Happy New Year

The New Year approaches, and there is a sense of excitement in the air. The rumours of an imminent invasion of Nabburg by Luetonia are rampant. Even Blagovia has heard that something is afoot, and the coffee shops of Starigrad are rife with speculation and conspiracy theories, to borrow a contemporary term. However, the one thing no one has been able to answer is how Luetonia will invade, seeing as they do not share a border with Nabburg...

I would like wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I hope that 2020 is  a grand year for all visitors to Blagovia.

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas

Christmas morning in Blagovia

 As winter settles in it's time for feasts, a gathering of families, and reflection. Although it has been quiet on the blog front, things have been busy in Blagovia, Nabburg, Luetonia, and all the other Imagi-Nations in that part of Central Europe where Duke Borislav, and King Schmenge call home.  Rumours of war, and intrigues are ripe, and it looks as the upcoming year may be one of conflict. More on that later... For now, His Grace wishes all of you, and yours, a wonderful holiday, and a Merry Christmas!

Rememberance Day

As Roger Waters brilliantly wrote in "Free Four"

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime.

This wonderful poster from the Royal Canadian Legion sums this up perfectly.

Lest We Forget.

Reinforcements have arrived!

A quick update tonight. I received my order from Baccus today, -24 Prussian Musketeers, 12 Jaegers, and 8 cannons and crew. With these, new troops I now have enough miniatures to complete all of my Imagi-Nation armies in 6mm. I have begun gluing the miniatures to painting sticks, in preparation for priming and final painting. My terrain board has been prepped, and is ready for painting and flocking; hopefully this will be done by Friday. Not much longer now and I will be able to start fighting some battles!

Status Update

After a slight delay, due to some construction and repairs at Festung Borislav, my 6mm project is progressing at full steam. Having finished basing another 8 units -5 battalions of infantry, a regiment of dragoons, and two batteries of artillery, I decided to tackle some terrain. A first for me as I have never bothered to build any in the past, being content to use books, boxes, and whatever else was at hand to represent the required features. I first built a series of rural houses out of blue insulation and card stock, enough to make a village, and a couple of single farmsteads. They look quite nice if I say so myself, and I am certainly happy with them. However, I think I will probably switch to 3mm printed card buildings going forward, as they provide a better "strategic scale" aesthetic in relation the 6mm troops, and have exquisitely printed features that make the tabletop setup really "pop." I next made a good sized hill with Styrofoam, and some modular river and road pieces using pieces of linoleum tile, and card stock, respectively. Once these are painted I will turn my attention to a bridge or two, and then the actual game board. I think that I will just do a single 2'x2' board for now, and add further boards as needed. The beauty of 6mm is that 2'x2' is plenty of room to have a relatively large battle on, with enough room to manoeuvre.

All in all I am quite excited with how this project is coming along, and I hope to have my first game with all of the newly painted troops and built terrain in the next week or so. I hope to get around to posting some photos in the next few days, but if truth be told I am not happy with most of the pictures I take, as I only have my cell phone camera which often leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to clarity at such a small scale.

Progress Report

The 6mm project is proceeding full steam ahead. As of this evening I have finished 4 regiments of infantry, each consisting of 3 battalions, and a regiment of Hussars. Amazing how quickly these paint up. I have 3 more infantry regiments, and another hussar regiment primed and waiting in the paint queue, and when these are done, I'll focus on artillery and limbers, dragoons and cuirassiers. That will leave me with about 3 battalions of grenadiers, and another regiment of infantry to prime and paint. Not bad at all. I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I will post some pictures once I have gotten the finished units properly based. 

6mm?

Lately I have been doing some cleaning up at Festung Borislav, and today I discovered a bunch Bacchus 6mm Russian SYW troops. My idea, when I initially purchased them, had been to build up an army of Russians, but the lack of local opponents caused that idea to fall by the wayside some years ago. Also, my disinterest in painting and creating an actual historical pushed them even further back on to the shelf of shame.
However, looking at the unpainted horde this morning gave me a wonderful idea. There are more than enough troops, including cavalry and artillery to make two, or three, wonderfully sized Imagi-Nation armies. I think I might prime some up and see what I can do with them. It sure would make playing a quick large-sized battle a lot easier...

75 years ago today..

Today marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day. I have noticed that, as usual, the foreign press seems to have forgotten that there were three armies that invaded France. 
In memory of that long ago day..

 

 

 

 

The Wargaming Compendium

I received my copy of Henry Hyde's The Wargaming Compendium yesterday.  An excellent surprise in my mailbox after a long cold wet and rainy day outdoors. I am looking forward to reading it, as it looks like it's chocked full of excellent photographs, and wonderful descriptions.

Although the blog has been silent of late, my painting output has been prolific, compared to my usually glacial painting speed. I have three projects on the go currently, and I am proceeding well in all three cases. I completed my  Schaumburg-Lippe artillerists  and Jagers, (of which the latter I have to repaint as I incorrectly painted their turn-backs yellow) and I now have finished painting the faces, trousers and waistcoats of the musketeers and fusiliers. I have also got one battalion, 18 miniatures, of Hanoverians done who will serve as mercenaries for one of my Imagi-Nation forces, probably Luetonia. The final project is a regiment of WSS era musketeers painted as Luetonians from the War of the Luetonian Succession -yes they had one of those too... After seeing Phil Ollies excellent Vaubarian Infantry Regt 3 - Breitner on his blog I was inspired to paint up some of my own WSS era units. More of which I'll talk about in a future post. If you are interested in seeing Phil's work click on the link to the right.

All in all I am happy at my production. It looks like I will be spending some time on basing in the near future, as my finished queue is starting to fill up

Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg

Well I have been painting quite a bit recently, but not Blagovian troops. After much prevarication I have taken  the plunge, and decided to paint some historical SYW troops -the army of Schaumburg-Lippe. Using the wonderful kronoskaf site as my guide (Schaumburg-Lippe_Army) painting has been proceeding apace lately.  The beauty of Schaumberg-Lippe for me is that it's small enough that I will be able to quickly complete it. For some reason I have currently lost my interest in painting Imagi-Nation troops, but I am sure once the Shaumburg-Lippe units are done, my attention will be re-focused towards Blagovia, Nabburg, et al.

I have, thus far, completed the Jäger Company, and three gun crews. I must admit that I am having a wonderful time assembling and painting this army. Once I base the gunners, and complete some final touches, I will start into the line infantry. Unfortunately, I will have to wait for some suitable Bückeburg Carabiniers to complete the army, but that's fine by me. Hopefully Jim at Fife and Drum will have some next year. Until then I will have to use my forces sans cavalry.

 

Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg Jägers

The basing is complete not, but I may have to retouch them, if I use these chaps, as the turnbacks should be dark green. In any event, I am sure that I can a home for them with Blagovia.

 Just a few buttons to paint, and I can base them. I have two small cannons painted and ready, and I will assemble and paint the 12 pounders once I figure out what I want to do with the bases.