Distraction Abound, but Ongoing Projects Continue to Creep Forward

I always have two or three projects going on simultaneously on the ole hobby desk  

This serves a dual purpose; to keep me from getting bored with any one project, and also the very practical effort to not waste left over paint.  I usually have a primary project and then will use any leftover paint on the secondary ones.  Right now the Spanish Lancers are primary, but I also have some Spanish Guerillas, Burgundian pikemen, and French Voltigeurs, all in various states of completion.  Doh! And a rebasing project of some lovely Hinchliffe Napoleonics!  Thank you Rob. The artillery limbers are back together and ready to be finished up.

However, none of these have made a lot of progress lately due to the following list of excuses:

My 92 year old parents just moved into a retirement community so my brother and I have been helping get them settled.  My wife Cindy has been especially caring of them and is the best partner anyone could hope for!

I really needed a break from work, so managed to squeeze in a vacation during the last little bit of June.  We spent a week exploring Acadia National Park in Maine!

Of course there are the never ending home projects, which happens when you have a 65 year old house on an acre of land!  The current disaster, which I am farming out thank goodness, is replacing all of the old plumbing.  That's fun... 

And finally, tidying up the basement to make room for a new display case!

Here are some shots of the disaster that is my painting desk and the newly excavated space for the display cabinet.

I'm not proud of this disaster area!

Burgundian Pike on the top.

Minifig s-series Spanish lancers below.  I really love these figures.  I did cut down the bases on the horses, as the originals were just too large in my opinion.  The new smaller bases will also more closely mirror the Hinton Hunt bases of the rest of the collection.

A mixed bag of Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegspieler figures to make my first Guerilla band.

Just a quick touch up for these elite Voltiguers I found online.  I believe these are original HH castings, and were very well painted, so not much required to bring them up to snuff.  They will serve as a detached unit of Voltigeurs to accompany the Combined Grenadier battalions.  In the background are some heavy infantry for my 13th century Spanish Reconquista army.

A few other of odds and ends; some Persian Lancers for ADLG or Triumph, as well as some Elite Gendarmes to accompany the French army and keep the riff raff in line.

Chaos!

The back wall will be home to a new display case which I hope will help brighten up the garage space I have for painting and gaming, and help inspire me to clean up my painting desk!

Some lovely Hinchliffe 28/30s getting ready for basing .  I will use these for my DBN armies.  Thank you Rob!

Oh yeah, did I mention the World Cup and July 4th celebrations!  Getting ready for the France vs Morocco.   The big question is whether to root for England or Norway on Saturday!

Grilled and mesquite wood smoked hotdogs with pico de gallo for Independence day - Delicious!!!

And here are some shots from Acadia:

My wife Cindy found this amazing abnb with an amazing view of the coast.  I woke up the first morning around four and was greeted to a beautiful view of the predawn sunrise with all of the resplendent pinks and oranges of the rising sun.  It was spectacular!  That did not keep me from crawling back into bed and promptly falling asleep again!

The Park was stunningly beautiful and easy to access, with a lot of the park accessible without even going through the main entrance gate, but even when we did go on the Great Loop at the main entrance, there was no wait.

Our first peak, up the aptly named Goat Trail because only a goat would chose to use it.  The pink granite of the mountains in Acadia are really beautiful, and challenging to scramble over if hiking is your thing.

We had excellent weather and timed our hikes well, so that we had clear days at the mountain tops and some moody mists down on the coast.  It was also gloriously cool, with temps in the mid 60s.

Exposed pink granite in its natural form.

Here it is nicely carved into a stunning bridge and railing along the carriage trials that cross the park.  The carriage trials are bike/horse/pedestrian only, so a great way to escape if you want some easy quiet walking.

Sunrise from the top of Mount Cadillac.  Thank goodness Cindy had booked a shuttle to the top for this one.  It would have been a long hike in the dark otherwise.  We were treated to a glorious sunrise!

Early morning sunlight on the exposed Granite.

Here is an example of a "trial" in Acadia.  they are often marked with blue painted blazes on the granite so hikers don't get lost!

Peak #2 of the ones we managed to hike up.  Once you got on the trials to the peaks, there were hardly any other souls to be found.

The scene of my first whole steamed lobster.  I will spare you a shot of the carnage that was my dinner.  Have to say, not a huge fan.  Should have tried a lobster roll instead.  Next time!

Beautiful misty/foggy days down on the coast.

This scene near Otter Cliffs reminded me a Japanese sumi-e, or ink drawing.

The light house was pretty, but one of the few places where we had a small crowd, and also a short wait to get into the area.

Changing weather made the coast look so different!

Cindy looking out from the Bee Hive trial, which is a near vertical scramble with ladders and bars to help tourists not plummet to their deaths.  This was actually a popular trail, being iconic, with one hiker even carrying their purse dog to the top.

From the Bee Hive we walked on to the higher peak of Mount Champlain and came across this beautiful scene called Bubble Lake I believe.  Only a handful of folks continued on to the lake.

Made it to the top.  The funny thing was the hike down was actually harder.  Going down on all the exposed granite was a little freaky.  There were great big open swaths of it that made you feel quite exposed with nothing to grab hold off.  Fortunately that section was not particularly steep, but my dear one was about ready to turn around and go back the way we came!  This peak is also the trail junction to the Precipice Trail that leads down the cliff face of Mount Champlain.  Fortunately that one was closed for the Peregrine nesting sites, so we were not tempted, but we have heard it is one of the prettiest trails, though it sounds terrifying!

