Second Cuirassier Squadron Nears Completion!!!

Here's the first of several photographs I discovered on our other digital camera that were taken during last spring's Battle of Saegewerkdorf between Jef Hudelson and me. . . The game that was flooded out after only two turns! :-( Above are the Stollenian generals, surveying their position just to the southeast of the village.

Here is the extreme left of the Stollenian line before advancing on Saegewerkdorf.

Here is the battery of Stagonian artillery that caused a fair amount of trouble opposite of Stollen's right flank.

One of the primary targets of that artillery was Stollen's cavalry arm, the 4th (Trakehnen) Dragoons.

And here is the opposite end of Stollen's infantry line, occupied by the 2nd (Von Laurenz) Musketeers.

No photo quite yet, but the second batch of Anspach-Beyreuth Kuirassiere is just about finished. One more tiny thing to paint, then it's onto touching up a few black areas, followed by my usual two coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish. Despite the "excitement" of the last month or so, I've still managed to make painting progress little by little and bit by bit. A pretty good thing given how much less free time there is than just a few short weeks ago. ;-) Young Paul is actually napping at this moment in his sleeping sack on my lap. No apparent interest in wargaming, playing the guitar, or cross country skiing quite yet, but he is trying to hold his head up and look around whenever he is awake.

So, only nine cuirassier figures left to paint, and with the university semester ending on Friday, I'll have a bit more spare time to do that. Epecially during the nights since I am taking over for the Grand Duchess once a modicum of sleep and the need to appear cognizent in front of my students are no longer necessary. And when Paul decides to sleep, guess who's going to roll his desk chair over to the painting table? If all goes well, I expect to have the entire regiment finished well before Christmas.

And then it's onto that regiment of Holger Eriksson cavalry purchased last summer. Or perhaps another unit of RSM infantry but in tricorns this time. Or maybe a two-gun battery and crew? Or possibly several additional mounted generals and their ADCs? Of course, I could just have a lie-down now and peruse issue #20 of Battlegames, which arrived in the mail earlier this afternoon. Don't you just hate having to make up your mind like that?

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

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 ...

Bluebear Jeff said…

You, my friend, have a veritable plethora of blessings . . . which upsets me not at all. Enjoy all of them, good sir.

-- Jeff

6:14 PM

Capt Bill said…

Always enjoy seeing photos of your fine armies...

7:53 PM

tradgardmastare said…

Spring photos are excellent and inspiring.I look forward to the next game .
Alan

12:13 AM

Steve-the-Wargamer said…

Stokes - any plans to finish that game with Jeff??

7:01 AM