It's hard to do 1/32 scale on a small table.

I picked up a repro MARX limber and cannon set and added a "extra" two horses to make the correct number for a six horse team. It's a nice sturdy "toy" model that's stronger than the 1960s MARX play set version that broke on Christmas morning 50 years ago. (Yes 50!) The thing is 17 1/2 inches long making it hard to add any more to the battery in terms of table space. I'd need 5 more limber teams and six more caisson teams just for the Union side. Too much $$$$ and space are needed.

I looked up a period artillery manual on-line to see what the actual distances between guns and limbers was.

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=P7MVAAAAYAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false

You really need more that a 8 foot by 4 foot standard plywood sheet to hold a 54mm/1/32  battery even without the line of caisson limbers behind the first line on limbers if you set them up in scale.

I'm guessing that a war game scale battery at 28mm could be set up in scale but that might defeat the purpose of war game figures.

Painted Zombie Skeletons

I converted and painted the figures I blogged about a while back...

http://ilikethethingsilike.blogspot.com/2011/12/zombie-skeletons.html

The figures were painted with acrylic washes and dry brushing. I thought that these figures should be "Bronze Age" hence the armor and weapons painted to look like old bronze. Having these figures be supernatural is fun. They are more likely clock work or steam powered automatons created to scare away treasure hunters by a Victorian Super Villain.

The Victorian skirt-less lady was converted from an old Cliff Sanderson/ Monarch metal figure.

It looks bad for the Victorian Adventurers made from Armies In Plastic Boer War figures.

Robert E. Lee has ENOUGH!

Gettysburg, July 2,1863, General Robert E. Lee's headquarters. General "JEB" Stuart finally arrives......

Happy December 25....

Tom Nixon's Christmas Joke!

Tom is out there somewhere. At Civil War reenactments he would take old dirty jokes,  retool them for the 1860s as happening to his "Uncle Hezekiah , and tell them around the campfire as if it was the 1860s. (He could recite Shakespeare as well.)  One night he noticed that a troop of Girls Scouts camping near the reenactment site had infiltrated the campfire audience while he was entertaining us. He had to tone down the jokes a bit. He's a gentleman. Here's a version of one of his stories about his "Uncle Hezekiah" meeting future Civil War General Daniel Sickles and his wife one Christmas.

 

Dickens! You Magnificent Bastard! I read your Book!

I really like the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol. These was nothing whiny about Scott's portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge.

When THIS guy came alone in 2000, you'd have thought he was channeling George C. Scott!

But with Scott I couldn't help but think of a more famous role he played......

...and this scene...

..so when I think Scott, I think Patton even when he is playing Scrooge.