The Enemy is in Sight!

My brother has finally started to put together and paint his first batch of Victrix French infantry, the opposition for my recently arrived Brits. Found out that the reason it took so long for my stuff to arrive from Victrix was the whole paranoia about toner and ink cartridges being bombs (Thanks terrorists). I e-mail Victrix yesterday about why it was taking so long, a little over a month I think, to get my stuff and they promptly responded with equal puzzlement and a link to the Royal Mail's website talking about the alert. Then, to make me look like an idiot, it all arrived a few hours later. But here is what I hope to be the first of many pictures of actual miniatures:

Painted by William Blodgett. I'll get more pictures so we can see detail. Will is a fairly good painter of WH40k miniatures but he was telling me this morning that these French are much more challenging to paint than the oddly proportioned GW minis. We'll see how he does! Update: Here are the painted minis, not the best of quality pictures but they get the gist of what they look like.

FINALLY!

IT'S HERE! THE ARMY IS HERE!

My Victrix Peninsula British are finally here, 2 boxes of Centre Cos, 2 of Flank, and the artillery, with 1 more centre company box on it's way. Time to start painting these insanely well detailed minis! 

Still bloody waiting!

Yeah, well, it's been about 14 or 15 (depending on if you include Martin Luther King Day) business days since I ordered my Victrix army, or about 21 days total. Still isn't here, buuut international mail does tend to take awhile.  Luckily, work and now class is keeping me so bloody busy I don't really notice the days going by. So far, I've got everything I need to start working on my army. I've got paints from Vallejo, the American Revolution colors (I know, not the Napoleonic set but close enough for now), a ton of Osprey books I got for about $2US each on Amazon, the Block Powder rule book, and the NAPOLEON rule book en route. I just need my army.

Oh, How I Hate International Mail

I know I'm just being impatient and all, but after waiting 15 or so days, I'm definitely tapping my foot wondering when the hell my bloody minis are getting here! I won't order any other miniatures until my army gets here, for obvious reasons, so I've been contenting myself with ordering books. I've gotten five Osprey books, the Black Powder rules, and I just ordered from Amazon NAPOLEON: Napoleonic Rules and Campaigns for Gaming with Painted Miniatures.

I probably didn't need to type the entire title but it's more words and makes the post look more... important. But back to the books. I've picked up Wellingtons Peninsular Army, Wellington's Infantry 1 and 2 from the Men-at-Arms series, Wellington's Army in the Peninsula 1809-14 from Battle Orders and British Redcoat 1793-1815 from the Warrior Series. There is a lot of redundancy in each book but each book has some unique tidbits of information and all show the uniforms of different regiments.

The Black Powder rulebook on the other hand was pretty cool. It's honestly really, really, really generic and unspecific. It looks interesting and offers a lot of good ideas and information but I'm not really sure I like it as a rule set. Hence why I ordered the Napoleon rules. I'm definitely going to be trying a game with the Black Powder rules, buuuut once again, I'm not a big fan of those types of rules. I like having a lot of specific rules or information laid out easily at my fingertips. But, we'll see when my redcoats finally bloody get here!

Help!

My brother and I are looking for some good, not too expensive, 28mm terrain to start building our Napoleonic battlefields. I've been looking around and I discovered Hirst Arts, a site that sells molds to make blocks and roof panels so you can make your own buildings. It's a start, but I'd like to know where and what type of foam to get to make a foam terrain table or two. If you guys have any suggestions on where to find materials for and how to make a great battlefield, I'd love emails or comments.

My email: MTBlodgett@gmail.com

Hirst Arts: http://www.hirstarts.com/

Stuff is slowly coming in.

I got my Black Powder rule book in the mail yesterday, as well as a copy of Osprey's British Redcoat 1793-1815. I also got a paint set from Foundry, the American Revolution set. Once it comes back in stock, I will be getting the Napoleonic set. On a funny note, The Army Painter sent me a three brush starter pack that arrived yesterday..... in a box that I was able to stack three rows of three bricks in. That's right. A massive box that holds 9 bricks for three brushes that way... 2 ounces? Have they heard of an envelope?

More stuff on it's way.

Just so it seems like I haven't forgotten about this blog, I figure I'd update it even though I've got nothing new except a box full of spent brass from the Steyr M95. I'm not sure what day I ordered it, I think yesterday (Be nice, I work day AND graveyard shifts),  but I got about five Osprey books for under $45 from Amazon and a set of Foundry paints. I managed to get all the Osprey books for so cheap to due picking up some used ones, and while I picked stuff described as very good or good, we'll see when they get here what kind of shape they're in.

