Austrians Arrive!!

I knew this would happen, a MASSIVE box arrived this afternoon from Elite Miniatures, typical, tomorrow I head off down to Newquay for a 4 day WWII fest, so I have a happy evening ahead packing, boning up on the rules for the game ahead, printing OB's, digging out my dice etc plus the small matter of sorting through 1300 Austrian figures....oh, and I think I'm supposed to spend a bit of quality time with the significant other prior to my departure. How is a man supposed to concentrate on his nearest and dearest when his head is full of Grenzers and whether the mix of variants will work?

To be honest, one obviously has to prioritise one's time here, and I've already spent a couple of hours going through the infantry and working out how to mix the figures. Having bought all these different units they need a bit of mixing up. I bought 4 x 48 of the new "Collector's Series" Austrians which are chock-full of variants to mix in with the old style adv/chrg mix. plus Mr Moreby bunged in about 90 of the other variants within the btns...all told I think each of the helmeted btns (of which there are 13) will get about 14 different infantryman plus different officers/stds drummers etc. They should look pretty whacky. The big strength of the Elite figures is the energy they can display. If you want seried ranks of identical march attack figures (nothing wrong with that- it can look great) then don't buy Elite, Front Rank will do a better job, and if you are short-sighted..Foundry. However, I really liked the idea of trying to replicate the feel of all those drawings of Austrians in action during the 1809 campaign, no orderly ranks but swarming mobs of infantryman rushing forwards....we shall see.

Anyway, a bit more sorting out then its time to get my head into WWII mode.

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Prussian Musketeers

Calpe Musketer btn

Google seem to have a new pic uploader, seems to be a little more punter-friendly than the old one. You also get these BIG pics. Jolly good.

Just got round to basing up these Musketeers (apologies about the blobs of white glue under the grass tufts. they will dry and be invisible pretty quickly. These Calpe figures are possibly the most painter friendly figures I've ever encountered. For someone who has been brought up on Connoisseur they are so simple to paint. In fact, you would have to be a REALLY bad painter not to get a decent result with these. Even a cack-handed twat like me can make them look ok.

The usual massive mix of poses, which I like, I know its not everyone's cup of tea, but this is my blog, so tough. I used the same method as the Landwher, and these took about the same amount of time, so November is looking highly productive so far: 64 figures in 8 days. I won't be able to keep this up for the rest of the month but its a bloody good start.

Checked my bank account yesterday and there was a very significant difference all of a sudden which I hope means that Mr Moreby has posted the Austrians. Excellent. Trouble is I'm quite busy this week and then on thursday head to down to Newquay for a long weekend of WWII gaming (1/285th, so not very photogenic). I'm looking forwards to this, should be a good laugh, good crowd and it will be a good game. (D-Day, and a bit of Goodwood in 2 games). However, it is bound to mean a delay in getting stuck in to the Austrians.

I've got another march attack musketeer btn  like this to do, plus a Fusileer btn in a firing line pose, going to be difficult to do before starting the Austrians. Discipline will be required which has never been my strongpoint.

Managed to remember to do the flag correctly this time, 5 coats of brushed on artist's gloss then a brushed matt coat. Came out as flat as a pancake (?)...ok, thats a mixed metaphor but you know what I mean.

I do prefer to brush on varnish these days, seems a bit more controllable plus I'm a lazy sod and in order to spray I need to go down 3 stories to the garden. The artists gloss is not smelly.

So, no hair-spray or other "magic" solutions....just brush it on. Not rocket surgery.

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