A mixed bag of scales!

6mm Irregular Miniatures, 20mm Les Higgins and 25mm Minifigs on the desk at the moment having completed last week more 15mm Peter Pigs! 

The 20mm WSS cavalry are Cadogan's Horse painted Sunday and Monday, another gloss varnished unit for Tony. The British Light Dragoons and another Russian infantry battalion (in caps) are the latest additions to the Crimean project with another Russian battalion to paint today. I need more Russian infantry as they will have a lower fire combat rating than the British. This will represent the fact that many were still armed with smoothbore muskets rather than their ability to fight stubbornly.

I'll be starting a 19 figure unit of lovely of French line infantry, 25mm Minifigs next for John, I still love the sculpting style of these figures, presumably the work of Dave Higgs (?), traditional metal  dolly and solder masters that have an instantly recognisable style. The old box art also brings back floods of nostalgia for me, reminding me of my many trips to the Rye Stamp and Hobby Shop in Peckham SE London owned by Bill Brewer.

Below: Latest recruits to the Light Brigade, Light Dragoons. All Irregular Miniatures of course.

The ACW's for Graham are going home today. As mentioned previously I had issues photographing the green of the Berdans uniforms, could not get it to look as dark as in the flesh ( I'm still using my older IPhone camera so maybe it's about time I tried something new), but rest assured they all look far better than they appear here!

And a few 6mm shots to finish with for now, British on the march as the Russians look on, Lord Raglan raises his hat as they pass.

6mm Crimean War parade (with video!).

The Crimean War project continues to hold my attention, I'm really happy with what has been achieved so far so felt it time to layout everything I have painted to date. Thirty odd bases is enough to be getting on with for the time being although I will still be adding to them going forward, but I really want to focus on making some terrain boards for them to fight over now. I want to try to reflect the sparse open landscape of the Crimea as they just don't feel right laid on the bright green cloth. I'm developing my rules based heavily on the C&C combat and morale system, tweaking the square rules for example for allowing an infantry unit to stand and fire at charging cavalry in an attempt to 'bounce' them before contact. By this period the majority of the British army was armed with percussion cap rifle muskets, initially the Minie with the British made Enfield rifle musket being issued from late 1853. This solid and reliable weapon of .577 calibre was a huge technological advance over the smoothbore flintlock weapons carried at Waterloo almost 40 years earlier and infantry had little to fear from a cavalry charge. Worth noting that many Russian infantry were still armed with the obsolete smoothbores at this time so I need to reflect this in my rules.

I re-watched the 1968 film The Charge of The Light Brigade yesterday, not seen it for a while but really enjoyed it. Trevor Howard gives a splendid performance as Lord Cardigan commanding his beloved 11th Hussars (The Cherry bums), and gets some great lines "If they can't fornicate they can't fight". I enjoyed the Alma scenes very much especially the Guards and Highlanders as they struggled to take the high ground after crossing the river, stirring stuff indeed. Lord Raglan was portrayed as something of a confused old man, complaining to General Airey about the presence of the French Allies and still convinced they were the enemy! Raglan had of course served on Wellingtons Staff at Waterloo where he lost his right arm. I found the cavalry charge scenes actually quite moving.

Anyway, here's another short video of what I have so far, the mass effect of this scale is what I really like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H6bzY4zj9o

That Monday morning feeling - Lumley's (shiny) regiment of Horse.

Fine morning here, coffee imbibed and dog walked it's time for my bowl of porridge and to prep up for todays painting. 

Lumley's Horse (dark blue facings) now have their coat of shiny varnish and I must admit it's growing on me, I'm starting to see why the vintage soldiers look so good on the blogs as it really does lift the colours. They are of course 20mm Les Higgins with a couple of Irregular Miniatures command figures (I think?). A few shots before they get tucked away, there is another unit to paint which will be Cadogans Regiment of Horse and these are of course for Tony.

Today I'll be finishing off a 28 figure unit of Berdans Sharpshooters for Graham, more lovely Peter Pig figures before painting another 36 figure Confederate unit, advancing at Right Shoulder Shift Arms, the classic ACW combat pose.

Added another base of Russian Jager to the 6mm Crimeans and over the weekend I made a couple of round hills for the card table. I'll be laying everything out for a few shots when I get the time later this week and hope to add a second battery of guns per side before I do so. Another order is due from Irregular within the next couple of days, they turn their orders around so quickly that they arrive within a few days and sometimes sooner!

A few more 6mm units and terrain thoughts.

This morning I finished off the base of another Russian infantry unit, the first wearing the distinctive  flat topped cap with red band. Some fine detail on these tiny sculpts and very crisply defined. I find I can paint a base of 36 infantry or 12 cavalry in a round an hour long single session to a standard that is most pleasing to the eye. I like the variation in poses - something you won't really find with Baccus - and this unit are marching with shouldered muskets. I have also over the last few days painted another British Line battalion (white facings), another Rifles skirmishing base and most pleasing of all a 1st Battalion of Greek Legion in traditional attire - these standing at ease with grounded muskets. I based these on the illustration  shown below of the Greek Legion at Sevastapol, as there were 2 battalions of them I need no further excuse to add another to my next order.

