Why Rosebud?

Here is a simplified order of battle for Rosebud:

CinC: Brigadier General George Crook

Lt. Col Royall (3rd Cavalry) overall for cavalry

3rd US Cavalry - Major Evans
Captain Mills' 1st Battalion -
Company A - Lt. Morton
Company E - Captain Sutorious
Company I - Captain Andrews, Lt. Foster, Lt. King
Company M - Captain Mills, Lt. Paul, Lt. Schwatka
Captain Henry's 2nd Battalion
Company B - Captain Reinhold, Lt. Simpson
Company D - Captain Henry, Lt. Robison
Company F - Lt. Reynolds
Company L - Captain Vroom, Lt. Chase
Van Vliet's Squadron
Company C - Captain Van Vliet, Lt. Von Leutwitz
Company G - Lt. Crawford

2nd US Cavalry - Captain Noyes

Company A - Captain Dewees, Lt. Peirson

Company B - Lt. Rowelle

Company D - Lt. Swigert, Lt. Huntington

Company E - Captain Wells, Lt. Sibley

Company I - Lt. Kingsbury (Noyes company)

Mounted Infantry - Major Chambers (4th infantry)

4th US Infantry

Company D - Captain Cain, 1st Lt. Seton

Company F - Captan Luhn

9th US Infantry

Company C - Captain Munson, Lt. Capron

Company H - Captain Burt, Lt. Robertson

Company G - Captain Burrowes, Lt. Carpenter

Packers and Montana Miners (67 men)

4 surgeons and 3 scouts (Frank Grouard, Louis Richard, and Baptiste "Big Bat" Pourier

 Crow (175) and Shoshone (86) allies 

The Sioux and Cheyenne have been estimated from 750 to 1500 (though there are some 'crazy' numbers at 4000 - had there been that many, I don't think there would have been one survivor of the army or its allies).  I lean on the 1500

That gives 15 cavalry companies to field from two different regiments plus five mounted infantry companies also from two different regiments.  More variety is a good thing to my tastes. And the supply train was distant so don't have to field a lot of wagons (most of us don't, I have quite a few just because I wanted that element - but not needed for this battle).  Sure, Bighorn is more famous, or infamous, but this was probably the best balanced battle of the entire Indian Wars.  Plus it lasted for hours and hours and the native village was distant and no settlers nearby so it really is a 'clean' battle.  And the army gets a critical reinforcement in the Crow and Shoshone who probably prevented a terrible army defeat.  Bighorn for the public who wouldn't get it, Rosebud for those who really know the period, a battle that can go either way.  And a wonderful what if is for the native allies to arrive late (they did but not on the actual day) and perhaps end up staying neutral (they would not have sided with the other natives since the two sides were mortal enemies).

I figure I can readily do the battle at 1:4 figure ratio - though I might need to add some more mounted natives to bring up the Crow and Shoshone forces, maybe not.  Also might want to get some more mounted infantry, have enough dismounted infantry - right now I only have enough for one mounted company.  That last is just a maybe, can have them fight on foot as a lot of them actually did.

Alkali Wells in the morning

Or, with better light.  May rearrange to create more of the traditional Spanish square.

Did one minor rearrange at the far end to add in my scratch building church which I may use if I cannot find a suitable resin version - which it seems likely I will not find.

 More of the same.

 These buildings, all with lift off roofs, are from QRF/Freikorps.

These four below came from Crom's Anvil but apparently they are no longer made - if they were, I would have ordered a bunch more!

No known provenance on these, the painted items are stone cast and given to me years ago by a local gamer.  The 'black' thing was from a swap meet and will get repainted to something more suitable.

Same story (with reverse shot of former image). 

Far side are all QRF/Freikorps except farthest left partial.  Nearer buildings are Crom's Anvil except farthest right which is QRF/Freikorps.

More of the QRF/Freikorps buildings.

And a last closer shot of the church - might have to modify the 'wings' into towers somehow, or might not.

