It's all coming together now and fits comfortably into my painting alcove on top of the desk. 750 x 750 for solo DBN to my own '1776' variant. I painted a quick backscene on 5mm foamboard which I hope will improve the aesthetic appeal of the battles.
With around 250 figures painted I can't go much further with this project but I'm very tempted by the Peter Pig Wars of the Roses range as a follow up.
A few photos taken today of the general set up and the British/Loyalist/Hessian force on the march!
Pleased with the simple backscene..
And the latest short video from 'Gruff Mumbling Productions' shows a general overview of the project
I continue to be busy on the commission front with batches completed for Old John and Noel.
I finally managed to get the 15mm Steel Fist cavalry based and finished off with tiny hand made/ painted flags (cornets) as I could not find any downloadable ones and had used all of the Epic flag sheets. I think they look fine so these will all be off to Noel before end of the week. This six regiments plus six command bases completes the ECW commission and we are now back to Epic ACW again with another four infantry sprues, additional metal command strips AND a complete set of the elusive METAL Iron Brigade! I note that Warlord are about to re release these in resin at long last.
For Old John I have painted the following rather large batch:
Ukrainian Cossacks, (Redbox, made in Ukraine), Registered Infantry (30) Zaporozihan Infantry (24) and Peasant Infantry (24).
WSS in Spain, Phillip V Grenadiers (BUM from Spain, Resin and somewhat 'soft' fragile but highly detailed). 1 Mounted Officer, 1 officer on foot, 10 Grenadiers.
French Gamaches Cavalry ( BUM from Spain, resin riders on metal Les Higgins horses x 6 plus 1 Minifigs standard bearer and one Irregular Miniatures trumpeter on Les Higgins horse.
Albani Dragoons mounted Drummer.
All in all a nicely varied and enjoyable paint. This week it's back to Epic Napoleonics for Stephen who has sent me an additional 8 battalions of French infantry in 80 figure units which will be broken down over a couple of months. I find two battalions (16 strips) is a comfortable weeks painting and Stephen is doing all the basing himself and adding flags.
A base of British Grenadiers added to my growing AWI collection along with a bunch of based up casualty markers. For the artillery I made a couple of 'shaken' markers from Peter Pig guns which I'm rather pleased with too. I'll be adding more including Indian and cavalry markers.
Setting the scene.
With much of the scenery and terrain ready now I have had a cunning plan regarding the card table battle field. I had been giving a lot of thought as to how to improve lighting quality above the table for photographs and then had an idea! My painting desk sits in an alcove with lamps on both sides, the desk is 60cm deep by 90cm wide so it's possible to place the card table (75cm x 75cm) with legs folded up onto the desk, against the wall and set the lamps back on either side above it, perfect as the solo games can be played from my comfortable office chair. The final touch will be to add a hand painted North American backscene around three sides to create a kind of model railway style 'Cameo' look which I hope will add to the overall aesthetics. I'll be tackling this little project this week and have been researching 'how to' videos on YouTube.
Research, research!
Speaking of YouTube I have been watching/ listening to a lot of AWI related videos so wanted to mention a few here. I have to say that my love of the period started back in the 1980's when I went to watch a re enactment at Audley End House in Essex put on by hundreds of Americans who had travelled to the Uk for the event. All had been supported by the US Air Force who provided logistic support, travel and accommodation at a local base, to say that it was spectacular would be an understatement and somewhere I still have the full colour programme of the weekends event. After the battle we got to speak to lots of the participants and to ask questions about unfirms and equipment so I was hooked.
These days I follow the '10th Regiment of Foot' who make excellent videos on all aspects of a British soldiers life during the war. Channel link: https://www.youtube.com/@HM10thFoot
Another is the excellent 'Woodland Escape' from which I have learned so much about rural life in the 1850's onwards so if you want to understand how to strip down and clean a Brown Bess musket , to hand make a pair of Winter moccasins or an authentic period hunting shirt or even build a long hunting rifle from scratch using period tools then I would recommend this as a great channel when painting. Link: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWoodlandEscape
Another I must mention is Brandon F who offers an engaging and very well researched channel on military subjects of the 18th and early 19th centuries. I have long been interested in the development of military headgear, especially the Tricorne and how it turned into the so called Round Hat worn by many British units in the AWI (yes, I'm a bit Geeky like that!) and so this one was right up my street, if you enjoy it and find it entertaining please do let me know what you think?
If you like it maybe check out more of his videos as painting background, I also recommend his piece on the wearing of White bearskins - is there any contemporary evidence - by some British Musicians and even Grenadiers in the mid to late 18th Century (I said I was a Military Hat Geek).
I'm continuing to paint additions to the 15mm AWI project including a base of Hessian Grenadiers, French Chasseurs and the first of what will be casualty (hit) markers using Peter Pig markers rather than small MDF discs. These should enhance the visual appeal of the game when based on textured 25mm circular bases and I'm going to cover all uniform types where I can for example red, blue, white, hunting shirts, green and even Indians! In DBN a unit receives a marker for a first hit (no effect), a second hit and the unit becomes Shaken with a second marker and a third hit means the unit is Destroyed and removed from the table. The markers will be left strewn around the table as bases are removed.
More on order along with circular bases.
French Light Infantry so only 8 per base.
Another thing I have done is to add picket fencing to around the homestead/village bases (Non Linear Fortifications in DBN), again mainly to enhance the visual appeal. After much searching a came across this product on eBay, lase cut from card and just £4.75 for 4 x 20cm lengths. At 15mm tall it works well enough scale wise I think and I simply super glued it to the outside edges, really pleased with it.
I am also working on typing up the DBN play sheets to include the '1776' adaptions and to remove all troop types which were not present during this period in order to streamline the rules for example 'Guerrillas' becomes 'Indians' as the closest classification but with increased close combat factor.
7th Cavalry sculpts by Andrew Stadden.
Mark has sent me the first image of his specially commissioned sculpts representing dismounted 7th cavalry at Little Big Horn. Photo quality is not great but they look very good indeed and I'm looking forward to being able to paint them in due course. The mounted Indian is a US Scout.
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