Update

Has been a while since my last post, quick update. I have been working on a movie to document the Reich Dukes visit to Cavenderia, as a first attempt the film is taking a while but I hope to have something up soon so the entourage can move on to other imaginations. The Dukas game was played to a satisfactory outcome and I will try and post some fiction this weekend. I have been busy sending out figurines to fellow gamers in Europe and have been working on some American Civil War (ACW) figures for a Brother vs. Brother scenario for Charcon, the SYW western theater stuff will not be ready in time. I will continue to paint the French, Brunswick, etc. for next years SYW convention and am planning on putting together another big battalion for that event, probably Crusador Hungarian Infantry painted as IR-Prinz Geoffrey and maybe a small Hussar unit. I am headed to Blacksburg, Virginia this weekend to help the wife sale T-shirts for the Alma mater (Marshall University) and watch the Herd play the Hokies, free ticket perk for selling merchandise. We will also be going to Cincinnati for our anniversary in a couple of weeks and I look forward to meeting Mark of www.deepfriedhappymice.com fame and Scale Creep minis. I am also starting two (2) new endeavours 1.) a weight loss blog 2.) a gaming company with some pals. The weight loss blog is not for the weak stomached masses as I will be posting photos of my progress, but if you are fat like me I encourage you to take up the challenge. The game company will be mostly small PDF family type games, no war games planned for now and working toward a stable of quality, quick fun board, card and mini rules. We are treating the company as an importer example, if you see our label and liked a previous game you will probably like this one. Sorry for the digressions from Cavenderia. I am also going to try and increase my Cavenderian output both fiction and figs to at least weekly posts. Hope everyone is doing well. If you are ever in Huntington, West Virginia shoot me an email, we will have a drink. Almost forgot my article for Dadi@Piambo is out with the fall issue excited to get my copy.

ciao,

French IR-Bourbonnais

I finished up my first French infantry regiment (IR) Bourbonnais for my western theater scenario for Charcon. As mentioned previously figures are Old Glory 15mm based on 3/4" x 1" bases. You can click on the pictures for larger images. The french are fairly easy to paint being mostly white and this regiment in particular completely white, except for the musicians.

Picture from the right, I went back and painted the gaiters on the standard bearer white after I realized in a previous post that he was wearing gaiters not boots. The french figs from the old glory pack appear a bit thinner than the Austrians and Prussians I have ordered previously which is fine, but I do not care for the officer poses in these packs much. I spoke with a sales rep for Old Glory and they said I could order packs with just the hatmen, no officers in the future to flesh out the units a bit more in the future.

Shot from the left you can see the exaggerated pose of the officer, he would most likely have put out the eye of the guy behind him. the NCO is striking quite a pose as well. I do like the drummer and the standard bearer quite a bit. The only difference in grenadier I can tell is a mustache and at this scale I did not worry about that very much.

Finally I am still working on getting the right buff leather color for the belting. You can see I have a bit of a yellowish leather right now, the hat lace is a metallic gold and from the photo the belting looks similar. This regiment will be brigaded together with IR-Rouergue and serve under General Chevelas, who has been previously painted. I have nearly completed the first cavalry unit, Royal Etranger, and will have pics of them up soon. If anyone knows the proper spelling for these French units please drop me a line as I do not speak French and am relying on Internet information.

Head west young man...

I have had an itch to do some historical units and have decided to indulge my Francophile desires with the purchase of several bags of Old Glory (OG) 15mm French (50 Infantry, 16 Cuirassier, 6 Cannon and crew and a bag of generals). I also recently painted up a unit of Prussian infantry as Brunswickers. After having gamed the battle of Warburg I have developed an interest in the Western European theater of the Seven Years War (SYW) and am painting up a scenario for Charcon (Charleston, West Virginia gaming convention) for the fall. The con game should be very colorful with French against the allies. Cavenderian regiments will fill the role of the French Swiss infantry units allowing me to discuss imaginationhood with any players as well. I painted up the a few ensigns last night and wanted to post them as an appetizer to my renewed painting.

The corp of my new Armee France, from left to right Infantry Regiments (IR), Champagne, Latour du Pin, Bourbonnois and Rouergue. These units will be accompanied by IR-Enghein, IR-Touraine and several Cavenderian infantry units.

The miniatures are OG 15mm as mentioned earlier and the flags are paper flags I made from David's Not by Appointment blog http://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/search?q=flag

Click on pictures to enlarge.

The uniforms variances of these units is very slight with only variations of what parts of the collar, cuffs and vests are red. The artillery, cavalry and Cavenderian units will add some additional color to this army. I like the small addition of the buttons on the flags.

The picture to the left is of Brunswick Leib regiment Colonel flag pre-1760 from the Seven Years War Project web-site, http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=Brunswick_Leib-Regiment I have to admit, this is one of the most interesting flags I have seen of the SYW period. The flag inspired me to paint this unit and this is my first foray into painting button lace upon the lapels.

The miniature is an OG 15mm Prussian and I have nearly completed the first battalion. I will post pictures upon completion.

This is a picture of the rear of the figure photographed from some distance to illustrate how the detail of the flag is still discernible at some distance. I can not praise the SYW Project web-site enough for their presentation of unit flags. I must note though that I have found some discrepancy between the site's uniform descriptions and other source materials. For the Allied army and French I am defaulting to reference material supplied by William Biles guides.

Final photo is a close-up of the detail in the Brunswick Leib flag. I will let the picture speak for itself.

I hope to update the blog a bit more in June as work progresses.

On the Cavenderian front, we are beginning construction of our royal coach and eagerly await the arrival of Duke Wilhelm of Beerstein and have began recruitment of additional members to our diplomatic corp.