Saturday, 12 January 2013

Plastic and sun

Oh yeah, clipping plastic bits off of sprues is fun in the sun.  The sun finally makes an appearance after many weeks of hiding under clouds and rain.  So to take advantage of the light and, frankly, its morale lifting effect, I have set up a table in my south-facing office room and listened to podcasts while clipping and gluing at least a few of the many boxes of plastic Napoleonics I have acquired recently.
The largest advantage the plastics is weight; the lack thereof. However, aslo the Perrys are VERY nice sculpts.  While yes, I could get the horse in the required groups of three as sold by the Perrys, and for which I have bought many different packs already; the plastics offer modelling possiblities which are not available or would be difficult to do in metal.
 For example the 1st CaC of the Waterloo campaign were the ex-"Roi Chasseurs a Cheval" of the Restoration which did not, in the mere three months of the change back to Napoleon, manage or perhaps want to, part with their distinctive headdress.  Thus they wore, what to me looked very similar in shape to the carabineer helmet of which I had extras from the Perry Heavy horse box. The dragoon box has the upper torso for the trumpeter which I scraped off the lace - easy(ish) to do with plastic, much more problematic with metal - and used extra French hussar legs to complete the unit!  Now the unique 1st CaC will represent Pire's Light Cavalry Division of Reille's Corps of which it was one of the units. 

Anyway, sitting in the sun I can listen to podcasts and of the many various editions one had a Canadian military historian give a lecture about the logistic buildup for the Canadian attack on Vimy Ridge during WW1. (podcast) It is quite apparent that armchair generals speak of tactics (such as ourselves - luckily we wargamers do not need to feed and supply OUR troops)   Real generals speak of logistics.  One of the many aspects which lead the commander Gen. Currie to victory in spite of huge problems to overcome. 


But right now my main problem is not to get any more glue on top of this miniature's torso I am struggling to put together......