The Lead Pile Restored

Well I gave finally got around to ordering the French cuirassiers for the Franco-Prussian War. They have left the Nottingham lead belt and are somewhere in a Royal Mail sorting house as I type. I would normally say that I could expect them to lit NZ shores in 4-5 days, but who knows what delays the disturbances in the Middle East will cause.

To up the order value and secure free postage I decided to add a few battalions of Napoleonic Austrian infantry to my collection. So ordered two boxes and one command frame, enough to make three battalions, although it was six figures short of the number needed - I could easily drop two figures from each battalion without being noticeable. Then a prior the last game one of the players said he had a few Austrian figures to spare and would I like them. Problem solved, right?

At the last game he delivered the figures. To be honest I didn't pay much attention because I was busy gathering up boxes to carry down to the games room. However, when I got home and unloaded the car I saw that there were more than just a few figures. There were two big plastic bags filled with sprues. Now in fairness many of those sprues had more than half the figures already removed, but nonetheless there were enough figures to build 4 large battalions - one grenadier, two line and one landwehr. A very generous gift, which will be repaid.

So my little addition of three battalions has more than doubled to seven and my Austrian force, that was originally designed to add a few battalions to support the Russians and Prussians, has ballooned to 18 battalions, outnumbering the Prussians and equalling the Russians. Maybe it is just as well that I ordered some Duchy of Warsaw battalions to balance out the French forces.

And when the parcel arrives from the UK the lead (and plastic) pile will count somewhere between 300-350 figures - that should keep me entertained for a couple of months.