Found what I think is a giant bolete mushroom (very tasty if I'm right), some Bunchberry and Spruce along a much more friendly carriage trial.  The carriage trails are wide and level, but that does not mean they are flat.  This particular stretch was the steepest in the park and probably why we were alone on it.  A local had told us it was called the seven bridges trail.  It was lovely, but we only counted six small bridges across the brook.  The local we talked to turned out to be a painter (even though he looked more like a biker in black leather).  He has a gallery in the area with oil paintings which we looked up on the interwebs.  His paintings were selling for ~40K, so just a tad out of our reach!

The weather was so changeable.  The morning of our last day this was scene down in the shore of Bar Harbor, but by the afternnon...

we had found this secluded beach just outside the park which we had to ourselves.  It was clearly a local spot for the town youth, given all of the broken beer bottles along the trail at the top of the cliff.

A Parting Shot

And this is a reminder why I love wargaming.  Good friends sitting around a table just having a great time enjoying each other's company and rolling really poorly, oh wait, that was just me.  At least this shot was taken before my entire army fled the field in panic...

Spanish Cazadores - The Hunters

Cazadores, or Hunters, were the light infantry companies of both the line and light infantry in the Spanish army, with the Center companies being Fusiliers and the right wing being Grenadiers.  By 1812 the regiments consisted typically of just one battalion of six companies; one Cazadore, one Grenadier and four Fusilier companies.  This was true of both line and light infantry Regiments.  Uniforms in 1812 were primarily of a British design, and often supplied by great Britain, along with shakos, muskets, backpacks and other sundries.  Coat and trousers could be light or dark blue, with some units adopting the same color trousers and jackets (light or dark blue for both), with other adopting light trousers and dark jackets.  The two light companies below are meant to represent detached Cazadores of the Del Rey Light Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion of the Iberia Light Infantry Regiment.

The Spanish were apparently not well trained in skirmish techniques, though by 1812 it appears some divisions may have been more versed in sending out skirmishers to protect the main body of troops from French Voltigeurs.

I recently acquired these figures that were either recast from Hinton Hunt originals, or had their bases trimmed down.  My money is on recasts, as some of the detail was very shallow.  I did not strip these of their old paint, but rather tried to clean up what was there.  In the end I essentially repainted the whole figure, so really should have stripped them and prepped them for painting properly.

A nice detail of these is the "wings" on the shoulders, which were worn by the Cazadores and Grenadiers.

These figures were actually lovely to paint despite their provenance as Der Kriegspieler figures.  The detail was clean and the castings sharp.

I think Duke Siegfried (owner of Der Kriegspieler) simply took a British rifle figure and slapped a Spanish cask on it instead of a British Canteen, and called them Cazadores.  There is, however, no record of the British supplying the Spanish army with rifles, so I am pretending they are long enough to be muskets.  Note my attempt at painting the typical Spanish soft shoe.

All together they make a rather impressive column in their green plumes.

On the gaming table they will be deployed in loose order as skirmishers.

I was very glad to find these on eBay, as all of my existing Spanish regiments are in march order, with shouldered muskets, and I just didn't want to use a marching pose for a skirmishing company.

Up next - Guerillas or Spanish lancers - Which one will inspire me first, or will a unit of Burgundian Pikemen worm their way into the painting queue for a War of the Roses game...

Of course the real distraction has been this little guy!

Sammy is about six months old now (younger in this picture), and despite the work of raising a puppy, has been a truly delightful addition to our family.  I still miss my soulmate, our Great Pyrenees, Nyra, but she will always be with me in my heart.  Sammy has big paws to fill - literally!

Rest in Peace sweet little girl.

Not to worry, Sammy is definitely weaseling his way into our hearts!

Now in Full Glory - the Completed Spanish Artillery Battery - 1812-1813

Life got in the way again, but the last few elements of the Spanish artillery battery are finally done.

The new elements include gunners servicing the canon as well as in march order, and a supply cart being drawn by oxen.

As with the theme of this project, the gunners wear a variety of uniforms, all painted to a semblance of what may have been worn in 1812-1813.  The uniforms were largely patterned on the French style, so in this case the pre-1812 French uniform included the lace and flounders on the shako which the Spanish may have worn.

These have the more simplified 1812 French style uniform with some painted on modifications, but the key difference is the lack of shako lace.

I am unsure of the make of the oxen, adding yet another manufacturer to this mish mash of makers.

Dick Tennant started the madness of including the artillerymen in march order in all of his batteries, so here I go carrying on the tradition.

The officer illustration I had for reference had only a carrot shaped pompom, but I opted to leave this officer's glorious plume.  I figure there was likely some variation, especially among the officers.

For the soldier's sake I hope these are some well trained oxen!

I added a little bit of custom impedimenta to the standard Hinton Hunt cart load.

There always seem to be more detail on the rear of Napoleonic uniforms than the front!

Lastly, a little tweak to the French 1st Hussar's command stand.  I had originally mounted the Franznap officer in the middle of the command stand, but the style is just too different from the Hinton Hunt sculpting to look quite right.  I hated to hide the jaguar skin saddle cover of the officer in the middle of the command stand, but he just looks too good with his Hinton Hunt compatriots to not put him back amongst them.

Till next time - be good out there and kind to others.