20mm Frontier Militia

At the Wabash, a large proportion of Wayne's force was made up of frontier militiamen, dressed in buckskin and linen. I have always struggled to make those ragged hunting shirts look good, but this time I think I got it just right. Hopefully Bill agrees!

I have started on the American mounted figures and should finish them within a couple of weeks. Then I have 144 Indian warriors to paint, and I can get this commission in the mail to Bill!

Commands and Colors Game Board

While I have my kids at home, we have been allotting an hour and a half each day as game time. When I was a teacher, I frequently used games as a learning tool. 

My kindergartener has been practicing her reading skills with Glenn Drover's "Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates," and my third grader is practicing arithmetic and probabilities with "Yahtzee." Since my 6th grader already plays Avalon Hill's "Advanced Squad Leader" without any trouble, he helps me administer the lessons to his younger sisters.

This week we will move on to some miniatures gaming by teaching Commands and Colors Ancients, probably my favorite board game ever.  The kids and I took some plywood from our salvage pile, stained it, and glued a fabric hexgrid (available from Spoonflower) with spray adhesive. Mike McFadden, a friend of the blog, had created the graphic and arranged for Spoonflower to make it available.

Once the adhesive had dried, we applied several coats of clear lacquer to seal the fabric and place and provide a durable gaming surface. I special ordered some 80mm hexes from Litko and applied the terrain overlays using the same method.

We got some strange bubbling under the fabric as the lacquer cured. Should I do this again, I would either use a stronger initial adhesive or find some way to apply pressure while the lacquer cures. For now, though, this is certainly a good enough board for my kids to learn the game,

This also gives me a reason to break out the 15mm ancients collection. This is Alexander's army, and you can see that the 80mm hexes work perfectly with DBx style basing.

1/72 WWI Figures

These figures are super easy to paint while supervising my kids' school time: just a block paint job and the dip.

I liked these well enough that I am searching out some good World War I rules.

6mm Rose Farmhouse

I whipped up this 1:300 scale building over the past couple of days. Some of the fiercest fighting at Gettysburg occurred on the Rose farm on July 2nd. The multicolored stone and prominent white mortar made this building a challenge to paint.

28mm Greek Skirmishers

I painted these figures for my Greek Commands and Colors army, but they will do for any generic ancients skirmishers. The figures came out of Foundry blister packs, but I cannot find them on Foundry's website.

I'm still plugging away on my commission, but having to homeschool my three kids during the Wuhan coronavirus lockdown is really cutting into my painting time.

20mm Wayne's Legion: US Infantry

These 96 figures will comprise the US Army regular infantry for Bill's force. I really enjoyed painting these figures, and I think the finished paint job really pops.

2 regiments close-order US line infantry

2 regiments open-order US line infantry

2 regiments US light infantry

2 regiments US rifle infantry

Now I am working on the US frontier militia and the mounted figures. Once those are done, I will start on the natives.

1/72 WWI Highland Infantry

I'm still trying out some World War I figures. Like the early war Germans, these mid-war highlanders are from HaT Industries.

I have a couple more sets to try out, but so far I do like the soft plastic figures.

Testing WWI Figures

I am continuing to experiment with some WWI projects. This batch of figures are 1/72 soft plastics from HaT Industries. 

I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out. I think I could field an army of these fellows pretty easily.