Trip to Gettysburg

Quick update, I have been working out of town in Fairmont, WV this week. I am currently in my hotel room typing up a quick update. I will be going to Gettysburg, PA tomorrow and am very excited. I have been to the battle field once before but this time we are going to have a battlefield tour and visit with family from New England who have journeyed down to meet us. I have been reading Gettysburg a Testing of Courage by Noah Andrea Trudeau. It is an excellent read and has refreshed my knowledge of one of America's most famous battles. I highly recommend the book. I will be back working in Fairmont next Monday and home Tuesday, I hope to present the Reich Dukes visit pictorial and a story on the Rescue attempt of Dukas next week. I will also be checking out the hobby store in Gettysburg I have read about on line, forget the name right now. That is all. I have missed painting this week, forgot to pack some minis and paints for the hotel. Oh well, time to get ready for dinner. If you are ever in Fairmont I highly recommend Murial's Italian restaurant http://www.murialesrestaurant.com/ that is were we will be feating this evening.

ciao,

Captain Lucien Verbeek, a bit of a departure.

Presenting, Captain Lucien Verbeek, Belgian observer for his majesty King Leopold II of Belgium, and his horse Teufel.




Steve Turner of http://theolddessauer.blogspot.com/ is running a northern Africa British colonial campaign and Captain Verbeek is my fictional character.

The mini is a Peter Pig British Cavalry officer. The mini is true 15mm and I believe very nicely sculpted. The animation is a bit disco but the details are very nice.I do not know why the Captain has a pinto but it felt right to me, I guess I have watched Hidalgo too many times. As the colonial period is not my period of expertise the uniform and horse furniture are probably incorrect, I claim ignorance of the period and creative license for the final outcome.

I like the pair of shoes or boots near the front of the saddle, if someone could explain to me what these are for I would be very thankful.

The pinto looks very wild in this shot. This is the first pinto I have painted so I looked at a couple of pictures of them on line and think it turned out nice. I tried adding a few brown dots within the white areas but this ended up looking like I had messed up so I got rid of them.

Final photo from above. I enjoyed painting this figure and have some British foot command that I might paint up as well. I will be mailing the miniature to Steve and hopefully see him in a few photos with the native contingent of the British forces in Steve's campaign. Steve if you decide to do a different scale than 15mm consider him a gift for all of your interesting blogs. Please send me your address so I can ship him off.

State of Cavenderia

News of Cavenderia from the Prinz's castle pictured left. The Rescue of Spyridon Dukas scenario has been played with a nice twist to the end a fiction will follow soon prior to the arrival of the our esteemed cousin Wilhelm Beerstien and Young Basil King of the Romans. I will be publishing a photo journal of the royal visit this weekend. I still have to paint up the 15mm royal coach and a few additional figures to create the vignettes of the Horse Festival and fleet inspection. So early this week the battle report and story of the Dukas rescue attempt and this weekend the royal visit. Additionally, inspired by http://theolddessauer.blogspot.com/ Steve Turner's blog, I ordered and completed painting a Colonial British officer from Peter Pig as my Belgian observer Captain Lucian Verbeek. The figure turned out really nicely, I have never seen Peter Pig minis before, they are true 15mm so a bit smaller than Old Glory but really well made. I hope to have some pictures of Captain Verbeek on his Pinto up very soon. I will be mailing him to Steve similar to my Cavenderian diplomats which reminds me I have had the Diplomat for Jean Louis done since March and have not managed to get her in the mail. My apologies to Monte-Cristo and I will certainly have to get that accomplished as well. The one year anniversary for this blog is August 28 and I will have to do something special. I did not realize I started my blog on Der Alte Fritz blog anniversary until around September last year so I may move the official anniversary date to September 1. I am headed to Gettysburg to visit the battle field and take a tour in two weeks and so have been having the itch to paint and play some ACW probably will work some of those into the mix as well. Hope to have many new blogs published this month and my article in Dadi @ Piombo should be out this month or September so look for that if you subscribe.

Ciao,

General Guerchy and Aide

Presenting the commander of my French forces General Guerchy and his as yet unnamed Aid-de-Camp. Both are 15mm Old Glory figures from their French Generals pack. I am not sure what the general is telling his aide but the expression on the aide's face is abject terror.

For the command stand I copied an idea from the Koenig Krieg web-site and added a fence to the stand. The aide's uniform is fairly standard for French aides, however I wanted General Guerchy to stand out so I opted for a white coat with red accents as generals had no regulation uniform in the French army at this time.

I favor round washer bases for my generals, the fence was made out of some hobby sticks that I cut the edges to roughen up. The base is covered with renaissance ink flocking gel and woodland scenic flock for the bushes, grass and static grass.
Here is a rear view of the generals, I like the details of the lace on the pockets.

This is the first black horse I have painted. I highlighted the horse with a dark blue-gray, I felt the dark horse contrasted with the generals white uniform.

Shot of General Guerchy's expression and the fence. I am not sure what color the fence would have been, natural wood perhaps, but for aesthetic reasons with the dark horses I opted for a gray fence. I hope to finish another French infantry regiment this week.

