Much Afoot at Fife and Drum. . .

Back to the Grand Duchy after a lengthy absence in the name of family vacation. A good time was had by all, but it was extremely nice -- after navigating three airports, two flights, along with United States Immigrations and Customs officials plus a lengthy drive home from Chicago's O'Hare International mind you -- to walk through one's own front door and close it once the suitcases were unloaded.

So. Not much going on here at the moment just yet, although I plan to dive back into command vignettes shortly, and maybe even stage a solo game at the start of August. However, there have recently been lots of neat developments over at Fife and Drum Miniatures, where new Prussian artillery equipment, limbers, wagons, and horse teams have emerged for sale. Prices are competitive too, and the sculpting/casting is top notch. But see for yourselves by visiting Fife and Drum Miniatures or the Hesse-Seewald blog, where proprietor Jim Purky has posted new photographs with more scheduled to appear shortly.

Suffice to say, the Fife and Drum range is really turning into quite an impressive set of figures and equipment every bit as good as, and entirely compatible with, everything produced by Minden Miniatures. When used together, both ranges permit 18th century gamers considerable scope and variation where troop types and uniforms are concerned. It's almost too much good stuff at one time and makes dropping off to sleep in the late evenings just a bit harder what with thoughts of charging AWI dragoons, mounted officers, pontoon trains, and special unit/army deals drifting around the ol' noggin

Comments

Bloggerator said…

I am especially enamoured of the mounted officers and will be laying in a stock here in Alzheim.

Hm, i wonder of it's time for the jolly old DoA to explore the 1770s?

Glad to hear you had a jolly time Stokes.

11:00 PM

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

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 ...

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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