Bears down Eagles

It was good to see Cutler lose his temper at the officials over the non-flagging of what should have been a clear penalty (of course he should have kept his mouth shut and the subsequent 15 yard penalty for the second outburst hurt).
Cutler showed the passion that exuded from the entire team last night. The scoreline didn't reflect the dominance shown by the Bears but did reflect the frailty of the cover two against quick offenses. All three parts of the team turned up and played hard.
Go Bears!

Recent Reading

I won't bother visitors with details of the book that I read preceding this (Dan Browns "The Lost Symbol" - a book to be read and then given to a charity shop).
I'd been looking forward to reading this book and it took me a while to appreciate it. I found it hard work initially and only became absorbed by it about half way through.
The lack of a central character and having the story revolve around five main figures instead is the cause I think. As a consequence of this it seems a little disjointed in places and not the smooth flowing style of his other books.
Having said that it is a fascinating story and one full of little episodes ideal for the tabletop.
Would I recommend it? All things considered - yes.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers (and a belated one to the Canucks who celebrated last month).

WSS REvamp Part 4

More units finished.
First is Chevalier de Rosen. I find French horse regiments a little dull after the infantry. Foot have a wide combination of coat, waistcoat, cuff, breeches and stocking colours. The horse by comparison are nearly all grey with red facings and the only colour differentiation is in the shabraque. This time round I didn't change the shabraque colour from the original painting I just touched it up. For the life of me though I can't find the reference work that inspired the yellow with white.

And then there is Souvre. One of my favourite foot regiments but that has more to do with the flag than the uniform. Historically on the tabletop they have also been one of the better performing units in the army - let's hope they continue in their new look and organisation.

700 club

An NFL membership of - ONE.
With the shutout last night in Miami, the first home shutout in forty years for the Dolphins, the Chicago Bears are the only team in the NFL to reach 700 regular season wins.
Okay the Dolphins may have been banged up on offense but the Bears controlled the ball (38 minutes of possession on offense) and dominated on defense holding Miami to just 187 yards total. With two minutes to go it was like a home game for the bears with only "Go Bears" echoing around the emptying stadium.
I may not have had much sleep last night but I don't feel tired. At 7-3 and with three wins in twelve days I fell great.

Advice Sought

Hmm....... I've got myself a bit of a dilemma.

As you know I'm revamping my older WSS French and have now got to the Regiment Normandie. As part of the revamp I'm checking the uniforms and retouching them.

Now here's the dilemma - Funcken (Lace Wars vol1) shows Normanide with red waistcoats, red breeches & red stockings BUT Grant ("Armies of the Malburian Wars"vol1) states white waistcoats, stockings and breeches with officers & nco's having black cuffs.
I used Funcken when painting them originally but that was before Grant was published (indeed before his "Armies of the Pike & Shot era" - which is the same information). So who do I go with now?

My instinct is to stick with Funcken but my heart says repaint them to give them a unique appearance (several French regiments wore a similar uniform to that shown by Funcken and makes them hard to distinguish on the tabletop).

Bears beat Vikings

If (and with Favre it's always if) this was Favre's last visit to Soldier Field it will not be one he remembers with fondness. The Bears defense played well all day and despite giving up a few big plays had the measure of the Vikings.
In fact I thought the Bears played well on defence, offence and special teams. The only blot on the playbook being the number of penalties and the hugh amount of yards that they cost us.

Great game.

Short week with Miami on Thursday.

WSS Revamp Part 3

Cold crisp mornings are made for a brisk walk and steaming hot strong coffee - both designed to help stimulate me to sit at the painting desk.
Yesterday saw me finish the first of the Old Glory horse regiments. Of course I forgot to take a "before" shot so below are some of the Royal Carabineers showing the quality of the figures before I got to work on them.

The finished Cuirassiers du Roi. Again I have a deeper appreciation of the figures now then I probably did twenty years ago. I still don't really like the horses, some are more like greyhounds and some appear to be in pain from the way they contort themselves in movement.

However, en masse they have a pleasing aspect that matches well with the rest of the horse.

I chose this time to mount them in pairs for no other reason than the bases I had originally bought for three figures were far too large for the Old Glory figure size and instead replaced them with 50mm square pieces. All bases from Warbases (I can't recommend this company highly enough for quality and service).

WSS REvamp Part 2

To show that there are wargaming related items going on here I present the next stage of the WSS revamp project.
To more battalions of foot completed - to the fore Picardie & supporting them Auvergne.

I tried something different with the colour for Picardie. A Warflag production but this time I gave the flag some highlights with GW Scab Red & GW Red Gore. Pretty pleased with the result.
A close up of Auvergne. Redoing these figures has made me re-evaluate these pieces. Having bought nothing but Front Rank for a number of years I had looked down on the older Old Glory figures and tended to see them as second rate. I now realise that has more to do with my ability to paint figures twenty years ago compared to today. There are some lovely figures in the Old Glory Range and the shot above shows my favourite of them all.
So before the spring project I now have just seven more battalions plus fifteen squadrons to get done.

Paramore

Last night at the Sheffield Arena I saw proof that there are some extremely good bands out there putting on some terrific shows.
Paramore are not my normal fare of musical diet but are very popular with the younger members of the house. However, I enjoyed myself and had a great time.
The show kicked off with some good solid rock played loud and fast and continued with the entire audience bouncing around for a good half hour. Midway through their show they broke it down to a terrific performance of "Let This Go" with just Haley & Josh playing and singing acoustics at the very edge of the stage under a spot. From there they turn to a transformed stage and run through several more slow songs with the rest of the band, before turning the amps back on and really letting go.
The energy and enthusiasm from band and audience was something else.
Great night.

May we never forget

Chicago beat Buffalo in Toronto

Lovie said it was a more balanced offense this week. Not sure I agree with that. When your best running back is your QB (Forte gained more yards - 40) with a 7.8 average and you complete less than 60% of your passes balance isn't the first word that springs to mind. Still ranked last in third down completions and red zone offense.

The defense wasn't much better. Sure it generated turnovers but then we were playing the worst team in pro-football right now.

Next week we have to go to a resurgent Minnesota team.

Wisdom