A new project

 For a very long time I have wanted to do a SYW collection.  While Napoleonic and Sudan/Colonial gaming was inspired by Peter Gilder, and WWII gaming by Colin Rumford and Richard Marsh (Rapid Fire), the SYW has had its inspiration drawn from John Ray. His vast and unique collection, all sculpted by him (except the horses and guns) presented on a lovely Gider-esque terrain layout and beautifully photographed defines the SYW as a toy soldier period worth doing.  The book of his collection, The Military Gentleman, has been a source of torment for years and recently I decided to take the plunge by starting a SYW Prussian Army using Elite Miniatures.  I love these figures and they populate a high proportion of my Napoleonic collection along with (yes, you already know) Connoisseur.  The Prussian range is quite small and unfortunately incomplete; no artillery nor fusiliers.  But the Musketeers and Grenadiers include a set of complimentary poses for a 'marching' unit.  There are also march attack and advancing/charing poses, but the marching poses are just wonderful.

Now, my collection to date is a mere 2 battalions drawn from IR 1 and IR 5.  I have 2 battalions of converged grenadiers prepped along with a regiment of cuirassiers.  I'm taking it slow.  I alternate painting these units with the usual suspects: a slowly amassing Swiss Italian Wars army, ancients, WWII, lots more colonials, vast numbers of Napoleonics, Great War, oh dear....

All lots of fun.  There really is no finish line. Needless to say, while I am working on a BFE inspired ACW rule set, the Great War version, and tweaking BFE 3, I have written a grid set of rules for ancients-renaissance and a...SYW grid game.  Retirement next year will be fun! 

Here are a couple of poor quality shots of the two battalions.  Hope you like them.  Oh, forgot to mention that I am using the old Willie 30mm officers for some of my units.  

Tamai

 I had not pulled out the Sudan collection in some time and decided to replay the old original scenario from the first edition of the rules, Tamai.  This has been played many times and gives a good game.  Since playing this I have made a new arid mat using a canvas drop cloth and acrylic caulk.  Next time I use it I will post again - I have posted a couple of pictures from a NWF game but not with the Sudan collection.

The mat in these images is my old felt but with patches of, well, not sure, patches of cracked earth?  I spread pebbles on the cloth is a dense clumps and then sprayed it with brown paint. The stones acted as a mask and gave an interesting effect.

The Ansar won this one although it looked horrid for them for a while.  

Isandlwana...again

 A local gamer with whom play I infrequently but always enjoy his company has recently jumped on the colonial gunboat and has been painting Zulu war British.  He was not sure about what rules he wanted to use, but was sure he wanted to amass armies for both sides.  He has not delved into the history deeply and so when I asked him what battle he wanted to play it had to be either Rorke's Drift or Isandlwana. He opted for the latter and wanted to get indeed by playing the British.  Well, it was a cracker of a game - always a relief when introducing a period and/or rules to a new player -- and he is now enthusiastic about the period and the rules.  Yay!  Job done.  Here are some pictures of the fight using my 28mm collection (Old Glory Brits and Connoisseur Zulus with Redoubt and some others thrown in for good measure).