So perhaps this is the explanation Ive been looking for as my defeats mount up like the poor Mags. [NUFC] and my generals fall heroically.

 It also could explain why I will buy figures when Ive already got a lot to paint or repaint.

  So in future should anyone question your lead mountain, just cite Intrusive Thoughts Syndrome or ITS to the experts like me, and demand an apology for feeling picked upon before breaking down in tears or cackling recklessly.

 I will be providing a Christmas? New Years Annual, but this came into my fevered mind first.

 

Santa was good to me.

In the spirit of nostaga I thought an image of my refight of the Battle of Blenheim featuring the great Charles Wesencraft commanding the Austrians. A very young Neil Reidy probably laughing hysterically at some of the banter I would have been throwing at Charlie.

 Well felicitations and a Happy Christmas to one and all. One hopes that Santa was good to you and provided the necessary figures/paint/books etc,etc to carry on with this wonderful hobby.

Without attempting to sound like the rich kid when he is given a new Raleigh Chopper bike, I am very happy with the presents I received from my family. Even the oversized slippers are perfect for my poor feet. But the four wonderful books I have received from the overweight, rosy faced itinerant are perfect. Granted I did drop ridiculous hints via my Santa's list, but it seemed to work.

And the common theme, well in the main its nostalga. I have the original War Game Companion which was published originally in soft back so when it was announced it had been updated, I simply had to have the book.Like many of a certain age The War Game was the start of everything. Until I found this book I was lost and really struggling to understand what I was attempting to get into. But this book set me straight and was also a wonderful read. 

Next we have Charles Stewart Grant's Wargames Retrospective which was a great surprise. I cant wait to read this book and hopefully sink into a miasma of nostalga. Charles is a cracking bloke and writes in a form very similar to his father. Simply a no nonsense and readible form.

Then we have Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming which contains chapters regarding his Hyboria campaign and who actually won. I have always been envious of this campaign which ran for several years and I dont think was ever bettered. I am lucky enough to own the original Campaign book and also one regarding the wargaming armies of Hyboria. The whole concept has always fascinated me.

Finaly I have a new book, yes I do like new stuff. An updated Hail Caesar supplement regarding the Romans. It should be up to the usual high standard and I cant wait to read it.

I was lucky enough to locate more early Slingshot magazines just before Christmas that have gone a little way to completing my collection, although I still need? the very early years and also the elusive 1970 booklets. Anyway included in one of the magazines was a small article about recommended fictional ancient historical novels. As a consequence I bought these two books from ABE UK. The novels were written by Rex Warner, a professor specialising in Greek and Roman history. I liked both books. They arent Alfred Duggan quality but do offer up another viewpoint regarding Caesar.Definately worth a punt if one likes ancient fiction.

   

Battleground 2023.

Yesterday was the day that the run up to Christmas began. Well it is for me as I attended the wonderful Battleground Wargames Show held between Stockton on Tees and Middlesbrough.

  Leon of Pendragon Miniatures has organised this for several years now and rescued it from extinction. The hard work this man has put in is now paying off in spades as over 700 punters walked through the doors. Other clubs should take note at how Leon has turned the show around and made it a great day out, to buy, chat, listen and just enjoy.

 Its free entry, easy access from a major road, the parking is free, there were two lectures and the food was cheap [ are you listening Leeds] and good quality. No cold bacon sandwiches here and definitely no oat milk for one's tea.  So how were the games? Well they were good, obviously not up to Partizan standard but diverse enough and interesting enough to enjoy. What I like is the table top sale which has always proved great value. But this year I managed to ignore temptation and only bought one book.

 Battleground is one of the few shows where Tiger Miniatures appear and I was able to buy some [okay quite a few] of their lovely renaissance Irish range. So another unit of Gallowglass and some great Irish horse oh and a unit of war dogs.  

 I stuck to my wish to not buy figures, for buying sake although I must admit I nearly bought about 100 well painted Mini Fig medieval figures at a ridiculously low price. So I spent more time being a nuisance chatting to anyone who made the mistake of stopping. I felt like the nutter on the bus, but without their whacky charm. 

