Progress Report

No pictures Jeff, the camera is playing up.

I have spent the past few weeks dilligently painting, basing and re-basing and here's what I have so far:

A squadron of a dozen Schomberg/Saxe Dragoons;
Likewise a squadron of a dozen Hussars;
Ditto, a squadron and-a-half of the La Reine Regiment.

Further, I have half squadrons of Royal-Pologne, Cuirassiers du Roi, Royal-Cravattes, Montcalm and some red-coated, black-turnbacked regiment whose name escapes me just now. Bless their hearts. Oh, I just remembered - Colonel-General.

More figures are on order; more Schomburg/Saxes for a second squadron, another dozen line Cavalry to wrap up the Royal Cravattes and Colonel-General squadrons. More Horses to mount another eight of the Royal-Pologne. Odds and sods of musicians and officers.

I will try to get some pictures taken this weekend. I promise.

Now, to market.

All this building and purchasing comes at a price, both in $$$ and in terms of storage, so I am going to be having a sell down, a paring down of the collection if you like.

I'll be making my first offer here and on a couple of relevant Yahoo Groups; I'll leave it up for a week and then anything left will go to eBay. Fair enough?

My first offering:

• 17 Pax Britannica/RSM Prussian Fusiliers - note that they are older castings in the softer metal in the Advancing pose. Detail is much crisper than the current offering.

• 19 Pax Britannica/RSM Austrian German Musketeers - in the Advancing Pose. Note that they are older castings in the softer metal. Detail is much crisper than the current production.

• 20 RSM Austrian Hungarian Grenadiers - in the Advancing Pose.

• Two boxes of Revell Austrian 7YW Dragoons, still in their boxes; the sprues have been cut up, but the horses and riders are still attached to the sprue fragments.

• *SOLD* Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905. It's a Near-fine copy with an intact dust-jacket and only minor bumping on the cover boards.

I'll take cash or trade for them. Please contact me at bloggetatorATgmailDOTcom

The Guns, the guns the sound of guns

Taking maladministration and peculation on a massive scale as a given, let us admit that the Artillery of Gallispania and Alzheim have fallen into a sad state of disrepair, disorganisation and a great many other words starting with dis- and then move on, shall we?

I've always liked artilley models and have collected a great many of them from a great many manufacturers. Now, while this has satisfied my child-like appetites for pretty-pretty toys, it's not really let me build a useful collection of guns for the wargames table being a they are, all rather incompatible with each other and my RSM gunners!

I'll be selling them off as far as possible to produce a more unified park based around the RSM range and the odd ring-in for perceived gaps such as in the fortress and siege artillery areas. And I may well indulge myself here and there... no! stop it!

I aleady have a few RSM guns and I like the few Eureks pirate ship guns I've been using as Fortress Artillery (they look good and the price is right) and will keep on going this way, but with limbers, horse teams, munitions wagons to properly support them.

On another note to the Imaginationeers (new word, add it to the dictionary today) who likes the idea of creating their own 18th Century-style Legion? The Legion de Horne for example?

Rationalising the Cavalry collection

It's not what you think.

What I have in mind is getting my French - er - Gallispan army onto a more "rational" basis. I mean, my stars, this is the Age of Reason, is it not?

I am starting with the Cavalry, a much neglected arm in my collection. Up until now, my cavalry has been two fairly well-developed (ie, laregeish) units of the Line Cavalry; La Reine and another gray-coated no-name unit. The rest has been scraps, really, eight or a dozen Gensdarmes, a similar number of the Bercheny Hussars and so forth.

Now, I've been re-reading my Charles Grant and am wanting to put my Cavalry on that sort of basis - 24 troopers, 3 Officers and a Guidon. I have been having a good old rummage though my assorted lead piles and have found numbers of varying types of cavalry figure I bought at various times but never got too far into painting, so I do have a start on building things up, but more purchases will need to be made.

I'm looking at a structure consisting of two Line and one Light Brigade of Cavalry with the following regiments:

First Brigade:
Gendarmerie
Colonel-General
Cuirassiers du Roi

Second Brigade:
La Reine
Royal-Pologne
Montcalm

Light Brigade:
Saxe Dragoons
Bercheny Hussars
Ratzsky Hussars

Each Brigade will have an appropriate Etat Major.

I have been getting back into the swing of painting having produced in the past two weeks a squadron each of Royal-Pologne and the Saxe Dragoons. Next on the painting table are some of the Bercheny hussars. My painting plan is to paint me each a squadron of each regiment in turn before going on to paint a second.

Next time - reorganising the Artillery.