Pronghorn, Bison, and Alkali Wells introduces itself

Here is my herd of pronghorn antelope, a ubiquitous denizen of the American west.  

I'm certainly not going to win any painting contests for my paint jobs but they will work just fine to enhance a game - and maybe suddenly disappear and in their stead a horde of warriors resplendent in their feather bonnets and other war regalia.  Uh-oh!

Just another shot below.

That other exceptionally well known denizen of America's Great Plains and beyond, the buffalo.  This herd is short some stands.

Again, not prize winning paint jobs but they should fill the bill.

Another shot. 

And after I realized I'd shorted the herd, I set it up full strength pointing the other way - and the lighting wasn't so good.

Yet another shot, bad lighting.

From a varied angle.

Strange, wouldn't let me type above this photograph.  Getting dark, spent too much time talking with an elderly neighbor who had just taken his first walk to the corner of his cul-de-sac since the lock-down started, two months.  Nice guy, great sense of humor.   Above is a trial layout for Alkali Wells - less the Catholic church which I am still on the hunt for.

 Not sure if this last shot adds much but I will leave it for now.  The gate was a pet store find, I just liked it.

Actually managed to make some progress today and yesterday in getting the pronghorn antelope and the buffalo bases textured.  I used a chocolate brown paint to adhere the flocking and purposely let some of the brown show through since herds of these creatures churn up the sometimes sparse grass.

A first layout for Lodgepole Creek

Since the renaming of my "out on the plains" town from Cedar Creek to Lodgepole Creek, I felt obliged to layout the set of Bluemoon's Old West buildings in "15/18 mm" (that will work fine for those doing 1/72 scale gaming, I am quite sure).  There is no real rhyme nor reason, I just laid out the buildings to see how much space they take up - and with streets probably too narrow for wagon traffic.  There are 25 unique buildings and a few with lean-tos.  I even noticed one has an integral water trough!  Kinda cool.  The length from end to end is a bit over six-and-one-half feet, didn't measure the width.

I had been planning on using other buildings for this town but when I laid these out I thought they would work for Lodgepole Creek.  Not a final decision but, like the heading of this post says, a first layout - of these buildings any way - for Lodgepole Creek.  Cedar Creek got an earlier layout with other buildings but that poor town got retired before it ever got 'built'.

The building at the far end of the street is the train station, not much more than a whistle stop.  One wonders if Hollywood ever got the message that train stations were rather important gathering points for the locals, the gateway into the rest of the world.

The main town, Anachronism, is getting a scratch built station - the passenger station isn't a lot more grandiose than the one photographed here but the freight station is quite substantial.  It is not, however, as grand as the riverside warehouse to accommodate boat traffic!  The main town is an influential river port, after all, replete with floating gambling houses, aka steam boats.

 Losing the light - and no handy skylight - when this shot last shot was taken.

Stepping into Anachronism and beyond

So, I pulled a dozen civilian groups out of their 'storage' containers and put them in a "preparation for painting" container.  They will be the first citizens of Anachronism, my main Pony West town, to get painted.  Each group currently has two 'dead' figures to go with it, might back down to only one, might stay with two.  All of these figures are on foot, mostly unarmed but a few armed figures scattered about in a few of the groups.  Those dozen groups - of a dozen people per group - represent one third of my figures for this town.  I'm starting with the more pedestrian folks and working my way up to the fancier folk, working men and women and such for now.

One type of figure I don't have much of is peaceable, unarmed civilians mounted - unless you count the ones mounted on wagons as drivers and such.  I think I can live without them since I have considerably more than enough figures for this period already.

