During our recent trip to Spain, Madrid was our home base for a few days. Besides a great calamari bocadilla on the Plaza Major, I stumbled upon a great game shop a few blocks away. The shop is called Atlantica Juegos (http://www.atlanticajuegos.com/). The shop has walls of miniatures and a very nice collection of books, rulesets, and boardgames. They also produce their own line of 28mm SCW figures. With walls covered in figures, I was finally able to physically browse through hundreds of packs of Warmodelling and Perry figures. While I bought no figures, I did pick up two uniform books on the SYW.
18mm SYW Project: Battalion #2 Austrian IR#7 Neipperg is on the painting table along with battalion #2 from Grenz Regiment - Carsltadt Liccaner. The grenadier companies from Neipperg will be crossing the painting table following completion of these two battalions.
Received an order from Eureka this week containing a resupply of Prussian foot, mounted battalion command, and Russian hussars. Even though I don't have any Russians, I picked up the 12 Russian hussars in Mirliton to use as either Austrian or Prussians. SYW hussars were often quite generic among nationalities and the Russian hussars have a much smaller footprint than the larger and more sprawling Austrian and Prussian light horse. In fact, I had to mount the Austrian and Prussian hussars on bases 40mm in depth rather than my standard 30mm depth used for cuirassiers, dragoons, and foot.
28mm Napoleonic Project: On the painting table is one battalion of Brigade Games' early French in bicorn. The battalion will consist of 16 figures distributed on four stands and two skirmishers. When I began the unit, I lacked two Brigade Games' skirmishers so I grabbed two, left over Elite Miniatures' skirmishers in shako. Late last week, an order from Brigade Games arrived containing the two French skirmishers needed, a few extra British heads in shako, and eight, early French chasseurs a cheval. The early French chasseurs look really nice but I must compare them size-wise with my existing Front Rank cavalry before I make judgment. The two Brigade Games' skirmishers will be mustering with their parent battalion. Also on the painting block are two mounted officers: one British and one French. Primers and ready for paint are four more mounted officers to command the troops already painted. In the game at Kevin's, I would have not had enough command if more players has participated. Painting additional commanders will allow each player to field (and command) one brigade. While all mounted commanders are currently based individually, I may create divisional bases containing two officers or one officer and an ADC.
Nearly two months since my prior update. What have I been doing? As seen from the AUG and SEP Painting Tallies, not much. In the painting work that did get finished, most centered on the 18mm SYW project. The only other completed units were my first Brigade Games British (nice figures) and one Austrian grenadier battalion for the 1859 campaign. Hopefully, October's output will see an improvement. Met with Scott at Kevin's for two games on Saturday. I GM'd the morning game consisting of a Napoleonic brigade action set in the Peninsula. In the afternoon, Kevin GM'd a similarly sized Napoleonic game set in Egypt. Sunday's planned game at Scott's was scrubbed due to illness. My game was based on the action on the Coa in 1810 where the British were attacked by the French near Almeda. The British goal was to either hold the village and bridge or failing that, escape over the bridge and deny the crossing of the Coa to the French. The French focused the thrust of their attack towards the British LOC and effectively cut the the British off from their escape route. Below is one shot of the Coa action with the French bearing down upon the British defenders and forcing them to fall back away from their LOC. Unfortunately, for the British in our game, the British made a stubborn defense at the village and were virtually eliminated.
18mm SYW Project: Battalion #1 of Austrian IR#48 - Luzan was completed in July and battalion #2 appears in the August Painting Tally. Also in August, I finished the first battalion of Austrian IR#7 Neipperg and four squadrons of horse. These four squadrons were mustered to bring two Austrian horse regiments up to six squadron strength.
