Painting and Modelling – Page 16

At last..

.. I’ve finally finished the next battalion of 28mm musketeers for my mid-18th Medetian century army. Why is this a big deal? Because I started them in July and frustratingly ground to a halt a few weeks ago, despite being within sight of the end. This created something of a self-induced painter’s block as I was determined to finish them before painting anything else.

Although these Huzzah! Miniatures figures (from Fighting15s) don’t perhaps have as much detail as some, the uniforms of the day still make them a challenge to paint en-masse. 30 figures is a lot for me in one go, and I’m not the quickest, so units of this size require a fairly big investment of time. Seeing them ready for the table is, of course, the reward – so I need to crack on and get them based now (and add a standard). In truth, I’m also intending to add a battalion gun and a grenadier company, but psychologically it’s important to tell myself the unit is ‘done’!

In the meantime, here are the newly raised Vantua Regiment who will soon be formed up in close order ready to march off to join their comrades in the (slowly) growing Medetian army.

The lighting isn’t great today as one of my spotlights has failed and it’s very dull outside!

A new bit of scenery

I’m never one to pass up a good quality piece of scenery at a show, although I can’t for the life of me recall when I bought this one, or who makes it! The cave/mine entrance is a favourite for Hordes of the Things players, and although that’s not a ruleset I use for my 15mm fantasy games, I like this model and its handy space for a 40mm wide element in front of the entrance for a dramatic defence or the arrival of horde reinforcements.

The only modification I made before painting it was to add sand to the flat entrance way and around the edges of the base, to allow me to blend it in better with my terrain boards. A black undercoat was then followed with a few successively lighter layers of grey, and some brown for the ground, and voila, a nice new piece of scenery to go on a board edge for my next game with Orcs or Dwarves.

Before and after pics (I guess it doesn’t look that different but some effort Did go in, honest!)

Crossing the River

I’ve always been interested in battles and campaigns that involved the use of pontoon bridges. The ability to identify a crossing location, devise a plan and put the necessary bridging resources in the right place, at the right time – often under the noses of the enemy, was a skill demonstrated by the best generals and staffs.

So, wherever there’s a river on a tabletop battlefield, there’s the potential to throw a bridge of boats across it. Even if it plays no part in the game itself it still presents an attractive point of scenery interest. Although I admire other gamers’ pontoon efforts in the larger scales (Charles S Grant’s for example), my aspirations definitely lie at the smaller end of the spectrum! I have a number of 6mm armies and the potential scope of games in this size allows for grand tactical activities, including the crossing of major rivers.

Rather than have to create miniature pontoon units for each period and each side, what I wanted to do was have a single bridging force that could serve as required. This is something that 6mm is well suited to due to the size of the models but even so some nice generic (ie. drab!) colours were required. I’d had a few suitable models from both Heroics & Ros and Irregular Miniatures for some time and finally decided to get them together and finished off.

Here are some pictures of the results, on the march and bridging both small and large rivers, in a couple of period settings (Medetian mid-17th century and Frederick’s Prussians 100 years later). The bridge elements are scratch-built from card. I’ve actually got plans for completely new rivers, which will be the subject of future posts when I get started on them, but these little guys will still be able to bridge them.