More Reinfoircements

Two more SYW units are recently arrived from the Dayton Painting Consortium. My Prussian forces have received a unit of Freikorps, whilst the Austrians are better off to the tune of a Bavarian battalion.

These units were freshly painted to order, and so arrived unbased. What a pleasure to spend my weekend spare time basing up these units - a few hours work and two new battalions are available. Painting them myself at my usual speed would have taken a couple of months.

The only fly in the ointment was a demand to pay customs charges and a handling fee to the Royal Mail. The former I don't mind too much (as I understand it covers unpaid UK VAT) but the latter just adds insult to injury, and reminds me of the bank charges racket. But even with these extra charges, total cost per figure (and I mean total) was only around £2.80p.

Richard at DPC didn't name the units that were sent, but working from uniform guides on and offline I have judged the Freikorps to be the Freibatallione Volontaires de Prusse, whilst the Bavarian unit is a battalion of Regiment von Morawitzky, which conveniently was one of the regiments assigned to the Austrian Auxiliary Corps fighting the Prussians.

1st Battalion, Regiment von Morawizky.

1st Battalion, Regiment von Morawitzky

Freibattalione Volontaires de Prusse

Freibattalione Volontaires de Prusse

Two points are worth mentioning. Freikorps units didn't have flags, but the flag bearer provided was so nicely done that I have kept him for the minute. I think that I will eventually take away the flag and replace it with a musket - individual weapons are available in the RSM95 range, and I have a selection in my bits drawer that Richard has sent me from time to time, for no other reason than that he is a generous soul. The other point is the shade of blue chosen for the Bavarian coats. This is significantly darker than the shade of the Bavarian battalion that I painted myself a while back, but I don't mind this. The exact shade of 'cornflower blue' used, or whether cornflower blue was used at all in the SYW, seems to be a subject of continuing debate. That the shade may have varied between regiments seems entirely believable.

Command Markers
Wargamers love their markers and tokens, and I am no exception. Overall, of course, table clutter should be kept to a minimum so that the toy soldiers and terrain may be duly admired. But recently I felt the need for some professional-looking markers to designate my brigade commanders, which under my rules are either Dashing, Dependable or Dithering. I needed to look no further than Warbases who do a range of acrylic tokens you can order directly from their website. Wanting something a bit stylish, I eschewed the MDF and opaque acrylic options, and went instead for the 'transparent ice blue' (dithering), 'fluorescent acid green' (dependable) and 'fluorescent yellow' (dashing).

Fluorescent acid green doesn't sound very SYW, but as I hope you can see these markers catch the light nicely and I am pleased with my choice. I was able to choose a custom font for the writing, which matched the antique-looking font I have used in my rules. Such are the satisfactions of the true geek.

Retired Hurt
Last week I went skiing in the Alps, but like a damn fool I fell and broke my left arm quite badly. I now sport a rather fetching metal plate near my shoulder holding everything together, fitted in a French hospital. Real wargaming and painting will therefore be suspended for a while, but whilst convalescing I am catching up on my reading and passing the time with some blog posts, which just goes to show that every cloud does indeed have a silver lining.