Shiny Napoleonics… My first building.

Greetings.

I have just finished my first building for this project…

It has taken me quite a while to decide what buildings to use/make for this project…

I suspect that I will include some of the ex Airfix buildings that are now made by Dapol…

https://www.dapol.co.uk/shop/model-accessories/self-assembly-oo-kits?page=2

But what I actually wanted was something with a European feel…

I have looked at and bought samples of resin, mdf, plastic and even paper… they were actually all fine and good models but the size and look of most of them just did not click for me…

And then I saw these…

https://sarissa-precision.com/products/european-timber-frame-town-set-15mm

As you can see … they are for 15mm figures.

This works well will my thoughts on the footprint of wargames buildings… 

For large scale battles I like my buildings to represent a built up area rather than individual structures so for me the smaller footprint works better… and in this case it also has a decidedly old school look about it.

So I purchased a sample to see how it looked…

https://sarissa-precision.com/products/european-timber-frame-farmhouse-15mm

I spent a lot more time painting this than I initially intended as my original idea of just painting it in flat colours looked…. Flat!

So I decided to repaint it more in keeping with usual style…

The Walls are… Citadel… Balor Brown… Which has been give a wash of… Citadel… Seraphim Sepia Wash. This was then dry brushed up with Balor Brown then Balor Brown with a touch of Foundry Boneyard 9B.

The Roof is… Citadel… Tuskor Fur… Which was washed with… Citadel… Reikland Flesh Shade. This was then dry brushed with Tuskor Fur. Some of the roof tiles were painted a lighter shade to add visual interest.

The Timber Frames are… Contrast… Gore Grunta Fur with a touch of Doombull Brown added.

The Chimney Stack is… Citadel… Tuskor Fur… Which was washed with… Contrast Darkoath Flesh and then dry brushed with Tuskor Fur.

The Windows were blacked out using… Contrast Black Templar.

The Frames are… Citadel… Corax White.

The Shutters and Door are… Citadel… Dryad Bark… with a wash of… Contrast… Cygor Brown.

Everything was given a spray of… Citadel… Munitorum Matt Varnish.

(Spellchecker has a field day with these names 😁)

A bit more effort than I expected but I am very pleased with this…

Here it is with some toys…

The base was cut from a 3mm Cake Board.

I shall definitely be ordering more of these buildings…

The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...

https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

All the best   Aly.

Shiny Napoleonics… French Artillery.

 Greetings…

I have finally finished basing three French artillery pieces…

The crew have been painted for a while but I decided to repaint the guns because I wasn’t that happy with the colour of the carriages.

The crew are all Minifigs S Range and Intermediate Range, the officers and guns are from the current (1980s) Range…

Line Foot Artillery…

Line Horse Artillery… I suspect these are conversions… mainly because the heads fell off when I stripped the paint off…

Guard Foot Artillery… There are also a couple of conversions here… the gunners with the portfire and the  cannon ball… both converted from the chap with the trail spike.

A couple of dashing Horse Artillery Officers

Come and get it if you dare…

I am very pleased with these, the uniforms are relatively simple-colour wise-but they look very stylish and stand out well… I am glad that I took the time to change the colour of the gun carriages…

The Tunics are… Citadel… Kantor Blue.

The Red bits are… Citadel… Evil Sunz Scarlet.

The White Gaiters… are Citadel… Pallid Wytch Flesh.

The Belts are… Citadel… Corax White.

The Officers Gold Braid is… Citadel … Retributor Armour mixed with some Foundry Ochre Light 4C.

The Gun Barrels are… Citadel… Retributor Armour.

The Gun Carriages are… Foundry… French Gun Olive Green Shade 109A.

The bases are as always...
https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/round-cornered-bases/

The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

As always everything was given a wash of Aly’s Brown Liquid and highlighted with the original shade…The belts were given an extra highlight of pure white and the gun barrels were also lightly dry brushed with Retributor Armour plus some Silver.

There is more shininess to follow…

All the best   Aly

Crimean War… Another rebased unit.

 Greetings…

Here is the latest of my rebased Crimean War units…

This time it is the French Guard Voltigeurs.

Another pleasing unit I think…

The epaulettes and shako pom-poms certainly add a nice bit of colour.

These were painted by the very talented Phil Robinson.

The Miniatures are of course by Great War Miniatures and Standards are from North Star Military Figures…

https://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=20&cat=175&page=1

And the bases are as always Warbases…

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/premier-bases-metric/

I think it’s going to be slow and steady with these…the next units in line are a couple of battalions of Russian sailors…

All the best    Aly

Crimean War… Rebasing.

 Greetings…

Things are a bit slow on the painting front at the moment…

Mostly because I have been painting some Shiny Napoleonics French Hussars…

There is so much (As my mother used to say) Falldaroy and La-De-Da on these uniforms it takes forever…

So… here are a couple of photos of some of my rebased Crimean War collection…

First up… French Guard Grenadiers…

Next up some Russian Infantry 

A little encouragement goes a long way.

