Waterloo Day & Another Milestone Is Passed

The Duke of Wellington (top shelf) comes out on top of Napoleon in Der Alte Fritz's Library

June 18th is the 193rd anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, but it is also notable for another milestone as the Der Alte Fritz Journal received its 50,000th visitor sometime early this morning, Central Standard Time in Chicago. I am humbled that so many people have taken the time to visit my musings about wargaming and other historical topics. The comments and encouragement that I get from so many of you is gratifying and keeps me wanting to post more new pictures and articles as often as I can. So thank you everyone, for helping make this blog a success.

At the top of the page I have posted a picture of one of the bookshelves in my home library. There on the top shelf sits His Grace, the Duke of Wellington, keeping a watchful eye on the Corsican Ogre on the shelf below. The Wellington piece is a Royal Dalton Toby Jug that I picked up a dozen or so years ago. I am told that they made one of Napoleon, but I have never been able to find a copy.

The next shelf features a collection of Napoleon porcelins that I've acquired over the years. The two on the left are from Scully & Scully in New York City, while the Toby Jug on the right is of unknown origin. The seated Emperor in coronation robes is one of the fine Saint Petersburg 54mm figures that I purchased in Vienna in 2005, during my tour of the 1805 Campaign battles with Todd Fisher's Napoleonic Alliance.

And finally, the toy soldiers are "King & Country" toy soldiers painted as the Seaforth Highlanders during the Sudan war. Winston Churchill looks on from the far left. I started collecting 54mm toy soldiers long before I ever knew that the wargaming hobby existed. So I have lots of colonials and Dervish, and a smattering of Knights of Agincourt in the collection. I will have to take more pictures of the 54mm figures and post them on this site from time to time.

1806 Project Update
I have been working on the 60 figure Smolensk Regiment over the past couple of weeks and finally finished the first battalion last night. Pictures will be forthcoming later in the week. These are the original Dave Alsop Old Glory limited edition figures and they are simply sweet to paint. I have another battalion of Russians, in bicorn, that have been recently covered in primer, so as I make progress on this battalion I will post more pictures. Since these are large units, I am painting 15 figures (one movement tray's worth) at a time and this seems to make the project move along nicely.

Once I complete the bicorn battalion (as the Apcheron Regiment) then that will give me two musketeer battalions and a battalion (60) of Pavlov Grenadiers that I had painted for me a decade ago. So that will give me a brigade of three battalions of Russians to go along with my 4 battalion Prussian brigade. That ought to be enough to handle the three 72-figure battalions of French (4 if I borrow the one that Bill Protz has painted for this project) that I already have. So I am hoping that I can conduct my first play test of the Napoleonic variant of BAR in August.

I should probably be painting more figures for my Historicon games, but I finally reached the point where I decided that I had enough figures for any game and that I should just stick to painting whatever interests me, rather than feel obligated to paint a certain type of figure. Rest assured though, I am not finished with the Seven Years War as I have a year's worth of Austrian and British to paint, not to mention the continuing saga of the Jacobite Rebellion and a few more odds and ends to add to my Prussian army. With the 3rd Annual Old School Big Battalion Game coming up in early October 2008, my mind will soon turn from Napoleonics and Jacobites and focus in more Prussians, no doubt.