One Crossed Off the Job List...

 

According to this blog, in October 2011 I added the Lanceros de Castilla to my 1812-period Spanish army, and I made a note at the time that I needed to fit red pennons to their lances. Almost nine years later, gentlemen, I have not done anything about this, but, before you gasp in astonished disappointment, let me add that this very week I have read that it is very probable that this regiment did not fit their pennons when on campaign.

YES.

That will do nicely.

I shall now amend my Napoleonic Catalogue notes to say that this unit is complete, and I shall move on. Another triumph. Just goes to prove that you should never rush into anything. That was smart planning on my part, to delay this little job. What's that I hear? Do I have any confirmation or cross reference for this new information I have read? I regret that I have now placed my fingers in my ears, and am singing, very loudly.

 TRALALALALALA!

Join the Queue

Some new figures in the painting queue this week - well, not new, exactly - some of them haven't been owned before, but they aren't new.

Some real Old School French chaps in here - HH Guard Engineers and Line Artillery, and some Alberken Guard Artillery. The Engineers still had the original mould flash under the paint, so I'll try to improve on that this time round

This is a random bunch of old figures which have been fermenting in the Clean Spirit jar for about 10 weeks. Since there were still traces of gloss black and gloss red which refused to shift, they finished up with a few hours in the Domestos - that did it. Like me, you might wonder why I bothered with the 10 weeks in the Clean Spirit, but it's the principle of the thing, really.

10 packs of OOP Falcata Spanish cavalry - once again, I have killed off one of the world's endangered species - I believe they are now officially extinct. This should be enough for 4 regiments, with luck. Put them next to the White Rhino

Probably more interestingly, I also have a little shipment of the much-missed Falcata Spanish Napoleonic heavy cavalry - now rarer than hens' teeth. My mysterious friend and advisor, Count Goya, was recently in Spain. Goya's adventures can only be guessed from occasional glimpses and hints - tantalising, really. Sunset verandahs in Mandalay, a half-seen shadow in a village on the Adriatic, whispers of the Spice Routes, blood and sand...

Anyway, he spotted some OOP Falcata figures in Spain, and very kindly brought me back a pack. I, of course, was much less calm about the matter, and promptly lit up the Internet in my searches to see if there were any more. I am pleased to say that I seem to have managed to snaffle the world's final stocks of the Spanish cavalry.

To save a little on postage, since shipping rates from Spain are famously extravagant, I arranged with my friend Jack the Hat that he would collect the goods for me next time he visited Barcelona (he has an apartment there), and the deed was done last week. I think I have enough for 4 units of line cavalry. They can go in the Spanish box, and I'll get to them.

Jack the Hat, cunningly disguised (without  hat), does the messages

To give an idea of Count Goya's exotic lifestyle, he even has his own food manufactured and supplied when he is on his travels

Bavarians - Brigade Commander

I do enjoy painting staff figures, as I've possibly mentioned before. We have a game coming up next weekend, and I was short of a brigade commander for the Bavarians (who will be getting a run out, though I fear they are going to get thumped again).

Here's a new arrival. In my normal Bavarian organisation (3rd Divn, VII Corps, 1809) this will be GM Vincenti, but next weekend there will be a bit of role-playing going on, so he will be Minucci for the day.

The casting is a fairly recent one by Hagen, though his horse is an OOP Falcata. Yes, he does look a bit as though he's falling from his horse, but I think he's just giving a very dramatic signal for his boys to get a move on. In the honourable traditions of the theatre, the twitch of your eyebrows must be discernible from the back row, or such that even Hansl in the 14th IR picks up on it.

1809 Spaniards - Light Infantry Completed!

This morning I have two new light infantry units ready for action, so I am pleased to note that the original planned four such units are now finished. Another little milestone (as opposed to a millstone, which is a different thing altogether).