I honestly can’t say that this has been fun… there are a few more finished units… mostly Russian, so they all look pretty much the same…

When I can clear some space on my table I will take some shots of them all together…

The Miniatures are of course by Great War Miniatures and Standards are from North Star Military Figures…

https://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=20&cat=175&page=1

And the bases are as always Warbases…

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/premier-bases-metric/

So… back to the Hussars…

All the best.  Aly

Shiny American Civil War… The first Union unit…

Greetings…

So as the title says here is the first of my Union units for this project…

I have painted them as a standard Regular Infantry Regiment..

I have after some consideration decided not to use any of the figures Dave Andrews gave me for this project…I will however hang on to them as one never knows how the wind may change…

I am going to use Jacklex Miniatures as much as I can… Their relatively simple design and full on retro feel is something that I really like…

As to the composition of the armies I am using the Action In The Plattville Valley scenario from Donald Featherstone’s War Games as a guide…

Six infantry,two cavalry and one cannon a side… it’s a good start and allows me to have a reasonable collection to build on and game with…

Of course these numbers are as always a guide and not a rule…

So… here it is…

I am indeed very pleased with these…

One off the things that took some time was my indecision about what to do about flags… In the end I went for the old Flags for the Lads range that I picked up many years ago and over painted the somewhat ‘pixilated’ images …

I know… Why take the easy option?…

The Tunics are… Citadel… Kantor Blue plus some Caledor  Sky.

The Trousers are… Citadel… Hoeth Blue.

The Snap Sacks are… Foundry… Charcoal Black Light 34C.

The Guns are… Citadel… Mournfang Brown.

The Water Bottles are… Citadel… Russ Grey.

The White bits are… Citadel Pallid Wych Flesh.

The Blanket Rolls are… Citadel Administratum Grey.

The Leather Good and Backpack are Black.

As always everything was given a coat of Aly’s Brown Liquid and highlighted with the original colours.

The figures are from Jacklex…

http://www.jacklexminiatures.com/american-civil-war

The bases are as always from Warbases…

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/round-cornered-bases/

The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...

https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

This feels like a nice start to this project and I look forward to adding more as time goes by…

All the best   Aly

Crimean War… New toys.

 Greetings…

I decided to treat myself and have some toys painted for me…

As I have been steadily reorganising and rebasing my Crimean War collection I thought I would get young Mark Hargreaves at Over Open Sights to paint the Heavy Brigade.

He agreed with me that this would be a jolly jape…

The Heavy Brigade and the Light Brigade are both a bit problematic when it comes to fitting them to my basing principles for this projects….

I have been using my now fairly usual system of 1 stand for a tiny unit,2 stands for a small,3 for a medium and 4 for a large… 

Even though there really isn’t quite enough men to justify it, I have decided to make the Heavies a four stand unit… It’s more about what looks good rather than what is totally accurate… I will probably do the same for the Lights.

The problem is trying to fit five different regiments into a twelve man unit…It doesn’t divide well.

Fortunately most of the brigade look very similar so we went for…

The Scots Greys… for the command.

The Inniskilling’s… nice yellow facings.

The 1st Dragoons… blue facings.

And the 5th Dragoon Guards… dark green facings.

Here they are in all their glory…

I must say I am extremely pleased with these… Mark has done a splendid job with them…

There are some additional photos on the Open Over Sights Blog…

http://over-open-sights.blogspot.com/

There are some details of their famous charge here…

https://victorianweb.org/history/crimea/paget/heavy.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Balaclava

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-balaklava

The miniatures are by Great War Miniatures…

https://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=20&cat=175&page=1

The bases are from War Bases…

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/premier-bases-metric/

All the best   Aly

Shiny Napoleonics… The French 18th Infantry Regiment

 Greetings all…

This unit is now finished…

It took a little bit longer to finish than I thought it would…

Removing the extra greatcoats took up a lot of the time and the real world the rest…

Anyway here they are…

I really like how these chaps have turned out…Greatcoats often come over as rather dull things but by going a little lighter that I was initially thinking it has made them stand out and look colourful…

The Greatcoat is… Citadel… Administratum Grey.

The Trousers are… Citadel… Pallid Wych Flesh.

The Bayonet Scabbard is… Citadel… Skrag Brown.

The Water bottle is… Foundry… Buff Leather 7B.

Green bits are… Citadel… Warboss Green.

Yellow bits are… Citadel… Averland Sunset.

Red bits are… Citadel… Evil Sunz Scarlet.

As  usual everything was give a wash of Aly’s Brown Liquid and then highlighted withe the original shade.

The bases are as always...
https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/round-cornered-bases/

The paints are Wargames Foundry and Citadel...
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

The Flag is GMB Designs...
https://gmbdesigns.com/product-category/28mm-range/28mm-range-napoleonic-wars/

So it’s back to re-basing and re-flagging my Crimean War collection… considering how few units I have finished so far… you won’t be seeing a parade for a while… there are however some nice new additions on their way 😁

All the best.   Aly