IR#40

 Well, it would seem to be a case of another week, another regiment. In this case it's they Kreytzen Fusiliers. Still waiting on flags, so the standard-bearers are not in the shot.

I'm told this was a fairly undistinguished regiment, although did see it's fair share of action in the Seven Years War. Yes, I did paint them for the fairly unique pink small-clothes. The white gaiters are a piece of semi-artistic license as I felt that black would suck a lot of the life out of the pink.

That might do me for the immediate future as I seem now to have enough Prussian infantry to be getting on with. I've also painted my way out from under my pile of RSM Prussian infantry, as well. I'll be moving onto renovating and fleshing out three or four regiments of cavalry that I have knocking about here and the it'll be time to get on with some games.

Although, as Chris said in a recent comment, I might do a few bits and bobs just for the fun of it. I have a couple of dozen von Kleist grenzers that need basing up and then too I'd love a couple of Jaeger detachments to round things out. Oops, then there are some limbers that need painting as well.

Plenty to do.

How Large an Army?

I am currently painting my seventh unit of RSM Prussians and in the process have just about painted myself to the bottom of my Prussian Infantry silo. Don't get too excited. There are plenty of other silos.
That being said, I laid out the first six of these 36-figure units last weekend and thought, phew, chappie, these do take up a goodly bit of the table-top, watteau?
Now, I've a French army that with a bit of stretching could easily come up to - shall we say - 10 units if infantry and 6-8 units of cavalry of thirty-six and a dozen figures respectively. I can't imagine that you could really get many more figures on a table without it collapsing under the strain and the combined weight of figures acheiving some kind of critical mass and forming a singularity. If I were to hive off some of the grenadier stands I could probably come up with a few more units as well. Likewise the Prussians. They could easily be made up to nine units of infantry if we combined the grenadier companies from the existing units and settled on 30 figure units of foot. I've three units of Horse in varius states of repair and enough bits and bobs to flesh them out.
It may be that I am at the point now of having workable armies for most occasions. The end may be in sight.
Now what do I do?

Built Up Areas

 Change is slow to come to the Duchy of Alzheim. Still after many years of contemplation, I have finally started making the change over to using 15mm scaled buildings.

 The buildings are resin Medieval types by Hovels and not the Franklin Mint, although you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise.  They are nice buildings, decently priced and very easy to paint. I could have gone for their "European" range, but they speak to me a little too much of Belgium when I am looking for an effect more reminiscent of Bohemia and Silesia.

 I hope this picture shows what I am doing. I've taken a leaf from Keith Flint's book and standardised my town sizes. The square of felt is 12" to a side and roughly equivalent to my unit frontage. This is the smallest town size. More can be grouped together to form larger conurbations.

 A battalion/regiment/unit can defend two sides of the area. These buildings represent light cover. They are not proof against artillery fire. Only the entrenched position shown below is.

 The village below is garrisoned appropriately enough by Garrison Regiment #2. It's still awaiting its flags and standard-bearers, but is close enough to being finished to be worth photographing.

Painting, painting, painting

As you do.

 First off, I scraped up every last RSM Prussian I could find to put together most of IR#1. Six figures (as you may recall) need to be sourced. Althouh it may not be too clear from this picture, I've decided to use the AWI marching British Officer as the standard bearer as the RSM "Cadets" just don't do it for me. The Colonel is just about ready for paint, so expect to see him soonish.

 I also scrounged up this heavy HE piece and four-horse limber. I like this gun and it will make a fine 12-pounder for my Prussians. The Limber is quite nice and the horses look fine from what I can see on the Spencer Smith website. I'll be remaining strong however!

I'm currently about 40 percent through another Prussian unit. They are shaping up to become either Garrison Regiment #2 or the du Verger Freikorps battalion. Both have quite similar uniforms and are being painted up from the RSM Russian casting which, while not perfect, is all there is available from the range to really represent these canaille.

After they are finished and providing I still have the strength to go on, I'll turn my energies to another unit of Prussian Fusiliers, possibly either FR#40 or FR#52, although the former will require a small conversion-with-paint with regard to the lapels of the figure.

I've bough some of "Body's Banners" from the Redoubt web-store to flag and even re-flag my Prussian infantry. I'm dying to see how they look in the flesh.

Don't you hate it when...

... you've just finished painting the first 30 figures of a 36-figure unit of RSM Prussian infantry (in the marching pose), then you reach for the little plastic bin they live in only to find that you're actually now  completely out.

And you've pledged not to buy any more lead until the end of the year.

It's taken a while, but...

... I've finally started getting around to basing up my artillery.

I'm considerably under the influence of Keith Flint's proposed games rules at this point in time and as you've guessed am moving smartly away from singly-basing everything.

I've made a start on some of my French guns and limbers.

These are a couple of middle-weight guns, something like 8 pounders. Guns, teams and limbers by RSM.

This is a heavier piece. Pretty sure it's a Holger Ericsson design. The limber an team are once again by RSM, as is the driver. I think the latter is one of the best mounted figures I've ever seen, with lovely, natural posing; a real credit to the sculptor, Steve Hezzlewood.

Next up, I'll start on my Prussian Artillery.