More pictures: Austrian and French infantry

Tonight I will post a few pictures from the set I took yesterday. this time, it's the turn of the infantry units, French and Austrian.
Austrians first. Each individual unit is painted to represent an historical
battalion. You will recognize below troops from from IR 23 Erzherzog Ferdinand (red facings), IR 10 Ansbach-Bayreuth (green/paperlgrun facings), and IR 16 Terzi/Erzherzog Rudolf (violet facings), among the others. Flags are from Warflag, resized. Somewhat I nailed down the correct technique to resize and fold a flag only later, when working on the French. You will notice the difference.



Finally, no Austrian Army should be allowed to take the field without deploying a unit of *pink* infantry -- in my case, IR 38 Wurttemberg. I was bold enough to use a bright, Magenta fluo color... what to say: you notice this unit.


Now, the French. By the time I started working on these units, I figured out the proper way to fix the flag, and courtesy of Warflag again I was able to create a couple of cool stands.


As previously explained, in my French Army I use a mix of color-code and grenadiers and voltigeurs to identified individual units. The color-coding part is still a work in progress, in part because of the delays in the shipment I am waiting from the UK. But at least some of the grenadiers are in place, as you will see in the next pic.

And finally, let's not forget the officers! Very likely, you have already recognised a General Lasalle look-a-like in the picture above, but a second officer is portrayed here as he stands in front of a battery (... maybe not a great idea...)

I hope I will have the time tomorrow to share a couple of pictures of my french artillery and cavalry. Thursday I am leaving for a business trip overseas, so blogging will be once again to take a backseat. Fortunately, I am well-prepared for the 15 hours flight: I have already packed Fredrick Kagan's "The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805", on the Austerlitz campaign, and the first volume of John Gill's trilogy, "1809 Thunder on the Danube: Abensberg". A lot of Napoleonic readings, and a lot of food for thought about my future French vs Austrians battles.

Latest Napoleonic photos -- Austrians

For the past several weeks I have been steadily working on my Napoleonic armies, both the Austrian and the French. The results are beginning to become apparent, and forces are beginning to build up despite some delays in mail delivery (in particular, i am still waiting for a crucial order from the UK, submitted on 12/15 and yet to show up in my malbox...)
Tonight I took a few pictures, and I will post the best or more informative of them over the next few days. Right now, I start with some Austrians. Today I completed four officers, and I added the final touches to several infantry, cavalry and artillery units, as well as to my windmill, which you will be able to spot in the background in some of these pics. At the moment, my Austrian Army counts two cuirassier squadrons, two hussars, one of dragoon (with two of chevau-legers on their way), two artillery batteries, twelve regiments of infantry, one of grenadiers (two on the way) and one of jaegers (one on the workbench.) In the mail, more artillery, two grenzer regiment, and some odds and ends.
Here's tonight pics. First, a spiffy officer showing some leadership:

This is one of the two cuirassier squadrons:

Next, the 7th Hussars Squadron - Liechtenstein:

Last but not least, the heavy 12lb guns from one of my batteries:

I have a couple of cool pictures of the infantry units, but for tonight I will only share a group photo taken of the whole lot in the box... it still looks cool to me!

Tomorrow I will try to post infantry pics for the Austrian and the French, and later this week some other shots of the French artillery, cavalry (the Empress Dragoons of the Guard!) and some officers (included General LaSalle!) And, crossing my fingers, if all goes as planned, in two weeks after a business trip abroad I should be able to fight a little meeting engagement!

Rant on badly advertised rules

I just posted this in a thread on TMP, in reference to a new, and apparently mysterious ruleset titled "Ridiculous Vanity 2nd." [No link provided because no relevant link is found, to further prove my point.]
I repeat here my rant almost verbatim, just to get it off my chest.

I am always a little puzzled when a new ruleset is announced on TMP, but then it results nearly impossible to get any information about how the system works. I usually repeat the same questions all the time: how does the sequence of play work? (I stay away from I-go-U-go) What basing is required for miniatures? How many units do you need for an average game? What are the basic mechanisms for morale/combat/melee? Orders of battle or army lists? Or tournament point? Etc. etc. These are basic questions, and I would expect to be included by default in any presentations of new rules. Instead, oftentimes you get nothing, nada, nicht, niente.

Really, it is always the same basic questions that players ask, so you would expect that people making a pitch for their rules would care to comment and inform the public, especially when the set is priced at $35-$40... I don't spend $40 on a ruleset just for the surprise to discover how it works, nor the joy of realizing that it is not the type of game I like or I am interested in playing.

Bottom line: Sorry, rules writers/publishers: but a cool picture on the front page doesn't make it for me.