 It was great to see a lot of old faces and know that they were still pottering about [ hello John] doing a bit of wargaming between ailments.

 So thank you Leon, for all your hard work and well done for bringing a show back to health.

Image at 1.00pm, still loads of punters milling about looking for bargains, others were listening to a lecture about the border reivers.

 

Today I lost Four hours of my life I will never get back.

   Life is full of disappointments, failed romances, jobs that dont work out, ambitions that are never achieved, and to be honest after a while you realise that is just how things are. The rough with the smooth, and then you have Ridley Scott's latest film, Napoleon.  

 I will admit Im a Napoleon nut. It was what got me into wargaming and over the next 50 odd years I bought ever increasing numbers of books, figures, visits to museums in an effort to learn as much as a could about the man. Eventually I realised that I had to scale back my interests and sold most of my book collection and all my armies but the interest has remained. 

 So when it was announced that Ridley Scott was making a film about the great man I was very excited. The Duelists is one of my favourite films. The beauty of the film backed by a wonderfully interesting story based on fact has always been a great film to continually return to. And then we had Waterloo, which is another of my favourite films. Yes it has its detractors, but it captured the battle and certainly Rod Steiger was a very believable Napoleon.

So today I frantically went to see the latest interpretation of the great man's life, and what a life he led.

 I had sensible expectations, I didnt expect that any battle scenes would be accurate but I knew the look would be right, the soldiers correctly attired and that the viewer would glean a little about the man.

 Sadly, very sadly I can honestly say it is one of the worst films I have ever had to sit through. Ignoring the lack of historical accuracy, the actual film is a car crash and I cannot believe that Ridley Scott actually directed the whole sorry mess. 

 Looking for excuses for him, the subject was huge and Scott unfortunately thought he could cram Napoleon's amazing life into 2+ hours and allow the viewer to come away understanding what actually occurred. He failed spectacularly on that score. 

The dialogue? Christ it was at times infantile and at other times just laughable.

Phoenix reprised his role as Emperor Commodus and introduced some very odd sounds that frankly made Napoleon sound like a nut job. At other times it was difficult to understand the dialogue which I suppose could be seen as a blessing.

 We never found out why men were prepared to follow the Emperor through thick and thin, simply because the character was one dimensional. 

As for the action, well all I can say is the uniforms were accurate.

Whoever did the advising regarding the actual battles should be taken out and shot. Did anyone know that Napoleon led a mounted charge at Waterloo, or had the military foresight to camouflage his artillery at Austerlitz? And for me the worst bit, when Wellington aka Rupert Everitt meets Napoleon face to face on the Bellephron. Yes I know its a film, but it didnt really have any purpose in the story. It would have been better to have chosen Stephen Fry using one of his funny voices and hrumpping a bit as they talked, at least it would then be intentionally funny.

 The only redeeming factor was the lady playing Josephine, oh and Miles Jupp as the King??? Francis.

 I do like Miles, he is a very funny guy. The rest? It was a pile of s@@@@. 

Oh I forgot, the end. A closing shot, a silhouette of the great man staring out to sea before tipping sideways off his seat. It reminded me of Captain Pugwash without the detail. 

 Save your money and buy a copy of The Battle of Austerlitz starring Jack Palance, at least that was funny.

   

How does one answer the impossible question.

I follow a lot of wargaming blogs and one of my favourites is the Palouse Wargaming Journal written by Jonathan Frietag. I think its fair to say Jonathan is a pretty intelligent American chap who can analyse information regarding wargaming and make sense of the data. His latest post concerns information gleaned from the Great Wargaming Survey. 

By counts, less than 4% of survey respondents maintain no surplus of unpainted figures.  Almost 41% of respondents have between 100 and 500 unpainted figures.  About 82% hold fewer than 1,000 unpainted figures in their storeroom.  Still, the remaining 18% of wargamers hold more than 1,000 unpainted figures.  Why maintain a stockpile of so many unpainted figures?  When is enough "enough" to have on hand? 