Next in line are some units of French infantry and cavalry. I tend to paint these after my daily commission painting, so you can see in the photo's below Lumleys Horse of the WSS in the background just awaiting  final checks and gloss varnish. I have another horse regiment to paint, also for Tony this week before reverting to more 15mm Peter Pigs ACW's for Graham next week then back to Old John! 

EDIT: painted the first French line battalion yesterday! Here they are, sporting the plain blue frock coats with red trousers. the little flag works a treat I think and they will fight shoulder to shoulder with the British who will of course envy them greatly for their superior supply chain, food, clothing and medical care. Zouaves to follow after Chasseur d'Afrique.

6mm Terrain - giving it more thought. 

I have been doing a lot of thinking about terrain this week and have come to the conclusion that these little bases deserve something more than a plain green cloth to fight over. My plan from the start was to make fully textured terrain boards for them, which to me is one of the biggest advantages of the scale. So that's what I'm going to be working on next.

76 Volks completed & 6mm terrain.

I finished the 76 Volkssturm figures for Alister on Saturday morning with the two machine gun teams. Once again a quick video seems to give better results than my phone camera, please excuse my gruff voice! They will be heading home to Brighton Monday morning.

I'll prep up another 9 figure regiment of 20mm WSS cavalry this evening for Tony and these will be painted this week along with a 28 figure unit of Peter Pig Berdan's Sharpshooters for Graham.

So with a free Saturday afternoon I decided to take the plunge and mark out my folding card table in a 75mm square grid by carefully dotting out just the corners with a yellow paint. The results are pleasing as the grid is quite difficult to see when you stand back a couple of feet or so. The previously made woods sit nicely into 2 squares and it's possible to place a unit base along any edge to represent it being inside rather than placing it on top! The first experimental hill was made from 4 layers of 5mm foam board covered in matching green cloth, superglued on the underside and trimmed round. I'm pleased with it as the one thing I really do not like about the 'Portable Wargame' concept are square hills. The road needs to be narrower and slightly more twisty I think so that's the next job along with field textures to break up the bare green. I'll be basing everything on the same thin plastic sheet as the figures to avoid any hard edges where possible. 

I'm working on pulling the rules together now, I won't go into detail yet but suffice to say they are mostly Commands & Colors based with a simple DBN style activation roll so no cards and squares instead of hexes, and a DBN inspired roll for attacker/defender with defender choosing which of the four table edges to defend while the attacker deploys opposite and get's the first activation throw. 

. I have just one aim with this and that's to have some fun with quick play easy set up, portable style wargames that allows me to indulge myself in painting tiny soldiers and messing around with terrain! 20 units completed now plus command stands, I have another British infantry unit on the go to be followed by a unit of Greek Legion in traditional attire.

Volksstrum progress and more Crimeans.

 As of yesterday I have painted the first 48 of the 20mm Volkssturm figures, all so far packs VSO1 and VSO2. All 75 will be finished by the weekend, I'm saving the command, the character and MG packs until last! Working in batches of 12 works well with these and features a good mix of uniforms, civilian clothing and equipment, as expected  they are very rewarding figures to paint. I'm trying to keep everything quite muted with just the odd splash of a brighter colour here and there, the military uniform would have been whatever could be laid hands on, mostly with all patches and insignia removed. Ex Luftwaffe and 'Brown shirt' shades also feature scattered throughout. They look a lot better close up in the flesh, there's a lot of subtle shading in there and the arm bands are three colours, red/white and then black through the centre which required an incredibly steady hand and fine brush!

Crimean War in 6mm. I'm really enjoying putting this little lot together. I have added more infantry for both sides and a unit of Dragoon Guards for the British. I have enough now to play a small battle which I hope to do at the weekend on the folding card table to begin with. To this end I decided to attempt a couple of small woodland areas and as a change wanted to create a more 'top down' effect as befits the scale. The base is cut from 5mm foamboard painted Burnt Umber top and edges and then lines added all around the edges in a lighter shade, in this case Flat Earth. I had a huge bag of clump foliage sitting in the drawer so selected large lumps to glue around the top edges before gradually filling in the entire top. I'm actually really pleased with the look, of course the bases will need to sit on top but in this scale that won't look too bad during a game. I have also painted up some Battlescale buildings. The only reference I could find was of small white houses dotted around the harbour at Balaclava so these will do for a small village for the time being until I can further research. 

On order are Russian Infantry in caps, some lovely Greek Legion infantry, some French line infantry and Chasseurs d'Afrique and another battery of guns for both sides. There is of course the prospect of Turkish and Sardinians down the road too! 

Latest additions, another British regiment of foot and Dragoon Guards. I will just knock the helmets back to bronze as they look a little too bright after I touched them with Gold and I don't have Brass!

Below, a bit more work on the edges needed I think, maybe lighter vertical lines and fill in any gaps.