I recently purchased Dorn and Engelmann’s Infantry Regiments of Frederick the Great from Barnes and Noble. However, the book arrived damaged with a torn jacket. Barnes and Noble said they could not order a replacement copy. The dust jacket on this book features a handsome painting of Prussian standard bearers passing in review (http://www.schifferbooks.com/newschiffer/book_template.php?isbn=0887401635) and I would like to have an unblemished cover. Being a bit irritated with B&N's customer service, I sent an e-mail to the publisher of the book, Schiffer Books, explaining the situation and asking if I could order a replacement dust jacket. The publisher replied that same afternoon stating that a replacement would be sent gratis within 48 hours.
Well, the replacement dust jacket arrived within a week and I am very pleased to have a crisp, unscathed dust jacket. This latest episode (and there have been many) with B&N may be the catalyst that finally pushes me away from ordering again.
10mm ACW Project: With rebasing finished, focus turned to recreating the RFF QRS to accommodate my 10mm basing. I managed to condense the existing QRS to front and back of a single, 8"x11" sheet of paper. The primary QRS change was to replace occurrences of 'stands' with 'hits'. Since infantry are based two strips to one base representing two rank infantry, each base can take two hits before being eliminated. Cavalry still takes only one hit as before. After having shared the source of his excellent looking fences, I placed an order with Musket Miniatures. This is my first order from MM. We'll see how it goes. I primed the last six of the 24 limbers I have. These limbers will be added into the painting queue.
Using the battlefield layout from Albuera, I am laying out an ACW scenario set in 1862 Virginia. Of course, I replaced the Napoleonic Spanish houses with mid-19th century American buildings but all else remained much the same. The game will pit Williams' Federal division against elements of A.P. Hill's Light Division. The Federals will be deployed across the high ground with a commanding view of the valley. A.P. Hill will be bringing three brigades on table by two approaches with orders to clear the heights and seize certain key terrain objectives.
15mm Second War of Italian Independence Project: Currently on the painting table are 48 Italian infantry to build four line battalions. These 48 figures are proving difficult on which to make much headway. I have tackled this number of figures in the past and often this large number seems daunting and I swear I won't repeat painting this many figures in one go. Well, I must forget the pain upon completion of such a large grouping and I dive once more into the morass. As a future reminder to myself, 24-28 figures ought to be my maximum for any one, painting group.
Gaming has been limited to several sessions of C&CA. Nick and I faced off again with C&CA in a Friday night session on the 2nd. In this meeting, we played Beneventum three times. We each won one game as the Romans and Nick one the final game as the Carthaginians. All three games were very closely contested affairs. In fact, two of the three games went from the side trailing in banner count 6 - 5 to winning 6 banners to 7 by capturing two banners on the last turn. On the 10th, I traveled to CDA to face off against Scott. I believe we played eight games. I may have won two. It was a tough day on the battlefield for my troops. My faction was decisively outplayed by Scott in nearly all scenarios. On the 17th, Nick and I again wrestled with three replays of Bagradas. The Romans won two games while the Cathaginians one only one. We each won one game as Roman while Nick picked up the sole Carthaginian victory. The key to my Roman victory was Nick advancing his three elephants to the forefront of his battleline early in the contest. I then played a double time card and advanced three units of medium infantry (two with leaders) to engage and destroy all three elephants. On the painting front, not much painting has been completed in March, thus far. The only figures finished are 100+ 6mm ancients. Much of my hobby time has been spent rebasing the 10mm ACW collection. Last night saw the completion of the rebasing project.
Kevin and I met at Scott's today for an afternoon of Command and Colors: Ancients. We played through five games with three games of Dertosa before the lunch break and then two games of Pharsulus after lunch. Although I did not note games times, I wager few of the games exceeded one hour in length. In Dertosa, the Romans won twice and Pharsulus saw each combatant take a victory. The system is quite elegant and play is smooth. When heavy infantry are involved, losses (and banners) and mount quickly. In my Pharsulus game with Kevin, the heavies on both sides dealt heavy casualties on their opposition and created a number of breaches in the line. Next up, Kevin has offered to host a Command and Colors: Napoleonics game. I look forward to giving a few of the smaller British vs. French Napoleonic battles a try. 18mm SYW Project: The first battalion of Swiss Regiment Diesbach is finished. The Blue Moon figures are really quite handsome with good proportions and nice detail. They fit well with Eureka's SYW range and offer a substantial discount over the Eurekas. Following the Swiss battalion are two battalions of Eureka Prussian infantry. Both battalions are from Musketeer Regiment #19 and are being finished this weekend. Next up for the SYW project will be the grenadier companies from IR#8 and IR#19. 15mm Napoleonic Project: After re-reading the Albuera OOB's, I discovered that there was one Spanish battery (Miranda's) of 6 pounders at Albuera. So, I tore open the bag of Spanish artillery and will be priming figures for two Spanish batteries. On the painting table are two batteries of Portuguese artillery. With a number of orchards covering the battlefield, I have been looking for alternatives to my collection of conifers. Searching the web, I found a model train company (JTT & Partners, MiniatureTree.com) that sells 1" and 2" deciduous trees. The package arrived this week and the trees both look nice and provide a good value at 55 trees for $27. I haven't decide to base these in clusters or individually.