Painting and Modelling – Page 14

Slow progress but a few recent additions

What with a busy social schedule and a general lack of effort, I’ve not achieved much in July. Not feeling particularly big project-motivated, I’ve dabbled with a few bits and pieces instead. I’ve prepared a few items of scenery and some random figures for painting at some point in the future, and tried to press on with finishing the GW Fortified Manor, which has presented a bit of a painting desk blockage while it remains part-done.

I have managed to complete a few small items though. One 6mm cavalry unit for my 17th century Fleurians (Heroics & Ros figures as always) and a couple of 28mm figures for the same period but in skirmish size. These are a replacement for the regularly-skewered Lieutenant St Denis, one Capitan Sancerre, a Redoubt figure brandishing a sword. I’ve also painted a Warlord Games armed priest which might be useful for general use across a number of periods.

Hopefully August will be more productive!

Pics:

Once you have rivers, you need boats

I have plans for lots of Sharp Practice games set in the post-Napoleonic period, with Medetia and Fleurie again going at each other, and I fancy having the option for some riverine and amphibious actions. Now that the river bank sections are done, which can also serve as coastline or lake shores, I need a few boats for the men to use to get themselves into all sorts of trouble dealing with currents, contrary winds and the like.

I have scratch-built one in the past as a test piece, and was reasonably happy with it. However, boat building is time-consuming and I decided I’d rather see what was on offer to buy. So far I have liked the look of the Small Row Boat that Ainsty produce, and also fancy two that are available from Games of War.

I decided to order a sample of each, and the Games of War ones have arrived first (very speedy service). These are the Jolly Boat and Tender from their pirate equipment range, and lovely models they are too. They are very detailed and produced in a very light resin-type material, to a high quality. I’m very pleased with them and may order a few more. The added bonus is their price: £5 each, with free postage. The £2.80 postage the package was marked with therefore brings these excellent models down to the equivalent of £3.60 each. That’s a bargain in my book.

Each will hokd about half a dozen 28mm figures on 1 inch bases (such as those below), or a couple more of the 19mm round bases I use for my 19th century forces. That’s fine for my purposes and will pretty much allow a Sharp Practice ‘group’ of about 8-10 figures to be carried in each boat. Handy.

Once the Ainsty order arrives I’ll post a picture of their boat, and the other related item I bought..

St Angelo’s Ghosts

The last figures I painted for the May multi-player extravaganza at Ayton were a unit of Hussars. Having done exactly the same in 2013, I knew what I was letting myself in for – Hussars are not the ideal troop type to have to finish to a deadline, there’s always more detail to find just when you think you’re nearly finished! Still, despite the stress and fatigue of again finishing them on the Friday morning (the day I was travelling..) I now have another unit of Hussars in the collection.

I suspect that if I didn’t paint them to a deadline I would put off doing them indefinitely. Guess what I’ll be painting at the start of next May?!

I didn’t have an opportunity to post about the new unit at the time, but they galloped onto the table after the smoke from the recent battle at Spurlacco had cleared and posed for a few shots.

This unit is part of the Medetian army and was raised by the Cavaliere di St Angelo, a noble from the northern uplands of the country. St Angelo chose to dress his regiment in white and other pale shades and mount them all on greys (a common horse colour in the region) – hence their nickname, ‘The Ghosts’.

The figures are Perry plastic Napoleonic French Hussars, using the mirliton head option, the presence of which in the box is a real boon to people wanting to use them for the 18th century.

The flag is just a bit of clipart from the web, printed as a design onto paper and painted. As with my other Hussars, I want these to be available both for 18th century games (where standard base sizes are needed, hence the sabots) and for early 19th century games (where I need them on single bases for Sharp Practice).

This unit balances out the Fleurian Legion Hussars (Minden Miniatures) and I plan to add another similar sized unit of the same figures respectively to each side in due course (in time for the next two Ayton deadlines I guess!)

Battle honours have yet to be earned by this new regiment, although they didn’t lack for courage at Ayton. They were in the first line of cavalry that dashed itself to pieces against Iain Burt’s guns and infantry (fortunately his cavalry wasn’t on form that day or I’d have been thrashed) in front of Pescadrix. Our war correspondent’s mid-action sketch below..

