Saturday 27 May 2017

Busy Times

It’s been a busy week.
 



 

 

 

 

Not only have I completed a regiment of Russian Napoleonic Dragoons - the Smolensk Regiment (as above), plus another 12 Dark Age Saxons, and glued together the final ten Saxons up ready for painting, but I have also been extremely busy at work, having seen the exist of one staff member, got everything in place for the replacement and having seen a project go live that is the culmination of eighteen month’s work. Then there was a wargame last night (a Wars of the Roses Game using "To the Strongest" rules of which a few photos are below) and another game on Sunday...

 

 

 

 

On top of all of that I have actually had time to complete the final work on the content of my magnum opus, a book on the Franco-Prussian War battles of Spicheren and Froeschwiller. This amounted to finishing the final read through (with one or two corrections) and the creation of two more maps.
 
I started work on this book way back in 1992, but a  lack of access to source material, the theft of my PC with all the soft copy on it, a change in domestic arrangements and a career change saw the project stop and start several times. It wasn’t until 2005 when we went to France on holiday and I was able to purchase a number of secondhand books that the thing really began to take shape. Aided by the digitisation of much of the source material I was able to launch back into the project with some vigour, and by 2012 the basic text was complete. It has only taken another five years to get to here. There is still a little work to do, for some reason the index is not generating correctly and I need to spend a little more time on it, but I am pretty happy with it otherwise. For anyone interested it will be published under Amazon Create Space in due course.

 
 
The work is approximately 480 Pages with 70 maps and diagrams. A sample with the first few pages taken from each chapter can be found here: 
SAMPLE


14 comments:

  1. You HAVE been busy, Mark! The dozen dragoons alone would have kept me quite occupied. Your forthcoming book looks terrific. I will be ordering one upon release.

    Very well done,

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    1. Thanks Jonathan. I just hope I can resolve the index issue without having to recreate it from scratch again!

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  2. That is an impressive week! And the book looks fantastic.

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    1. Thanks Nathan. Twenty-five years in the making, I figured I had better publish the thing before books disappear altogether.

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  3. Busy, very busy....wonderful figures!

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    1. Thank you Phil. I think that Russian dragoons always look good

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  4. Crikey Mark how do you find the time...
    Great looking cavalry.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Thanks Stu. I am looking forward to getting those Russians on the table.

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  5. Nice looking cav Mark - I also have the game on my blog BYDAND

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    1. Yes I left the reporting to you, since your side won! Also not that many of my photos came out all that well.

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  6. The FPW book looks brilliant! Very much looking forward to the final release, ready to purchase!!

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    1. It is nice to have it finished, but there is an uneasiness about releasing a project that has run for so long!

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  7. Excellent job! :) Keep 'em coming!

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    1. Thanks Mark...the artillery is up next and is enroute now.

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