The Dog Days of August. . . Whew!

It’s another hot one here at Stollen Central with temperatures hovering somewhere in the low to mid-90 degree (Fahrenheit) range. And the forecast calls for more of the same at least through next weekend. Ugh!

At any rate, following a 50+ mile bicycling event outside of Peoria, Illinois – The Interplanetary Ride -- with the Grand Duchess and our transplanted Australian friend “Leo” yesterday (my recently purchased hand-made Cannondale perfomed wonderfully, than you), today has been reserved for less taxing activities in the air conditioned cool of the spare bedroom that doubles as my office, painting, and radio room – or as we like to call it, The Purple Room!

So, what has my pleasantly fatigued and slightly sunburned self been up to today? Well, a used copy of Stuart Asquith’s Guide to Solo Wargaming (1988), in very good condition, arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. I’ve been perusing it rather closely this afternoon and will post a brief review of the book here later in the week. The cover of the book is neat because it shows what I am pretty sure is Stuart’s imaginary mid-18^th century set-up, made up of nicely painted plastic Spencer Smith figures – as described in one of his articles in an early issue of Battlegames magazine.

This evening, while the Grand Duchess works on some of her own projects, I’ll be back at work on the third company-sized batch of 19 1/72 Revell Austrian SYW grenadiers, trimming the mold lines and generally getting the figures all ready for a base coat of artist’s acrylic gesso. If all goes well, and I manage to get the final 19 figures finished by midweek, I’ll begin base coating and undercoating with Liquitex acrylic black paint for the entire 80+ figure unit. Then it’s on to the fun part – painting!

This particular unit will be (of course) based on white coated Austrian troops of the SYW period. Briefly, the uniform will look some like this: Coats and breeches – white, facings and turnbacks – purple, gaiters -- black (officers and NCO’s -- white), bearskins – brown, and silk bags – red. If you refer to an earlier post here (from sometime in June, I think), you’ll see a reasonable representation of what I’d like these fellows to look like.

Oh, and for the flag? Well, I'll again use a metal 25mm MiniFigs Austrian figure (for added weight and stability, like I did with the Von Laurenz Musketeers last summer) with the standard based on one of the Catholic principalities of Mid-18th century Central/Southern "Germany" although I'll mess with colors a bit. Hats off to the Warflag website by the way. In any case, I’m hoping that the painting will proceed fairly rapidly given the predominance of white on these figures. We’ll have to see, but keep your fingers and toes crossed.

And on the longer term bicycling front? Well, the Grand Duchess already has us registered for the two-day Hilly Hundred, a premier cycling event in the Midwest, which is held each October outside of Bloomington, Indiana. Not content to let our leg muscles atrophy until then, Sonja also has also strongly suggested the one-day No Bologna Ride in mid-September. Again, this ride is outside of Peoria, Illinois, so we might just have to rope our friend Leo into riding with us once more. Looks like there’s little rest for the wicked over the next couple of months!