"And you'll love the lemony-fresh scent!"

Last Saturday (December 09, 2006), Henry Hyde hosted a game at his home, featuring his marvelous collection of Spencer Smith figures. The armies were augmented by a few 25mm MiniFigs too, illustrating how well the two ranges work together. Anyway, here's one photo of the proceedings. You've simply got to check the rest of Henry's photos out -- there are about 60 in all. Take a look at: http://tinyurl.com/yd5sbu

As for me, I’ve just spent the better part of the evening washing Stollen’s as yet nameless dragoon regiment and its mounts in lemony fresh Dawn dishwashing liquid – “Dawn gets grease out of your way!” The dragoons smell nothing like horses -- we had a few when I was a boy – which is a good thing since I’ve got the 30-strong regiment lined up over on my painting/radio desk.

This brings me to my next interesting, though useless, piece of information. ;-) The 41 meter band of the shortwave spectrum was finally quiet earlier this evening, so I was able to scrub each figure and horse to the accompaniment of Croatian Radio in, you guessed it, Serbo-Croatian! Listening to shortwave radio while I work on my soldier collection is a long standing tradition – both hobbies have been a part of my life since the autumn/winter of 1983-84. There’s nothing quite like listening to a news report on events in Russia, China, or Egypt while painting in the details on some French Napoleonic (or even Stollenian) artillery! Ka-boom!!!

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

Presenting the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere!!!

Here they are, with the rearmost nine figures still drying, three squadrons of the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere, now in the service of the Grand Duchy of Stollen. And now, it's onto that artillery!

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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