Anything new in the Grand Duchy of Stollen lately?

What's this ?  A company of O'Malley's Irish Grenzers has occupied Schpeckbova Farm, located just beneath a wooded ridge.

A fair amount has been going on here the last couple of weeks, including, of course, a flurry of painting on the final 18 (yes, 18!) Holger Eriksson dragoons.  But more on those in just a moment.

First, a copy of  Hans Bleckween's Reiter, Husaren, und Grenadiere arrived in the mail about two weeks ago after a circuitous journey from Germany.  This is an interesting little book all about the Reichsarmee of circa 1734.  Not exactly mid-18th Century, but pretty close and chock-a-block full of fascinating period illustrations of soldiers from the ten districts responsible for contributing troops and money to the formation and upkeep of the Reichsarmee. . .  The 'army' of the Holy Roman Empire.  If you are at all interested in the subject, track down a copy.  Even if you don't read German well (and mine is very rusty), there are enough illustrations to keep you busy for a while.

Next, a copy of the Wargamers' Annual 2011 turned up here (ordered early in December, well before Christmas) early this past week.  As with last year's initial outing by Charles Grant and Phil Olley, this annual contains all manner of interesting thoughts, ideas, scenarios, and etc.  I like especially the various how-to pieces on making abbattis and redoubts for use on one's tabletop.  One minor niggle, however, is that this year's annual seems a bit rushed and rough around the edges.  There are a number of typographical errors sprinkled throughout, which takes some of the shine away from what could be an otherwise topnotch publication.  But I suppose I am hyper-sensitive to these kinds of things as someone who attempts to teach the finer skills of writing to undergraduates.  Edit, edit, edit as the saying goes.

On another related topic, I have finally exhausted my supply of heavy gray cardboard that I use to make my houses and other buildings.  I have carefully scavenged and hoarded the former from the backs of graph paper pads since the mid-1980s, so this was something of a milestone in a way.  Fortunately, I found sheets of the stuff, called 'chipboard', at the arts and craft supply company known as Dick Blick here in the United States.  My mother, the real artist of the family, purchased all of her oil paints and brushes through them for many years.  The company stocks all kinds of useful things, and I urge you to peruse the website carefully.

But back to the heavy cardboard.  I've been asked to produce a small group of buildings that are similar to those seen here recently, so additional online research as to the type of buildings and the material with which to construct them were necessary.  I can't really say anything more about it right now, but watch for a few words here some months down the road.

Along with the two large sheets of heavy cardboard, I ordered a few tubes of oil colors: ivory black, Venetian Red and Light English Red.  The latter two are really reddish browns that will be used primarily for horses in future cavalry regiments.  I've had so much fun painting horses with a Humbrol undercoat and thin oil glazes lately, borrowing heavily from John Preece over at the Flanderkin Serjeant blog, that I have decided to do all future horses this way.  They really look amazing to my eyes.  I've also decided to bite the bullet and try painting an entire unit of 60 RSM Prussian musketeers -- as red-coated Hanseatic infantry no less -- using a white undercoat and mostly thinned alkyd oils.  But, I've got a unit of Minden Prussian hussars plus a couple of MiniFig cannon to finish first.

But what about to the Holger Eriksson cavalry figures?  The second squadron of nine figures is just about finished (only a few small items to paint yet), and the third squadron  is well underway.  Normally, I work on one subsection of a unit from start to completion, but I feared my 22-year old tin of Humbrol Rifle Green, which I have used for the coats and saddle cloths, might dry out mid-project.  Since I have no idea where or how to replace said tin easily, it seemed prudent to jump on my painting horse and apply some rather thick, goopy color to the final nine figures while there was still some life left in the old girl.  

Anyway, in the space of about 2.5 hours early Friday evening, I managed to apply fleshtone to these final nine figures, white to the wigs, green to the coats and saddle cloths, and khaki to the valises/greatcoats at the rear of the saddlecloths.  Now, this might seem unremarkable, but to yours truly, the paint almost seemed to apply itself to these wonderful old Swedish figures.  Each step went so quickly and easily that I thought, "Well, why not?" and continued with the next step.  The end result, is that I very well might be able to finish both squadrons (18 figures) in another week or so, barring any unforeseen complications.  And maybe it might have something to do with using a larger than normal brush?  Look for a few photographs right here once the entire unit is finished.

Finally, I have my table all set up to fight the "Vanguards Collide" scenario by Phil Olley, as set out in the pilot issue of Phil's Classic Wargamer's Journal last summer.  I've tweaked the basic set-up though, so that each side has one less squadron of cavalry but one gun and crew.  I've also turned both hills into wooded ridges with the addition of several trees, and complicated things somewhat by dicing to determine in which turn the respective commanders actually arrive on the battlefield to sort their troops out and attempt to make some sense of the rather disorganized action unfolding across the small valley.  The Battle of Inkerman from the Crimean war occurred to me here.  In any case, I plan to get in a couple of turns this evening after Young Master Paul has been put to bed and we have had dinner.

Otherwise, it has been rather quiet here recently though we did have dinner for about eight of the Grand Duchess' students last night.  One puzzling thing that's been on my mind though in the hours since. At what point in recent history did it become the norm for dinner guests to remove their shoes and leave them in a pile by the front door?  Definitely not charming.  It's not like people have to wade through acres of plowed fields, snow, or manure to reach our front steps either.  

I don't ever recall noticing this shoeless phenomenon as a child or young person at home whenever my parents and grandparents had dinner guests.  People arrived dressed nicely and behaved in a correspondingly pleasant way.  Strange.  I wish more people had a little more sense of, well, basic polite convention for want of a better term.  You need to be a tiny bit more formal and keep your clothes and shoes on when a guest in someone's home unless it's a backyard pool party, or you are at the beach during the summer.  But that's a subject for another time and place I suppose.  

Ok, back to the saltmines.  See you in a week or so with those Holger Eriksson figures all finished!

Monday, January 31st HE Dragoon Update!!!

Made a big push yesterday evening after dinner, following Young Master Paul's bath/bedtime, and finished the second batch of HE cavalry.  21 down, nine to go (and these are already well underway).  I even added brass and silver to ALL of the buckles n bits on the 21 horses' bridles and martingales.  These are added so quickly that it seems a shame not to add tiny details that no one will notice, but to my eyes they add that extra bit of icing to the cake.  If the Grand Duchess had not arrived home from her Sunday evening choral practice, I felt as though the dragoon painting could have continued for another  couple of hours at least!  It really is true. . .   The more painted figures you complete, the more you want to go on painting.  Now, pick up those brushes ladies and gentlemen, uncap those paints, and get going!