With skirmishers deployed

In close order - skirmishers tucked away at the back

These are the Voluntarios de Gerona (yellow facings) and the Cazadores de Barbastro (red). The castings are Falcata, apart from the marching officer and the drummer in Barbastro, which are NapoleoN. The Falcata figures paint up nicely, but the moulds were suffering badly when these chaps were produced, and it took a lot of filing and re-carving to get them into shape.

According to my (expanded) target OOB for the 1809 Spaniards, the only things I still have to paint are 2 battalions of grenadiers, 3 units of line cavalry, 1 of dragoons, 1 foot battery, a few more generals and ADCs and a small group of zapadores (individually based). Apart from elegances like limbers and some garrison artillery that's the lot, so I hope I can finish them this year.

Cazadores de Barbastro

Voluntarios de Gerona

In case they are useful, here are the flags for these units, which I have produced with Paintshop Pro - if you print them at about 20mm high (cut off the green bits!) that's near enough 1/72 scale - I would not recommend them for anything bigger than that. Feel free to use them, but if you share them or publish any pictures, I'd appreciate a mention!

A quick word on Spanish light infantry flags - these units each consisted of a single battalion, which carried the Coronela national flag; if they still had a Sencilla (battalion flag) left over from an earlier regimental organisation, it would be stored away in a church or a depot somewhere. There is a very tattered sencilla for the Barbastro unit still in existence, but by 1809 it was no longer carried on campaign.

1809 Spaniards - Light Infantry Sample Figures

A couple more pilot figures painted - synchronised musket-loading on the bottletops!

Fellow on the left is from the Cazadores de Barbastro, on the right is a member of the Voluntarios de Gerona. These are 1/72 white metal Falcata castings, and I have to say that I have some very sore fingers from trying to clean up a couple of battalions of these. Considering the figures were only marketed for 4 or 5 years, the moulds were pretty broken up by the end of that period, and the casting was definitely a bit variable - lots of grinding and trimming needed, a few replacement scabbards, even a replacement head in one instance, and a number of spindly bayonets built up with layers of superglue. Hmmm.

Anyway, they should look OK when they are all painted and based. My usual arrangement for Spanish, British and Portuguese light infantry units - each battalion will have 2 close-order bases of 6 figures each, including the command, and 2 open order bases of 3 figures in skirmishing poses, which is where the loaders and firers get a gig.

These guys are now officially in the painting queue!

1809 Spaniards - More Foot Guards

Painted and ready to go in the official box files, here are two battalions of the Guardias Españolas. They will form part of the Reserve Division of my 1809 army.

They've been in the pipeline for a while. Apart from a couple of Falcata interlopers in the command department, these are all OOP NapoleoN castings - the rank and file are a special conversion, with changes to the cuff detail to make them into guardsmen. My thanks to Old John, for duplication of the converted figures. I originally intended to field the units with a random mixture of blue and brown overalls, but for some reason it seemed pleasing for the battalions to be different - another aid to recognition on the battlefield, and also it seems not unreasonable that the Guard should maintain some vestigial extra bits of organisation appropriate to their status. Someone might suggest that the coronela flag for the first battalion should be purple with a pattern of Bourbon fleurs de lis - I'm aware of this flag, and if the unit had been intended for 1746 it would have been a banker choice, but my sources seem to be divided on what they carried in 1809, so I've gone for the majority opinion. If it's wrong they can live with it!

1809 Spaniards - Light Cavalry Review

Good New Year to everyone - hope you are all happily back at work, after that seasonal interruption...

Martin was kind enough to email me a prod, to remind me that I said I would set up an updated group photo of my 1809 light cavalry, so I am pleased to present some suitable photos. The captions should explain what's what - strictly, Julian Sanchez' Lanceros de Castilla were slightly later - formed in 1810, but the remainder of the units here are all line regiments which were in existence in 1808, and the uniforms cover a slightly blurry amalgam of styles through 1808-10.

