A Little's Not Alot But

Its not nothing either.

I was surprised that many 16thC horse armours had coloured cloth overcoats.

Another couple of busy days in the yard but I found time to reread more on the 1540's while resting tired muscles and managed to assemble a couple of kits and get a start on painting.

I also forced myself to try again to torture the lances into submission by dipping them into boiling water and then into cold but these devients were determined.  (Actually I've never been able to get that to work very well which suggests that my technique sucks.)  Hopefully I can find a source of resupply for appropriate wire or at least find a few old metal pikes to repurpose.

I've also decided to impose discipline and cut back to eight active collections with the rest going into reserve. I just don't have the time and energy to work on and play with twelve different collections. I would prefer just six active collections but there are too many table ready old friends that I don't want to do that to yet.

I Had One Job To Do

One job, add at least two stands of gensdarmes, four mounted figures, to my 16thC French army over the course of the weekend.

How'd I do?

Well, during the initial review, I noticed that my English General had a three figure stand which made him easy to identify but the French and Imperial generals only had ordinary two figure stands. (The poor Scots general is stuck in the middle of a pike block as is traditional.) 

Now the Imperial army also has a three figure General's stand as does the French, except their's isn't painted yet. I'm afraid the poor Duke de St. Lambert is about to be demoted to cavalry commander after some 60 years in my service!  He does have a tendancy towards rash charges ala Gaston of Foix, and I rather need him as a gensdarme but the real issue was that I don't have a compatible foot figure to add to his stand but do have a new Doug Miller commander who is looking for employment and has influence at court.

On top of all that, I've had a good think about , and  review of, these armies and what I am planning to ask of them as well as the history behind them and their place in my collection. After all, this is my desert island or "if you could only keep one set of wargaming figures" collection and they have been sadly neglected of late. I've also spent some most enjoyable hours with head buried in the 16thC portion of my library and...OK.OK...I'm stalling. Here we are:

Yeah, doesn't look like much and I think a few plastic bits have gone missing over the weekend, but at least I now have a plan and the metal horses have been attached to their stands, ready for painting.

If this keeps up, I'm gonna need a bigger house or something else has to go, but not today.

There's a Hole in the Bucket Dear Henry

Its just been one of those weeks. 

I struggled to find first, time, and then, energy, for hobby stuff. On the occasions that I did find time, I ran into one of those situations where everything I went to do required me to do something else first.   

However, by this afternoon I was finally  able to sit down and pick the figures for four new  bases of Gensd'armes and got a start on preparing the figures for assembly.

I also got a start on adding a standard bearer to the Rhinegrave's stand to promote him to Army Commander status. 

There's nothing like a start for making progress! I'm hoping for rain on Saturday........