Nice bright morning so took a few shots on the C&C board. It's difficult to catch the shade of green of the board as it always tends to photograph on the yellow side, but main thing is I'm very happy with it all so far. Added some light infantry bases and a couple of Guards plus first of the woods and town hexes and I'm making topper tiles for the 10mm foamboard hills. Coming along so well that I'll be playing a first game over the weekend.
The 2mm bug has clearly bitten me once again and I'm having a lot of fun playing around with making bases for use on the C&C game board. Getting a lot of positive feedback and comments on the FB 2mm group page which is really boosting my enthusiasm for the scale and the new project. It's great because it allows me to work on something fresh without impacting on my commission painting time, just an hour or so spent on these bases can be very productive.
So as you can see below more new bases have sprung off the painting desk over the last few days and I am now happy with my chosen basing style. Tile grout has been used to build up around the figure bases and a lighter shade of green applied closer to the game board. This has been highlighted and far more subtle 'dirt/muddy' areas applied - the plan green was just a bit too plain for my liking.
I reckon another week or so will see enough finished bases to have a first little game! I have plenty of blocks laid in here from Irregular Miniatures along with a stock of bases, 55mm hexes and 10mm (yes 10mm!) MDF circles to make loss markers that sit nicely with the scale. I only intend to use the hexes for making woods and towns/village bases and to this end I have bought some of the lovely 2mm scale metal buildings from SmallScaleScenery (Brigade Models). Hills will be raised by using 5mm foamboard with a hill hex laid on top, I'm keen to retain the boardgame look and feel but with a few additional hexes made from MDF. The game board itself has always been a thing of beauty to my eyes and despite attempts with printed cloths etc I still prefer the board itself. I have been re reading the rulebook again and reminding myself of some of the nuances of the game, the procedure around forming squares, combined arms attacks (with supporting artillery) cavalry retire and reform, bonus attacks, cavalry breakthroughs etc.
I attempted a base of French cuirassiers and after some time spent thinking about how to make them a bit distinctive decided to try and add a few touches of silver to give an impression of armour against the blue coats. You see them below and I'm pleased with how they turned out but I should add that I'm working on a small dot colour coding system on rear of the bases in order to identify different types of units at a glance. All great fun if a little challenging in the diddiest of scales!
Note to self - let the damn varnish dry next time before taking pics!
Commission work is ongoing alongside of course and this week I'm painting more 'Empire' Fantasy units for Simon, once again very enjoyable figures to paint. Next week I have lots more Peter Pig 15mm ECW horse for Graham along with several Matchlock 15mm command figure which I have not seen for years but are really good sculpts. More 20mm WSS French cavalry are in the pipeline for Tony and of course I always have figures here for Old John. I'm grateful for the support from these guys as my painting service has been really helpful for my mental health, the hours of concentration and focus and the results gives me a real sense of satisfaction at the end of each week when I look at the results so thank you all.
Finally, the extensive collection of the late Clive Smithers will be going up for auction from 27th May as I'm sure many are aware of but by way of spreading the word here is the catalogue link to the auction house handling the sale.
Some may recall my only previous attempt at doing something in 2mm scale (here). While I did give up that particular project and passed it on to JBM who took it to another level I have continued to eye up the pages of the Facebook 2mm scale wargaming group. A couple of weeks or so ago I had a idea, why not make playing pieces featuring 2mm scale Irregular Miniatures blocks for use on the Commands & Colors Napoleonics board? So I placed an order to see what might be done and the initial results are as you see below. I THINK I'm happy so far, just wondering if I should build up the bases a little more to disguise the unit bases and to blend everything in a bit more but I'm going to avoid the usual grit and static grass because I want them to match the game board. A coat of satin varnish has been added to the entire base to give a semi shiny finish that I quite like.
These are of course British units, 4 'block' line infantry, 3 block Rifles, 3 block heavy cavalry and 3 block foot artillery. Today I'm going to do some French bases and meanwhile I have loads more on order plus more of the 25mm x 40mm bases from Warbases. I have added some 10mm discs to the order to see how they function as loss markers that could sit on the rear of the unit base. While I intend to play the game straight as it is this time - including Command and Tactician cards - on the board I just might make up clump foliage wood bases and possibly BUA bases using the metal 2mm buildings from Small Scale Scenery so a couple of packs of 55mm hexes are also on order. I doubt I want to go any further than this to start with although I have made 5mm hill hexes from foamboard that the terrain hex sits on top of, mainly to give a better impression where line of sight is blocked by raised ground.
If this all goes to plan then there is the possibility of Spanish/Russian/ Prussian and Austrian armies for use with all the expansions that I have, it would potentially offer me endless scenarios both official and unofficial playing the only wargame that I truly enjoy these days.
So what do you think I should do with the basing?