Legion de Fleurie – Light Infantry

Further to my previous post on the development of this imagi-nation formation, since the Ayton weekend I have made some progress. I have continued to put off doing the main battalion (through laziness), so it was the light infantry next. The tremendous Minden Legion d’Hainault grenadiers chose themselves for this and I have kept the uniform blue and red in line with my plans for the Legion as a whole. Basing comes next of course, but I’ve run out of pre-mixed plaster so have posted anyway. I intend to add a complementary unit of Crann Tara Royal Ecossais advancing figures (purchased at Triples) as the uniform is very similar and I think they’ll work well together.

Eventually the Legion de Fleurie will muster the following:

Commanding Officer
1 Infantry battalion (30 figures)
2 Light infantry companies (12 figures each)
2 Hussar squadrons (6 figures each)
1 Light gun (3 crew plus limber)

I’ve thought about also having a battalion gun with the main infantry unit but for now I think the light field piece will do.

The first picture suffers for light a bit, but hopefully you get the gist.

A Bit of Structure

With the Ayton painting deadline behind me I have been enjoying the freedom to dabble with various mini projects. Some scenery items have included finally (the receipt says September 2010!) constructing the GW Fortified Manor kit I’ve been intending to do. Say what you like about them, but this is a superb model and decent value – at least at 2010 prices! I’ve left most of the building components separate so I can use just part of it or change the configuration as I want for specific games. I’ve also added 2 floors in the tower so that figures can be placed within on the various levels. Although it’s a fantasy model, I left off many of the more ‘Warhammer’ options to keep it as generic as possible and it will see use in 17th century skirmishes and no doubt 18th and 19th century battles and games of Sharpe Practice. Painting it will be a bit of work however..

I also spent a few minutes (literally) painting this guard hut from Warbases that I’d bought and assembled a while ago. It’s nice and simple and will be a nice scenery piece to add to the table on occasion.

I’m also currently working on some pack animals and a bit of livestock – just for variety!

To Horse!

More cavalry for the Medetian expedition to the battlefields of Granprix at this weekend’s Ayton event.

First off, some older cavalry which I’ve finally gotten around to equipping with lance pennons. This is the El Z’teeth regiment (RSM Ottomans) who fought in the sands of Byzarbia a couple of years ago. I contacted GMB Designs to ensure I got some pennons in red and blue (turned out the Silesian Landwehr Uhlans were what I was after). I touched up the white paper edges with appropriate daubs of Vallejo. They enhance the unit nicely and give them a little bit more uniformity – important now they’re off to war in Europe and everyone else is in serried ranks of splendour!

Then we come to a brand new regiment, the Saxon Rutowski Dragoons, who are in the pay of the Kingdom of Fleurie and who will be fighting alongside the Medetians in Granprix. These are Minden Miniatures Austrian dragoons, and lovely figures they are too. After talking with John Ray I came round to the idea of having some historical units among those of my imagi-nations, and this unit appealled both due to its interesting (but not necessarily glorious) history and its attractive colour scheme.

I have had these painted by the very talented James Roach of ‘Olicanalad’ fame, whose painting on his blog has always impressed and inspired me. James kindly fitted these in among other larger commissions he’s working on and has produced a fantastic looking unit. All I’ve done is base them. Little is known about the flag this regiment would have carried, so James created one based on his research and understanding of the Saxon army of the period. I’m delighted with it and hope the first picture does it justice. More unpainted cavalry will certainly be winging its way to Ilkley soon!

Obviously with all of these recent additions, I am going to be at serious risk of ‘shiny new unit syndrome’ at Ayton, but at least pretty much everyone else is too!

Latest recruits

With the big Ayton weekend galloping towards us, I’ve been hurrying to base some figures I’ve recently finished painting. So let me introduce Sebastiani’s battalion of converged Medetian Grenadiers, containing a company from each of the first 4 line regiments. This is a 30-strong unit of Huzzah Miniatures.

I’ve also added a unit of Wurttemberg Jager who are in the pay of Fleurie. These are Perry Hessian AWI figures which have lots of variety of pose. I bought a dozen on eBay which were made up of one pack of command and one of Jager. This meant I needed to convert one of the two figures carrying horns, as otherwise the unit would look more musical than martial! He’s not hard to spot, but at least I managed to arm him and paint him as just one of the guys.

Next up will be some cavalry, but with the need for some pre-game secrecy I may not post pics of them for a couple of weeks. Can’t let the despicable enemy (you know who you are) have too much information!

