Operation pending and yet more ACW

I am off to hospital tomorrow for the long awaited operation.  It's not the op I hoped for but at least I won't have this damn tube stuck down my nose anymore, so happy days.  Now onto the serious stuff.......

I have finally been motivated enough to get some paint onto lead and plastic.  A while ago I bought the ACW army box that the Perrys sell and it is mostly good.  Some cracking figures, some nice scenery and a couple of mounted officers only available in the box.  Sadly a chunk of the figures are the original ACW figures and not the newer, more dynamic, poses but they will do for a while.  So I have cracked on and now have a near finished Union force for Sharp Practice.  I added to the box contents with a pack of commanders and dismounted cavalry for both sides, plus a sprue of Zouaves, one of cavalry and 2 of union skirmishers from ebay.

140th NY Zouaves

I have nearly finished the Union force now, just the artillery to do at some point but they are a rarely seen support option in the games we have played so far. My planned force is six units of 8 infantry, 2 units of 6 skirmishers and one unit of 8 cavalry with 6 dismounted figures.  Along with that I have 2 standard bearers, a drummer, a physic and 9 leaders, 6 foot and 3 mounted.

Officer types

Cavalry and Skirmishers

I already had some of the older figures painted up, so they make up half of the infantry units with 3 groups of 8 men and a unit of skirmishers.  Newly painted are 24 Zouaves, 2 Zouave leaders, 3 mounted officers, 1 foot officer, 8 mounted cavalry, 6 dismounted cavalry and 6 skirmishers.  I shall replace the older figures with a box of the new Union Infantry from Perry Miniatures soon......maybe.

The zouaves are painted up as the 140th New York Volunteer Infantry, who started out as a regular uniformed unit but were changed to zouaves in the winter of 1863-64 as a reward for their seamless record. 

 I did a little bit of modelling on the cavalry, changing the arms and chopping bits about to give them carbines instead of sabers and pistols. 

I am partway through the Confederate forces as well, but none are based yet.  So there it is.  I had hoped to get the rebs done too but time and other things got in the way.

One of the other things was fixing a computer for a customer.  It was "making some funny noises and not working properly" was the clear and concise information I got.  After a few questions it became clear that this PC was a few years old (Windows Vista!) and had never, ever been cleaned.  So I opened it up and, after removing the dust that was inside the case I started cleaning the fans.  The main fan vents at the back were completely blocked and the fan was so jammed up with crap it had burnt out the motor so I had to replace it.  The cpu fan was also full of crap, so I removed it and found a load more crap.  That's the picture below, after I have removed the cpu fan to clean it. 
I'm actually quite surprised it worked at all, given that the fans were clogged up so badly.  The graphics card fan was also blocked, so it all got a damn good clean out and was soon looking almost as good as new.  A new fan, a good clean and it's all quiet again now.  A quick check of the systems and I find 2 copies of Vista, 3 different users, all with the same name and lots of multiple copies of various programs.  It's all done and gone back now and he is happy as Larry, but it took a bit longer than planned so my painting is now behind schedule.  Ah well, life goes on.

Good luck with whatever gaming you do, I shall return after the hospital release me.