New pages added.

I have just added the first of two new pages to the links bar at right -  first is my 15mm British/Loyalist and Hessian soldiers collection, which will be added to as things progress. I hope to add the American troops page tomorrow.

Hardy's Ale, Hinton Hunts and other matters.

Bit of a mixed bag today for you photo wise, been quite busy on the commission front but I have still managed to get a bit of painting for myself and added more command figures to the 15mm AWI's. This collection is really coming together now and expanding at a fair rate, to the point where having so many singly based figures is getting a bit of a drag. I have reinforcements coming from Peter Pig (hopefully tomorrow), so I'll keep painting as I'm really into this period now and the PP's are just perfect for my painting style. As you can see I have experimented with some movement trays (of course from Tony at ERM), but I'm not sure they work in this scale for me, would be great for larger scale figures though. I'm continuing to stock up on 55mm hexes for the new board.

Commission work.
'Town Guard' unit number 2 for Tony completed (20 figures) plus a 12 figure firelock unit. For John I have painted 3rd Georgia Cavalry Regiment, these are Hinton Hunt figures and charming little figures they are too. I have more HH (Union) cavalry to do plus these fine castings of ACW standard bearers and artillery officers (below). Don't think I have seen such nice flags before and I will enjoy painting them...... certainly preferable to painting a plain cast flag.

Hardys Ale .... 1981!
Had this bottle on the kitchen dresser since moving into this house in 2003, and never really thought much about it, but I took it down for a look the other day and it says it keeps well for 25 years plus!! Could it really be drinkable still? Thought I would take a couple pics for 'Steve the Wargamer' a man who clearly enjoys his beers.

As the wife and daughters are off to London next week to see 'Jessie J' at the 02 arena and will be staying up there overnight I'm planning a run of solo C&C AWI games, and I hope to bring a small engagement from the White Plains Campaign to the table.

Loadsa pics.....

20mm firelocks (for Tony's collection).

'Town Guard' unit #2 (for Tony's collection).

Hinton Hunt Confederate Georgia cavalry - 20mm - for 'Old John's' collection.

A few more command figures in 15mm .

A trial movement tray.

20mm Hinton Hunt ACW figures - for John's collection of course.

Just look at those flag castings!

AWI plans and more 20mm figures painted.

I have taken the plunge and decided to increase my AWI unit sizes for more conventional games. Plan is to keep the figures individually based for use on the C&C board but to expand each unit up to (initially) 10 figures each. I have had this in mind for some time now and in fact most of my 'units' already consist of 8 figures - Peter Pig supply figures in packs of 8 so it's just made sense to paint them up - so I'm working on adding command figures/drummers etc to bring them up to 10. As I am adamant that I won't re-base I'll use textured mdf bases to place the figures upon for larger games. This will of course require a larger hex board (100mm) or possibly experimenting with playing C&C rules using distance units instead of hexes, as I did a year ago or so. Main thing is I can continue to play small games on the C&C N board as I try out various ideas for expansion.  More on this shortly - I plan to try a game on the weekend to see if it works. I should add that I have been greatly inspired to try this after lengthy reading back through Ross' fine blog ( Battle Game of the Month).

As I have had a number of bags of Pendraken 10mm ECW's lying around for a good while here I thought I'd paint a few to see how they look (pic below). The figures are superb little castings as I would expect from Pendraken, but I'm sticking with AWI now.

Commission work.
A few pictures of latest work off the bench - more 20mm ACW's for John and the first of two units of 20mm ECW 'Town Guards' for Tony. The brief with these was to present 2 x 20 figure units of 'local militia' types who might turn out to defend their home town or village against attack. They are not fully trained or uniformed as yet, but some vestige of common coat colour can be seen here and there (a slightly grubby yellow in this case). Weapons are mostly improvised farm tools (as Tony said, they look like they are about to sort out your borders!) but with a small pike block. The odd smattering of old armour and cheap buff coats completes the look.

John's figures include Reb and Yank cavalry and more zouaves, I think all by Qualiticast. The galloping horses are some of the best I have seen in any scale.

Thanks to Andy for sending me the 10mm AWI British and Hessian forces to fight the Americans I previously painted for him, I plan to get started around beginning of  November. This project is just slightly short of 1.000 figures and will feature here as I progress. Andy very kindly included a copy of the Mollo AWI book for me to keep and a fine source of information it still is.

As usual lots of pics!

10mm scale ECW's from Pendraken.

14th Brooklyn Regiment - 20mm scale.

Completed these this morning for John's collection - 14 figures representing 14th Brooklyn Regiment. These are Qualiticast 20mm figures and very fine castings they are too. I have a fair number of Qualiticast ACW's to do for John, all superb figures.

The 14th were hotly engaged at Antietam during the fight for the cornfield, moving up in support of the 6th Wisconsin as described by Dawes of the 6th.

