The Comardo Dragoons - Pictures

The Dragoons obligingly gallop past for the camera.

 As promised, I got out the Comardo Dragoons and the camera this evening and, as the thunderstorms crackled away above, got busy snapping away.

Conversion of the regular Dragoon trooper - yes, the flag-pole has been thrust through his foot.

 In the Alzheim Cavalry, the senior NCO carries the unit's colours. His distinctive mark is metallic lace on his hat and shabraque.

Close-up of one of the regiment's Officers.

 Ow, on closer examination, I could have been a little more thorough with shaving this chap's flash down!

 The Regiment sweeps forward in line. On the table, this unit has a huge footprint.

The proud parent!

Comardo Dragoons

I finished the final half-dozen troopers of the Comardo Dragoons this morning as I was getting myself and my little daughter Erin (2 and a half) ready for work and creche respectively. I am fortunate Erin creches at my place of work as will her little brother Sam (one year old on the 25th) next term.

What with packing bags, eating breakfast and an unusual trip to the naughty spot, there was no time for affixing the unit flag nor for any photography, so you'll all have to wait on this evening.

In the meantime, it's been quite good fun doing the repaint on this unit. To digress a little, when I received this extravagant donation of cavalry to the "Spencer Smith project" I was a little uncertain as to how to integrate the different units. I felt dreadful at the idea of pressing them into my service without honouring their already impressive heritage and so I've opted to repaint them in their original uniforms (OK, with some minor changes) and re-flag them with colours that acknowlege that which went before - the original colours will hang in the Alzheim and Imperial Armouries.

Thus it is that the Comardo Dragoons will retain their original red coats and green facings and their white lace. In the ongoing Alzheimer "tradition" they will get white small-clothes. Their saddle-cloths have changed from the original pale blue to green in harmony with their uniform distinctions.

One of the common troopers has had his sword cut away to allow him to grasp a flagstaff (see the coloured pics in the front papers of "The Wargame Companion" and you'll see what I mean) while the now flagless officer had been equipped with a deadly pin-sword.

Now I've said all this, I really feel like I ought to have done some before-and-after shots!

The Comorado Dragoons

The first ten troopers of Alzheims Dragoon Corps.

Four Regiments strong, this corps are all dressed in red coats. The Comorado Regiment sports green facings, the Marchmont Regiment yellow-buff, the Speyer Regiment canary yellow and a fourth - yet un-named - will wear bright blue.

In the ongoing "tradition" of Alzheim units, their small-clothes are white.

I've got more cavalry for sale on eBay as well:

http://tinyurl.com/5w4yn8m

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!

Surplus Spencer Smith Cavalry for Sale ot Trade

I never thought this would happen, but I have three regiments of Spencer Smith Cavalry surplus to requirements.

They are on the Charles Grant organisation, each being 24 troopers and four officers strong.

If you are interested, I'm looking to swap 1:1 for Spencer Smith Hussars, 2:1 for Spencer Smith Infantry or I have an interest in doing some element of the Boer War with Britains in the garden and am open to suggestions.

Otherwise, we can talk cash. Yum.

If there's no interest, off they go to eBay or Bartertown.

Those new chappies

Well, here are some of the new lads, re-enacting one of my favourite images from The Wargame. As you will doubtless recall, Charles Grant threw away two light cavalry regiments to no real purpose during the Mollwitz game! As you will likewise recall, the Butyrsky Regiment was able to wheel and deliver fire against the flank of the "Austrian" brigade of light cavalry.

In my little mise-en-scene the actors are, from the left, the Marchmont Dragoons who are veterans already of the 2006 Sittangbad game; to their right and preceeding them into the witches' cauldron are the Esterhazy Hussars (whom I believe are originally from the Asquith collection). The Infantry playing the part of Butyrsky are the Battenburg regiment, whilst those which are about to receive the enemy at the point of their bayonets are the Leibgarde Grenadiers. These regiments are also, I believe, from the Asquith collection as re-painted by Mr Olley.

