Guerillas Not so Much in the Mist, but Out in the Open!

 Well these fine gentlemen have bee in the works a very long time, but they have finally stepped out of their hiding place in the rocks of the Spanish mesas to give us a glimpse.  Of course the French were in hot pursuit as ever!

Two more skirmish units for the upcoming Mesas de Ibor battle, well at least the guerillas will be there...

This is my favorite stand of Guerillas, with a British naval officer painted as a Spanish guerilla leader.  He is a genuine HH casting, as is the converted British light infantryman.  The Guerilla on the right is my favorite pose of the poses, here recast by Der Kriegspieler.

Another original HH figure is a British sailor with the addition of a crown to his straw hat.  I was surprised at how closely the British sailors garb mimicked peasant Spanish wear.  The other two are Der Kriegspieler.

From the rear you can see the sddition of a Spanish blanket to the British light infantryman, just to give him a bit more Spanish flair.

One of the most distinctive features of the Spanish guerillas is the soft footwear with leather straps on the ankle and knee length pants.

I didn't really need another unit of elite Voltigeurs, but i got these as part of a larger purchase and they were so well painted I couldn't resist spiffing them up a bit to match my collection.  They will serve as a dedicated skirmish unit to the combined Grenadier battalions.

Of course I now have way to many elite voltigeurs in my army, but why not, those colpaks are just so cool, though they had to be really hot in Spain!

Before I start in on the 4 remaining battalions of Spanish infantry that need to be glossified and spiffed up, I'm going to finish this unit of Burgundian Pikemen for Never Mind the Billhooks.

I purchased these pre-painted men at arms last weekend at our local wargaming convention, Nashcon.  All I'm doing is adding a new flag and changing the livery to Burgundy.  I have some more heavy foot knights from the Agincourt French Infantry box that should make up the missing four figures nicely.  My good friend Ed provided the 3D printed movement tray for both this unit and the Pikemen..

There have been some nice changes to my painting space recently.  Here you can see I was able to add a standing desk for the two layered painting space that helps me to look up while painting rather than hunch down!

I also managed to find an old media cabinet that makes excellent storage for finished projects.  I do need to make a ton of new shelves though to maximize the display space.

Lastly, I have been repairing and cleaning the table and organizing the surrounding space which stores my pile of shame for the most part.  The lightbox breaks down for easy storage on the shelves behind the table.

Lanceros de Castilla of Don Julián aka 'El Charro' - The Early Years

These lovely figures started life as Minifig s-series Spanish lancers, or Garrochistas.  Before Don Julián was esteemed enough to outfit his squadron with matching uniforms, he rose through the ranks of a modest band of Guerillas made up of irregular Garrochistas, essentially Spanish mounted cow handlers.

The original lances were cast on and had more akin to a telephone pole than a lance, so I replaced it with an in-between wire lance, that still retained some thickness to match the robustness of the figure, but not so thin as to be scale accurate.  The next decision was whether or not to cut down the base, which to my eye was simply too large for the figure.  In the end, aesthetics won out over preserving the figure integrity (besides, as RG pointed out, I had already trimmed off the lances), so out came the clippers and voila, a more Hinton Hunt style and size of base.  Hopefully those two modifications will help the figure nestle in amongst the smaller Hinton Hunts without too mush to draw the eye toward the discrepancy.

The Minifig s-series Spanish Napoleonic range was a very small one, but thank goodness for these Garrochistas!  It took awhile to find the seven I have, thanks to some lucky finds and the help of friends, but I really only wanted a small squadron of them anyway, so all is well. For more info on the range you can see some on the much missed and esteemed Clive Smither's blog:

https://minifigssrange.blogspot.com/search?q=Spanish

Without further ado, I give you the Lanceros de Castilla 

El Charro himself

Whenever I take pictures and blow them up for a blogpost, I invariably find a mistake or something I forgot.  In this case it is tan hooves for El Charros horse.  As I type this his horse's hooves are drying after a fresh coat of paint!

There was a small unit of cavalry present at the battle of Mesas de Ibor, so these will do just the trick.  Now that they are complete, along with the Spanish artillery, I only need to refurb four more Spanish infantry battalions from the Dick Tennant collection and they will finally be able to hit the battlefield!

For more information on the Lanceros de Castilla, visit these lovely websites:

https://littlewars.se/spanish/index.html

https://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2018/04/spanish-garrochistas-lancers.html

Till next time, 
Be kind to each other out there.

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...