2nd Continental Light Dragoons

As is often the case with me I find myself behind on posting figures I've painted and this is no exception. I painted these a few months ago, but just now got around to posting them. I really do need to up my game so to speak in terms of posting what I've finished.

Adding some more AWI units in the form of the 2nd continental light dragoons, but I'll likely use them to represent any continental cavalry. I usually use historical units as a guide to painting units rather then using them for just when that regiment actually was fielded so if I make errors it's not that important as long as they look the part.

These are Perry miniatures and were actually quite difficult to do in terms of painting. They are all one piece sculptures which you would think would be easier, but for some reason the riders were quite a bit thinner then their separate rider sculpts and the detail was quite shallow in some places that I had to paint in my own which made painting them trickier and swearier then normal. The pay off is always great with Perry miniatures as they look really nice when finished, but they do make you work for it at times!

This past year or two I've made an extra effort to paint cavalry as most of my collections lack the correct amount as I tend to put them off and I'm happy to report I do have more cavalry completed coming up although in a different period.

I hope to get the units I already painted up posted soon, before the AHPC begins in December which should be fun!

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

Late Romans vs Late Romans To The Strongest! (Solo)

 

The rival warlords Nexiust and his loyal legions face off against his rival Primus and his Burgundian allies.

I finally decided to have my first solo game. This came about due to the fact that my wargaming has been reduced to maybe playing a game once every 3 months or so if  even that. Why? Well my regular opponent no longer (war)games very often or least not that I'm aware of as he prefers mostly just to paint in regards to miniatures. The other group lives over an hour away and has their own gaming group, but are also not gaming as often as they used to at the moment due to real life interfering. There is a club I used to go to about a half hour away. Friendly folks, but they mostly play games I'm not really interested in (Fantasy ,Sci-Fi ,some historical but always skirmish) plus often with unpainted miniatures which sadly I cannot overlook, not to mention I really dislike transporting my miniatures. Since wargaming includes both painting and playing for me if I'm not gaming then the motivation to paint is affected. Well, I knew I had to do something or wargaming as a whole would just come to a halt period. This would not be a good thing as the wargaming hobby has had a very positive affect on the quality of my life.

Solo gaming. Hmmm would that really work? When playing a game I've always looked at it as very social activity and probably the part I liked the most even more then the game itself . The hobby talk before the game, friendly banter during the game, and the after game discussions and plans. This would not be present. I also worried about favoring one side too much leading to a boring predictable game.

Well I'm happy to say I enjoyed the solo game a lot more then I expected! Of course I would have had more fun playing a friend no question, but the experience was quite fun which is the important thing! I think the rules To the Strongest! had a lot to do with it due to the friction in activations where units can fail to activate which changes the dynamics disrupting plans not to mention the grid system eliminated any kind of fudging and fiddling of units and speeds the game up. As long as you try to play each side as best you can then you will have a good time as the cards will give you plenty of surprises.

General Nexiust in the center with the legions and commander Cyprus in his cataphractarii leading his division of cavalry on the left and commander Poximer leading the auxiliaries on his right face off in the distance General Primus and his legions center with his cavalry under Optomier and his ally Chieftain Hangar and his Burgundians.

The cavalry prepare to engage.

Poximer's Aux. Begin to advance

Hangar's Burgundians roar their defiance 

General Primus with obvious Germanic tastes 

Genaral Nexius who isn't above showing the heads of previous enemies as an example of what happens when defying his rule.

I decided to use my Late Roman/Germanic collection as it's my largest to play a kind of civil war of two rival Warlords. I did need to substitute some units for others as I didn't have enough of a particular type. For example I didn't have 3 cataphractarii units on one side rather just one and the other two were equites(normal cavalry). There were more substitutes, but I think the overall impression of Late Romans with Germanic allies fighting Late Romans was achieved. 

A mighty clash of cavalry led by Cyperus himself!

More clashes of the cavalry looking for advantage.

Hangar charges with his Burgundians, but Aux. hold their ground.

Back and forth the Auxiliari's and Burgundians fight, but neither can seem to get an advantage

In the cavalry duels Optimer's heavy cavalry manage to outflank one of Cyprus forward pressing units.

Optimer's riders crush the enemy underfoot

Disaster for Cyprus as both he and his cataphractarii are shockingly ridden down!  

I was always holding back from playing To the Strongest! as I didn't think I would like the grid system and the cards instead of dice.....I was wrong to say the least! I really liked the grides as it just made moving units so easy without any fuss and the process of flipping cards was more fun then rolling dice I found. Also, since I could take my time I didn't feel the game drag as often happens when learning new rules. I found myself completely engaged as to what would happen and not wanting to stop playing which is a very good thing. It was a very tense game with charge at the end deciding the game!

I thought maybe the cards on the table would be distracting, but they were not as I picked them up after each "division" was completed and the attack/save cards were played off battlefield. Really like the way the victory medals were worked especially with the amendments. Do you really want to rally that unit? Could cost you victory medal in doing so. I won't explain To the Strongest! here, but those that play will get that. Quite a few interesting choices to make in that whichever side your playing you are making decisions.

Nexiust seeing his cavalry flanked destroyed and his right flank bogged down decides a desperate charge of his legions to break Primus center is the only chance he has before his flank will be set upon by cavalry

Auxiliarii vs Auxiliarrii, Legionarii vs Legionarii and Warlord vs Warlord clash in the center!