I am rather fond of the bright yellow carriages of the guns and they will immediately find their way into the Imperial Army, as will the Esterhazy Hussars. Likewise the Battenburgers, perhaps re-cast as a Swiss Guard regiment. Considering that the Alzheim cavalry has always clad it's dragoons in red (and indeed, I have another pair of red coated dragoon Regiments courtesy of the lovely Gary C) it will come as no surprise the Marchmont Dragoons* will be joining the Alzheim Service.

I feel that the Leibgrenadier Garde will also go to Alzheim, but they will probably have to accept that they will be wearing the pale blue coat of the Alzheim infantry if they expect to adopt the proud designation IR#1.

The Pyjama-trousered legs are my own, and very fine they are indeed.

More pictures tomorrow. Probably not including my Pyjamas.

*or shall they now be the Marchmont Dragoner?

The Great Leap Forward

Events have moved on rather here at the jolly old Duchy of Alzheim.

I was pleased (OK, delighted!) to take delivery of a huge box containing Phil Olley's Spencer Smith collection. Phil had contacted me a few weeks back asking if I was interested in purchasing part or all of it.

I hesitated for a microsecond or two then emailed him back saying YES PLEASE!!!

So here they are. I spent most of yesterday evening and part of this morning to unpack them - I still have more bubble-wrap to peel off - and they are splendid. Three fine regiments of Infantry and three more of Cavalry and a fine battery of guns as well as sundry independent companies and a unit of light infantry.

So, thanks again Phil and I will be posting photos tonight when I get the chance.

What's tickling me at the moment

You will all have had this happen to you at some time, I'm sure.

You are working away at what is going to be THE project for the next two years; you've spent huge amounts of money. You know how it goes.

Then you start noticing things.

http://funnylittlewars-gardencampaigns.blogspot.com/

Or:

http://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=RAF&Category_Code=PIW

I'm just hopeless, really.

Little Gems

I got up at 05:00 this morning filled with a burning determination to win an eBay auction.

Well, win it I did, although not without a degree of buyers' regret.

On the bright side, this purchase will get me to the point where we can start having battles. This is a good thing. The infantry alone represent about 7 regiments worth of figures, so some progress can again be made.

The cavalry may be a bit surplus (except for the hussars), so I may sell some of them on to pay for further bits later on.

Painting Challenge

Bit of a painting challenge on at the moment.

I'm pushing to product 120 Olley-points by November the fifth.

An infantryman is an Olley-point, a gun or a cavalryman are two.

Here then are my first 14 Olley-points. 106 to go.

UPDATE - The mounted officer is in fact Maximilian von Browne, one of Alzheim's finer Generals.

The Riders of Alzheim

 Forgive the very rough nature of these pictures. We got home from a day-and-a-night away in Castlemaine to find a big old cardboard box on the doorstep. I knew immediately what it was. I had to wait until dinner had been eaten and the children put to bed before I could open it though.

These are 11 regiments of Spencer Smith cavalry, three are painted as cuirassiers and the rest as Dragoons and other Chevaux-legere, very kindly donated by a US reader, Mr Gary C_.

More tomorrow.

The Electors Arms

 A little place I visit sometimes.

Building by Dapol, barrels by Rendra.

Alzheimer Jaeger

 Laid low though I have been these past few days by a pernicious cold, I have nonetheless completed the Alzheimer Jaeger. Above the NCO. Below, the whole unit.

Rendra came through yesterday with some 45x40mm plastic bases. I have used most of this sample batch up with basing up a couple of my units as a test. I'm pretty happy so far. The officers are on the 20mm circular bases. The CO is as yet unbased, but will probably go on a cavalry base before long.  I have left the bases unpainted as they are close enough to the base colour of the figures as to render painting them redundant.

