Coming Soon. . .

Just received word last night that the 2012 Wargamers' Annual by Charles S. Grant is due out shortly!  Lots of interesting things, by a bevy of contributors, are covered by this new issues, including a couple of small pieces by yours truly.  That bit of self-promotion notwithstanding, this looks like another fantastic addition to current wargaming hobby literature, which you won't want to miss, and I can't wait to get my paws on it.

On other fronts, spent a happy couple of hours last night applying pigment to the current crop of nine Minden hussars.  Tedious stuff like yellow facing color on the collars and cuffs, yellow and/or gold lace to the sabretaches, brown on the girths and stirrup leathers, and so forth.  Still lots to do, but the little devils are slowly getting there.  I hope for another couple of hours this evening and another few tomorrow (Sunday), but the Grand Duchess has been away at a conference, so it's just been Young Master Paul and me.  Not too much work, and he's been a really good boy for Dad, but the level of mental fatigue when one is the sole parent in the house means that I've skipped painting for a few nights and just collapsed into bed with a book after the young master's bedtime.  Uff!

P.S.

A few days later. . .  And I have received a complimentary advance copy of the 2012 Wargamers' Annual, which is chock-a-block full of interesting and useful tidbits of information on the model soldier and wargaming hobby, many of which already have me thinking ahead to the next terrain and/or scenery project.

On the hussar front, just the horse furniture to do, along with a few of the inevitable touch-ups, and the middle batch of nine Minden hussars will be all done.  Whew!  Don't know that I'll make the November 5th painting challenge deadline with all 30 members of the unit completed, but I should be able to make a reasonable dent in the final nine by getting many of the larger areas painted. . .   i.e., horses, dolmans, pelisses, breeches, saddlecloths, flesh and hair.

After these infernal hussars are done, then it's on to one final unit of 60 RSM95 musketeers (which I'll paint as red-coated Hanseatic infantry) and a final two-gun battery of artillery (one gun crew in Saxon uniforms, and one in Bavarian uniforms), which will complete the Sittangbad-sized OOB I set out to fill in July-August of 2006.  Maybe Santa Claus/Father Christmas will bring me a pair of cannon for them to man? 

Further afield, there is a recently acquired unit of 30 plastic Spencer Smith dragoons, which were sold to me by Greg Horne at The Duchy of Alzheim, and a similarly sized unit of RSM95 dragoons along with some extra RSM Austrian grenadiers and a few Holger Eriksson spares floating around here in Zum Stollenkeller.  Hmmmm. . .  Might just have to bring one or both of those latter two up to full battalion or regimental strength next summer.  And sometime in the next year, or so, I need to do something about assembling that pontoon train I've wanted to add to my tabletop forces for so long.  Ah, ah!  There I go, daydreaming again!