Sunday, June 12, 2011

New Model Army?

Recently, while noodling and footling around with different imaginations for my planned big grand campaign, I found myself at a quiet moment painting-wise. As I have been posting on my other blog, I've recently finished up and squared away a large WW2 project. Now, with my spare evenings, I seem to be at somethting of a loss without as many projects. This got me thinking about something I swore not so long ago I simply wouldn't do: collecting another Seven Years' War army.

Uncertain if this was a good idea or not, I began to look into it and pondered what to get. I settled pretty rapidly on a Russian army, who (barring small exceptions) posed the other main enemy that Frederick the Great found Prussia tangling with on the battlefield. The general outlook is good: natty uniforms with a nice green-and-red scheme; stackloads of artillery; stubborn infantry who just never seem to quit; comically (on the games table, at least) inept commanders more interested in fighting with each other than an enemy; cavalry with hordes of light horse in the form of the Cossacks. In short, a force which would sit nicely alongside the Austrians and Prussians I already own and have enough of an individual character to make it hold it's own. Browsing and planning the Essex Miniatures' website (my supplier of choice for 15mm figs) has seen me work out a three-batch system which allows me to grow the army progressively over time up to the final planned size, which would mean it could compete with the two others.

All that I need to do now is convince myself I'm really up to painting hundreds of tricornes and coat-facings once again! (shudder...)