First of the Russian Line

It's the last day of my holiday and I managed to finish of the first of my Russian SYW Line infantry units, the Azovskiy Rgt. 

Here's them before they were topped off with the flags. They are Savoia Infantry Marching from Crann Tara's range and are intended as generic figures, hence my use of them in my Russian Army for HOW. 

They are lovely figures, very well animated as are all of the CT figures. I recommend them. 

The flags are copied from Kronoscaf, the excellent SYW website and I can quickly copy, paste and fettle them up to flags, adding a little paint here and there just to lift the colour sometimes, at least at the edges, in this case with gold paint. The flags are mounted on brass tubes, meaning I can swap flags, if I want to, simply by lifting the flag off the wire pole. 

I aim to have a further two units of line infantry for the demo game at Kirriemuir and a total of 6 line units for my army. As they're all in green and red I will be breaking the monotony a bit by interspacing my other units, officers next and after the next one, some cavalry.

The Raid on Wurstdorf - Honours of War Scenario

HOW are proving an excellent set of rules. Last night we played this scenario from the HOW forum as I hadn't had a chance to put together something of my own. You can find it here HOW Forum

We used my Russians as the Pragmatic army and a mix of Hessians and Hoegaarden troops for the French.

An excellent little scenario for a great club game. The "French" achieved their objective of scoring the forage, but the "pragmatic" forces broke their army in the process. A somewhat Pyrrhic victory.

Highlights included the early destruction of the French advance Dragoons following a spirited charge and follow up by the Kuirassier. And on the last turn a death or glory charge by French cavalry into the hussars only to be shot up badly on the way past by musketry which caused heavy casualties and lead them to being destroyed.

Some piccies below.

SYW Russians - The line infantry

First of my SYW Russian line inf using some lovely new figures from Crann Tara.  Also a nice mdf limber from Blotz (www.blotz.co.uk) and a table with map, bottle and plate from a SCW set by empress which I no longer have. This bit was too good to get rid of.

Also a couple of group shots of what I've been working on over the last few weeks.

I quite like the effect of the yellow light !

Heading for home 🙁

Well it's been an absolutely cracking week in Cromarty and I can honestly say I've fallen in love with the place.

Hobby wise I've not done much apart from sticking together some AWI Militia from Warlord. Nice figs which I will get round to undercoating in the future as my Russians await.

However just kicking around for a week, getting out in the car in the sun, top down, in September, (!),  has been great. Down Loch Ness on the eastern side by Wade's road was particularly noteable - the man had an eye for scenic routes that's for sure - as was a trip up to Dornoch and our wander through the village here yesterday. Hugh Miller's cottage and the Court house are worth the time to visit. The latter's passion for geology and fossils (amongst other things) is interesting to ponder when you look across the firth to Nigg and Invergordon and see the drilling rigs stacked up. There's also something new on the quayside, a tidal turbine ready for installation.

Home via Cawdor, Grantown, Dufftown and Huntly. The sun's out, the "tap's aff".

Busybusybusy..busy...bus..y.....ahhhhhhhhh!

It's been a while since my last post. Gaming wise, things have been great. The local club have taken to Honours of War big time and it will be the rule set we use for the demo game at Kirriemuir in November. I've had some great games with these rules, we've played thought all the scenarios except the last and the chaos have decided to build up a SYW army, each!

I've also managed to paint some new figs. However on the work and personal side, things have been flat out and sadly our family cat finally run out of lives last week. He was a character and will be much missed.

I'm currently in Frankfurt as I write this having just returned from Azerbaijan. Two weeks ago I was in Norway.

However, next week and the week after I am on holiday. A week on the Black Isle for some RnR (and for once that's not rock n roll!) and then a week off pottering.

I can't wait.

The Serbskiy foot hussars are finished and based, I have a camp scene and followers, tents, etc painted and ready to base, some mdf limbers to assemble, a few Schaumburg-Lippe jaeger to finish off as companions for their Carabiniers brethren and hopefully my "Russians"  - the new generic foot figures from Crann Tara will be waiting for me as well.

It's going to be good to be home!