Hoi,
As with all the entries in this specific locale, I could have chosen quite a lot of stories about family members mostly from the WW2 era (my mother's Dad was a local mayor and had to go in hiding because he didn't want to collaborate with the Germans and my other Grandfather was a coalminer back then, but both of them passed before I was born. Something that has influinced my whole look upon painting figures and has a strong link to my hometown was a good subject for a project at least that's what I think.
At the time of writing I live in the utmost South of the Netherlands where indeed I was born, but for 7 years I lived and worked in the most Northern part as well, in the city of Groningen there were lots of bookshops and being a big city there were lots of people with different interests and when they pass on or move to a different interest they (or their family) sell their stuff to secondhand bookshops. At the time I was deep into Battletech (duhuh), 40K and Napoleonics but if I'd find a book that had nice uniform plates, I would buy that most likely as well. Now my main interest in historic gaming has ever been the British Redcoat and therefore I bought the book below without a second thought upon seeing it.
It took me a while before I actually read it and then it happened: one of the first things I check in a new Osprey buy are of course the colourplates. This book being no exception, I noticed a familiar church tower in the background of this plate:
I tried to find a better image:
Finally I read the caption to the plate:
As you can guess Roermond is the town I was born in... The cathedral church tower looks completely different now, being blown up by US forces in '44-'45, but the British had been here in my backyard in 1748! In the years between buying this book and now I have found the British army camped at and conquered the city several times during the conflict and when I retire I am going to research their stay and write a book about it. It appears the King of England at the time tasked his court painter with painting soldiers from most of the regiments camped here and that's the origin of the plate above.
That plate has also been the cause for me doing a 7YW Minden-project in 1:72 and so I thought it would be nice to include the 21st Regiment of Foot (for Minden I actually need the 23rd Foot, but both of these regiments had blue facings and were Fusilier regiments so no worries!).
Miles wanted more 20mm figures and I guess 1:72 is close enough I gather. There's 24 figures in that scale which is good for 96 points an together with the bonus that would be 116 for my total.
Cheers Sander
And another 100-points-plus entry today! Lovely troops and a great back-story for why you painted them.
Tamsin
