12.31.06

Book Review – Die friderizianischen Uniformen 1753-1786

Posted in 7YW, Fictional Countries at 8:44 pm

I heard about this book being placed up on eBay from someone who was a member of the OSW group on Yahoo (thanks, Guenter!).

Book Cover

Book Back Cover

This is really a set of books. There are four of them that come in a cardboard box with front and back covers as shown above. Each book is roughly 7 by 5 by 1/2 inches and packs around 200 pages *in each one*! This is a lot of material and some serious eye candy for 7YW Prussian army enthusiasts.

Text Page

Uniform pictures
Books one and two focus on the Infantry. Text and plates are included for regulars, garrison regiments, and some of the militia and light units. The renderings are quite nice and quite frankly might be worth it for the flags alone. Slap the page you want on a scanner, do some easy editing and resizing in your favorite photo editor, and boom, instant beautiful standards! The third book contains plates and text on technical troops, service formations and Kriegsformationen (the translation programs make this to be “war formations” but it appears to be the odd-ball and units not covered elsewhere section – Frei Corps, units from Magdeburg and elsewhere). The final volume covers mounted troops. I can’t find the page now, but there’s even a section on cadet uniforms, so if you want your own little VMI style unit for charging into the teeth of artillery, you can paint it up!
Should you buy this or not? Well, if you are a die-hard fan of the Prussian army and intend to paint nothing else, this will suffice for many years of painting. If so, this set is for you. Do you do fictional countries and want to see what uniform styles were like? If so, I’d give this a definite… maybe. If you already have some uniform references on hand, this will augment them, but it’s a high price tag otherwise. Do you paint professionally or strive for historical accuracy down to the gaiter buttons? If so, this is for you (but be aware that the plates do *not* show trousers and shoe styles and so on – I just realized this as I was writing this review. There is probably text in the book that covers these parts of the uniform but I know just enough German to get into trouble!) I am pleased I picked it up and would do so again.
You can pick it up used for around $80 USD at Amazon.

12.24.06

Fictional Country Development

Posted in Fictional Countries at 9:15 pm

After spending a lot of time on the Old School Wargaming and Society of Daisy Yahoo Groups, I decided to work on my own fictional countries for a while. This is probably not as difficult as it might sound as I have been immersed in Warhammer Fantasy Battles for the last several years and creating themed armies has been a major part of that.

Fictional Countries Map

The map to the left was created with Game Mapper from Imagine Image. Clicking on the image will bring up a larger version of the map in a separate window. I have used this as it allowed me to rough out what I want the countries to look like and see if I could come up with a viable area. Boundaries between the countries are shown by a brown dashed line. I want to be able to continue the wars between these nations over an extended period so I can draw in armies that one would see in the Ancient world, English Civil War, Seven Years War, American Civil War, and roughly the end of the 19th century where Aeronef will come into play. I envision the wars to begin with open warfare breaking out between the Keuhakans and the residents of Neutralia. The Keuhakans are native tribesmen based on the civilized tribes of the American Northeast. All the countries have used Keuhakan forces as light infantry auxiliaries from time to time, but their raids against Neutralian citizens and “trading outposts” have brought Freedonia and Nuevo Rico into conflict.

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