Brigade of cazadores a caballo (literally chasseurs à cheval) - from front to rear,
here are the Voluntarios de España, Cazadores de Olivenza and Granaderos a Caballo
de Fernando VII (who, whatever else, were certainly not grenadiers by any
definition at all). [Apart from the brigadier, figures are all converted Hinton Hunts.]

Hussar brigade - the Husares de Maria Luisa lead the recently-replaced Husares Españoles. [Again, apart from the general, these are converted HH.]

The hussars from ground level - they look more arrogant from this angle, I think

Newly arrived Lanceros de Carmona (a volunteer unit from Sevilla, who fought at
Baylen). In the background are some gatecrashers - a unit of irregulars - mounted partidas
- not the thing for a proper parade at all. [Lancers are converted HHs, the
guerrilleros are converted Falcatas.]

Slight potential anachronism alert - Julian Sanchez' two units of Lanceros de
Castilla, who had an impressive war record from 1810 - these guys appeared at
Salamanca, though they did not get to do very much. [Lancers are Falcata figures,
and have been waiting patiently for a few years for some metal-foil red pennants
for their lances - they probably removed them for action, do you think?] 

In true wedding-photo style, the photographer asked them all to bunch up a bit, to give
a decent helicopter view of the whole lot, coming...

...and going, which is not an unfamiliar view!

That's probably job finished for the light cavalry - there is one further unit of hussars which might get a repaint, but that is not going to happen very soon, so let's assume this is it for the lights. I still have 4 units of heavier cavalry - 1 of dragoons and 3 of line cavalry - in the painting queue - their uniform styles are for 1808, but I could get away with fielding them up to about 1810-11 at a pinch. I already have a regiment of Coraceros, but they only came into being in 1810.

Cavalry was always a problem for the Spanish army - they could never obtain enough decent-quality horses. Though there is an impressive list of official cavalry units in many OOBs from the Guerra de Independencia, many of these appeared at a strength of only a few dozen men, so the converged brigades which were formed from these fragments were neither as homogeneous nor as organised as my miniature contingent.

[Can I just remind my good friend Dr Raul that he has agreed not to borrow my blog posts without asking permission - not that I have any legal rights here, of course, but he might have had some further thoughts on the small matter of common courtesy.]

Major Checkpoint

Time to have my yearly Sensible Look at what is on my list of projects - things that have been going on for a while, things which have crept in through a side entrance or otherwise jumped the queue (including Creeping Elegance items), and things that I want to start on, and which need a proper plan - or at least a better idea of what's involved.

A sanity check, in fact (or charity snack, as Cousin Dave would have put it) - always worthwhile, always throws up a few surprises and decision points, and sometimes gives an opportunity to start something fresh.

This morning's head-scratching produced the following:

Gaming (generally, like) -

Must make time to do some more ECW stuff, must set about organising another campaign (probably boardgame-based in the strategic department), and must do some more work on developing my in-house tweaked variants on C&CN, to allow for extreme ends of the action scale - i.e. smaller and larger than normal. For small actions, I'd like to develop my tactically-enhanced C&C package, in which units have a front and a formation, skirmishing appears in a more explicit form and there is even (perish the thought) a simple unit "quality" test to permit reactive changes of formation. For very large actions, I must have a proper look at C&CN Expansion #6, which deals with EPIC and similar multi-player games (all the more pressing because of the very welcome increase in the social side of my wargaming, in collaboration with Stryker and Goya); I must also do some more work on my Grand Tactical variant of C&CN, in which units are brigades, and weapon ranges and implied groundscale are halved (roughly).

One hefty byproduct of this is that I should also give serious thought to replacing my current battleboards with posh new ones in 18mm MDF - probably in a slightly larger size, and with the number of panels increased to allow games up to full EPIC or La Grande size C&CN. Daunting but probably worthwhile - however much work may have gone into repainting them, my present boards date back to 1972 or so, they are horrible (fragile) ½-inch chipboard, and life has not always been kind to them.