Alzheimer Jaeger

Last night I got cracking on some of the Jaeger. In the end I decided on a fairly traditional look for them with their red-faced, green coats. I made a small nod at their Alzheimer origins by giving them white small clothes and red neck-stocks. Having done that I could only further compound the impracticality of the uniform by having each man wear his hair powdered. I mean, you just would, wouldn't you?

 The hat is a bit of a nod to the European light infantry as practised in central Europe; it's meant to be a leather casque. If you look closely, there is a bit of brass edging, doubtless designed to turn a sabre-blow. I'm sure it has saved many a trooper!

Note also (if you wish) the blanket-roll on top of the knapsack in Alzheim Blue. I did that to help tie them to the line infantry.

There you go. Next is another couple of troopers and an officer. I'm hoping to have a dozen or fourteen figures ready for the weekend.

IR#5 La Rosee

 As promised in my last post, a couple of pictures of my latest figures of IR#5 along with the new gunner who got snuck in at varnishing time.

I'm quite please with how the "white" metal fittings look on these as a contrast to the "yellow" metals of the other regiments.

On the subject of test figures like the gunner, I have started painting my lone plastic SSM Hussar. Dashing chap. UPDATE - pics below.

 
I am now (apart form about a dozen command figures) out of Spencer Smith plastic infantry and so as I while away the hours before payday and therefore an order from Spencer Smiths for the metal versions, I will start work on those Minot AWI that I'll be using as Jaeger.

Over the next few weeks I will be able to share some rather exciting news that I have had in the past few days about this project. But just for now, I shall remain a tease.

Artillery Uniform Test Shot

Nothing much today. I'm experimenting with the artillery and painted this fellow in what is a colour test for the rest of the Gunners' uniforms.

The observant among you will note that he is in the traditional Alzheim white small clothes with the red stock whilst his turnbacks are in the armorial pale blue favoured by the Electoral family.

I am ruminating upon the colour the gun carriages ought to be. Baggage wagons, pontoon carts &c would also be this colour. Yellow is out as this is the colour of the Imperial guns. Red contrasts nicely with the pale blue that is going to be the dominant colour of the army. Pale blue would at least go with the theme. Green would clash rather, unless it's a dark green.

Hmmm.

In other news, I've put paint to plastic for IR#5 "La Rosee". These chaps look simply delicious in their pale blue coats with the fuschia-coloured turn-backs. I've only a dozen or so and that will pretty well run me out of plastic line infantry types and I'll be starting to top my units up with metal figures.

However, this does bring me to the point where I'll be starting a light infantry unit out of some Barry Minot plastic AWI American light infantry that I bought of a certain magazine editor/graphic designer chap in a pub some years ago. I've not yet decided whether to paint them on traditional Jaeger colours (Green turned up Red) or to put them into a uniform like say the FreiKorps Lacy (White turned up Yellow).

A nice dilemma.

Converged Grenadiers

 From behind - you'll notice the Leib Grenadier Company has the bag of it's fur cap opver to the right, whie the others have theirs to the left. This is either a singular distinction accorded them as a mark of the status of the regiment or an error on the part of the milliner. You decide.

 From the front, a further distinction of the Leib Regiment is their blue trousers. More commonly, the Alzheimer Foot has white small-clothes.

IR#2 Leibregiment

I just finished blasting the Leibregiment with it's second coat of varnish and thought it was time to put a picture up here at the Duchy.

As you can see, the regiment's uniform is not dissimilar to that of the Bavarian Leibregiment of the Seven Years' War. No mistake there, although it varies in many details, not least the coat colour.

As you will also doubtless notice, the Regiment falls far short of the Grant organisation, being here only 29 figures. I will be rectifying this in due course with metal figures from Spencer Smith unless any more appropriate plastics fall (doubtless to shatter into a million pieces) into my lap.

Normally, I'd have trundled straight on to IR#1, but I've decided to use it's castings, of which there were really only a few, to bring the grenadier companies of Infantry Regiments #3 and #4 to their proper strength of twelve figures.

