The Eagles Have Landed

GW Eagles combined with Eureka Eagles
GW Eagles combined with Eureka Eagles

Last night Sam and I started working on these eagles.  The Battle of Five Armies box comes with three sprues.  I bought my two sets second hand and somehow ended up with 9 sprues, minus one figure.  I combined these with a bag of Eureka 10mm Elves riding eagles.  For LSNC: Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval, this gives me five bases of eagles, one base of eagles and riders, and one eagle “brigade commander.”

A better view of the GW Eagles
A better view of the GW Eagles

These painted extremely quickly.

Now I’ve begun working on more 10mm Dwarves and about 20 figures to complete my needs for the Historicon Mars GASLIGHT extravaganza.

The Prussians are Almost Done!

Three units of Prussian landwehr cavalry and a brigade commander
Three units of Prussian landwehr cavalry and a brigade commander

For the two people who follow this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been pushing hard to finish my Prussian corps.  I’m committed to running two Napoleonic games at Origins and a few more at Historicon.  The last bunch of figures I needed to finish to complete the I Corps from 1813-1815 was five units of Landwehr cavalry and the generals.  As it turns out, since we’ve decided that the Prussians need regimental commanders in the game, I am short a few Prussian generals.  I can substitute Russians or Austrians for my upcoming games, but I need to paint one more bag of Prussian generals before I am all done.

I’m going to concentrate on writing the rules now and beginning development of LSNC: Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval before considering British and Spanish units or adding to my French, Austrian, or Russian armies.

Day trip to the Smithsonian

A couple of weeks ago, while I was recovering from surgery for two hernias, we took a short trip to the Smithsonian American History Museum.  We hadn’t been there since it was closed a few years ago for a whole year for renovation.  I have to say that I was underwhelmed, and think the American History museum has become ho-hum.

Why do I say this?

First it seemed that fully a quarter of the exhibits were closed.  I found this interesting in a museum that just opened two years ago after having been closed for a full year.  Secondly, the exhibits seemed really “dumbed down” to me.

On the top floor, where there are exhibits on American wars from the American Revolution to the present, I found many of the displays lacking in substance.  There was an exhibit the size of a broom closet on WWI.  The Vietnam display was 50% unrest, civil rights, and protests, and very little on the conduct of the war, phases of the war, campaigns, how a very professional Army went into the war, but how the long war eroded that professionalism, or how the majors and lieutenant colonels who came out of that war built back up the Army that amazed the world in Desert Storm.  There was no display about the Cold War.

The display about our current wars in the Middle East consisted on one small room.  For history class, my son is writing a paper about Iraq.  I was struck by how little our young people know about our longest wars.  If the job of museums is both to inspire and educate, I’d think that the Smithsonian should have significant, extensive, apolitical displays about these three wars.  I don’t think I would have understood anything about Desert Shield/Storm, OEF, or OIF from these displays.

The new display of the flag that flew over Fort McHenry is very nice.

Finally, I was a bit put out that they pushed American citizens out of the way to entertain a bunch of visiting foreign dignitaries.

So, if you want to see Dorothy’s ruby slippers, Kermit the Frog, Fonzie’s jacket, of First Ladies’ dresses, this is the place for you.  If you actually want to learn anything about our history or anything that really matters, seek other opportunities.

A few more 10mm fantasy figures

10mm dwarves
10mm dwarves

After finish a bunch of Prussian 10mm cavalry, I was looking for a short project as a change of pace.  As we are beginning development of LSNC: Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval, I’m slowly building my army for play testing.  Taking figures from one of the Battle of Five Armies boxed sets, above is a picture of three units of dwarves, and below is a picture of three units of human spearmen.

10mm human bowmen
10mm human bowmen

Chris asked the other day why I painted my human in different colors.  I want the option of either giving a player a “brigade” of human bowmen, or creating mixed “legions” with spearmen, bowmen, swordsmen, etc.  In this way, I can have a maroon legion, green legion, and blue legion of humans.

These 10mm fantasy figures on strips paint very, very quickly.  Up close, they certainly don’t look as nice as 28mm figures, but deployed on the table at arms length, they really look like units in battle formation.

Another ERTL Farm House

A few figures in front of the ERTL farm house
A few figures in front of the ERTL farm house

Sam helped me finish a second ERLT farm house.  I had a previous post about the first one we completed, but Sam wanted me to take a picture of this second one to post.  She picked out the figures in front of the house from my “unarmed civilian” box.

"Figure's eye view" of the farm house
"Figure's eye view" of the farm house