Organising and Painting Armies -

ECW - my armies are probably big enough, but because I bought in and retouched a load of pre-owned figures for Montrose's campaigns there is a proportion which is pretty scruffy - I mean scruffy enough for me to want to do something about it. This means getting in specific replacements for some dubious looking Scottish pikemen, and it probably means that I should get rid of a pile of spare lead which is not going to get painted. Hmmm. OK.

Peninsular War -

All Armies - I'd like to continue to progress my plan to change grouping and basing of generals and staff figures. Nice to do, but no rush.

French Army - I have enough figures for another Division for the Armée de Portugal - probably Bonet's - which will need to be painted and based. I'd like to get on with this, but it's not critical - nothing else depends on it. This is a conscious addition to the Grand Plan. There are some sappers and engineers to paint for siege activities.

This is the makings of the HLI - some fettling and puttying needed...

Anglo-Portuguese - I have the 71st Foot (HLI) on the bottletops to be painted. This may require me to add some more infantry units to make up a brigade to go with them. I'm thinking about this - I have stove-pipe figures which could become (for example) 50th Foot, and I'm sort of thinking about adding the 92nd Gordon Highlanders (don't have figures for these yet). I have a brigade of nice Portuguese infantry figures (4 line battalions and 1 of caçadores) from Hagen which need to be assembled (a bit) and painted, to fill a long overdue vacancy in the Seventh Divn. I also have some new Portuguese staff figures, which are interesting, and Hagen have also produced some splendid Portuguese cavalry - they haven't produced the command figures for these yet, but when they do I will be forced to replace my existing Portuguese cavalry (which are paint conversions based on Dutch-Belgian cuirassiers, as I recall).

1812 Spaniards - a couple more infantry battalions to paint up - nothing urgent.

1809 Spaniards - well now - I worked so hard to collect suitable castings that I now have far too many. This is tricky - it is very easy just to keep adding units to the OOB, but I need to stop this, and probably unload excess figures. I have two big Really Useful Boxes full of unpainted Spaniards, and they weigh a ton - probably a bit silly.

Form an orderly queue - Spanish grenadiers, and odd staff

I still have to finish off a battalion of grenadiers, and I'm also in conversation with Peter Bateman about replacing one of my hussar regts with a unit of converted Hinton-Hunts, which will be nearer the heart's desire.

Apart from that, from the existing lead heap, I have to paint up

- 1 further bn of converged grenadiers (Falcata)

- 2 bns of light infantry (mostly Falcata)

- 2 bns of Foot Guards (specially converted castings)

- 3 regts of Line Cavalry (Hagen)

- 1 regt of dragoons (Hagen)

- a group of infantry pioneers (Falcata)

- some more staff (NapoleoN, Falcata, home conversions)

- 1 more foot battery (mostly Hagen)

...and that's about it. Then I can get rid of the surplus figures, but this is going to hurt!

Something New - a Napoleonic Bavarian Army!

I've been looking at figure samples and swotting up on uniforms and OOBs. My intention is to aim at (as a first stage, anyway) a division of Lefebvre's VII Corps of 1809 - they can fight on the Danube and also against Andreas Hofer in the Tyrol (eventually, pending suitable figures - a campaign for which I have a strange fondness).

Thus my first effort will involve 8 line bns, 2 of jaegers, 2 or 3 regts of cavalry, 2 batteries and a few generals. I already have some figures - Ian very, very kindly sent me some surplus Hinton Hunts, with which I am delighted, and I'm working on building up a suitable stockpile. SHQ are suitable, there are some Hagen figures which look good (haven't got physical samples yet - as ever, size is everything). The Hintons are very nice - I like them - only slight problem with Hintons is that Uncle Marcus made all the Bavarian infantry with plumed helmets, which is only correct for grenadiers, so I would feel obliged to convert (and clone) deplumed fusiliers in goodish numbers. Art Miniaturen are a good source as well, but they are pricey and sometimes their figures are a little delicate for wargaming.

Anyway - early days, but I'm quite excited about this.

