In case you were wondering

Since all my non-battle posts have only featured Americans so far I thought some might be wondering if I have British troops for my AWI collection the answer is indeed I do.:-) As a matter of fact I have more British then I do Americans and this is the reason for the concentration on painting Americans, and I also like painting Hunting shirts and militia. :-).

The British featured here are not painted by myself, but rather figures I bought already finished. They were painted nice and cleanly and I got them for a great price so I was very pleased.  However, I did have to do some touch ups on the paint jobs and paint out all the eyes as they had a Marty Feldman "bug eyed" look. I personally stopped painting eyes on my own figures years ago as it's totally unnecessary IMHO at 28mm, and realistically you would not see them, plus you have to paint them perfect on each one or it will actually detract instead of improve a good paint job. They were also based singly so I had to pop them off and re-base them onto my standard multi-base stands for my collection.

The figures are mostly Front Rank and not very good in terms of sculpting , but in defence of Front Rank which I happen to really like btw these are some of their older sculpts. Currently in other ranges they are producing some of the best figures on the market so I really hope they go back and redo their 28mm AWI range as I'd be buyer! One unit I have no idea the manufacturer(Hinchcliffe?), but these too are not to my taste. Anyhow, like I said they were all cleanly painted and a great price so I'm not complaining as they look just fine on the battlefield!:-)

This pretty much covers my regular and light British regiments for now, but I need to add some Grenadiers, Artillery, Commanders, Loyalist units, and some German allies yet. So plenty for me to personally paint up for the crowns forces.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Front Rank, Unknown?

Dry Climate/Arid Battle Cloth and thoughts on gaming

I've been meaning to do a a more arid battle cloth for quite some time as my current battle cloth has limited me to Europe and North America in full summer bloom with rich greens and plenty of healthy vegetation and grass. So, yesterday I set to work in toxic fumes to see what I could do. This new battle cloth opens up the Mediterranean, parts of Africa, Asian coastal or near water source areas, North America and Europe in late summer or hotter drier periods. Overall I'm pleased, but it still needs more work I'm sure, but I'll need to have some games on it with troops and terrain to better see where I'm coming up short.

On the gaming front I and others from the group have been thinking of ways to consolidate our rules so as to spend more time gaming and less time reading. We game once or twice a month and so it can be quite sometime in between games and so we often forget the rules and have to re-read things.

Black Powder I think is a great choice as a default rule set as it's easy to learn and collect for and is pretty fun. Sure, you will probably find period specific rule sets that are better, but that comes with a cost of having to re-learn them over and over again unless you virtually only play one period. Since we like a variety of periods using black powder weapons it seems wise to use a more all purpose rule set where you need not worry about reading the rules before and during games.

Ancients is bit more difficult as we have Armatti and Impetus camps(I love Impetus, but others are put off by all the errata). We have yet to try Hail Caesar so I'm hopeful everyone will like it so we can move to a consensus on something.

Skirmish is difficult to have one default rule set, but we are looking at trying to focus one to each period which will help.

Perhaps it's our age? where we are looking less for the newest and coolest rules, but the easiest way we can get our toys on the table and play.

General Otho Holland Williams

The figure isn't modelled exactly after General Williams and is listed as a Continental officer and will likely often be used this way, but I like to give names to my figures and regiments to bring them more to life so to speak. More on his background can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otho_Holland_Williams. He will start off as commander of my Maryland Brigade.

I really like the sculpt of this figure caught in the middle of giving his command and is my favourite from the Perry's Continental officers from both their own range and earlier Foundry range they did.

Oh I just got the Perry plastic Continental Infantry box set to include the Washington figure of course and while I'm not a big plastic fan it's still pretty impressive in what you get. You get two standard bearers which is great as that allows for two units and a great selection of coats and hats which includes my favourite the hunting shirt and turns the sometimes mundane marching pose into something very interesting indeed. I have quite a few ideas bumping around in my head. Oh, they also give a great uniform guide(albeit I recommend avoiding the purple as it wasn't all that common) and some flags for those of you who don't have any.

Happy Easter Holidays!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

 

Orange County Militia (NC)

My next unit is another militia unit and since I really like the southern battles one can never have too few of these. The Orange County Militia (NC) is from the roster of Guilford's Courthouse serving under Butler's brigade. Information is pretty scarce on them which is the case with most militia units for this period as they tended to just gather for local defences and were not organized like the state or Continental army which contained slightly better records. Also, it didn't help that some records of them were burned in a fire. If you find something I encourage you to please leave a little bit of your knowledge which I would appreciate. Suffice to say they had great trouble standing up to British regulars(not surprising), but could hold their own against loyalist militias and if used properly could be quite effective.

