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Monday, April 29, 2019

Ohio Militia - Stage 2: painted (that makes an army!)

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I was super enthusiastic to get these conversions ready for the table, and so they bumped up the paint schedule and a quick job was made of them.

Statesmen-like
Accounts generally describe militia clothing, especially that of frontiersmen, as browns and greys, and so I largely stuck to that palette, with stockings in a variety of lighter shades, and a couple of dark waistcoats poking through.  I elected to go for an issued look to equipment to give a semi-regular feel; it also sped up the painting!  The drum is based on period equipment and illustrations which suggest fairly plain equipment for militia troops.

With these done I can field a legitimate 24 points of Rebels & Patriots Americans for 1812:

Murica!
Most of the models above being converted plastics, the majority of those being Perry Miniatures, the metals being mostly Knuckleduster except for the mounted officer, who is an old Hinchcliffe one-piece casting.

All told, technically ten years work; I painted the first of these in 2009!  The latter troops finished in the last couple of months, quite a gap.  Still, it means I can get these to the table soon.

In the mean time, I guess I need to work on British and Canadian troops now; so to that end I've started some Canadian Embodied Militia:

Kit bash...
Mostly made from a batch of Victrix Waterloo British donated to me years ago, with a few Perry parts and some custom Green Stuff to remove their packs and add tall hats.  These will get painted soon, but before then I'll discuss a little one specific new tool I used to help make them..

Stay tuned...

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Friday, April 26, 2019

Cheapy Creepy Crawlies

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Just a quickie today, before some good stuff to follow.  I picked up a couple of decent toy spiders from a local Garden Store, with the intention of adding them to my Dungeon Dweller/Kobold collections:
Stan for scale
After a simple repaint I think they came up rather well.

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Thursday, April 18, 2019

Bavarians - 1st Kronprinz Chevau Legers

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It's been a little while, isn't it often, but I've finished some more 15mm Bavarian Cavalry:

Warrior Miniatures

From rear

Warbases laser cut bases by the way
More to come in due course, only about half an army done so far.

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Monday, April 15, 2019

Tensions on the Border

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Clementia and Gebrovia were always at daggers drawn, and any excuse could have turned such petty nations against one another, as it was the attempted looting of Gebrovian army pay was enough to ignite reprisals along the border.

An order came down from the Ducal leadership, to the effect that high ground on the Border outlying Ungray Pliskie must be seized to allow for watch towers to be constructed.  Forts in this otherwise informally controlled land would allow the protection of Gebrovian interests, or so the argument went.  But it would come as no surprise that the Clementian forces in the region would disagree.

Gebrovian patrols had already caused alarm in the Clementine speaking farmsteads of the area, but the humble farmers would soon have more to concern them when Junior Lt. Izgnatia Plostnoy arrived with a company of infantry and a squadron of horse.  This was enough to alarm the regional Clementian command into action and they moved a local garrison to the same region.

Mostchern Hill and the surrounding Clementine farms 
Izgnatia took command of a couple of dozen horsemen, whilst a hundred or so infantry advanced through the woodland on the border, into fields traditionally part of the enemy's land.  Their goal ahead was the heights of Mostchern Hill, a rocky and defensible peak usually home only to hardy sheep.
But not today...
The Clementines were prepared with a company sized force of their own, Plus two of the Battalion guns from their local garrison.  However their commander did not yet have a sense of the Gebrovian  intentions.

A notorious drunkard, Izgnatia neglected planning, and his orders were vague at best, rushing forwards in a sense of hubris, he and his cavalry set off the the right of the hill, whilst his infantry muddled their way forward.  An advance in the dawn light over difficult terrain made things no easier.  Early errors saw a platoon of Skoe Brana foot fire on their light platoon, clothed as it was in new blue coats, intended to better hide a soldier in shade and cover.  Instead the blue drew fire until the mistake was realised.


Not us!! 
All seemed like disaster at this stage as a clearly intoxicated Izgnatia roared charge on sighting an enemy gun, and led the Gebrovian cavalry off the slaughter.  Several men were killed and the commander wounded by a mix of cannon and musket fire.
Disaster on the right. 
The cavalry were scattered, but under cover of the attention this failure drew, Light troops of Skoe Brana made the heights, whilst a platoon of fusiliers secured the farm to the left of the hill.

  
The Clementines advanced too, in no small part hoping to bring their guns to bear on the hill.  Formed troops of the Skoe Brana regiment gained the hill first however and a fierce firefight ensued.

  
The Gebrovians made the best of the height and pushed back both the main attack, and the flank supports.  However the Clementines remained determined, and were stiffened by the arrival of a cavalry reserve from one of their horse grenadier regiments.
But the hill remains Gebrovian thus far 
The cavalry pushed up the hill, supported by the remaining platoon of fresh Clementine fusiliers.  But luck was not on their side, and well coordinated fire from the Skoe regiment stopped them all in their tracks.

