Last Post (ACW) (for now)

The opposing cavalry brigades may not be ready for inspection but they are ready to do battle.

Roughly 1/2 vintage Airfix, nearly 1/2 Italeri and a mere handful of others, a Jacklex Reb Cavalry General, 3 of what I believe to be Hinton Hunt troopers in the Blue ranks and an Airfix cowboy or two.  The infantry regiment of permanently dismounted Reb cavalry,  Kentuckians or toy soldiers by the look of their caps, are all Airfix.

They are all now safely tucked away in their respective boxes. I want to work on writing up some rule ideas that are bouncing around in my head before I send them into battle again.

After some thought, I don't want to disrupt my old 3 stand regiments and do want to be able to field regiments of various sizes and show more tactical detail such as skirmish lines again yet still use the grid for measuring movement and ranges though not for determining unit integrity.

Its a challenge to myself for the winter.

Done for now

OK 1 General and 18 mounted 1/72nd cavalry mounted and based  and 4 dismounted cavalry painted and a bunch of older figures sorted and ......and..well, I've had enough fiddling with 1/72nd stuff for a bit.

The Umpteenth X State Cavalry

SoandSo's Legion

If I'm stern with myself I should be able to at least paint some of the remaining pre-cut-but-thinner-than-I-would-like bases green and glue the rest of the chosen selection of old figures onto to bases before they all get jumbled up again.  I'll flock them next time I get in the  mood then I need to name all the regiments.

It took some doing but I managed to avoid having any troopers shooting the next guy in the head.

 Six weeks until the Winter Campaigning Season opens. In the meantime, back to painting some nice, big, simple, glossy toy soldiers with an occasional quick game.

If you want to have a good time Jine the Cavalry!

Its been more than 6 years since a  reinforcement from Ireland arrived in my mailbox leading to the formation of Kinch's brigade. Included in the box were some primed Italeri Confederate cavalry which were added to "the list" along with the rest of my box of Italeri Yankee cavalry . Well, the wheels turn slowly, but they turn.

I thought these would be done by now! (I'm gettin' slow.)

After last week's game I decided that it was time to overhaul and organize my cavalry resources and make them table ready. Between my one unit and stragglers, Conrad Kinch's contribution and the combined cavalry might from the old Halifax wargamers' collection that Rob Hingley had forwarded to me  there were surely enough for my immediate needs.

If they were all at attention  or charging straight forward with sabres raised to the front,  I could have easily fit 9 or more figures in a square.  However, most of the plastic cavalry is engaged in melee, swinging sabres in all direction or firing carbines to the side, and need nearly an inch of real estate each to avoid getting in each other's way. My existing painted unit was 6 strong on 3 bases and fits nicely so I decided to just go with it.

Order slowly emerges from chaos.

By painting up 3 new units and sorting the old figures I was able to draw up 4 Regiments each with 6 mounted and 4 dismounted troopers. There are enough figures left over to add at least 2 more regiments at some future point. There are also enough dismounted Rebel cavalry with full length rifles to form one of the regiments of dismounted cavalry that one finds in some Western OB's.

I was going to paint the new units one at a time but once I had them sorted, I figured I may as well prime them all together. As the top picture shows, its probably a bit late make a choice now.

Note: for anyone wondering why I don't appear to be commenting on other blogs recently, I've just noticed a glitch with my blogger account that blocked my comments The matter has now been rectified.