In The Beginning...

IN THE BEGINNING...

We should start at the beginning I imagine. Here is how it all started...

April 4, 2007

For the past two years, I have been building a force of 15mm WW2 Hungarians and US Paratroops. (as can be seen here) Well, now I am bored sick of them. Everything is painted three colors in the period. Green, Brown, and Grey, that's it, yes there are variations of brown to use, but brown nonetheless. I have also reached saturation point on researching the units. In short, I am ready for something new.

I have had my eye on the Baccus range of figs for some time now and have been waiting for the time and interest to collide so I could begin using them. I have painted some English Civil War and Napoleonic figures before, but couldn't find a set of rules that I was happy with.

Enter Might and Reason, by Sam Mustafa. He designed a Seven Years War game that also has a points based army builder. This is extremely important to me as sometimes I just don't want to research a battle in and out just to play. It allows the easy creation of "what if..." scenarios as well. I like the control mechanics of Grande Armee also and they are the basis of Might and Reason.

So, now I have the figures I want to use, I have the rules that I want to use. It's time for the research and acquisition to begin.

Baccus is a small company and is generally not widely available in the USA. There is (from what I can tell so far) a great little company in Canada that sells Baccus figs by mail, called Milites Minimus, where I put in my first order. Stu (the owner) seemed a very nice bloke to deal with over the email, I'll comment on the figs when they arrive in the post. I decided to start with Prussians as they seem to be one side of almost every engagement of almost every battle that I have read about, and Fred seems to be the biggest mover and shaker of the period. I ordered the following:

SPR-01 Seven Years War Prussian Infantry
SPR-07 Seven Years War Prussian Artillery
SPR-08 Seven Years War Generals
SPR-71 Seven Years War Prussian Flags
NFR-01 French Napoleonic Line Infantry
(for a different project)

Total $28.25 CDN + shipping = $33.30 CDN, not bad for the amount of figs I'll be getting. This is one big draw of 6mm, aside from the great look of massed armies you get on the table.

Well, what the hell does an 18th century Prussian look like? I'm sorry to say that at this point I had very little idea. Where do I start? Well, the old reliable starting place is the Osprey Men-at-Arms series. With a little digging, I found Fredrick the Great's Army (2), which is the one that deals with Prussian Infantry.

I think the Osprey series is a good starting point, like wikipedia is a good starting point. It is not to be the end of research, just something to wet your apetite and tide you over. Perhaps it could be considered the McDonald's of military research. Dependable and filling, but you know there is better sustenance out there.As it turns out, this particular volume of the Men-at-Arms series is out of print and somewhat harder to find. I was looking at ordering it from Amazon for 22+ dollars when I asked about references on TMP and was told that Warweb had it, and it was on sale for 30% off the list price, so I ordered it for $12.76.

Not much to do now, except wait for the models and book to trickle in.

It is worth mentioning that I have had contact with Peter Baccus during the time that this process began, and he is very helpful and knowledgeable resource. I will be putting together painting references on my site and submitting them to his site as part of the project. I am flabbergasted whenever I begin to look for uniform information on the web and find there is very little out there. There are a great number of people interested in these types of things, why is no one putting it on the web? Any way, gotta start somewhere.

April 5, 2007

2 days into the blog and time to make some changes to the game plan. Upon further communication with Peter Baccus about the painting guides, I have decided not to collaborate with him. We disagree over the need for copyrighting the images. I have a deep personal belief that these images should be available to everyone for use as they wish. I see it like this, "Who owns the color of a coat used by the Prussians in 1753?" I harbor no hopes of financial gain by making the plates, so there is no reason, in my mind, to copyright.

My fear is that I will not be able to supply the information now without the help of a generous artist out there. If you have skills with paint or any other computer graphics program, please contact me atI am looking for a basic black and white outline of the uniforms that I will be able to fill in as I figure the colors out.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that I have yet to lay eyes on Might and Reason yet! I am progressing with the faith that it will be of similar quality to Mr. Mustafa's other work. I am waiting for an ebay item to pay off before I will have the funds to order it. 3 days, 10 hours to go!

April 6, 2007

The first hurdle overcome! I contacted the generous and talented Scott Washburn, through a message board we both frequent, and asked if he could supply me with the copyright free uniform blanks for my project and he did so within hours! So I am full of confidence and inspiration once again. I will have to fill in the new plates with Photoshop rather than paint, but not a problem as I have the program.

For those of you who don't know Mr. Washburn, he is a wargamer who runs a small company called Paper Terrain. Paper Terrain, as described on his site, is "a range of paper structures in a variety of scales and periods. They are printed on a heavy cardstock and are ready for immediate assembly and use. Our structures are sturdy, lightweight, economical and attractive alternative to resin." Once I have some figures painted and am ready to take pictures of them, I will be picking up some villages from his store to help make the pictures more attractive.

I have also received some great feedback from readers with helpful suggestions and kind words. Thanks guys.

Now, will those figures and references arrive soon so I can get on with the meat of the blog!

Saturday, Apil 7, 2007

No figs or books in the mail today. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, so two more days minimum before anything happens.

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007

Well, the ebay auction ended and I now have the funds to order Might and Reason. Ordered from the Warweb again, and picked up The Austro-Hungarian Army of the Seven Years War by Osprey as well. (I made a little more than I expected!)

Time for a new page,

Thanks for dropping by!
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Copyright (c) Russell Gregory
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, V 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

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