Thursday 11 August 2011

Contracting, Blocks, The ACW and Balkan Wars

My time has been impacted in recent weeks due to my employment situation. Basically I am contractor in the financial services sector - specifically in Compliance. I have been contracting since my redundancy in early 2009 and whilst it is financially attractive it does means that you seem to be permanently chasing the next contract. My existing contract finishes fairly shortly and so I have been endeavouring to set something up for when I return from my weeks holiday in Devon. Inevitably it means lots of interviews and these are usually at short notice and out of office hours. This was the case last night and so as a result I arrived home tired, lethargic and in a foul mood. By the time I had dined and unwound there was not a lot of the evening left and so I was not able to get very much done on the hobby front. I had a small session with the labels on the PC and pottered briefly in my den but very little else.
I have however, given some further thought to the vexing questions of what historical periods I should tackle using the block armies and what symbols I should use on the labels of the 20th century units. The ACW would seem to be a logical choice for a first period given the large amount of riverine models I have built and so having a land side would complement it nicely. I had in fact always intended doing this at some point so now would appear to be as good a time as any. This would also hopefully serve to kick start the painting of the stalled ACW ship models thereby killing two birds with one stone. Similarly, the Balkan armies were due to be next on the list after the ACW collection was completed so in real terms I have not greatly changed my project plans from a few months ago - merely the method of execution.
The ACW blocks will be easy enough in terms of the labels I have already constructed but for the Balkans I will need to add an MG into the unit mix. I will also need to source some good orders of battle for unit designations, together with some commanders names. The Balkans will not be existing in isolation as my previous ideas have indicated - I hope to add the Great Powers in one form or another and whilst the blocks may lack the dash of their metal brethren at least I will be able to deploy them this side of the next Olympic Games!
Incidentally, the font type on certain of my posts appears to vary as I have been using the email blog entry facility as well as the more direct post method. I keep meaning to change the font on the email version but keep forgetting to do so. I will rectify this at the earliest opportunity!

2 comments:

Chris said...

David,

An incredible amount of information on the Balkan Wars is encompassed in the 12th Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. This came out in about 1920, to bring everything up to date since the more famous 11th Edition, which appeared around 1911. (Thus, there is a stupendous amount of information on every, and I mean EVERY, facet of WWI, too.) The three 12th Edition volumes are usually found marked as "New Volumes", appended to the 11th. It's well worth the effort to find them. Being in Great Britain and all, I would think your libraries (unlike a lot of them on this side) will have them...

Best regards,

Chris

David Crook said...

Hi Chris,

Many thanks for the heads up - I certainly had not thought about using the EB at all.

I will have a look around and see what I can find.

All the best,

DC