A fence as good as a fortress
Clementine troops suffered loss after loss trying to take the hill, and soon their troops were in general retreat.  Bravery had exhausted them.
  
Midday and the action was over 
By the time the sun was blazing above the hill, Gebrovians had already begun to work on earthworks.  Their losses amounted to around twenty men, in what was a hard fought engagement, but the adjutant on hand counted no less than thirty Clementine dead, wounded and captives, most taken on the heights of Mostchern itself.

Despite his lack of tactical sense and discipline, somehow Plostnoy's men had carried the day without him, and the honour of the day would find its way to his name.  Once again the reputation of of Gebrovian men in close action had been upheld.  However, it could be sure the Clementines would not allow this flagrant transgression to stand.

This was the second engagement in mine and James' Imagi-nation campaign.  For which this served as our test of Rebels and Patriots.  The rules seem ideally suited to small narrative campaigns representing company to battalion sized forces, with a functionally relevant officer career system.  We played the first named scenario from the rules and it provided a nice primer, though our model of Mostchern Hill rather restricted the flow of battle.  As you can probably see we played in 15mm using multi-based troops, neither of which proved a problem; all measurements were simply halved.

 Hopefully we'll be able to carry this on soon.

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Tuesday, April 09, 2019

Ohio militia - Stage 1: Build

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Among other projects, I'm using Rebels and Patriots to motivate me to return to the War of 1812 miniatures I first started almost a decade ago.


I've already done some painting which I'll get photo's of up shortly, but last night I whiled away three hours working on a troop of Ohio Militia, based on the Perry Miniatures AWI American rifleman sprue.

Fresh from the modelling tray
I modified them firstly by using a handful of Victrix and Perry Napoleonic parts to create an officer, drummer and a couple of different weapon poses.  The main task then was to modify the heads and hats.  

One of the two poses has a queue in the hair, which I trimmed away, being out of fashion by the nineteenth century.  Then using the supplied round hats as a base I modeled tall hats in Greenstuff.  The fashion of the time was for something approaching a top hat, but most illustrations show it somewhat disheveled.  This is not a surprise given these objects being made of felt and sometimes even just coloured card and cloth, would not hold their shape well in wild weather.  I can imagine a soldier's hat suffering greatly in a Canadian winter!

The plus side of that is that I didn't need to be too perfect with the sculpting.  Honestly I don't know how the pro's manage it, I'm doing well the blend stuff in and make passable folds in cloth or straps.  That's the limit of my Greenstuff skills.

Still these look the part, and cost only 75p a miniature to assemble; and I can move them straight to the painting tray now, as all other projects have neatly concluded.

More on them soon....

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Thursday, April 04, 2019

Whilst I'm on a roll...

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 So alongside the Star Wars models, I've worked on a few Conan miniatures.  The first two having sat on my painting tray, for some 18 months.

 
 Zelata the Hag and King Conan for starters, then as they were super easy to do, I added another five Bossonian guards to the painted pile.

 
I'm not sure what to do next with these, I haven't actually played the game in a while, but there are a lot of characters and major NPCs to paint yet.

But for now it's on to other things...

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Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Reinforcements for Imperial Assault

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Over the last few weeks I've assembled a modest haul of Imperial Assault mini's, at decent prices to boot.  I've been enjoying putting the game back on the table of late in Skirmish mode, but felt that some additional troops wouldn't hurt, particularly for the Rebels, and Mercenary faction.

 
 With, I suspect this game gradually sliding into hibernation, it was possible to pick these up at 25-50% off.  Fantasy Flight seems to be throwing its' weight behind the Legions mass battle version, with its over-sized miniatures (bigatures?).

One of the joys of Imperial Assault, and other Mini's Based board games is that I can knock out more than acceptable looking models easily and quickly using the wash shading technique.  Therefore, I was able to polish off the Hired Guns in just a short evening session:
 
Dengar, another merc will be off the paint table soon, then I can try to match the uniforms of some previous models.  Always a fun task!

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Monday, April 01, 2019

Sir James Kempt

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"Sir James Kempt (1764-1854) served as a major-general on Wellington's staff in Spain and France between 1811 and 1814 and was wounded at Badajoz. He commanded the 8th Brigade at the Battle of Quatre Bras under Sir Thomas Picton. Kempt took over the 5th Division during the Battle of Waterloo when Picton was killed in action."

National Army Museum

This is the latest of my generals for the Peninsular War, and is a combination of a Front Rank mounted commander and an old Essex Ensign I had spare.  The standard was a printed one I'd also received as part of a job lot and so it is not a precise match for any unit Kempt specifically commanded.

  
I also was able to knock up a small number of French casualty markers.  One of which we've seen before!
 
That gives me a half dozen casualty markers for each side, enough for Broken tokens in most games.

A little bit of progress is always good.

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