Much activity since my last update so I'll briefly catch up on some of them. I swapped my 15mm Medievals for Jake's 6mm Romans. We each got what we preferred and now, instead of each having two orphaned projects, we each have one complete project. Progress! Jake is finishing up some Roman cavalry and skirmishers to complete the trade. I placed a resupply of Litko bases including bases for rebasing all of the 6mm figures. Ordered and received (via Scott) a sample order from Old Glory containing a handful packs of Blue Moon FIW French infantry. My plan was to see if these figures would fit in with Eureka's SYW Austrians and Prussians. First, the figures are exquisite and second, the Blue Moon figures fit very well with Eureka's SYW infantry range. Flags. I received a package from Body Banners to fill out flags for the ECW project. I picked up colors for a few foote regiments and a number of horse regiments. The Body Banner flags are nice looking and will be a welcome addition for the color-less horse regiments. For cavalry colors, Body Banners includes both 15mm and 25mm flags. I only need the 25mm flags. Having already created homemade flags for my Austrians and Prussians, I needed SYW flags for both the Bavarians and Wurtemburg regiments. Using the flags from http://www.kronoskaf.com, I was able to create flags for all of these. A few cut, paste, and resizing tasks later, I have flags for the Bavarian Leib Regiment, the Wurtemburg von Roeder Regiment, and the Prussian 8th IR. Flags were needed for the Napoleonic Spanish so I found a suitable flag on the internet and performed the same activities. Now, the eight Spanish foot regiments all have flags! Finally, I had four unflagged British regiments so flags were made for these too. Printed onto glossy photo paper, the clarity is better than my existing flags so I may ploddingly replace all of the flags in the British army. Saturday's RFnF Game - Iuka. Austin hosted an ACW game on Saturday with Scott R. and Don making the drive up from the south. Although Scott M. was sidelined with a broken ankle, his troops made the game and the four of us fought out the battle. With Scott's Rebs reaching the high ground first, Don deployed his Federals in the fields in preparation for the attack.
After a number of furious attacks and counterattacks, the rash Confederates leapt out from their protective terrain and attempted to turn the Federal left. As losses mounted, the Federals began to make headway against the Rebel positions. When the Confederate attacks first stalled and then repulsed, Austin noticed that one of the lead Union regiments was actually supposed to be a part of the reinforcing column. With good-natured cries of "cheat, cheat" and the late hour, the game was called with no clear winner. The regiments under Austin and myself never managed to fire a shot during the game. Iuka would be an interesting scenario to replay.
One of the notable events of the game was one of Don's die rolls landing on top of Scott's troops.
The stream of post-Christmas books continues. Arrivals within the last month include:
The Philadelphia Campaign Volume 2 - McGuire
With Zeal and Bayonets Only - Spring
The War of Austrian Succession - Browning
I'm looking forward to diving into Spring's book to get a better sense of how the British conducted battle during the AWI. A few recent acquisitions from eBay include:
Reiter Husaren und Grenadiere
Frederick the Great's Allies 1756-63 - Reid/Embelton
Marlborough's Army 1702-11 - Barthorp/McBride
Another hobby-related Christmas gift was a 1/48 Tamiya Sherman from Scott. He has been prodding me for some time to give modeling a try. With this gift, he knew I had no choice. I built the Sherman and it is ready for painting and detailing. We'll get together on Friday for a painting night that will likely include work on the tank. The Sherman is a nifty model and Scott assures me that the 28mm figures fit nicely with 1/48 scale vehicles. Perhaps we'll be seeing a little WWII skirmish gaming in the near future? One problem lingers. What rules to use for this level of gaming? The group has tried several rulesets; none have provided the results to which all are pleased. January's painting completions were dominated by the 18mm SYW Project. All Prussian command is finished as are two battalions of Musketeer Regiment #8. I didn't have the correct number of grenadiers primed so the grenadier companies will follow later. In preparation for my planned 200th Anniversary Albuera game, elements from two Portuguese dragoon regiment passed across the painting table. Added to these were two squadrons of French Hussars (Napoleonics) and the 7th Penn. Regiment (AWI). Not a bad month. Thus far in February, I completed 10 1st Corps ancient German cavalry that have been taunting me from the primed box for far too long. Oh, and I finished rebasing the Napoleonic Prussian cavalry.
