More US ACW Troops

 Another batch of US ACW figs for the growing collection.

First photo is the sky blue pants and exile blue tunics.

Next photo is the filler going down on the steel bases

And last photos are completed minis.  These are the first photo I've used with subjects under the new GameCraft Minis LED lamp.    The lamp can be used for painting also.  Main feature is "daylight" temperature of the light and the "arc" of light that reduce shadows.  $44 bucks.  I may get another one so I don't have to move it between painting station and photo station.

Spider Women and Serpent Women

 Painted up some fantasy figs.  Not sure of mfr for the snake ladies but the driders are from from Raging Heroes.  The driders were a real bitch to assemble with no assembly instruction so I just fixed the legs randomly.  In theory their were round and square pegs to aid assembly but the pegs were beneath the 3d print resolution so square and round look the same.  with enough super glue and RTV you can make anything stick!  body and legs of the driders were all airbrush and the serpent ladies were all ink and washes.

Napoleonic Generals and Aides de Camp

 Finished up a group of French ADC's and Russian Generals and ADC's

Russian ADC's

General Bagration

General Kutuzov

General Platov

A group of three "typical" French ADC's

And some more fashionable French ADC's

Russian Artillery Batteries

 A Russian heavy artillery battery with 12blr cannon and heavy licorne

and a Russian light artillery battery with 6lbr and light licorne

Russian Infantry Units

 Two Russian infantry units ready to fight.  Still need to add flags but these are the Odessa and Simbirsk regiments from the 27th Division.  The 27th fought at the Fleches at Borodino.  Normally not a problem with AB miniatures, but the advancing pose figures have fragile bayonets, so a drop of glue was added to the bayonet to hopefully help hold them on.

Second Volume in Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy

Another excellent read in the Pacific War Trilogy.  Toll describes the actions of the US and Japanese commands from Guadalcanal to the Marianas Islands.  At 500 pages, he covers a lot of ground, well mostly sea, without skipping much detail.  He also includes extensive coverage of the Japanese Homefront and politics which is critical in understanding the Japanese way of war. Though by 1944 there is little the Japanese commanders can do to stave off the impending catastrophe.  Pushed by ideology, unable to escape by political means, and limited by a collapsing industry and economy, the Japanese struggle on. 

Toll also writes about the American service rivalry (MacArthur vs. Nimitz), the two-prong strategy and Admiral King's pushing for Central Pacific thrust.  Working for 33 years for the Navy, I particularly enjoyed Toll's inclusion of the intra-service rivalry between black shoes (ship drivers) and brown shoes (aviators) and how they fought (personal rivalry to constructive arguments)  to shape the carrier war doctrine.   This rivalry still exists today in the Navy.

Alien Extermination

 The ship's damage control party was armed as they advanced into the caustic fog left by the invading alien creatures . . .