Pages

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The great 15mm ACW overhaul


Well I've finally got a window to do this without feeling like I should be doing something else in imminent need of completion. It's not that I don't have a lot to do which I do, but rather nothing that has to be done right now which gives me the freedom to do what I want......yipeee!:-)

My largish 15mm ACW collection is quite old in that 90% of the collection was painted about 15 to 20 years ago and is in a bad need of an overhaul in both basing and figure touch ups! I've been looking at them for several years saying I really need to do a revamp and now I've finally got the time.:-) The figures are based for the old Fire and Fury with different sized bases and varying number of figures per base. I'm now re-basing the entire collection using the standardize format given in Regimental Fire and Fury which has speeded up the desire to get started since it's release!


The figures themselves are Old Glory and they are still are very nice figures and even more so when one bears in mind the sculpts are over 20 + years old. In addition to the figures I have painted I also have bags full of unpainted ones where quite literally if I assembled and painted everything I owned I could field both sides for Gettysburg! However first things first so painted stuff revamped before adding any new stuff.
 
Things that will be done:

*Figures will conform to RF&F recommended base sizes which in effect will give me more units which is nice.
*The basing will be completely redone as the old style is pretty darn dated and looks shabby.
*Figures will given a wash and a quick highlight(I noticed I did at least cleanly block in the colours when I first did them which was a pleasant discovery making touch ups much easier).
*When placing the figures on the new bases I must make sure to keep the figures with lowered rifles farther back on the base to allow easier alignment of the units which I failed to do the first time and made everything line up haphazardly.
*Replace badly done shot up standards with whole ones which I think looks better at this scale.
*Paint up all the new terrain I bought for this well!
*Add new units

I'm not looking to paint the armies to the best of my ability as I have 28mm ACW collection to lavish that kind of attention on, but rather I am going for a decent looking force that hopefully I and others visiting will find pleasing to look at on the tabletop.

Since Fire and Fury is in my top 3 all time favourite games I'm just iching to try out Regimental Fire and Fury and so I'm really excited to see how this turns out!:-)

12 comments:

  1. It's a good set of frustrating and entertaining rules, good luck with the overhaul!

    ReplyDelete
  2. the dreaded rebasing phase...you are a brave soul!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I plan on doing the very same to my 15mm ACW armies. Personally I think regimental is better than the basic F&F. I'm not fond of rebasing so I have been putting it off. Looking forward to seeing your ones, might inspire me to do mine.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Christopher,
    I am in the midst of an ACW 15mm overhaul myself trying to get through the mountain of 15mm Musket Minis and OG troops and repaint/rebase. Looking forward to seeing more of your work! Although

    I'm personally still a huge fan of the Brigade Fire and Fury though! (Johnny Reb III was enough, depressing Regimental action for me)
    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  5. Christopher,
    I am in the midst of an ACW 15mm overhaul myself trying to get through the mountain of 15mm Musket Minis and OG troops and repaint/rebase. Looking forward to seeing more of your work! Although

    I'm personally still a huge fan of the Brigade Fire and Fury though! (Johnny Reb III was enough, depressing Regimental action for me)
    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  6. Christopher, I'm looking forward to seeing your collection, as you said the old glory sculpts still stand up to some of the more recent makes. Fire and fury is one of my all time favourites. Be interesting to see your views on the Regimental version.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks guys as I'll need the luck!

    @Rodger
    Hopefully it does inspire!

    @Steven
    Basing my ACW 15's for Regimental Fire & Fury will not preclude me from playing Brigade level if I wish. The main reason I'm re-basing is to make the units line up better and I like more round bases for leaders and extras plus I also just really need a new look as the old style I have is just to dated and flat.;-)

    Cheers
    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  8. It will be well worth it when you have all those old figures tarted up and rebased, it will make it look like a hole new collection.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Silver Whistle

    That's what I'm hoping for!:-)

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sounds like a great project, Christopher! I love the new RF&F rules. The original brigade-level set was fine but we immediately modified it to reflect regiments. I dunno, to me the American Civil War just seems best themed at the regimental level. The units were so colourful and unique with their individual regimental histories.

    Sometime this year I'm going to try doing ACW in 3mm to better reflect the true size of the units. We'll see how that turns out...

    Best,

    Curt

    ReplyDelete
  11. Everytime you redo something it gets better and better
    and with your talent its got to be fantastic.

    ReplyDelete