Year End and A Look Ahead

Yesterday I went up to Renton to pick up the keelboat from Mark Waddington. It looks just as beautiful as the pictures Mark sent. Now I need to figure out how I'll use it as a gaming piece. We exchanged some scenario ideas over lunch. Now I just need some figures for Lewis and Clark's adversaries.

As promised, I've ordered the Spanish from London War Room. One bag each of the dismounted soldado de cuera. These "leather soldiers" were Spanish Presidial troops, the frontier garrison types who fought the Indians and kept the peace. There is some great information about these troops in California, as well as a description of them at the California State Military Museum and David Rickman's page on the Royal Soldados of Santa Barbara. It is known that mounted cueros intercepted Zebulon Pike's expedition in 1807, so it's not unreasonable to think that such soldiers would have been deployed to catch the Corps of Discovery. The following pictures are from Jose Maria Bueno's book on uniforms and a photo of a re-enactor.

The other bag o' troops are simply your basic Spanish infantry dudes who will be attired in white.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, I've set three priorities. One, is getting the Lewis and Clark figures done so that I can game with them. We're not talking lots of figures here. At least initially I'll be painting them all as dismounted troops. I'll order the eighteen dismounted Comanches from Conquest miniatures when I have a bit more dough. Second, I'm going to paint up more of the troops from the Battles of Bladensburg and North Point from the War of 1812. Those will probably be my big historical projects for Enfilade. My final big project will be wrapping up all my unpainted Space 1889 stuff. I need another two dozen or so RAFM figures to get my militia units up to the right size and that will be that.

I'm really feeling the need to be frugal in the hobby this year. I'm going to keep my figure purchases as low as I possibly can, and only buy what I really need. Right now, I've shared the needs that I really have. If that's it, that's it.