Your Orders,. Sire...

I sent out a flurry of orders this winter, and they all arrived in the past week or so. Surely planning armies and writing up orders are some of the many pleasures of hobby, nicht war?

Of course, actually getting the orders in the mail is another! Here are three - one each from Perry, Litko, and Old Glory. Let's unbox them and see what we have, eh?

The first order placed was this one for some Perry Miniatures, by way of their US distributors, Architects of War. Most of the items were "special orders", so it took a while, which was fine as there was nothing in it that I need right away. The flag is for my British project, by Little Big Man studios. 

Since I was placing an order anyway, I included this set of Reniassance Italian clerics, to use with my Papal army. I have been lusting after the Cardinal figure James converted for  a while, so now I can hjave one or two wearing the red hat myself as well!

These three sets are the Belgian Carabiniers, including a Command box, which consists of a trumpeter, officer, and a trooper (which I'll convert into a standard bearer). I actually plan to paint these up as something quite different - the Guards d' Honneur of the Italian Royal Guard.  There wwere 5 companies of them, one each from the 5 principal cities of the kingdom, and each city's contingent had a different facing color. So the regiment will have 4 stands of 2, each with it's own vacing color, and the 9th figure, which will be used as a Commander, will have the facing color of the 5th city. I've been klooking fprward to doing this unit for quite some time!

These 3 sets are the Wurzburg regiment of the Rhinebund, wearing their earlier helmets. There's one box each of Center companies, Command, and Elites, which works well for my standard 18 figure regiments. These are a low priority for painting at present, but I may add a Frankfurt regiment and 1-2 Nassau regiments to form a Rhinebund 'Division", eventually. 

The second box contained one of the "bare necessities"... some new 3mm MDF plywood bases form Litko Aerosystems. With the planned Prussians, British, and later Spanish Napoleonics, et al, I'd be running out of bases within a few months, and they had a $10 off sale, so... here they are. The big bases are for the Old Glory Wagon sets I bought at Historicon last year; the extras might be used for future Limbers or Caissons, etc. .

The final, very heavy box, is from Old Glory. Included are 5 bags of 10 Prussian Cavalry each. These will be used to add 2 new regiments of Dragoons, one of Landwehr cavalry (paint "conversion" using Dragoon figures), Horse artillery riders, and 2 new regiments of Hussars - extra Hussars will be used as ADC's.

The next 5 bags are all Prussian Infantry... enough to add another 4 Line units and another 4 Landwehr units. 

Of course I need some Artillery to support this massive Prussian expansion, right?  So, here's a bag of Prussian Artillery crewmen, along with six Sash and Saber guns for them to crew. Old Glory also distributes Sash and Saber, but the 40% Army Card discount doesn't apply to their figures. However, the Old Glory flat (US) shipping rate of $9 for the entire box is awesome!

Speaking of the Army Card, when you get one or renew it (which costs $50), you can choose a pack of "free" figures from a limited list. As nothing there was really useful to me, I got the Union Camp set - a resin tent, and a bag of figures with several generals,  a table and camp parpahenalia. I don't collect ACW, so I'll pass this one along to Greg, to go along with the Confederate set from my last Army card renewal. 

Think Spring!  It's been a long, very cold, very snowy winter in New England, as this picture of our Patio will attest. The temperature is *finally* supposed to get up to normal tomorrow (high in the 40's), I hope to use the rise in temperature to get some priming done, which has been all but impossible the past 3 months.