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Sometimes, good things come in small packages. . .

Hurrah!!! A small package from the Dayton Painting Consortium arrived this afternoon. Now, you might recall the very reasonable second-hand purchase of unwanted RSM figures that I made, courtesy of Phoenix, Arizona's own Jim Wright at the end of February/start of March this year. Jim sent all kinds of goodies. But, in order to make everything fit in with my slavishly followed Charge! organization, I "needed" (When do most of us ever really "need" anything else?), a few extra items from Rich at the Dayton Painting Consortium, so everything would be up to strength. Hence the order and nice little surpise brought to me by the Grand Duchess mid-afternoon.

"So," you might ask, "what did you get?" Well, a number of things, including
six drummers, nine officers on foot, seven Austrian hussars in busby, and two rearing horses. This compact little shipment brings the units sent by Jim up to full strength, according to the rules outlined in my favorite little book from 1967, Charge! or How to Play War Games.

The first photo above shows a dozen mounted figures, which will serve in pairs as generals and ADCs for the armies of Stollen and its mortal enemy the Electorate of Zichenau. I'll paint a two of these between larger units, to break up those occasional bouts of painting fatigue and give myself something a bit more fun (and quicker) to paint. You know, a reward for getting through yet one more large unit. Fans of Charge! will know that the Brigadier and Colonel Lawford were fond of including many mounted officers in their games, and since my project has its basis in that book, I've always meant to include lots of
officers on horseback in my own armies.


In the second photograph, you see one of the two future musketeer "regiments" now at full strength with four officers on foot, three drummers, and six musketeers joining the unit. I have a few extra MiniFig 25mm Prussian standard bearers (ordered three years ago for use with my Revell 1/72 plastics), two of which will be used to provide this key figure for their respective battalions.

These two battalions of RSM figures, along with that battalion of second-hand Huzzah Miniatures, will be used to complete the basic infantry component in the Army of Stollen. I've decided that one of these will get the typical dark blue "Prussian" treatment with maybe red or pink facings and turnbacks, while the other two will get some sort of mid- or light blue treatment along similar lines to the German regiments in French service that I was nattering on about a day or two ago.

At some point farther afield, I'll paint another 80-figure regiment in "Russian" dark green and red clothing, which will function as a composite regiment of infantry from the principalities of Pillau-Zerbst, Pillau-Reuss, Tauroggen-Fiebus, and/or Zeller-Schwarzekatz. This later mini-project will probably see a return to some of these Revell figures that I've hoarded over the last few years.



Finally, here is the future hussar regiment, now at full Charge! strength: three squadrons, consisting of eight troopers and one officer each along with a regimental staff of three, for a grand total of 30 figures in all. The Austrian hussars in busbies function as the officers and guidon bearer. Right now, these figures have a carbine as part of the casting, which will need to be carefully trimmed from each figure when the time comes, so they might better represent officers. Apparently, there is no hussar trumpeter in the RSM range, but I'll go ahead and give one of the figures an suitably fancy uniform and just pretend that he has his instrument slung over his shoulder or something.

At any rate, I came across a great illustration of French hussars from the 1750s, dressed in red breeches and dolman along with light blue schwaraden and pelisse no less, while looking around Ioannis Michaelis' Leuthen Journal website late this afternoon. The uniform in question seems like it might eventually provide a suitable basis for that worn by another regiment of "imaginary" hussars from the mid-18th Century. But I'm getting ahead of myself here! So for now, it's back to those white-coated fusiliers and the coming game with Jeff Hudelson. Why, I can almost here the trumpets sounding the advance. . . Charge!!!

Comments

Capt Bill said…
Your site inspired me to redo the Beerstein army with Rsm figures. I just finished another regiment which I will post later this week. Thanks for sharing...
Andy Mitchell said…
You do seem to be developing a metal mountain of daunting proportions. Are you going to rein yourself in now? You must be very close to the numbers required for Sittangbad.

Anyway, congratulations on the purchases.
Anonymous said…
Those figs. are going to make some very nice units I can see. Have you finally decided on the uniform colours yet?
Bluebear Jeff said…
I hope that you realize that I "hate" you.

Here I was all happy and contented with my regimental plan of 26-man battalions and you go and show us these wonderful "big battalions" . . . making me feel that my units are inadequate . . . *sigh*

Maybe I'll let my "evil twin" instruct Major General Drednoz of Stagonia to do awful things to your troops.

Counter-Charge!


-- Jeff
johnpreece said…
Those hussars look tremendous. I thoroughly approve of your decision to just paint one as a trumpeter. I find it very annoying the way each figure has to be holding up what he is equipped with as if for approval.

Artillerymen are the worst. 'Look, look I've got a rammer'. I much prefer the 'just sitting around having a quiet smoke and trying not to attract the sergeants attention', pose.

By the way pay no attention to those cautioning you to cut back on figures. An army doesn't begin to get interesting till you have at least 500 figures.Why you are only just starting to get into your stride.

John
Thanks for your kind remarks and continued interest, Men!

Captain Bill -- Happy to be of service. You just can't beat RSM figures for proportions, size, "attitude" and price.

Andy -- Yes, you have a point. I have enough to complete the Sittangbad OOB and will be forced to swear off any future purchases for a little while. . . although some of the RSM French horse grenadiers in bearskins look mighty juicy.

Steve -- Yes, I spent some time re-examining the Funken volume last night. Looks like I'll go with a light blue with red facings and white smallclothes for one unit for one unit, mid-blue with white facings and turnbacks for another, dark blue with pink facings and plae yellow smallclothes for the third, and red with light blue for that regiment of hussars. There is alos a unit of RSM dragoons, but I haven't decided on a color for them yet.

Jeff -- Again, happy to be of service! I used to be perfectly happy with units of 16-20 figures years ago, but once I feasted my eyes upon the pictures Charge! it was all over.


Tune in again soon, everyone. The coming battle promises to be entertaining, especially if my tactical abilities remain as "good" as they have over the last 16 months! ;-)
Der Alte Fritz said…
Maybe you could use one of the RSM units as a second battalion of guards in tricorns. The light blue coated grenadiers could be the first battalion and the tricorn with light blue coats are the second battalion or velites of something like that.
old-tidders said…
Your building up quite a collection and I'm sure you'll have many pleasurable hours painting all that shiny metal.

Oh only if I had more table space !, then I'd be at charge unit sizes.

-- Allan
littlejohn said…
Whew! those hussars are cool...and quite a project...I'm facing a unit of (merely) 24 RSM hussars in mirlitons and I'm not yet quite ready to dive in...but, as always, your stuff gets me inspired!

--Dave

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