Soldier King additions

As mentioned previously, I have been working on an extra heavy cavalry brigade stand for the kingdoms of Bravance, Hrvatska and Argozia to bring them up to parity with Arcadia.

Friday saw the Argozian Lieb Cuirassier muster out. These had various planned uniforms - green faced pink, then light grey faced green. A chance viewing of a book on Spanish dragoons provided a final uniform which was combined with a Prussian cuirassier unit - yellow buff faced green.

Saturday saw flags done for each unit, using some old computer generated experiments - forgetting of course that the red ink tended to bleed through white pints.....

Today has seen the bases cut out, magnetised and painted green with household emulsion test pot  paint. Labels have been printed and I'm just waiting for the paint to dry fully.

I'd forgotten when removing from the temporary bases, the paint on the base peels and needs touching up....grr!

Anyway, with the glue still drying, here's the completed units:

For Bravance, the Emigre Cuirassiers (to join the two emigre foot)

Hrvatska gains the Royal Carabiniers

While Argozia is reinforced by the Liebgarde Cuirassiers

Not sure what's next in the painting queue as there are 20mm Indians and 30mm flats undercoated. Or I may clean up some more SK stuff.

Soldier King parade - Argozia

Following the success of the Bravance Parade, I have been working my way through the armies photographing them on an i-Phone which gives much better pictures.

They were well received on the VWC so I shall start cataloguing the armies on the Blog. While WIP pictures have been posted previously, the quality an clarity were limited.

I present the Kingdom of Argozia; this army caused me the most difficulties in designing uniforms as I wanted to avoid too "Russian" a look to them. The flags came easily and early on but tying it altogether took much longer.

The Army arrayed a bird's eye view.

King Ludwig II

The heir - his half-brother Prinz William Henry

Army commanders L to R: Viceroy of the East Erzherzog Anselm Holz-Weide, Earl Marshall Ritter Gottfried Linde, Viceroy of West Herzog Gottfried Beilstein

Corps commanders Lto R: Friedrich Kalk Graf von Oberwesel, Karl Wermutkraut Graf von Bodenfelde, Gebhard Klappe Graf von Winkel

Division / Column commanders

Guard Du Korps Guard HC

Guard Infantry regiments I, II and III (Grenadiers)

Heavy Cavalry L to R: Wittlich Cuirassiers, Mesenich Dragoons and Vohren Chevaux-Leger

Light Cavalry Rahden Hussars and Ockfen Uhnlans

IX and X Combined Grenadiers

Musketeer Regiments I to IV

Musketeer Regiments V to VIII

Legion of St George

Zwitscher-Schreke Freikorps

Garrison / Artillery Fusileers

Arillery

As before standard plastic Spenser Smith figures from C18th range with lights converted from Napoleonics and ACW. All personalities are my own Fimo /Sculpey one-off creations mounted on various plastic horses (which I have come to name "Grotesques")

And Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat......

When I informed my wife of my inability to find the paint I needed, and the consequent halting of progress yesterday, she said "if you order some you will probably find what you already have..."

Needless to say, she was right! I had left the figures and bases out and before tidying them away, I had a final search. It was only when I moved the box where most of my paint I'm using and painting stuff (brushes, palette) that I discovered my part open pot had fallen behind the box. Hurrah!

Here follows an impromptu parade of Argozia's finest, with the glue still drying on their bases......

For the want of a nail........

Or in this case paint......

Progress on the Argozian army for Soldier King came to a screeching halt today upon the discovery I had apparently run out of the particular paint colour I use for the figure bases - Vallejo Game Colour Goblin Green.....

This has been rectified but alas brings further progress to a halt until it arrives.

I had managed to make progress with the bases during the week after finishing work, doing a little each day. Alas, I made the cardinal sin of assuming I had some in stock, based on the not unreasonable assumption that there must be a pot due to my prelidiction for hoarding such things (to avoid the very thing that happened!).

Sadly, the Goblin Green is a perfect match for the Wilco test pot I use for the balsa bases; needless to say I have industrial quantities of this paint!

What's most distressing is that I don't tend to forget such things, normally able to recall when I'm running low. It must be age.......a fact both worrying and depressing!

The flags of Argozia

 Here's last weekend's work, the flags of the third of the Soldier King armies - Argozia.

It is the "green" army based on the game heraldry of a black eagle on a green field.

Consequently, the troops are mostly wearing green or have green as facing colours. This army caused considerable thought to avoid them looking like Russian clones, and I struggled to find suitable schemes. Oddly, in one of my earliest doodles I sketched the white infantry flag in the 2nd row (now belonging to the 3 foot garde regiments) which I liked so much it has had little revision and forms the basis for all the foot colours.

And yes, it is very influenced by Austrian and Hungarian colours of Maria Theresa's army. Strangely, although the influences were more from the Kingdom of Italy and American Loyalists, when painting the General staff, their uniforms (while green) were influenced by those of the Austrian army in Mollo, although not planned as such.