When they are painted, I'll do a little floor show of all three regiment's companies as a combined Grenadier battalion.

The Beauty of Old Paint

In recent times I have done a fair amount of work on older ministures.

These are usually items I've bought on eBay and decided for one reason or another to touch up. Most recently these have been the Spencer Smith pastics I've been basing my Alzheim army on, but in the past I had bought some old Tradition/Stadden Napoleonics.

These miniatures had all been painted in enamels, the Spencer Smiths rather thickly and the Staddens rather well.

What I did notice on both was that where they had been painted white, the old varnish overlying the paint had aged in such a way as to produce a rather nice "antique" effect as it yellowed. I liked this very much indeed and although in the case of the Staddens I decided to repaint them because I wanted a very 'clean' look for the collection, the Spencer Smiths I am leaving as was.

This will really only show to any extent with IR#2 "Leib" as I am leaving the gaiters and waistcoats white as they were originally were.

I like the effect. It lets me take the miniature where I want it to go while honouring it's past.

What a sentimentalist, eh?

So then, I've just finished all the blue coats for Leib, painted in the facings and am starting the laborious process of black-lining. More to follow.

The Empire

The first twenty-one members of Infanterieregiment Nr 4, "Von Prittwitz". Work will begin tonight on Infanterieregiment Nr 2, "Leib".

In my previous post I talked a little about planning my "Duchy of Alzheim" project. The post was largely about the Alzheimer forces. Now it's time to spend a little time on her old enemy, "The Empire".

First, a little geography and history. The Empire occupies a territory vastly greater than Alzheim, stretching over most of the Balkans which have mostly been won back from the Turk in the South-East, north through the lands of a people very much like the Hungarians of our own world, then west to take in a German-speaking people in the eastern part of Deutschtum whose sole pursuits are pastry-making and then north again to take in varying Slavic peoples in central-eastern Europe.

The period of the Thirty Years War saw Imperial (and Bavarian) armies ravage much of Alzheim more or less simply because they were passing through. Similarly, Imperial armies devastated the Duchy (or Electorate) during the War of the Spanish Succession whilst on their way to do much the same to Bavaria.

Now though, the old Emperor is showing signs of failing and his successor is a mere slip of a girl not yet even married. War clouds gather and unscrupulous Princes plot to tear her patrimony from her.

So then, the Empire is obviously a cartoon of Austria-Hungary. I am thinking of theming the army around the forces that raided through Bavaria in  (I think?) 1742 and thus would have a core of a pair of German and a pair of Hungarian Regiments with quite numerous units of Croats and Pandurs. Likewise, I'd avoid heavy Cavalry and Artillery in favour of a couple of Regiments each of Dragoons and Hussars and just a couple of batteries of light guns.

I have it in mind that the Imperial Commander could call on a couple more Regiments of Line infantry and a siege train if certain campaign events occour.

Build me an Army worthy of Alzheim!

I owe a fair bit to Phil Olley in terms of developing my thinking on war-gaming projects. Specifically I think i'm now thinking of the whole shape of the enterprise rather than just pursuing it on the basis of "ooo, shiny!".


In that spirit, I'd just like to take a little time to put down a high level outline of this Spencer Smith project for the Duchy of Alzheim.

As you are doubtless aware, dear reader, this began a few weeks ago with the chance purchase of a large-ish (about 90-odd figures) lot of Spencer Smith figures on eBay. These were easily arranged into four groups that I took as my first four regiments; something that 'lazy me' quite liked because in terms of figure purchases and painting I was already almost halfway there, so to speak. that's not really been the case, as I've been almost completely re-painting the miniatures, but for me it was an important early psychological boost.

Playing mind games with myself is very important when I am considering painting 'x' number of 53-figure regiments for "The Wargame" rules.

