The Dancing Soldier

I'm on a bit of enforced leave at the moment as we have covid in the household. We're all doing well, but the devil makes work for idle hands....

And, with a crudely added background....

WM

Dragoner-Regiment Nr. 2 (1. Westpreußisches Dragoner-Regiment)

The Soon Dragoons are ready to make their entrance, so without further ado, here they are:

And here they are again brigaded with the Garde du Corps. You can see why I thought they'd need a flag.

The figures are Hinton Hunt PN81: Dragoon, charging, x12. Nine of them are vintage castings (of which one, whose sword had broken off entirely, is now the trumpeter), and three (the officer, standard bearer and one of the troopers) are recasts.

I think I'm going to need at least one more Prussian heavy cavalry regiment to round off Phase 2. The question is: should they be line cuirassiers, or more dragoons? I think either would look rather dashing

I have a wee backlog of generals and whatnot to work through first, however, so I'll have plenty of time to think about it.

Regards

WM

Fizzy Drink Dragoon

The Soon Dragoons have turned into the Drag On Dragoons, I'm afraid. The good news, however, is that they are very nearly finished.

Herewith is their standard bearer, who gave me no end of trouble:

He was worth it though, I think, as I was able to sneak a little bit of pink into the regiment after all.

All being well, they should be ready fot their proper photo shoot at the weekend.

Best wishes,
WM

Soon Dragoons

Just a bit of an update.

I had a bit of time off this week, what with it being the King's Birthday and all, so some progress happened. Not as much as I'd hoped, but they're at least starting to look dragoonish.

In case anyone is wondering, that is indeed the famous Humbrol Prussian Dragoon Blue you can see there. I had to screw up my courage a bit because the last time I used it on some Airfix Landwehr in about 1978 they looked hideous. I think it looks quite good on the dragoons though. There was a clue in the name, clearly.

Have a great weekend

Yours
WM

Precious Prussians

For the last few weeks I've been preparing a regiment of Prussian dragoons.

Progress has been a bit slow, I'm sorry to say, but the conversions are finally complete and they all have their white undercoats on, ready for the kick off.

Part of the slowness was simply down to the rarity of these figures. About half of them needed sword repairs, and the three command conversions (the officer, standard bearer and trumpeter) were made from even harder-to-get recasts. The upshot was that there was little room for error, so I had to take my time.

I'm not entirely decided about whch regiment they are to be, so the initial plan is to paint their facings white (which is what I'd do in any case). If I like them like that, then they will be the 2nd (1st West Prussian) Dragoons. If I don't, then I'll probably paint their facings over in pink and turn them into the 6th Neumark Dragoons instead.

How quickly these get done will depend on whether I go travelling again next month. I feel great and my GP says I'm good to go, but my employers may take a different view. I'm hoping to find out in the next week or two.

Wish me luck

WM

Army Analysis

My apologies for the long intermission, but I've been away on holiday in the Deep South. Getting restarted on the painting table, however, has been a bit hit and miss. This will change, I'm hoping, as a result of a delightful visit from my friend Bill W, who came all the way from Oklahoma.

Bill wanted to see all the troops, of course, so I set them all out for him:

And this is what they'd have looked like if Bill had shown up in 1973:

And since you've twisted my arm, here's a slightly better colour shot:

This was very useful, as it happens, as it allowed me to see where I've got to and what the gaps are. Somehow or other I've managed to acquire 25 battalions of infantry, nine regiments of cavalry, eight batteries of artillery and about 32 command figures - or just shy of about 800 figures and models altogether.

The conclusions are: I'm going to need three more infantry battalions, three cavary regiments, four more batteries and a handful of colonels and generals to round off Phase Two; and that I really must paint the other half of the ping pong table.

Have a great weekend

WM