Half-Year Wrap Up and a New Book

Well it is that time again, time to look back on the year and review what has been achieved.

It has been a busy six months for me. Using the Analog Painting Challenge method of allocating points for each piece completed (5 for a foot figure, 10 for a mounted figure or piece of equipment and then adding my own factor of 10 for every hour spent scratch building) my points count for the six months stands at 10,700, my fifth biggest year since I started keeping records in 2014 - and the year is only half finished.

The lion's share of the work has been in scratch building where a total of 78 pieces have been completed - some small, some large, some very large. Three other projects have been undertaken - Austrian and Duchy of Warsaw Napoleonics, and the French Franco-Prussian War cavalry and generals. Two projects are waiting to be started - the Bavarian Franco-Prussian artillery (on order) and cavalry, and the French Revolutionary War plastic infantry that are waiting release form the Perrys.  

The weight that the scratch building component has on the statistics can be clearly seen below.

The game count is a little down on last year, largely because we haven't been able to make our weekday games work too well this year and I haven't been able to make any time for solo gaming either. The frequency of games is something to be corrected in the next six months.

What is next? Obviously the Bavarian FPW sinceartilkery  the order has already been placed, along with a few Duchy of Warsaw bits and six FPW lancers that are also enroute. The Revolutionary French will probably be released by year's end so they may make it into this annual count. I do have some plans for some more scratch building. While plans for these haven't quite settled yet, they are leaning strongly toward some structures suitable for the Franco-Prussian War which would be useful in a Franco-Prussian War campaign that I have an idea for. I also have a significant scenics painting project for a friend.

Will I beat my all time record of 13,060 points? Maybe, but I not making it a target, I would much rather beat my number of games played record.

Received today was the newly published 1866: At the End was the Battle of Königgrätz, Battle Tactics of the Austro-Prussian War, published by Zeughaus Verlag (available in both German and English editions).

Well researched and presented, it is a fabulous 220+ page book in a glossy A4 format, with many black & white and colour images. It is a scholarly work that covers in good detail the Army structures, the campaign, battles, battlefields, uniforms and detailed descriptions of the tactics and the way they contributed to the successes and failures of the war. The following are screenshots from the publisher.

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It is rare to find a study on this conflict that actually considers that the Austrian defeat was not solely attributable to the Prussian use of breach loading weapons, so for anyone with an interest in this era, this book is a must have.