Also, having more or less four regiments to start off with has given me some guidance as to a basic building block of two- to-four regiments so that I may set myself milestones as I go on. I think two regiments is a reasonable level at which to set milestones or, as I like to think of them, "reward points". Work hard young man, and you'll receive your reward. In this case, painting a gun or a couple of command figures.

So now to timelines. Experiments over the past couple of weeks have led me to believe that I can push out about 20 painted SSM infantry in a week of easy-going painting - say about 6-7 hours of actual work. This leads me to think I can put out about one and a half to two regiments in a month. I'll stick with one and a half as I am wary of burn-out.

I think then I can set myself a reasonable deadline of Christmas to get a reasonable force together.

For the Alzheim Army, I've put together the following rough order of battle:

Infantry Regiments
IR#1 Garde (3 x 24 figure battalions)
IR#2 Leib
IR#3 von Browne
IR#4 von Prittwitz
IR#5 La Rosee
IR#6 Ehrbach
Garrison Regiments
GR#1
GR#2
GR#3
GR#4
GR#5 (Invalids)

Cavalry
KR#1 Kurfurst
KR#2 von Roth
DR#1 von Reuss
DR#2 von Waldau
HR#1 von Raabe
In addition an artillery brigade of two battalions each of three field and one howitzer battery. Oh and three light infantry units because I like the montagnards/ miquelets, pandurs and jaeger from the SSM range.
So the target for Chrismas becomes four Regiments, a garrison regiment, a unit of dragoons, some guns and a unit of light infantry. Pretty comfortable considering the Garde, Garrison and light infantry are all 24-figure units.
In my next post, I'll talk about the opposition - The Empire.

Just a quickie

IR#4, "von Prittwitz". These are some samples I painted up last night as a test for how they'd look. Not too bad, I feel.

I have a funny feeling IR#5 (la Rosee) may be the fortunate recipient of Rose-coloured facings.

A Painting Progress Post

 This is one of those "work in progress" posts.

This weekend I finished painting up that part of IR#3 "von Browne". As you can see I had enough figures for one and a half of the four "companies" I'll need for the regiment under the Grant rules. The rest will most likely have to be metals as I've not the plastics to go the whole hog.

 Showing off the drummer with his lace. One of the field officers marches alongside him. Note his deadly pin sword.

I have started work on IR #4, "von Prittwitz". Per "von Browne" it too has the light blue coat, but I shall be changing the small-clothes to white (this will be standard on all Alzheim Line Regiments) and the facings to yellow-buff. That ought to look just right with the pale blue of the coat. I'm very pleased with how the coat looks so far; it's a nice solid block of colour that comes out really nicely against the dark lining-in I've been doing.

The painting so far has all been simple block painting with some lining in to seperate and define areas of colour. It's simple to do and looks nice and bright and is not fussy in the least.

Painting Spencer Smiths

Painting the Spencer Smith infantry has so far been an interesting exercise. I had started intending merely to touch them up, albeit re-painting the dark blue coats in light blue in line with the inspiration provided by IR#2  - see my previous post. That went rather by the board last night as I worked on my first five and in the end, I more or less went for a full re-paint. Curiously, re-painting the miniatures was quite easy, something I attribute to the previous owner having done the hard work in blocking in the areas of the figure I'd need to paint. It was not unlike colouring in.

"Before" shot of a Grenadier of von Browne's Regiment (IR#4).

Re-touched Grenadiers. Note that I changed what had been a conversion with paint of a bearskin to a mitre back to a bearskin again. Just for the heck of it. The skirts of the waistcoat are merely indicated with a lick of black paint. Apart from the dashing light blue coats, I brightened up the facings with some GW Blood Red, overpainted the cartridge belts where the varnish had yellowed them over time and did a great deal of black-lining to try and pop the colours out and to define the rather blurry transitions between objects on the figure.  

There you go, the full 360-degree treatment. I painted on a white-laced 'flamme' on the bearskin and added a strap to the water bottle on the left hip.

