SSM Cavalry on eBay

Currently surplus to requirements following the purchase of a job lot via Bartertown are these:

http://tinyurl.com/SSMCav

Bid early, bid often, bid unwisely. Help me refresh my credit card.

Weeks' Work

 Phew. On Saturday morning I painted the green bases and applied the varnish to these figures. The hatmen and ensign complete the LeibRegiment (IR#2 in my scheme); the grenadiers will go to the nascent Regiment La Rosee (IR#5) and the mounted officer and the Gunner will complete the complement for Alzheims first battery of the Field Artillery.

I really found getting through this many troops (24 Olley-points) a bit of a stretch considering my limited amount of time. They probably took me eight hours' which I snatch whilst getting ready for work and the odd-half hour after the kids have gone to bed in the evening.

"Mr Horne, Mr Horne, please Sir, what's your secret?"

"Consistency my boy. Pure and simple."

I think a more sustainable figure might be 12-16 olley-points a week. Food for thought.

The relatively easy bit! I assembled and painted some Italeri stone walls and the bridge. I glued the walls permanently in position as I could anticipate the paint just wearing off as time and juggling the bits about did their damage. The painting was not too much of a stretch, just a few lighter grays dry-brushed over a black undercoat. A touch of tan and green dry-brushing on the lower portions to tie it in with the non-existent ground-work.

Progress report... and a dilemma.

No pictures today, but I thought I'd post a little bit of an update as to progress on the Alzheimer Army.

I've begun work on another 20 infantry, a Gunner, a foot Officer and a mounted Officer, having just finished a pair of cavalry to round out one of the regiments kindly donated a couple of months back. All scraped free of flash, undercoated, faces, hair, muskets, water-bottles and white small-clothes all painted.

Phew.

Pale blue coats next. I'm hoping to be finished by the weekend.

Most of these will go to finish off the LeibRegiment with a few leftovers going to the La Rosee Regiment which is slated next for completion. After this I have a difficult decision to make.

As you'll recall, I bought a large chunk of the Alzheim and Imperial armies from Phil Olley. One of the regiments would do extremely well as a Grenadier Garde Regiment and I am considering it for the Alzheim service as IR#1. It's pretty well perfect in every detail but for one... The coats are black.

You can see my dilemma.

What else? In other news, I've closed a deal with a gentleman on Bartertown that will yield me another sizeable job lot of SSMs of all arms - including some much-needed Hussars and Gunners - that will (I think) get me to about 8 Regiments of Infantry and 10 of Cavalry for the "SSM Project". I think that will do quite nicely; while I'm sure that although the Grants had about 20 regiments of Line Foot in their armies, that I never read of a battle they recreated that couldn't be fought with more than about 10 units of Foot and 6-8 or horse per side!

That being said, although I'll probably buy some Grenzers and Pandurs for Light Infantry in metal as we go on. And then, there are those Hungarian Infantry that SSM do in metal. Hm. OK, maybe we'll get to 10 units of Line Foot per side.

Then I'll stop. Honest.

IR#3 von Browne

 Not my best photography, but, nonetheless, here they are, IR#3, von Brownes' own regiment of foot. They are marching along behind IR#3, von Prittwitz.

 Being part of a friendly competition in a group is a great way to motivate yourself. I've found a recent painting challenge a real boost and used it to push out 33 olley-points' of figures in the past ten days; a real first for me!

As must be pretty obvious now, i'm basing the Alzheim Army look on that of Bavaria albeit with the almost mandatory mistake on coat colour. Rather than the correct dark blue, I've opted for the rather more "heraldically correct" pale blue. You'll note that it goes quite nicely with the Bavarian flags that I'm using.
I sourced these beauties from Warflag and my partner Amy did me the kindness of sizing them correctly for my Spencer Smiths as well as getting them all into the one document - another version of "friends with benefits"!
Anyway, back to work - I'd like to get the Leibregiment finished and make some more headway into IR#5 "La Rosee" next.

UB 40

Assembled Submarine with ballast can in place.

Showing detached ballast. Ready to surface Sir!

For a change of pace this weekend, I decided I'd try making one of the wooden toys I found in "Carpentry And Mechanics For Boys", by A. Neely Hall.

The model is of a Submarine that will submerge and, on touching bottom, release a can of ballast an then rise to the surface. It has been quite an easy build so far, although I've not yet gotten onto making the mechanism for dropping the ballast can. Now, apart from letting the children have it (madness, surely!), what ever shall I do with it???

Infanterieregiment Nr. 4 "von Prittwitz"

 In all their glory.

My first self-completed Alzheimer Infantry unit. Thank-you painting challenge.

The next dozen figures are cleaned ad primed and ready to go.

UPDATE: I started work on a dozen figures this morning. They will be mustering with IR #3 "von Browne" by the end of the working week, I hope. I'll follow on with another dozen and a mounted officer and then it will be time for a test game, I think, as both the Alzheimers and the Imperials will be able to field a brigade of Foot and a regiment of Horse each. Just need to paint up those Italeri stone walls up. I'm thinking that the starter scenario in "The Wargame" will do. Anything but Blasthof again!