Thursday, August 11, 2011

Build me an Army worthy of Alzheim!

I owe a fair bit to Phil Olley in terms of developing my thinking on war-gaming projects. Specifically I think i'm now thinking of the whole shape of the enterprise rather than just pursuing it on the basis of "ooo, shiny!".


In that spirit, I'd just like to take a little time to put down a high level outline of this Spencer Smith project for the Duchy of Alzheim.

As you are doubtless aware, dear reader, this began a few weeks ago with the chance purchase of a large-ish (about 90-odd figures) lot of Spencer Smith figures on eBay. These were easily arranged into four groups that I took as my first four regiments; something that 'lazy me' quite liked because in terms of figure purchases and painting I was already almost halfway there, so to speak. that's not really been the case, as I've been almost completely re-painting the miniatures, but for me it was an important early psychological boost.

Playing mind games with myself is very important when I am considering painting 'x' number of 53-figure regiments for "The Wargame" rules.

Also, having more or less four regiments to start off with has given me some guidance as to a basic building block of two- to-four regiments so that I may set myself milestones as I go on. I think two regiments is a reasonable level at which to set milestones or, as I like to think of them, "reward points". Work hard young man, and you'll receive your reward. In this case, painting a gun or a couple of command figures.

So now to timelines. Experiments over the past couple of weeks have led me to believe that I can push out about 20 painted SSM infantry in a week of easy-going painting - say about 6-7 hours of actual work. This leads me to think I can put out about one and a half to two regiments in a month. I'll stick with one and a half as I am wary of burn-out.

I think then I can set myself a reasonable deadline of Christmas to get a reasonable force together.

For the Alzheim Army, I've put together the following rough order of battle:

Infantry Regiments
IR#1 Garde (3 x 24 figure battalions)
IR#2 Leib
IR#3 von Browne
IR#4 von Prittwitz
IR#5 La Rosee
IR#6 Ehrbach
Garrison Regiments
GR#1
GR#2
GR#3
GR#4
GR#5 (Invalids)

Cavalry
KR#1 Kurfurst
KR#2 von Roth
DR#1 von Reuss
DR#2 von Waldau
HR#1 von Raabe
In addition an artillery brigade of two battalions each of three field and one howitzer battery. Oh and three light infantry units because I like the montagnards/ miquelets, pandurs and jaeger from the SSM range.
So the target for Chrismas becomes four Regiments, a garrison regiment, a unit of dragoons, some guns and a unit of light infantry. Pretty comfortable considering the Garde, Garrison and light infantry are all 24-figure units.
In my next post, I'll talk about the opposition - The Empire.

4 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

Two things:

First, I've also found it a LOT easier to re-paint painted figures than starting from a primed figure.

It might be because psychologically I see a "finished" figure that just needs some "touch up" (even though I end up repainting the whole thing.

Second, I'd suggest that you consider renaming two of your cavalry regiments. Three of them start "von R...", which will complicate quick notation. (Which of the three does "vR" refer to?)


-- Jeff

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

I like your thinking. . . Now, to the paintbrushes once more with you!

Best Regards,

Stokes

tradgardmastare said...

Well planned,goal in sight- I admire your single-mindedness...
I look forward to the Empire next...

abdul666 said...

So *promising* of eye-candy: cheers!