I'll be basing them on the Litko laser-cut 3mm ply bases, painted plain old goblin green to protect the fragile pastics. When I opened the box, some of the figures had snapped at the ankles and the odd musket had likewise succumbed, so this was an easy decision to make. Superglue made good the breakages, but I'd not trust it to last forever. One thought that occours is to make at least one figure per base a metal and use it as a handle for those moments when gripping the base itself is inconvenient.

Onward and upward.

The Army of Alzheim

A little more than a week ago I jumped in on an eBay auction and managed to pick up about 90-odd plastic Spencer Smith infantry. They arrived in the post today in pretty good order despite a few breakages due to the age of the material which I have corrected with a bit of superglue.

I have decided that these will form the core of the Alzheim Army, suitably padded out with SSM metals where I can't lay my hands on the plastics.

With no further ado, please let me introduce above the Garde Grenadiers (IR 1). Spendid in canary yellow with red small-clothes and pale blue facings, there are the cream of the army and find their garrison in Alz itself.

The Leib Regiment (IR 2) with their black facings and pale blue coats and breeches are due soon to be issued new colours.

The Grenadier Company of von Brownes' Regiment (Infanterie Regiment 3) brigaded with the replacement Grenadiers for IR 4, von Prittwitz. Both are due to be issued new, pale blue coats per IR 2.

IR 4, von Prittwitz, is, like von Brownes' also needing white gaiters to be issued for parade. The armourers' Rotring Pen will be much in use lining in those elusive uniform features.

Alzheims' one and only gunner tending his guns. He is very likely to be uniformed anew in pale gray with blue distinctions.

UPDATE - The guns are metal SSMs that I've had for some time now.

A Gazeteer of Imaginary Places

Taken from the Journal of an English Tourist who as he rambled from Spa to Spa across the Germanies chanced to find himself on our own dear Alzheim.

One enters the quaintly-named Duchy or Electorate of Alzheim from Bayern via a hitherto unknown minor range of mountains. I was fortunate indeed to find myself in the delightfully inconsequential spa town of Augusts-bad. This was especially fortunate as mine syphilitics were plaguing me dreadfully. As I took the waters (and the wines and the cheeses and indeed the hams) I learned that this hamlet was the creation of the current ruler Augustus II, by all account a lesser son of greater sires. Still quite a pretty little town.

After sojourning there a day or two past the grim fortress town of Rosenthal by road, crossing the Mur Flusse at it's junction with the Grossehaber Flusse, then south on the old Roman Road all the way to Waldau, a medium-sized market town that sits at the foot of the Great Escarpment. I must admit to being a little surprised at how unlike a savage rampart of cruel cliffs this is, being more in the nature of a series of gradually rising slopes and terraces. Experience is the great undoer of Fancy.

Still, we did not stay there for long, just a couple of evenings; long enough to sample the local delights before setting out along the steeply winding road to Gehrkevale, principal town of the Alzheim uplands.

Gehrkevale is the principal arsenal and factory of Alzheim, and a grim place for that. it's people are quite unlike any of the others of the country. They are small and neuraesthenic, nothing like the hardy mountaineers of the alpine counties or the bluff, hearty peasants of the northern plains. We did not dally long. The beer was sour, the sausages small and the women best left undescribed.

Wishing we had taken the road that follows the course of the escarpment, we descended with all decent rapidity to the Capital of Alz.

This modern city was laid out by the Great Duke (or Elector), the current rulers' great-grand-sire in the Year of our Lord 1642 on the ruins of the old city, so greviously sacked and burned by Bavarian and Imperial troops during the Thirty Years' War. The work of the father was continued by the son and grandson, and now the City has much of the air of Versailles as was the fashion at the time of the Sun King. Nor did these wise rulers neglect the defences of their Capital, being as it is fortified to the last degree possible of the Military Art.