EDIT: The first of the French units painted this morning in no time! Waiting on bases. All drybrushed over flat black undercoat, 3 colours blue jackets, sky grey trousers and (with a very fine brush, in this case the Psycho) sunny flesh picking out the faces. I went a step further by adding a few dots of red and yellow to the tops of the flank companies which I think has lifted them. The cavalry are Dragoons so green coats and a touch of gold to represent the brass helmets - 4 blocks for the French cavalry in C&C.
A quick update on what I have been up to since the last post. As you can see I have a few more 20mm's painted for Old John including the lovely Strelets Spanish cavalry regiment of 12 figures. I really enjoyed painting these and was provided with several colour references which really helped, and the flag was painted from the reference. Also here are 16 German infantry (light blue uniforms, 12 muskets and 4 pike), 4 Gunners and a general of Artillery (all in red), plus a Spanish (Catalonian) command group in blue uniforms with red facings. I believe the infantry are a mix of Warrior, Hagen metals and the artillery General is a plastic figure by Mars and a very nice figure he is too!
Another 13 Russian Streltsi (plastic by Strelets) command to finish Johns most recent box by Friday then Monday I have a weeks painting for Simon, more lovely 10mm Fantasy units.
Steve Clay of 'Battlescale' (who I have known online for many years since his days as a carpet fitter) was kind enough to send me his painted examples of the new 3mm scale range that he has sculpted and very nice they are. We wanted to see how they looked when used alongside 6mm figures and I'm pleased to say that they work very well. Took several photos for Steve to help advertise the range. I see a lot of armies being 3D printed now to 3mm scale on Facebook so I am sure these will prove popular, the level of detail in these tiny buildings is wonderful.
And finally for now..... a new project! 2mm Napoleonics for the Commands and Colors boardgame. I'm very excited about this idea (little things etc), placed my first order with Irregular on Monday and received postage confirmation Tuesday, now that's what I call service. Can't wait to get the painting underway.
May I just add that if anyone reading the blog knows of someone looking for a reliable UK figure painter I'd be grateful if they would point them in my direction please! Good Wargames Standard at a reasonable price and NO upfront payments whatsoever along with a swift turnaround. Cheers.
Lee.
I recently decided that making weekly blog posts was becoming a bit pointless so in future it's just going to be as and when I feel like it! Clearly blogging is not what it used to be but I like to keep a record of everything I paint and do here so most certainly will not stop blogging!
Commission stuff.
With Johns most recent batch of painted figures returned to him, (including the Minifigs carriage with which I think it's fair to say he was extremely pleased), I painted the latest 15mm ECW's for Graham, this time some cavalry plus 24 artillerymen, before moving onto the two latest WSS French regiments of horse for Tony, all of which have gone off in the post today. next up are a regiment of 12 Catalonian mounted Dragoons for John, more lovely plastic Strelets. If I have just one issue with the Strelets cavalry figures it is that it is a bit of a challenge to get the riders fully seated down onto the horses, it does require a bit of careful trimming inside the legs and a decent quality liquid superglue that sets quickly as each figure needs to be held firmly in place by hand until it sets. The tendency is for the riders to spring back up otherwise. Once set everything is good to go and once again they are wonderfully detailed figures. I thought the horses looked a little small for the riders until I remembered a recent phone conversation with Tony (Foy) where he mentioned this set and the fact that dragoons of this period were issued with smaller mounts than the line cavalry so it's obviously an accurate touch. On the way are more 'Empire' Fantasy 10mm's from Simon.
6mm Crimean War project.
As far as the Crimean War 6mm project I have reached the point where I can focus on playing some games with them and just paint the odd additional bases as and when. Both armies are now of equal size with each consisting of:
12 bases of line infantry @72 figures (864)
3 bases of rifles/light infantry skirmishers @18 figures (54)
5 bases of cavalry @24 figures (120)
3 artillery batteries @ 2 guns and limber teams.
So the entire collection so far exceeds 2000 painted figures.
I had another bash this week on the card table, a 10 x 10 (75mm) grid using smaller armies than previously. I'm convinced that a square grid is the way to go for me rather than hexes, but a slightly larger grid is required to allow better placement of terrain around the bases and a more traditional wider board to allow more play on the flanks. To this end I am going to make a dedicated 4 x 3 portable board from my Geek Villain textured mat, carefully dot it out in 90mm squares which will create a 10 x 13 grid. From the other half of the cloth I will create numerous hills as in the images below but covered to match the rest of the board which should look good. A lot of thought and planning has gone into this decision over the past couple of week, playtesting a C&C based game on the square grid, making a number of textured MDF hexes ( I just really want to move away from hexes this time) and working out the ideal size of grid to fit a 4 x 3 dedicated board. Hills can be made as singles or more realistically to fit into several squares with more irregular shape but with the grid still dotted out on the surface. All of this will finally come to fruition over the next week or two.
Latest addition to the Allies is the first of the Turkish bases. References seen to vary on the shade of blue so I went with the lighter. Thanks to Bob The Old Painters Crimean blog, very useful throughout my project.