My brother-in-law has planned a wonderful trip to Gettysburg in a couple of weeks so I am currently re-reading some of my books and may make a diversion to some ACW minis.

Royal Etranger

Presenting the Royal Etranger "heavy" cavalry unit. I have read that the French army utilized the usual variety of cavalry, heavy, light and elite (Gendarmerie de France), the Royal Etranger troops are reported in my scenarios as "armored" so I am assuming they were Curiassiers.

The regiment was originally formed in 1659 from several foreign regiments, hence the name, but was thereafter mustered from Frenchmen. The uniforms are blue with Aurora epaulets and red cuffs, lapels and turnbacks. This seems to be the standard uniform colors for most "heavy" cavalry with gentlemen regiments wearing red.

The lace around the horse furniture is aurora with a red diamond pattern with white diamonds. I just dotted the trim with white dots, adds a little detail. I used a paper flag from http://www.juniorgeneral.org/ I need to do some research on dragoons and hussars as some units appear to have worn bearskins and Mirlton hats.

A picture of the unit in column, I added the lace on the musician and tried to vary the brown on the horses.

Picture of General Duc de Brissac leading the Royal Etranger and Cavenderian Ladika Hussars.


Cavenderian units will serve as the foreign regiments in French service. Pictured left infantry regiments (IR) Bourbonnois, Fitzgerald and Prinz Geoffrey. General Chevelas and Colonel Jalsevic.

Growing French army. Up next IR-Rouergue, IR-Die Dame's Fub and more artillery, plus the overall commander of French forces, General Guerchy with his Aide-de-camp and maybe some Hessians.

Completed building this Hallmark coach for the Reich Duke and King Basil's upcoming visit. Need to paint it up. I was wondering if someone could tell me if I had the horses in the correct position by their harnesses. The model was bit tricky to assemble requiring some drilling but should be fun for photos. Finally, have played the naval rescue of Dukas scenario and should be able to report that soon in a fiction.

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.

Origins Review

7:00 a.m. Saturday, June 27, 2009, yours truly, middle goofy face, and origin virgins Fitz, pictured left and his nephew Keenan, pictured right, mad the trek to Columbus, Ohio for the Origins Gaming Fair. We also picked up our friend Keith in Kentucky who has been to Origins many times. Having the guys along made the trip go faster. Fitz and Keenan have attended the smaller Char Con, our local gaming convention in Charleston, West Virginia, but had not been to a larger event, we were all very excited to be going to Columbus.

I attended Origins two (2) years ago and have to say it seemed a little more mellow and perhaps less crowded. This could be a reflection of our economy, however we had a fine time. The miniatures room and vendors rooms had changed positions this year, the vendors were in the smaller room, interesting. The vendors room had your usual assortment of board games and miniatures lines but not much for the 18th century war gamer. I did pick up a football board game for my brother and uncle and some of the old Pirates of the Spanish main ships to run the long anticipated rescue of Dukas scenario. To the left is the Battle of Little Big Horn (LBH).
Here is a close-up of some of the U.S. Cavalry. The LBH area was ran by a Uncle someone group that had been in attendance the last time I attended origins and they always bring the excellent terrain and miniatures. They had a Martian, gaslight, steam punk thing going on several tables and a large medieval castle siege game.

Do not adjust your computer this is the red landscape of Mars.

The first time I went to Origins I played in a Normandy invasion game, Piquet Field of Battle Napoleonics and some board games. This year we arrived a bit late 10:30 a.m. and I did not see many historical games other than flames of war being played.

Medieval battle outside a fortification. This game was starting later in the day. We ran into our friend from the Kanawha Riflemen gaming group out of Charleston who were running demo games, we talked shop a bit. We played a new game by Steven Jackson games that was very European in flavor, i.e. resource management, and higher quality board and pieces than most Jackson games. I also played a quick tutorial of Attack Vector 3-D space combat, I was under the impression that one needed a Ph.D. in physics to play this game but we picked it up eventually.

WWI trench warfare game. Picture did not do this game justice, but I have to wonder why build such a long table when all of the action takes place in the last third?

Mech warrior pods that were linked to a live action video game that you could play in. Origins also offered live role-playing, lectures and independent films. I missed the lecture on the western theater of the civil war and board game design. Seems everything happens early in the morning or later in the evening at Origins.

The highlight of my trip was getting to meet Tod Kirshner, pictured standing, writer of Warfare in the Age of Reason. I did not get a chance to meet him at the SYW convention this year so I was quite pleased to get to meet him here. He was very nice and even gave me his card to discuss any future games I might play. Mr. Kirshner was running his napoleonics rules.

I also got to meet Richard Borg writer of one of my favorite board games, Battle Cry, he also produced Memoir 44, Command and Colors Ancients and the new Attack Yahtzee, which is actually quite fun. Very nice guy.

All in all a nice time, however next time I will have to organize my day a bit better as I failed to play any miniatures and forgot to pick up the DVD on Frederick the great from the 1930's. Next Con for me will be Char Con in the fall and I hope to run a game. I would recommend Origins very highly if you have children as there is plenty of games, events, etc. to involve the entire family.

Got some painting done this weekend and should have some posts on new units this week.