In Alz may be had ever sophisticated Entertainment or Vice and we availed ourselves fully. Doctor Smith took it upon himself to pass beyond apres un excess des femmes. As one does.

I myself was again laid low after stubbing my toe by the sheer variety of my sexual diseases and thus feared to travel east to Grunwald. I feared the doubtless damp marshlands and gloomy, spirit-depressing, forests of the region (and it's mysterious southern counties of the Uckermark) would have had a fatal effect on myself and at least two other members of our party.

Perhaps instead we shall make out way further south to the Princes' little summer place in the south - Sans Souci, he calls it. Perhaps then onto the Italies?

The journal breaks off at this point not to be resumed. We can only wonder at the cause.

The Military Geography of Alzheim

Alzheim is a medium sized, middle-ranking state in the middle of southern Germany.

It is approximately 400 kilometers along it's east-west axis and about 250 kilometres north to south.

To the west and south curve the mighty Alzgebirgs beyond which lie the realms of the Gallispania and of the Italians respectively. These are intersected by five mountain passes which the military geographer may divide into First, Second and Third Class roads. The first and second class roads are guarded by old fortresses that date back to the first half of the fifteenth century; the First class roads are guarded as at the town of Finke by latterly erected modern fortresses to M. Vauban's system of fortification. At the same time as these fortifications were built, the old forts on the secondary roads were graced with diverse outworks; Ravelins &c.

 The old Fortress at Finke.

To the North and East run the gentle loops and meanderings of the Mur Flusse. This river's great flow is fed by tributary rivers arising in the Alzgebirgs, the Themse and Grossehaber. Paralleling their course, but not joining the system is the Isar which runs it's course to the south and east, creating the Waldsee and the marshy, forested country in the hills East of Grunwald. This swamp eventually finds it's way via a network of small lakes into the Neider Iser which gently waters the Uckermark in the South-East of the country.

These rivers are the highways of the country and so are guarded as potential invasion routes by the bluff-built fortress of Prenzlau which guards against the sundry Princes of the Germanies, the small fortress at Rosenthal (which watches the Bavarians) and those of Grunwald and Gunzbad which along with the Grunwald marshes are the Eastern bulwark in case the Empire should ever attempt to replicate the depredations of the Thirty Years' War.

The singular feature of Alzheim is the Great Escarpment which cuts across the South-western portion of the land. This is Alzheim's national redoubt, which, although not seriously fortified since Mediaeval times, has nonetheless been the refuge of the people as recently as the 30 Years' War when Bavarian and Imperial armies ravaged across the land.

By Crom, Post Number 450!

 Reaper Miniatures barbarian-types. I think this one is meant to be evil...

... and this one's meant to be a Hero.

Never would have guessed it, would you?

These are examples of the black undercoat technique in all it's glory, usually with a base, mid and highlight colour. The skin on Mr Muscles up top has about six highlights on it, all very thin, to get the smoothest transition between highlights I could manage. Sepia ink glazes to tie the layering together.  Looking at them, I realise how much I owe Marvel Comics and Dark Horse (and Games Workshop) in the visualisation of these figures!

Noodling about on the Net

As in the title, I was poking about on the internet and stumbled across this:

http://martianchess.blogspot.com/2010/11/royal-armies-of-hyborean-age-1975.html

Which led me to the back of a 1985 issue of Marvel Comics "The Savage Sword of Conan" featuring on the back cover an advertisement for players to join the play by mail campaign "Hyborean War".  You could "Join the tens of thousands nationally who are enjoying the vivid interactive games only made possible in the last few years by recent advances in computer technology.

And then there is this:

http://conanvault.ign.com/wiki/index.php/Hyboria_Map

And this:

http://billinghurst.spalding.gen.nz/Webstuff/hobbies/armatihyboria.html

And to think I was foolish enough to plan on working on some of my French cavalry and Anglo-Prussian infantry some time in the near future.

Help! I'm all over the place.