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!!!