So much for sanity - have I decided what priority order these projects will jostle each other into? Well - nearly...

Better have a good rest, to gather my strength.

1809 Spaniards - Better, but Still Digging Furiously

The carpet remains a job in hand, so today's first mission is to clear the decks a bit to get that sorted out.

In the meantime I shifted my painting/carpet-soiling operations into the dining room, and now have the first battalion of Granaderos Provinciales - complete apart from the flag, which should follow in a day or so. The flag, since I mentioned it, is going to be a bit of a flight of fancy - units of granaderos of the line were normally assembled on campaign from the grenadier companies in a division, which means that, as provisional entities, they did not have flags unless someone lent them one. Not so for the Provinciales - the grenadier companies were supplied by the Provincial Militia units of a particular - erm, province, I guess - but they were then given a permanent identity and treated as a distinct regiment. Thus they had a flag, I understand.

These chaps, then, are the 3rd "Division" of Provincial Grenadiers - namely those of Andalucia (other "divisions" were for Galicia, and New and Old Castille). As grenadiers they manage to avoid categorisation as militia in my rules (with all the potentially disastrous implications that would bring), and count as bog-standard line infantry. They are not without a certain prestige, in fact the colonel at the Battle of Ucles would be Pedro Giron, who later was C-in-C of one of the main Spanish field armies. They will form part of the Reserve division of the Army of La Mancha - in company with various guard battalions and the very attractive Irlanda.

Granaderos Provinciales de Andalucia - short of a flag

...and, of course, they have to look good when retreating - note minimalist flammes

Their flag will be some fairly generic coronela - if anyone knows better, please feel free to shout. I'll provide a more official picture when the flag is issued and the chaps are ready for action.

The other such battalion is partly complete - thus far they have their command finished, and the rest of the chaps are undercoated and have had the white paint done (lots of white paint) - they can go back in the Really Useful Box for a respite period, while we sort out the domestic collateral damage.

Oh yes - figures are Falcata castings - the rank and file laboriously (and grumpily) fettled and cleaned up prior to painting - they came out OK, I think - the mounted officer is a conversion involving a Kennington Frenchman and other bits, and the standard bearer is by NapoleoN.

1809 Spaniards - First Batch of Granaderos Provinciales - Command

I've split my batch of 46 figures, for two battalions of Granaderos Provinciales, into three sub-batches. First lot (completed this afternoon) comprises the command for the two battalions - 10 figures in all - they will not win any beauty contests, but they will do the job. Mostly Falcata castings - the ensigns are NapoleoN, and the colonels are assembled from bits of this, bits of that. Once again I am faintly bemused that Falcata always gave officers two epaulettes - I suspect they did not understand the rank distinctions. No matter. Everyone is at least a major - the Spanish army was clearly a big deal. Especially my Spanish army.

That's the fiddly bit done - next I have to divide the rank and file into two separate "factory" batches - very few colours required - I reckon (after the undercoat) I'll need white, red, flesh, black, musket brown, linen slings, gunmetal, brass, silver, green for bases. The end. Oh yes - plus a bit of yellow for touching in the flammes on one battalion.

Going OK. I'll keep working away at them - short sessions. Plenty of music - today was Compay Segundo (he of Buena Vista Social Club fame) and Saint-Saens' violin concertos, plus some vintage Chet Atkins.

Eclectic to a fault, moi.

1809 Spaniards - ILLIGITIMI NON CARBURUNDUM

[A tale of success - albeit slow and not very spectacular, but we have to embrace these things when they come along.]

In among the boxes of unpainted figures, there are always a few that I worry about. In my 1809 Spanish army project there are a couple of boxes containing the figures for two battalions of grenadiers, and they have bugged me for a while now. I am going to need these figures - I have nothing else to fall back on unless I move to plastics - but I bought them as part of a big job lot, a while ago, and the previous owner unloaded them cheaply because he just gave up on the poor-quality castings. I knew this when I bought them, but when I saw them I was disappointed by just how bad they were.