I personally really enjoy painting militia as you have a lot of latitude to do as you please and let your imagination roam, plus your painting palette really gets a chance to breath. I tried to give them a look of a few returning regulars or ex-military mixed in with the civilian locals. The figures are Perry and Foundry and the lovely flag is from GMB designs.

I'm not sure what I'll do next, but rest assured I will be doing more AWI at some point and those new Perry Continentals have all kinds of possibilities that I can't wait to try out!

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Perry, Foundry

Ghulam Lancers

Sliding these 15mm Ghulams in before I miss the complete month of March! Many things have conspired to slow me down to include having to scrap an entire unit of Late Romans that just looked horrible and will now need to be stripped and repainted. Then when almost finished with another unit of AWI Americans I ran out of painting mojo I just started watching way too much TV and reading blogs, books, forums, looking at miniature companies for the next buy. To help me get back on track and have something to post this month I decided to go small and add another unit to my Ayyubid Impetus army.

These Ghulam's are from the wonderful 15mm Legio Heroica range and are a real treat to paint up. All the shields are hand painted, but the banner is from the superb LBM flags and transfers. More Ayubbids will be coming off my desk for sure.

Lately our group has been discussing doing more 15mm in Ancients/Mediaevals and even Naps in an effort to get some more variety into our gaming as the 28mm large army projects take very long to develop and while progress is being made on them a considerable amount of time is still needed on most. We have been doing a lot of 28mm skirmish gaming, but would like a break from that for awhile. So this year I will be doing more army based projects in 15mm along with continuing on with expanding my 28mm collections of course. Not sure of the ratio yet, but hopefully something like 50/50 even split on both scales.

Now, back to those 28mm AWI Americans and finish off the unit so I can clear my desk and decide what I'll do next as that's always a mystery to me!:-)

Thanks for looking!:-)
Miniature Company-Legio Heroica

Saxon onslaught and thoughts on this years projects

Hi folks I thought I would post something that I rarely do, but should do more often which is group photo's of collections. This is my complete Saxon warband for Dux Britanniarum as it stands now. It will get larger as I will add more during the campaign and eventually it will form the core starting force for a Dux Bellorum / Impetus army. I will also do a Late Roman force for Dux Britanniarum /Dux Bellorum/Impetus armies. I expect a lot of action from this period as Nick here is also doing both Early Saxons and Late Romans where we will combine our figures for some big games!:-)

I'm currently working on AWI which has really captured my interest again in a big way and at good time too. I'm trying to paint up the AWI lead mountain before the release of the Perry Continental box set that looks to be superb! I'm not a big fan of plastics, but there are exceptions and this is one that being the Perry Continentals box set which offers you the flexibility one really needs for creating the diverse uniforms of the American armies. As you need the diversity not only in different units, but within individual units. Oh, and they also released mounted  Continental dragoons that look fantastic. When it comes to the AWI period one is really spoiled for choice!:-)

Well, that's where I am now and as usual everything is subject to change, but that looks to be what I'll be doing for awhile.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Musketeer Miniatures, Foundry, Crusader

1st Maryland Infantry Regiment(Smallwood's Regiment)

This regiment is pretty much a must do on many AWI enthusiasts list of units to do as they fought in both the Northern and Southern campaigns with distinction. It terms of the American army I consider them to be an elite regular regiment.

The regiment was first raised on 14, January 1776 under the command of Colonel William Smallwood and fought in most the major battles of the war including The New York  Campaign, Battle of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Camden, Guilford Courthouse before being disbanded on 15 November 1783. The regiment really stood out on Long Island where it virtually by itself  earned the nickname "The Maryland 400" by holding off  some 2000 British long enough for Sterling's entire Brigade to retreat and join the rest of the American army intact by charging the enemy some 6 times, before itself withdrawing. They fought stubbornly in most engagements and only retreated when ordered to do so.

When deciding to do my first Continental unit in coats I knew the first regiment was going to be the 1st Maryland. They were originally in brown hunting shirts, but I decided to do them in the latter Continental army regulation uniform of blue coats with red turnbacks. I painted them to look somewhat like the painting from H. Charles McBarron 1st Marylanders at Guilford Courthouse which I've long admired, but took some liberties. What I like about the painting other then the drama is how it shows even this well equipped regular army unit isn't perfectly uniformed and is how I picture American units to look and not surprisingly is how I model and paint them. It was fun to paint the unit, but time consuming with the color changes all the straps which I find difficult.

The figures are a mix of Perry and Foundry(early Perry) and the awesome flag is from GMB designs. A little on the flag in that to my knowledge nobody knows exactly what flag the 1st Maryland carried so I had the freedom to pick and choose what I wanted. Since GMB does two conjectural flags for the 2nd Maryland and I only use one flag for my American units I decided to give one to the 1st Maryland and the second I'll give to the 2nd Maryland. Since I really like the flag I was very happy to have the choice! 

More units coming soon(ish)!

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Perry, Foundry