Henry Hyde's Von Eintopf Regiment of vintage plastic Spencer Smith miniatures (mentioned below). One of the many photos I gaze at periodically to keep me inspired and working toward my goal of two Charge-sized forces of 25-30mm figures. You might recall that I passed the halfway point last summer, and once I get another 80-figure unit of infantry painted for the Electorate of Zichenau, its army will be complete. Hopefully, that task will be finished in December and January this winter. Thank you everyone for your interest and the encouraging comments you have offered to Jonathan and me this weekend. So far, the game has been a great deal of fun. . . even if things aren't looking so good for my tabletop alter ego, Colonel von Grundig! Jonathan and I are halting for the evening, but we will pick up things where we have left them later in the week. In the meantime, I thought I'd answer a couple of questions that were asked yesterday.
One of you asked about my hussars. These are Revell 1/72 Prussian SYW Hussars, yes the set that is so hard to find and priced rediculouly high when you do. I was lucky enough to find a couple of sets almost three years ago with a German merchant, who sold them to me at a fairly reasonable price. I also picked up another box in an Ebay auction a year or so ago fairly cheaply. And I think Bill McHenry in Texas sent me some too in October 2007. So, eventually there will be about three fairly large units of plastic hussars galloping around my table.
The other question concerned the colors of green I've used for the tabletop, hills, and figure bases. As far as the first two are concerned, that's Olympic Latex, and the precise color is "Meadow Green." It's a nice bright color that really helps the figures to show up well and looks fairly close to the color used by Phil Olley, to prepare the table top and scenery used by The Wargamers in their refights of Sittangbad (2006) and Mollwitz (2007). Hard to believe the Sittangbad at Partizan was 2.5 years ago now!
The color on most of the figures' bases is plain old Games Workshop "Goblin Green". Here again, it's a case of money see, monkey do. Henry Hyde used this color to paint the bases of his Von Eintopf regiment of Spencer Smith infantry (pictured above) for the very same Sittangbad refight. So, I guess you could say that I've observed very carefully what some of the current luminaries in the wargaming hobby have done with their own projects and applied some of those same choices to my own Grand Duchy of Stollen project. When I start on an 80-figure unit of RSM95 Prussian fusiliers in December, I'll try something similar and see how it goes. Cross your fingers!
In the meantime, it's off to bed in a little while, to dream of brightly colored toy soldiers and an unlikely victory on the table. However, I think Jonathan has me right where he wants me this time around. Poor Colonel von Grundig! :-)
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Seriously though, I've greatly enjoyed the action so far, and been honored to have a part in the spectacle. I look forward to its resumption! We may be a little slower during the week, since we'll both have work and other duties to contend with, but we're hoping to get in a bit of time each evening. Stay tuned!
And re. dreams... I had an afternoon snooze today after looking at your battle photos (but before reading all of the text) and dreamt that I was at a convention where I just caught the end of a beautiful game and the owners were putting away their figures etc.
I then got distracted but when I returned to the table and lifted its cloth and looked under it, there were a bunch of perfect terrain pieces stored under the table ready for the next game. And I had just picked up some vacuum-formed plastic Vauban fortress wall sections to look at them when I awoke from my dream.
So maybe you will dream of figures and gaming tonight!
C
Definitely an inspirational photo of Henry Hyde's troops!
It's great to see your figures in action, and everything written up so well. They really look the part. I'll be watching for the rest of the story and making my new year resolution to get my own lads out onto the table in 2009.
John