Falcata's white metal 1/72 Spanish grenadiers. Lovely, elegant original sculpts - Tomas Castaños at his best, but the moulds started to deteriorate very quickly and the standard of casting (and sometimes the quality of the metal) often leaves a lot to be desired. So for a while I have had 50-odd marching grenadiers which needed a lot of rescue work - in particular the right lower legs had to be recarved from a very unpromising jagged blob of alloy. It astonishes me that Falcata dared to sell stuff like this - they weren't cheap, either. Maybe their eventual disappearance had something to do with an unprofessional approach?

[I shall certainly find a horse's head in my bed tomorrow.]

Off and on, at odd times over a period of a couple of years, I have worked away at these boys, always with a faint dread that I, too, would eventually just give up on them. The work is fiddly, sore on the fingers, slow and often exasperating, but - you know what? - in some weird way it is quite satisfying. To produce a figure, against the odds, which will probably paint up satisfactorily is a small triumph, given the sloppy original manufacture and my lack of any particular skill in this area. You have to get into the right frame of mind - plenty of coffee (but not too much!), plenty of relaxing music, good lighting, and enough time to get on with the job for a couple of undisturbed hours. Oh - and lining the completed figures up is fine to check progress, but avoid constantly checking and rechecking how many are still to go...

It's actually rather nostalgic. It takes me right back to the early 1970s, grinding away to make something of a newly-arrived parcel of late-period Hinton Hunt castings - I can recall ACW zouaves (advancing), Napoleonic highlanders (advancing) and any amount of Napoleonic Portuguese (also advancing) for which I had to drill away big blocks and shark-fins of spare metal where the moulds had broken.

Last night I completed the prep work for the second battalion, at long last - we are ready for undercoating. The command figures were almost an anticlimax - far too easy - just as in the earlier Hinton Hunt episode, the moulds for the officers and drummers had less wear and the castings were much cleaner. OK - they are now on the official green bottle tops. There is no immediate hurry, given the time it has taken already, but I'm quite looking forward to painting them. Apart from the dreaded embroidered flammes on the hats, this is a simple uniform - these guys will be humble granaderos provinciales, so no fancy piping or anything - these are just white with plain red facings. Thus I propose to set these up as a single batch of 46 figures - no doubt I shall regret this decision at some point, but - once again - the important thing is to get your head right before you start. Plenty of time - plenty of 2-hour shifts. Yes. Sounds good.

I'll worry, just a little, about the flammes...

1809 Spaniards - Flagging Effort?

Today I have attached flags to the 5 recent new(ish) battalions of my 1809 Spanish army which were waiting for them. Another small step for mankind - pleased with them, actually.

From left, front row: 1/Cantabria; 1 & 2/Ordenes Militares, all marching into the customary stiff breeze

Back row: 1 & 2/La Corona.

All the rank and file are NapoleoN figures, while the command are a mixture of NapoleoN and Falcata, with a few conversions thrown in.

Good - they are now safely put away in the boxes, ready to fight. I feel an urge to set up a more complete group picture of the state of the Spanish army in the near future. I'll do this.

As for the next painting batches, I am giving some thought to doing two battalions of the Guardias Reales. This will probably break down into two batches - a fussy one with all the command, and then a factory one for the rank and file. This will be the second guard presence in the Reserve Division - I already have the Guardias Walones - the uniform is very similar, but the Reales will be rather scruffier, partly because I shall be the painting service (!) and partly because they will be in blue overalls rather than those dashing high gaiters.

