Well, I've had a sudden burst of painting energy and am getting ever close to my (rather pathetic) goal of finishing my first unit. I've been helped along the way by Channel 4's '4OD' service where they have uploaded large sections of their back catalogue for free viewing on the internet (without a one-week-to-view limit like the BBC). So whilst I've been getting down to it, I've re-watched the Devil's Whore and The Book Group, on top of my usual wrestling, Corrie and ANTM painting TV programmes. Corrie has been especially good this past week with Becky's antics, including a particularly nasty (for corrie at any rate) fight with her sister and David Platt before going to work behind the bar without bothering to clean herself up. It isn't this violent usually and I think three bloody noses within the space of a minute is a record for Corrie. Becky certainly proved that she is anything but 'all talk' and I'll be gutted if Katherine Kelly doesn't get best soap actress at the next TV awards. But enough waffling about soaps, I'm sure you all have to put up with listening to enough of that in real life, and I don't think my attempt to increase my blog content by substituting soaps for actual painting is fooling anyone.
Frei-regiment von Gerlach WIP
First up, Frei-regiment von Gerlach. I've decided to carry on using the Perry musketeers at ease for these. At one point I was thinking of changing to something more 'actiony' which would suit troops not firmly ranked up, but that was really down to being unsure of how a Frei-regiment would operate. The decision to carry on using these came from reading Duffy's Instrument of War (thank goodness for inter-library loan) in which Duffy says this with regard to the Green Loudon regiment:
'As a full regiment his troops would be able to lend solid support to the Croats, who had a way of dispersing after a successful attack'
I'm taking this to apply to von Gerlach as well, that they are there to provide solid support (which won't disperse) to the Jaegers who will fight in a 'skirmish' order. I'll be ranking the miniatures up using some of the one penny movement trays from warbases.co.uk, which will also allow easy casualty removal as I'm planning on using the Sharp Practice ruleset. Usefully, posting this picture has made me realise that I've missed the belt off of one of them which would have got me miffed if I'd only noticed it after varnishing them all.
Arquebusiers de Grassin WIP
Next up are some Arquebusiers de Grassin. I've got 24 in total and these are the first 12. You'll probably notice the gaiters are all different colours. The grey triad on the front row is what will be used for the models rather than the white, which was too much of a chore to paint on the few I tried it on. I quickly realised I wouldn't be able to get through 24 sets of white gaiters when I was getting frustrated with the first few. Thankfully there are a number of different depictions of the Arquebusiers de Grassin and one of these includes them wearing grey gaiters (below). The switch to grey has noticably affected my painting rate, as I am now able to overcome my laziness to do longer painting sessions on the Grassins.
Grey gaiters
Finally, I've been interspersing something a little different between the SYW stuff in the form of some Very British Civil War Royalist territorials (I've shamelessly jumped on that bandwagon). I've found it really helps me to vary what I'm painting to stop me getting too bored, as well as giving me the opportunity to paint up some Great War British I impulse bought a couple of years ago. VBCW also gives you a bit of freedom to use your imagination so I've given them blue dress caps (think Whites in the RCW) and white armbands. These ones are finished apart from the basing.
Lancashire Fusiliers, assigned to the detachment tasked with defence of Royalist supply lines to the forces on the Liverpool Front, in the Leigh and Tyldesley area .
I think the most important thing at the moment, though, is that I've managed to get myself back into work which means I'll be able to structure my painting over work night evenings. It also means I'll be able to unable to resist buying more stuff which is probably a bad thing. I'm set on doing some AWI and some 15mm SYW, but every time I check the internet there seems to be a new range that I feel compelled to buy. I really don't think I'll be able to resist the new Empress Maori Wars range, for example.
Oh, and from now on I won't start going on about what TV I've been watching on this 'wargaming blog'. It's just that Corrie at the moment has been too good for me to be able to resist the compulsion to subject all and sundry to my opinions on it. Sorry.
