CSA WIP

Well, I'm back to work on another commission, again for Glenn Drover, and again for ACW figures in 28mm. This is a much smaller commission, allowing Glenn to fill out his armies a bit. I'll be painting 72 infantrymen and 26 casualty markers.

I'll be breaking the work into three stages. First I tackle the Confederates, who with their motley dress are always more difficult to paint. My blog has been awfully quiet recently, so I'm putting up some in-progress shots of the rebels. After a little more than a week of work, this is what I have done.

I'm nearly done; I just have the blanket rolls and skin highlights to do before I move on to touch-ups. Below you can see some close ups of some of the figures. Please keep in mind that the figures are between four and eight times actual size (depending on your monitor) and that I haven't done my touch ups yet, but I think you can see where I'm heading with these.

FOG Republican Romans: Principes

My Field of Glory Romans just got a big step closer to completion. I finished the two units of principes, which leaves just the velites, triarii, and one more cavalry unit to complete.

My WAB army is made up entirely of Old Glory figures. As I wrote earlier, I wanted a different look for my Field of Glory army. These are all Crusader Miniatures figures, packs ANR008 "Principes / Triari with pila / spear" and ANR004 "Legionary Command." The shield transfers are all from Little Big Men Studios. Bases are from Litko.

Since the FoG army list seems to use two legions as its starting point, I went with two shield designs. The units with the boars on its shields carries boar standards. The Crusader figures come with a choice of banner or totem-style standard, neither of which seem right for Roman legions of this period. I emailed Old Glory and offered to buy some animal standards from their Punic Wars line. Not only did they send me just what I needed, but they did it for free!

The second legion carries shields with an eagle wing emblem, so I gave them an eagle standard. Although the eagle would eventually become the symbol of all the imperial legions, at this earlier date it was just one of many different animal symbols in common use.

I had hoped to finish this army by Christmas, but I'm going to have to set it aside for a while. I just got a large ACW commission in, and it will take some weeks to finish. Watch this space for in-progress photos.

14th Brooklyn

Here's the latest unit I've finished for Regimental Fire and Fury, the 14th New York State Militia. All of the figures are Old Glory.

The 14th "Brooklyn" NYSM, mustered into federal service as the 84th New York Volunteer Infantry, but kept the 14th Brooklyn designation, rarely being referred to as the 84th NY. Lincoln himself was impressed by their gaudy chasseur uniforms, and the regiment received the nickname "Lincoln's pets" because of the attention he paid them.

The 14th Brooklyn was present at every big battle the Army of the Potomac fought from Bull Run to Spotsylvania.

This regiment has 18 stands, representing 720 men in the RFF rules. We've been playing mostly early war scenarios, and I've been surprised at how many of the regiments are this large. I'll probably not limit this unit to portraying the 14th NYSM, but will use it to add a little color to my Union forces in many scenarios.

15mm Confederate Generals

In between other projects, I spent about three hours this week painting up some generals for my rebel army. All figures are Old Glory except for the standard bearer, which is from Musket Miniatures.

I'm trying to field my ACW armies as quickly as possible, so I'm just painting them to a good wargaming standard. The only shading or highlighting I'm doing is on faces and hands.

I'm not sure that I'll ever use the band for anything, but they are cool figures and I wanted to see what they looked like painted. I only spent about an hour on them.

15mm ACW Artillery

This first: I hate painting limbers. I can't figure a way to paint them in pieces, so I build the whole thing, horses, crew, and all, and fix it to its base before painting. Same thing with guns. They both present some difficult angles in to which to fit my brush, and I can't really use my assembly line process to best effect.

So these 17 guns are a big accomplishment for me, even if the painting is nothing special. Now I should have enough artillery to play most Regimental Fire and Fury scenarios.

All the guns and crew are Old Glory. The limbers with more than one crewman are from Stone Mountain. The limbers with a single crewman are Frontier.

Eureka French Revolutionary Wars Austrian Infantry

Since I clearly do not have enough separate projects already, I ordered a few samples from Eureka's "Wars of the French Revolution" range. I've always thought it would be a blast to focus on one of the early campaigns, before Napoleon was emperor.

Eureka started the range a couple of years ago, and they've added to it steadily. Eureka seems to be focusing on Napoleon's campaigns in Italy for the moment, although the Eureka USA site lists some 1799 Russians.

The figures are very expensive, $2.30 apiece for foot and $5.25 apiece for mounted cavalry. For that price, you'd expect some amazing looking figures. I think these miniatures meet that description.

First, these figures are big. Even for 28s. I make them 30mm from bottom of the foot to eye level, or about 32mm to the top of the head. I didn't take any comparison shots, but I will gladly mix them with other manufacturers, at least in separate units. There's no worry about mixing within units anyway, since no one else makes early Austrians.

The sculpting is excellent, with good detail and very little cleanup required. Eureka uses a nice, stiff alloy, so there will be very little bending of bayonets and such.

Should I ever clear my painting queue of other projects, I will definitely buy enough Austrians to play out some Italian Campaign scenarios with General de Brigade.