Bridges, bridges

Since completing my new river banks I realised two things:

1. I didn’t have enough bridges to provide the scenery options I might need for future 28mm games
2. The bridges I did have were now compromised as they weren’t designed to work with 9-10mm banks – their centre supports wouldn’t reach the water!

So, to fix problem one I decided to find a decent stone bridge model and after some web surfing I settled on the Italeri plastic kit. This provides a very simple by effective model, with a road width just under 80mm, a span of about 130mm (more than enought for my 90mm rivers) and total length of about 230mm. I ordered mine via Amazon and it came within a couple of weeks – from Hong Kong, for a total of under £14 including P&P. Not bad.

Here are the kit components, 2 sides plus a top roadway and a underside arch, all nicely detailed with stone and paving.

With box cover art to make sure I put it together properly!

Ta daa! It took about 20 minutes to put it together, requiring a small amount of prep to ensure the arches went fully into the slots on the side sections. I used plastic cement, the same I’ve used for hard plastic figures, and it worked very effectively as you’d expect. I used the old rubber band trick for holding it together while the blue dried, and the result is a pretty sturdy bridge ready for undercoating and some fast dry-brushing.

Slightly blurry picture of the finished article. Painting took about 30 minutes. Black undercoat followed by a mid grey and then a light grey build up of dry-brushes. I then used a pale yellow/brown shade for the feature blocks and covered everything with a diluted GW brown wash. Finally I gave it all a light dry-brush of Vallejo’s Iraqi Sand, which softens everything and ties into all my terrain and other scenery as I use it for pretty much everything.

To solve problem 2 I added the necessary depth to the centre supports on my other 2 bridges. The (Hovels?) stone bridge received a stack of thick card pieces, stuck together and carved to shape. They then had a scraping of quick-dry plaster before being painted to a reasonable match for the existing stonework. The Renedra wooden bridge had a couple of plasticard struts added, which were painted to match. Now my troops can cross and re-cross my rivers with abandon!

Powdered wigs and a bit of lace

Despite a shortage of posts this month I’ve not been completely idle. The figures I’ve been painting recently only had their bases painted this weekend so this is the first opportunity I’ve had to take some pics. Also, with the Ayton multi-player game at the start of May (and more specifically the pre-game campaign that Henry is going to run) there is a requirement for a little discretion about the forces being mustered in case any dastardly enemy spies are operating in Medetia!

Not much to be given away here though, so here are some command and staff figures and a new company of grenadiers from the Vantua Regiment resplendent in their new uniforms and mitres.

Minden Seydlitz figure and one of the mounted colonels. Grenadiers are Huzzah figures.

Minden Nadasty and another mounted colonel.

Nadasty again, showing the use of a bit of Rendera’s plastic fencing for scenery. Lovely stuff to work with, easy to snip bits away and takes a dry brush very nicely.

Seydlistz again, fantastic posing of rider and horse.

The daddy himself. Medetia’s General Barolo who’ll lead the expeditionary force to Grenouisse. Fife and Drum Knyphausen figure, with another Minden colonel.

In the gentlemanly spirit of the age, and for the benefit of any potential enemy agents who may be watching, I will offer the information that each of these pictured luminaries will of course be commanding a full brigade, or more, in the forthcoming campaign.

I wish!

Rivers Need Water

..and here are a couple of boards I prepared earlier (last October to be precise). They’re 4×3 feet of 20mm chipboard, so they’re pretty heavy. I’ve had them for about 15 years and in recent times they’ve been relegated to garage rafter storage duties, but I decided to renovate them with a fresh coat of a dark blue gloss paint in readiness for the riverbanks project. They’re stored behind the door in my games room/office, resting face to face with the reverse of one board painted the same colour as the wall, so they’re pretty much invisible unless you’re looking for them.

Here’s a quick set-up with some of the new boards placed on top. Obviously the addition of some trees, buildings and other scenery will enhance things, but this is the basic look I was after.

With a row of terrain squares removed the river can be widened, allowing for the off-cut islands to be used. I think this will offer me plenty of flexibility and options for different types of battlefield. I can do a large bay or inlet, a big central island, as well as straight or winding rivers. As I’m aiming to get my post-Napoleonic Sharp Practice project ready to play this year, I think a bit of water, with the odd bridge or boat, will make things interesting! These rivers, like the rest of my terrain, are designed to be used for all scales I play with, from 6mm to 28mm, and I’m looking forward to getting plenty of use from them.