    I actually complete the survey every years, God knows why, but I like to think my information could be of use to someone, God knows who, anyway Jonathan posted about that old elephant in the room, the dreaded lead pile, or to appear more relevant the lead, plastic and resin mountain. 

Unlike Jonathan I am more a pragmatic [ thick ] about the whys and wherefores of wargamers buying figures that they then squirrel away and then forget about them. When I was working I would buy figures that I honestly thought I would need when I retired, fully expecting I would have more time but less cash. Well we all know that isn't what happens don't we.

As I've matured [ ie got mouldy] I've realised that I buy extra figures for more pleasurable reasons. Like a lot of humans, we like to shop and it gives us pleasure, well until you realise you didn't really need them.

When I first started wargaming in the very early 1970's I held down two jobs, one before school and one after school, I was more interested in pleasure than education. Anyway using all of my hard earned cash I remember buying every box of Napoleonic Airfix French from my local model shop and guiltily rushing home to my bedroom where I piled up the hundreds of figures cut from their sprues. Once done I realised I needed to paint them all to make the purchase relevant. Talk about disheartening. I learned a lesson from that crazy purchase, dont buy plastic. Okay, I actually realised that one had to be more disciplined in buying wargames figures. Buying metal soon brought that lesson home, oh the cost.

And now? Well I've realised I have more painted units than I can ever use. Proper armies made up of units that have never been on the table, and yet I will still research figure producers and also second hand sources. Why? Simple gratification.

At the moment I am buying early ancient figures for my Greek and Persian armies, even though I've got two perfectly good ancient armies using a mixture of Victrix, Warlord and North Star figures. I will over time replace all these figures with poorer quality, well in comparison to most of the newer ranges, ancient figures by Garrison, Mini Figs, Hinchliffe and hopefully Warrior. The reason has to be nostalgia, an illness recognised by the troops fighting in the American Civil War, a wistfulness to return to a time when all seemed well, or in my case because I find the early ranges charming and naive without being ugly.

 Do I need any more figures, absolutely not, in fact I am attempting to move on a lot of unpainted ECW castings, by moving on I mean virtually giving them away, and yet most wargamers arent interested, and why would they when there are so many wonderful new figures out there.

I know several mature wargamers who have thousands and I mean literally thousands of unpainted castings. They are carefully boxed waiting to be painted. Sadly we all know they will never be painted and more likely will end up in a skip or simply melted down. But did it give the wargamer pleasure? Probably until they look at the ever burgeoning piles of metal gathering dust and cobwebs. 

Like all addicts and I think I am one, you always know someone worse than you, until you realise there is no one worse and you are the go to example that other wargamers point at.

So why do we do it? Why is there a need to possess more of a thing we really don't need? One of the triggers for me is when I see some well painted old figures, that have been lavished attention and love by some wargamer. Do I need them, certainly not, but if possible I will attempt to buy them simply because they are in my eyes desirable and will fit nicely into one of my armies.

Simply put, I cant let a bargain slip by and I use the word bargain loosely. My weakness will always be figures painted by the wargaming greats, Charles Grant Snr. Tony Bath, Donald Featherstone and Peter Gilder. Unfortunately these are financially virtually unattainable for me until people of my age have gone and then they will be simply scrap and of no interest to most wargamers. Bleak, but probably realistic simply because the new generations of wargamers have new heroes and certainly like other figure ranges better.

I feel I'm getting away from my rambling point which is that every wargamer is thankfully different, each has their own predilections. It is a subject that can probably only be answered by a very clever person and certainly far clever than this thicko. All I know is that I recognise the issue, feel guilty sometimes about it and then go back to enjoying the purchase and hopefully the painting of the said figures. So really my lead mountain isn't a mountain, its a painted mountain, which makes it okay then.

Oh and if any collectors feel the need to offload any of their unwanted, painted or otherwise older figures, I am your man.