28mm ACW Union Division and Brigade Command

While I continue to work on the Confederate rank and file, here are some shots of the Union commanders I just finished. "Guns at Gettysburg" is a divisional level game, with the table commander usually a major general commanding several brigades.

I'm using Grant as my division commander, with two colonels as staff. The Grant figure is from Old Glory pack WBS-69 "Union Western Personalities," although it shows Grant in the Lieutenant General's uniform he would have worn in 1864-5. The two staff members, as well as the brigade commanders below, are from WBS-67 "Union Mounted Colonels."

The division commander gets a huge base in "Guns at Gettysburg," measuring 70mm square. I'm not sure my minimalist terrain works on such a large base, and I may add some other elements to it. I wanted to make a mini-vignette, something more interesting than just three guys on horses looking to the front. I think I succeeded in creating a dramatic scene here. Obviously, something is going wrong on the right, and a remarkably ugly colonel is drawing Grant's attention to it.

I usually don't paint the eyes on my 28mm figures, but I wanted these figures to look really polished. Hopefully I kept the eyes small enough that the figures don't look like they're wearing glasses.

I shot some good closeups of Grant in the previous post, so here are a couple of his staff.

This guy is my least favorite figure from the WBS-67 pack. Although the pose is very dynamic, the face is pretty scary. Still, I've seen ugiler Union officers in period photographs. The army wasn't commanded by men with movie star good looks, after all.

This is a much more attractive figure, although the Old Glory sculptor has the poor colonel ready to poke out his own eye with that telescope. It really should be held with two hands for stability, but the casting process makes it a difficult pose to pull off, and Old Glory is not alone in this mistake.

"Guns at Gettysburg" calls for brigade generals to get a fairly large base, but I went with my standard 1"x2" mounted base instead. I used mounted colonels as brigade commanders, partly because I had the figures available, partly because Old Glory doesn't make any generic generals, and partly because Union brigades often were commanded by colonels rather than brigadier generals. I'll need five or six brigade commanders in all, so I'll either have to buy more colonels, or press Sherman, Thomas, McPherson, Hooker, and Buell into brigade command.

I really like this figure. He's a sharp looking officer, and the pose, shouting something to his men (go get 'em, boys? Hold, damn you? Why are you running?), would have been pretty common.

The other brigade commander is a dapper officer smoking a cigar. The black horse and the officer's black hair gave my camera fits, and the figure itself is better looking than these photos indicate.

Both these brigade commanders wear a sash under their belt, but the sculptor left off the distinctive tassels (which you can clearly see on the officer with telescope). It's a minor defect on what are otherwise very accurate figures.

So here's the whole shooting match. As I wrote, I do need to add a few more brigade commanders, but the federal army's command is coming along nicely.