I've been buying things.
I know I oughtn't.
I have though...
I was messing about last night in front of the TV and decided to get all my Minden Prussians out and line them up. I was pleasantly stunned to realise I'd got almost an entire unit.
I'll be getting more to flesh this lot out. I'm going to have to get some French, too, just to take a look, you understand. Not to build a batallion of them... honest.
Then I went and bought some (about twenty) Hanoverians from Jude Beckers' Venture Miniatures. I'm very eager to get these. Very eager - I'm extremely keen on the style of the sculpting; and the officer with the raised sword looks just like I imagine Baron Munchausen to be. They look a little cartoony, but in a good way, if you understand me.
Then there are the Eureka Sumerians. I've just bought my first 40 or so as I intend to follow Phil Olley's example on how to build an army. Here's hoping I have the discipline... Oh, who am I kidding? I want to paint the little domkey-chariots!
On the imagineering front, I am reading the Cambridge University Press volume on the Agean Bronze Age that I picked up in an excellent 2nd hand bookshop here on Brunswick Street. This has led me to fondle the sample Myceneans I bought from Eureka a couple of years ago and to really regret that it is nowhere near being complete. I must resist the call of the 100 Club - I've other irons in that fire! It's really nice to be reading a volume of history or archaeology that has actually been published less than twenty years ago and represents a rather more recent state of the art than I have been used to in recent years of "self-directed study".
On that topic, I have been watching with a great deal of interest the debate at the Old School Wargames YahooGroup on the topic of Anglocentric history. It bodes well as a topic worth exploration. Indeed, the topic could very well be broadened to take in the whole wargaming-history axis. Who knows what directions that might take us in?
4 comments:
Just to ease your mind and to let you know that you are not alone . . . I've been buying things too.
Mainly books and rule books and lead soldiers and terraining materials and paint and . . . well the list keeps growing.
You are not alone.
-- Jeff
Hey Greg,
Good for you and your purchases, just don't strain the finances to beyond the breaking point! Or do you come from the Pitt the Elder school of accounting, "Spend, spend, and never count the cost."?
Wargamers always seem to be caught between reality and their hobby.
I like the look of those Venture Minis, and their mission statement. I've often thought it would be cool to have minis sculpted in styles that looked like period art. Please keep us informed if you do order some.
(glad to see you're doing your part trying to keep the economy going - lol)
Hi Greg,
Well, we've gone off on a butterfly diversion locally. It has been a couple of weeks since I painted some SYW soldiers because:
1. A surge has happened for colonials for me. I promised myself that if I ever start a new wargame time period it must be substantially active at the end of twenty-four months. (My priorites are gaming, painting and rules writing. Collecting for pleasure is not on the radar screen as it is for so many more contented souls.) So I've been painting a second Indian battalion and shipping boxes of tribesmen out to a painting company for several months. The twenty-four month deadline is this coming June. If I get the battalion done plus a four gun battery and my painter gets another one hundred tribesmen to me, we are all set. Later the tribesmen will receive a reinforcement of Household guardish types from your countrymen over at Castaway Arts. Magnificent stuff. I just ordered the NW Frontier tribesmen last week. I figured since these are so gorgeous and well-done they can be the Guru's Household units of rifles, swordsmen and horsemen. The Guru in Gunga Din had Household units. I'm thinking Imperial Guard - kind of.
2. Some here may know we are having a Jacobite game on the 3rd of May. While staying home today and running in and out on errands, I got out my ECW Scots and rebased twenty-six of them for duty at Der Alte's this coming Saturday. That's all I have. They look just fine.
Any how I'll resume SYW painting in mid-May with the von Brühl Dragoons. These are mostly Elite Miniatures hopefully to be reinforced by a squadron of horse grenadiers from the Eureka 100 Club in May or June. A squadron? Well, a company just won't do and if the fusilier hats turn out nice, twelve horse grenadiers will be mighty appealing.
I think diversions are a good thing for us. You know -- to wander off butterfly hunting -- looking into different wargame time periods. The problem is too many time periods if one has a priority of games are first and collecting is off the radar screen or barely on it. I always feel like my stuff has to be in action not just sitting on a shelf being admired. But I reckon collectors have different priorities and that's okay with me in case someone is wondering if I am knocking them. I'm not.
The bottom line is I need to complete about 100 colonials for the Imperial Army in about three weeks. Lucky for me there are no turnbacks and hat lace, etc.
Cheerio Sahib Greg,
Bill
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