"The Fourteenth Brooklyn Regiment, red legged zouaves came into our line, closing the awful gaps. Now is the pinch. Men and officers of New York and Wisconsin are fused into a common mass in the frantic struggle to shoot fast. Everybody tears cartridges, loads passes guns or shoots. Men are falling in their places or running back into the corn. The soldier who is shooting is furious in his energy. The soldier who is shot looks a round for help with an imploring agony of death on his face. After a few rods of advance the line stopped and, by common impulse, fell back to the edge of the corn and lay down on the ground behind the rail fence"

Some thoughts on AWI Militia units.

In the small AWI battle I fought yesterday an entire flank of militia troops crumbled without the British regulars getting to grips, but rather firing steady non moving volleys (2 hex range - 5 combat dice for 4 block regulars when standing and firing - this is the Napoleonic C&C chart for line infantry with no changes). The dice were reasonably good, but it was not so much the losses that did for them, even though British musketry did thin the ranks, but the retreat flags that sent most of them flying to the rear. Also, my militia units only take 3 hits before they are lost so between the hits and the retreats the entire flank was swept away! When they did return fire (before heading off) it was largely ineffective, taking 2 redcoats who were recovered a couple of turns later on a 'Rally card'...... useful little card to hold.

Funny enough Tony had pretty much the same experience I think in his French v Spanish Napoleonic C&C game recently ( read here), so I don't think I have got things too wrong for my militia, they behaved pretty much as I would have expected, and in fact I pushed them forward hoping they would at least inflict some casualties before they broke. A lost militia unit under my adaption does not deliver a VP, rather like the Cossacks units in the Russian expansion.

First unit to go was surprisingly Hessian riflemen, caught between 2 units of continentals who moved up before firing, then followed up with a charge which routed them totally. All in all a fun solo game and I remain very happy with the overall look of things.

Steady British regulars advance against the American right - militia supported by artillery.

Loyalists - Queens Rangers and Kings Royal Yorkers move on the right flank.

American artillery field of fire.

Militia - who chose not to put up too much of a fight!

Continentals on the hill.

Overview - entire American right flank has collapsed!

I do intend to make a new board, but I keep putting it off as I know it's going to be tough going marking out all those 55mm hexes. Occurred to me that I could even extend the size of the board by a few hexes each way for fighting bigger games...... I just wish there was an easier way to do it?

Commission work.
Some more of the 20mm ACW's I'm painting for John - we have below Union Revielle set, 5th New York Zouaves command group and 3rd New Jersey cavalry- the 'Butterflies'. I'm now working through the 14th Brooklyn Regiment with red kepis.

14th Brooklyn - currently on the painting desk.

All below for the collection of 'Old John' - 20mm scale.

3rd New Jersey Cavalry.

5th New York Vols - command set.

Wakey wakey boys!

New page added - John's 20mm ranges.

Just a quick note to say that I have added a link at right to a list of 20mm figure ranges sold by 'Old John' and regularly featured in this blog as I paint for him. I have included some pictures of painted figures as examples. Contact details can also be found on the page. If you are interested in 20mm metal figures then it's well worth a look to see what he has available.

Just about done now!

As the Commands & Colors for the American War of Independence project nears completion I'm already thinking about what to do next! Learning my lesson from previous projects I will not be tempted to take this much further as I now have more than enough figures painted (over 200 individually mounted figures) and the board is looking just how I want it to. I might add a few 10mm buildings of the period, free standing to sit on the town/village hexes and to be removed when occupied ..... simply because I like model buildings! I resisted to urge to use flocks and grasses etc, keeping everything to a basic board game style. I have made some roads - again for effect as they play no part in C&C - and I hope they may provide entry points for example for future games. Now the emphasis will be very much on the games, and I hope to try remote gaming shortly.... anybody be up for a trial run once it's ready?

But what next? I want to do very much the same thing with a different period now. But I don't want to have to paint hundreds of miniatures so it has to be a period where the individually mounted figures look right and I want to try something fresh and new to me. I have to say that I am VERY tempted by Memoir44. Having been following Conrad Kinch's games and reports on his blog I'm convinced it would be something I would enjoy putting together. Peter Pig make some beautiful figures and re watching Band of Brothers has certainly reinforced my interest in that form of infantry based combat. We shall see where this goes.

Commission work.
I'm settling back nicely into this now after some time off. Below are more figures for Old Johns collection- 20mm ACW's of course, by OOP German maker Debbeler. They are the Yankee camp musicians set, and the Yankee punishment set featuring a lovely 'wooden horse' and poor guy sat astride it ....ouch! Arriving soon will be the British and Hessian forces in 10mm to oppose the previously painted Americans, this time almost 1,000 figures strong - a six month project to run alongside work for John and some more ECW's for Tony. For this reason I will not be in a position to take on any further commission work until at least the New Year.

Could not resist trying the roads etc for a few pics..... a column of Hessians with skirmishers in front march resolutely along it. I'm really pleased with the overall effect and now it's time to get some games played.