Regiment de Santiago - The Beginning and the Beautiful Distractions

Spanish Infantry Regiment de Santiago

 This week I started in on the first of the Spanish Battalions for the planned upcoming battle of Mesas de Ibor.  The Regiment de Santiago is the first of 6 big 36 figure regiments completed by Dick Tennant.  I will be cleaning and restoring each, adding some simple shading and highlighting and then finally rebasing and giving them a gloss coat.  Additionally, each of the six will have a new mounted Colonel to lead them into battle.

Ready for a soft brush cleaning and then repair of chipped paint

I still have not been able to equal the quality of Dick's detailed line work.  Simply amazing brush control!

While I hate to destroy a figure, this poor soul made the ultimate sacrifice for a bayonet to replace a Chasseur company bayonet that had broken, and a head transplant for the Colonel of the regiment.

Here is the head atop the mounted Colonel.  The mounted figure was a rough condition Der Kreigspieler mounted general.  I had intended to use the figure head with a bicorn, but it was beyond saving.

I made some repairs to the horse and added epaulets to the colonel, which should look OK once painted.

Here he is ready to receive his uniform.

One of the ways I stay sane while tackling this enormous collection of figures is to make sure I get outside and hike.  Tennessee is a great state for enjoying really beautiful state, city and national parks.  

A few weeks ago my wife and I got to hike down to Chickamauga Creek, part of the Chickamauga National Battlefield.  General Bragg pushed his Confederate army across this creek in 1863 on the two bridges and various fords in an attempt to retake the city of Chattanooga, a crucial logistics and transportation center, thus precipitating one of the largest major battles of the civil war.

The high banks made the bridges and fords crucial for crossing.

Hard to believe this serene field just on the west side of the creek was once a spot of deadly struggle.

Fiery Gizzard State Park - Despite the wacky name, an absolutely beautiful spot with some challenging hiking.

Foster Falls

One of the many cliffs used by technical climbers.

The gorge was just stunning, especially after struggling along the rocky trails down in the bottom of the gorge for several hours.

A well deserved break!

Some folks swimming below Foster Falls

Cindy was awfully close to the edge of the cliff getting this shot!

Down in the gorge.

Me getting closer to the edge than I realized, but what a gorgeous day for hiking.

Régiment de la Garde du Paris - 1812

Régiment de la Garde du Paris

The battalion below represents the 1st battalion of the Garde de Paris from late 1808 - early 1812, or the combined 1st and 2nd battalions of the Garde de Paris in February of 1812 under the command of Colonel Jean Francois Rabbe, renamed the Régiment de la Garde du Paris.

The figures of the regiment are Hinton Hunt originals for the most part I believe, with perhaps a few good quality copies, but sometimes it is hard to tell the exact origin. The mounted Colonel is a modern Franznap sculpt.

I could not have done this without the generous donation of the fusiliers by Nigel S, so a shout out to him for helping me bring this regiment to completion!

The white uniforms were a challenge, but in the end turned out quite well.

As always with French uniforms, all of the detailing takes forever!

The command group are mostly from the grenadier company, though I believe, despite the red plume, the drummer would not be considered a grenadier.  I think the red distinctives were just part of the drummers standard uniform and an ode to the earlier green and red jackets and bearskins.

The voltigeurs were unusual in that they wore the bearskin as well.  Theirs are one of my favorite uniforms to date.

The uniform of the grenadiers is a close second!

Note the hand painted paper flag.  I used a printout of a basic French flag from Napflags as a template, and printed in black and white with a ~70% transparency setting to make it very light, and then just painted over it.

The Franznap French Colonel is just an all around excellent sculpt!

Love the combination of the white, green and gold!

What's next?  Lots of Spanish!  

Though I do hope to clear off a few odds and ends from my painting desk first...

The Butterfly of Distraction Lands in Nashville!

 I have been warned the the Butterfly of Distraction was loose, but little did I know it had made it's way to Tennessee.  Our local convention, Nashcon, is a couple of weeks away, so perhaps I can be forgiven.  As part of the festivities, I have agreed for some unknown reason to play in a L'Art de la Guerre tournament.  I have been furiously re-organizing my DBA armies to fit the new format, and found to my surprise, that I only needed to pull out enough commanders to make a couple of General's stands for a late Feudal English period army.

The Garde de Paris continues to progress, but for some reason I felt the need to paint some Hinchliffe 20mm artillery first.  The Paris Garde has been waiting patiently for the return of my attention.

I also got it in my head that I wanted to pull out my copy of Melee from The Fantasy Trip series.  One can not have a fantasy melee without some skellies, so I finally finished up the last three of those that had been moldering in a corner.

Not period correct for an army led by Edward the III, but beggars cant be choosers.

Two British 6 pounders courtesy of Aly, all nicely spruced up and ready for action.  The 6" French Howitzer was still new in the package, which was a joy to build.  It came with enough spare axel hub caps to replace the missing ones on the British 6 pdrs.

I've been working on thinning the paint for a smother painted surface and have been very pleased with the results!

Not a lot of progress since my last post, but little by little they are getting there.

Melee!

I needed some more good guys to fight the aforementioned skeletons, so what better than some Fountain Guards of Gondor!

These are 40mm pre-painted hero clix kind of figures which I rebased for Melee

40mm skeletons from a discontinued epic Greek fantasy line.

This guy must have connected with that old rusty sword!

Then Aston Villa came to Nashville to play a friendly.  Nashville acquitted themselves well in 2-2 draw.  Had to go see that!

This is actually a shot from the previous game, but is pretty standard for any game I attend.  I even sneak a mayonnaise pack into the stadium for my hotdog.  Can't believe they only provide mustard, ketchup and relish...

We always chill in the stands and let the crowd disperse.  It's a fun way for Cindy to attract the attention of the players.  :)

Oh Yeah, and we also went to Lake Tahoe for vacation!

Alright, back to the painting desk!