Saturday 14 January 2017

42nd Foot in the French & Indian War.

I decided that it was time to get down to some more French & Indian War figures and to paint the 42nd foot in honour of their valour at Fort Ticonderoga. After much research I based the figures upon some images of the regiment in 1756 uniform - which I'm sure changed as the ravages of campaigning took it's toll - so here is the first base of 8 figures. They are of course Front Rank figures, actually from the 1745 Rebellion range but close enough. All of my FIW collection are individually based, but sit in what I think of as company sized trays of 8 models. The unit will eventually comprise 16 rank and file plus a 4 figure command base. Units such as Rangers, Canadian Militia and colonials are on 6 figure bases, as are the Indians, the latter being on irregular shaped bases. Some will recall that the bulk of this collection was painted on commission for me by John from Kingscolours and I am grateful to him for his fine brushwork. But I really fancied getting down to some painting of 28mm figures again and so will add to them myself going forward.

I'm going to complete the next 12 Highlanders, the command base will comprise Officer, bagpiper and standard bearer plus possibly a sergeant, and follow these with a 20 figure French line infantry unit before adding more artillery to bring it up to 3 guns per side plus limbers etc.

Rules: I have in my mind a simple home made ruleset heavily based upon a combination of Commands & Colors Napoleonics combat system and the Sharpe Practice order card system, The game will be based upon a 6" square grid 10 deep by 12 wide. To be honest I'm just looking for a simple game that allows me to push my soldiers around the table, but that captures the flavour of FIW combat. I'm starting to get stuff down on paper, but I have a very clear idea on how I want this to work. More to follow as things develop. Just a quick note on terrain, the grid will be subtly marked out and the choice of a square grid will allow more conventional terrain pieces to be employed (as opposed to hexes). Using a 6" grid also allows for the use of all my existing road and river sections as they are all made from 12" or 6" pieces, my aim is to make the table look as conventional as possible with the grid defining movement, shooting and command and control zones etc.

First company, 42nd foot, took quite a bit of work and a week to paint!

 

   


The company forms column of march - the advantage of individually based figures.





And a few shots of some other figures from the collection as it's been a while sine they featured on the blog.







15 comments:

  1. Great work Lee - those highlander stockings are impressive!

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  2. Thank you Ian, the stockings were a challenge, had to keep the paint quite wet to keep it flowing in fine lines, it's more an impression really but I'm pleased with them. I'm bracing myself now for the next batch!

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  3. Wonderful job, love the 42nd foot!

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  4. Super painting, as ever, Lee - very nice. Wargames on a square grid - I've recently been reading RFCM (Peter Pig?) ECW rules "Regiment of Foote" - these use 6" squares and you may have 3 or more units (small footprint units) in a square. Interesting - don't know if these have any 18th/19th Century cousins, but worth a read just for the mechanisms. You really REALLY have to like rolling lots of dice, though.

    I'm definitely getting a pair of these socks.

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    1. Hi Tony,

      Thank you :) Funny you should mention RoF as I only last week watched the PP series of videos explaining how the rules work with the grid. I know what you mean re lots of dice, that's one thing that keeps drawing me back to C& based systems, you only ever throw a few dice, maybe up to 6 or so and the result is instant. I'm drawn between using standard 'distant units' and a grid, but a grid so clearly defines movement distances, ranges, retreats, command distances and terrain etc.

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  5. Wonderful! I love your work, 'Lee. The tartan technique is particularly good. I'm taking notes!

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    1. Thanks Matt, I'm not 100% happy with the tartan yet, I focused on getting the blue/green shades close as I could for the 42nd but might tart it up a bit more once the entire unit is painted.

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    1. Thank you Ross, I enjoyed painting them.

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  7. Great looking highlanders, very nice tartan from where I'm standing too!
    Best Iain

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  8. Hi Lee, just got the T34 perfectly packed, it looks great I really appreciate it thank you very much.
    Best Iain

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  9. Crikey, there's far more there than I thought you'd collected. Such a smashing effort. Can't wait to read about their ingame exploits!

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    1. Hi Dai, the collection has grown steadily, it's very much my pride and joy.

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