Nexiust and his Legionarii's desperate charge pays off and they break both of Primus's Legionarrii's sending them scattering and Primus himself being dragged off to safety by his bannerman.  

Remember when I said that I was worried that my preference for one side could lead to unconscious bias to the side I was playing......well I lost so that answered that! To the Strongest is an excellent game and if I had to nit pick I'd say not having the units base to base takes a bit from the visual, but that can be easily adjusted simply by making the boxes smaller, but I wanted them "standard" until I'm more comfortable with the game. I highly recommend playing To the Strongest! and I plan on playing many more games in the future along with Simon's For King and Parliament and his yet to be released Age of Reason(Corporal John?) ruleset for 18th century warfare all which are right up my ally with a focus on fighting armies.

So It looks like wargaming will continue through a combination of solo and friends which is a very good thing for me indeed and has already fueled my desire to paint more units to fill in the gaps of my existing collections and grow others. Other rulesets like Field of Battle and TFL also look promising for solo due to friction in activations which I think is very useful in solo wargaming. 

Thanks for viewing!

American Howitzer and British 3 Pounder "Butterfly" Artillery

 

Like usual it's been awhile since my last post which is mostly down to laziness as I've finished a few units since the last one, but also my productivity has been down largely due to not much gaming, but more of that on another post.

First up is an American Howitzer. I don't really know why I did it as they don't feature in many scenario's. I suppose just because I liked the look of it and the crew and the off chance I'll need one.

It was fun to do as I got a chance to experiment with white a little bit. Another thing is I decided to stay with a dark red brown for the wood of my artillery like my first one for my Americans. I plan on a few more artillery pieces for them, but probably shouldn't need too many.

Next up is a 3pounder "Butterfly" gun to go with the 6 pounder I already have. I will probably need a few more British Guns then American so more will be one the way at some point.

I really do like the uniforms of the British artillery crews in particular the southern dress as they do look rather spiffy and professional. The wood they used was also a nice grey just really adds to the effect. Another bonus is they are easy to paint in comparison to some of the other uniforms the British wore!

Well that's it for now, but I'll probably post another unit this week since I still have some vacation left.

Thanks for Viewing!

Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

Von Donop Hessian Regiment

 

Finally started my Hessians for my AWI collection in the form of the Von Donop regiment to kick things off.  I just kept putting off doing Hessians, because the uniforms I knew would be a challenge....not as challenging as the British early uniforms, but for sure more complex then the Southern campaigns I have mostly been doing with the Americans and British.

The unit is modeled after the Von Donop regiment which can be read about on Wiki at your convenience, but truth be told I pretty much use regiments as a way of keeping variety in my force and some historical grounding, however in game terms they will be used whenever I use Hessians not just if Von Donop was present(bonus if it is!). 

The Hessians/German mercenaries often had this straw color to the uniform as did this regiment, however as you may have noticed mine do not. The answer is pretty simple in that I really dislike that color for large portions of a uniform and reaching into my bag of liberties I changed it into a buff color which I prefer.

Like many of Perry's miniatures they are demanding to clean and paint(I thought I was going to pull my hair out doing the musicians!), but the payoff is well worth it. The Perry's hit the nail on the head with AWI and imho captured the period better then anyone, but they sure make you work for it!  

In addition to this I have even more backlog coming and much of it AWI which is fitting considering the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the war I've spent a lot of my time attempting to model and game. It's a toss up between the AWI and ACW as to my favorite period. As far as looks probably AWI, but for reading probably ACW, but either way both have remained consistently my favorite. Every time I do other projects I eventually come back to these two. Always more to do!

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures  

Nap. Russian Infantry #1

 

I actually did this unit quite awhile ago, but didn't post it yet. They are my first attempt at painting a 28mm Napoleonic unit(not figure) and I had a great time! I think a huge reason for that is the figures themselves are superbly sculpted and casted and are some of the most painter friendly models I've done! The figures if you don't know are from Front Rank(now under Gripping Beast) and are exactly right up my street in terms of style and sculpting as alluded to.

My approach to painting Napoleonic armies will be similar to how I do my ACW armies in that the units will be small so as to better work in relation to the table I have in my hobby room. My table is 5ft x 8ft that I can extend to 5ft x 10ft if needed. I could go larger, but to be honest I wouldn't want to as it would get too cramped. In terms of rules I like rules where the player sets the size of units like Field of Battle 3, Black Powder etc. In addition I prefer fighting portions of a battle rather then the whole thing so all in all it works out for me in this approach to unit sizes. 

 A note on how I paint my figures. I paint my figures with the idea of being largely historically correct, but I will take as many liberties as I want to get the look I'm after regardless if it is accurate or not. In other words rule of cool is in effect in my projects. This unit is an example of that in which I like the look of units with some in greatcoats and some not although my understanding is they would either be one or the other. If you see something incorrect then half the time it will be deliberate and the other half ignorance.:-)

I'm currently painting a French unit to figure out my colors for the armies and then I plan on bouncing between the two with the intentions of adding Prussians into the mix as well....Front Rank or Calpe hmm... maybe both. This of course is a long term project because time needed to paint it all and the cost(mostly metal) as I'll largely be using Front Rank, Calpe and maybe some Victrix if I can push through assembly process. Oh the Flag is from Flags of War I think if anybody was curious.

I've noticed I'll need to add a spot of matt varnish again here and there as a few got some shiny areas. Oh well things you notice after taking a picture. I'll try and post some more stuff as I now have a bit of a backlog. I'm so lazy taking pictures and posting!

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company-Front Rank