dead highlanders

I've been a fan of Giles Allison's work for some time. As can be seen at his blog, Tarleton's Quarter, he's an accomplished painter of wargaming miniatures, primarily from the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (with a few other periods on the side).

His latest post shows some Revolutionary War Highlander casualty figures, a follow-on from recent postings of figures he painted for the 76th Regiment of Foot (Macdonald's Highlanders) and command and music figures for several different Highland regiments. These are all from a new(ish) range of 28mm RevWar Highland figures produced by King's Mountain Miniatures (their line also includes "over the mountain men", the principal American protagonists at the battle whose name the company bears).

Giles has done his "usual" exceptional paintjob on these chaps. They're very peaceful casualties (rather like casualties at a reenactment); in fact, I can imagine a small vignette with one of these chaps, a model musket leaning against a tree, and a very frowny officer...

An Asian DBA battle

While I spun up (or just spin my wheels) to publish about my own projects, here's a link to a photo journal, the first of a series, but David Schlanger of WADBAG on local DBA battles. This report features a battle between Burmese and Ming Chinese armies--colourful and unusual!

So, clearly I need an update!

I did finish my Medieval Germans, and they helped me win my first (and probably last) HMGS tournament title. I'll post photos of the finished army and its prize in my next entry.

I'll also post the Campanian army that I took to the Two David's Pyrrhic Wars campaign/tournament. Truer to my usual pattern, that crashed out near the bottom of the group.

Since March I've been involved mostly in boardgaming, and that either Eurogames or online ASL games via VASL. I'm currently in three playtest matches and fighting three published scenarios with one playtest and one published scenario recently completed. Hopefully I and a couple of friends will be starting one of the historical campaigns soon...

I did have the pleasure of helping Bruce Weigle playtest another convention scenario for his upcoming 1871 fast-play grand tactical rules for 19th century European battles. They speed up the game considerably, but they take a bit of getting used to, as they change the nature of the game more than a little.

Melissa and I have started sweeping the dust and cobwebs out of our collective chess memories. In our first game I mistook one of her rooks for a bishop and she forgot that pawns take diagonally. I think next time through we'll do better with the rules and be able to start working on strategy. In the meantime we keep our brains fit with Lost Cities and Fjords.