I also added in to the same box three groups of Mexicans, two of peasants and one armed, and three Mexican horse holders with six horses.  These will be for Alkali Wells, the southwest town.  The armed men will be the 'henchmen' of El Pollo Grande, a created 'character' figure who has both a mounted, dismounted, and dead version.  These groups are new additions from recent orders, not that I needed but chose to get - they were on sale at a discount form the manufacturer, Peter Pig

Another recent addition were two groups of dismounted infantry and one group of mounted infantry, already have extra army dead to assign to these groups - even some extra dead horses for the mounted infantry.  These will help me in re-creating my primary northern plains battle of choice: The Battle of Rosebud, not nearly as famous as Little Big Horn but a much better mix of troops.  I suppose I could add more mounted native American's to improve the number of allies for the army that made all the difference at this battle, Shoshone and Crow if memory serves.  These, too, were on discount, from QRF Freikorps' Yellow Ribbon range this time.

I now need to select the first four of the White Hat/Black Hat mounted/foot/dead sets to prepare for painting.  I do have an order on its way that will add a group of Mexican federales that I will have to decide how they impact my current organization.  Most likely they will shunt aside the reservation police somehow.  The police will stay in the collection just in a minor variation of role perhaps.

No photos of this because pictures of unprepared, unprimed figures are not particularly elucidating.

Taking stock - of the stock

Taking stock of the stock?  Yes, this time as in 'livestock', what every good husband should do, at least in the realm of animal husbandry.  Below are meant to be denizens of farms and ranches and maybe a few homesteaders and the like.

I decided to make a decision on my cattle, how many of each would be what breed, that sort of thing. Already have the 96 longhorns with their six dead.  So, sorted it out that there will be 48 Hereford with 4 dead, 48 black baldies with 4 dead, 24 each of two dairy herds with 2 dead each (48 + 4) - which breeds to be decided - maybe Holstein and milking shorthorns (the latter being a bit more colorful), 48 highland hairy with 4 dead, and one group of 12 oxen with 1 dead (there is one more dead assigned to 12 aurochs for much older time frame games).  There are also 24 African cattle with 2 dead that I can add to my longhorn herd to bring it up to 120 head if I feel the need - the paint jobs will be similar.  All but the oxen are primed with a few painted though likely to get reworked.  Excluding the Aurochs and the African cattle, that is 300 head.  A respectable herd to me.

Equine flesh is not so numerous here (though remarkably plentiful within the overall Pony West collection).  Here there are 12 mules, 12 donkeys, 12 Clydesdales, 6 mustangs, and 24 other domestic equines.  The other horses are with mounted figures, as dismount point markers, or just saddled horses at hitching posts - and a fairly good supply of dead horses.  There is also a pony herd of 72 plus 24 ponies with their cloth 'saddles' and a cavalry remount remuda of 24 more horses.

For sheep, I have 102 plus six to convert to dead sheep.  Pigs number 78 plus 6 to convert to dead.  There are also 48 goats but none planned as dead.  For poultry, I have 48 geese and 132 total chickens (well, there are four more for the Mexican leader's foot stand - he of the appelation El Pollo Grande (The Big Chicken).

Not sure why there are Highland hairy cattle for my Old West (or Pony West as I'm calling it now) but I'm sure it must have something to do with a Scotsman.  Wasn't there a movie with the Duke friends with a Scottish rancher?  I'm pretty sure there was.

There are also, not fully counted, quite a few dogs and cats to be included.  Almost all of the above is primed and ready for painting with bases ready.  Just a matter, mostly, of splashing on some paint and then texturing the bases.

Why so many?  Well, temptation kept striking and I felt I needed this and then I discovered that and one thing led to another and, voila, I'm quite the rancher/farmer.  At least in 15 mm!

What do you mean, two posts in one day?  No law against that.

Mountains in situ, sort of

No 'great shakes' here, just a shot of the game table, temporarily, cleaned off so I sat my 'mountains' in progress on it for a record shot.  A careful observer will note there are nine 'standing' mountains as partially seen in an earlier post.  Clearly these still need some work.  But now I can come here to remind myself what I have to finish.

And here are what were originally steps up to a different - and rightfully abandoned - terrain project. These will just be used for edge of table hills  - though I have been tempted to put them on end and create one more much taller mountain.  Still might.

One day I will get back to painting and finishing terrain.  I just need to chase away that delinquent who keeps stealing my free time.  Err.