On a totally different direction, I wish that something like the old Spanish Civil War International Brigades still existed. With the soon to be liberation of South Sudan, it's fairly certain there will eventually be a war, the troubles in Haiti, and of course the tyrant Mugabe in Zimbabwe, I wish there would be some way to protect the people who suffer these troubles. I'll be joining the US Army to protect my people, but I feel that all people, regardless of location, deserve to live in the same comfort as Americans and deserve the same kind of protection that Americans get from our armed services.

Seems like the Glock 21 will wait for now.

I just ordered an Army straight from the Victrix website instead of the War and Peace deal because I figured 'hey, why not see if the manufacturer has a better deal on these minis?' It only took me a few days to figure out the obvious, but eventually I did. For $156.00, I'll be getting 208 infantry, 3 artillery pieces, two colonels and General Hill. This is compared to War and Peace's $150.00 for 157 infantry, 2 mounted (officers I presume), and three artillery. Yeahhhh the shipping was pricy (England), but I still feel it was worth it for that much more if you include shipping on the War and Peace deal.

The cool thing about the Victrix website is it allows you to pick and choose between boxes. You can pick 3, 5, or 7 boxes of any of their Napoleonic box units, such as French Imperial Guard, Highlanders, or British infantry from either Waterloo or Peninsula campaigns. It's a great deal for getting a bunch of troops in a little of time. I can't wait for them to arrive! Now I just need.... everything else... crap.

Here are the two deals for your comparison pleasures:
Victrix: http://www.victrixlimited.com/online_shop/product_info.php?cPath=32_35&products_id=37&osCsid=d110d32f74019bf4ac3f1516ebc5b399

War and Peace: http://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/shop/productDetails.do?categoryId=180&productId=185782

The Austrian Lady: Steyr M95

The first rifle I ever purchased, a beautiful Steyr M95 carbine. It's in 8x56R mm, an odd round it was rechambered in during the Second World War by the Hungarians for use policing the German-controlled areas of Europe. Update: Took her out shooting tonight (1/13/11) with my buddy and we discovered she's an amazing weapon to fire! Low recoil, not much muzzle flash buuut we still don't know exactly how accurate she is. Her sights are really difficult to use in the dark of night so we'll be taking it out sometime soon during the day to test it at various ranges.

A random picture of my firing replica Colt 1860 Army .44

And now for something random but friggin' AWESOME!

I saw this sitting on a trailer along the California/Arizona border at a truckstop on the I10. I -think- it's an F5-type trainer, and I'm willing to bet some lucky, evil millionaire I'm insanely jealous of has bout them. There were two of them and I was contemplating if they'd notice one semi truck missing... Sadly, all I could get were pictures. 

The First Post!

So far it's only one guy talking about nothing so far. Pretty soon here, meaning next paycheck, I'll be picking up an army deal from War and Peace Games, a Napoleonic British Peninsular Army deal. According to the description, it'll be 157 infantry, 2 mounted guys, and 3 artillery pieces of miniature goodness. It seems really reasonably priced at $150. After that, I'll be needing to get some paints, terrain, etcetera. If anyone actually reads this, I would love some emails on suggestions to find this stuff.

I've dabbled in Warhammer 40k at the insistence of my loving, pushy older brother but it really wasn't my thing. In fact, my Catachan Imperial Guard force usually spends it's nights being cannon fodder for his Cadians. Oh well, 40K is just stupidly expensive aaand I'd rather buy guns... and Napoleonic minis. Which one will come first? A Glock 21 or a Napoleonic Army? Hmmm, only time can tell.

Anyways, the army I'm looking at starting with is Victrix 28mm. I'm comfortable playing 28mm as it's fairly similar to the scale of the oddly proportioned 40k models and it's not too big and not too small. Heres a link to the page: http://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/shop/productDetails.do?categoryId=180&productId=185782

It's the best deal I could find in a few days of shopping around online and the War and Peace site seems to have more than a few good deals. I'll probably look into getting some Perry Plastic accent minis (if they're in the right scale) and a few others. The Glengarry Light Infantry models on the Knuckleduster store website look pretty cool, and yes, I realize they're from the War of 1812, but I see no reason why they couldn't be good riflemen. Come to think of it, I think War and Peace sells riflemen in a larger group for a relatively lower price.

Here's a link to the Knuckleduster store: http://www.knuckleduster.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=367&category_id=49