My Apologies...

... to anyone who has tried to send me e-mail in the last few days. I have had www.quindia.com on auto renewal for the last decade and so I ignored the notice telling me it would expire on 3-25-12. What the notices failed to mention is that the company who holds my domain changed hands (indeed, the expiration notice STILL has my old company's name on it and there was no mention of this fact in their correspondence) and my auto renewal info could not be transferred.

Not only did this result in my other website being down, but e-mails received a 'permanent failure' reply. Anyway, I have sorted out the problem (paid the piper) and www.quindia.com should be back up (EDIT: THE SITE IS BACK UP) and open for business later today...
 

Dutch Garde te Voet (Blue Guard)

Up next in my Grand Alliance collection will be two battalions of the Dutch Blue Guard, that led the attack across the Boyne at Oldbridge. The entire unit first unit will be up for display in a few days, but I am particularly pleased with their officer shown here.

The Warfare Miniature range is still in it's infancy, and although there is a great selection of models so far, after painting a few units I find myself wishing for more officer models. Not to worry, Barry has plans to release another pack of five new officers, but until these are available, I've been trying to make due with conversions. I've pointed out various conversions as I've posted the units, but felt this one deserves the spotlight. It is my my most ambitious conversion from the Warfare line.

The base model is one of the character models from the WLOA08 Command Advancing pack. The original model has his right arm at his side and his left hand clutching the hilt of his sword in it's scabbard. I used clippers and a modeling saw to remove the entire right arm, left hand, and scabbard and used a file to clean up any rough edges. I sculpted the entire right arm and turnback cuff using greenstuff. The right hand and sword came from a plastic ECW mini, which I glued to my sculpted arm at the desired angle. Then I sculpted the left hand and scabbard, using part of the sword as my base.

I don't consider myself a sculptor beyond minor details, but I am extremely happy with the result! More Dutch on the way...

The Danish Brigade

It's been a while since I set up any photos on terrain. I needed to take some Napoleonic photos for upcoming contributions in Wargames Illustrated and Wargaming in History, so while I had all of the lights and terrain out, I thought I'd slip in a shot of the Danish brigade in action!

This four battalion group makes a perfect brigade for a game with Beneath the Lily Banners. In the future I have plans to add a combined unit of grenadiers painted in the colors of these units, perhaps a battalion gun or two, and - of course - a brigadier (available soon from Warfare Miniatures).

The first unit of my next brigade - one of two Dutch Guard te Voet - are awaiting basing and should be on the site later this week.

Fynske (Funen)

I finished this unit several weeks ago and simply haven't had time to photograph it. This is my fourth and final (for now) unit of my Danish Brigade for my Williamite army modeled on the Boyne/Aughgim campaign.

I'd like to point out the ensign carrying the white standard is a conversion of one of the Warfare officer figures (you can see him standing on the flank of my Zealand unit with his hat in in his hand). I removed the right arm with a model saw and replaced it with an arm from a pikeman. Then I trimmed the gentleman's hair (and the top if his head along with it) to make a flat surface to add a hat, which I sculpted from green stuff. My plume turned out a little large compared to the others, but I'm still happy with the results.

The officer in the center is also a very minor conversion of an ensign - I simply removed the hand that was poised to carry the flag and sculpted a replacement hand that just rests against his coat. For those who'd rather not try sculpting, you can simply harvest a closed fist of similar hand from a spare model...

I just received another box full of shiny new Warfare stuff - up next are two battalions of the Gardes te Voet (Dutch Blue Guards - already finished 8 models), a combined unit of Grenadiers (probably in the colors of my Danish troops), and the first artillery support for the Williamites.