1809 Spaniards – Regimiento de La Coroña – got there eventually

The Mojo Breakers - painted at last - just waiting for flags. Mostly NapoleoN 
figures - some Falcata and some conversions in the command

I checked some dates – I painted up some test figures for a couple of regiments, including this one, in September last year. At that time (unusually for me) I had been progressing well with figure painting, and my Spanish army was coming along nicely, but it was becoming obvious that I would have to cope with increased exposure to Real Life for a while, so I was attempting to plan what to do next. What I did next was to paint up the command figures for two 2-battalion regiments (pics appeared here in Oct ’15), and ship off the massed fusileros to a painting service I’ve used before.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, my philosophy with these paint shops is that they do a so-so job, requiring a fair amount of correction and retouching, but if they are cheap enough then the time saved is worth the cost – even comprehensive retouching is invariably quicker and easier than painting from scratch.

Well, maybe not invariably. In this case, I sent the figures away with uniform artwork and a couple of painted samples, which is the normally the best way of ensuring an effective job. They were a long time at the painting service, and I started to get worried when the customary progress photos did not come back by email. When I chased the batch up, they simply returned them, painted to what I regarded as a very disappointing standard, and with a few breakages to add insult. One of the regiments was a fairly straightforward job to sort out, and they duly took their place in the line (well, the box file) within a week or so. The other – 2 battalions of La Coroña – was just a mess. I started tinkering around, to find matches for the paint shades, and to work out how much effort was needed to sort out the facings and piping. To be quite honest, it would have taken me a couple of weeks of evenings to make a really nice job of them, but instead I went into a major sulk. La Coroña  are my only Spanish regiment to wear the older 1802 regulation uniform (which is very smart, though a bastard to paint), and I was upset out of all sensible proportion that they had gone so wrong.

My last emails to the painter, expressing my disappointment, are dated the end of November last year, when I put the figures away in a plastic box – all mounted on the official painting bottletops and everything – and left them to fester for a while. A week or so later, my mother was admitted to hospital for the first of a series of episodes which has severely limited my hobby time. We got a reprieve from March to August, but otherwise this has not been a good year for a lot of reasons, and figure painting is well down the list of priorities that didn’t make progress this year.

So – no hard luck stories – I simply got timed out on the Coroña boys, and they have sat like an itching sore in the plastic box for best part of a year. I could have done much better, but I managed to find more pressing things to do and – I have to admit it – my spirit was rather damaged by the episode with the painter. One thing for sure, this is the last time I learn that particular lesson…

Time passed. I was pleased with the things I did with ECW sieges, but the Spanish infantry stayed very definitely in the Sulk Box – I felt worse and worse about them. My mum has now been back in hospital for a month and – paradoxically – this has helped, since it has broken my spare time down into definite times and fairly short sessions. Almost out of spite, I dug out La Coroña, and over a week or so I have finally got them finished to a standard that I am happy with. It was fiddly, and it took a lot of coffee and Chopin and Stan Getz and Bill Evans and the Yellowjackets to get the job done, but it’s done.

Yes!

The 1st Battalion - almost all my 1809 line infantry are in the better-known white
1805 uniform. I think the 1802 uniform, as illustrated here, was very attractive
- all regiments were the same, and the look was permanently tainted by
association with the despised Godoy. It is correct, I understand, that La Coroña
were one of the units still in the 1802 kit at the Battle of Ucles (1809),
so here they are, just to add a bit of variety to the army.

2nd Battalion

They do not have their flags yet – I believe I have already printed the flags, so they will be in the folder somewhere. I’m not worried about that for the moment – the main point is that I have defeated the mojo-breakers. I’m back on track, and am feeling a lot better about painting.

I have plenty more Spaniards to paint - I also have a couple of units farmed out to friends who have kindly offered to do some painting for me, so I expect to make better progress now – even if things crop up to delay me, I know I can get the job done when I am ready. These things are important, it seems.

I was going to put up a short list of things which I have to paint next, but when I started thinking about it I found my enthusiasm starting to waver, so I’ll just stack the plastic boxes in order, and work through them. Stand by with the coffee and the CDs.

In passing, my thanks to Stryker for invaluable guidance on paints, and on the technique for painting buttons with a cocktail stick (a potential sanity-saver), and to Arlen de Vries for spiritual support and occasional Dutch jokes.