168 Man Project Day 2

I put in a couple hours yesterday and painted all the overcoats and trousers on these figures.

Today I will try to get the forage caps and muskets painted.

168 Man Project

I have been in something of a painting funk lately.  Nothing can kick start my painting like a large group of American Civil War figures.  I painted up those command figures in winter attire last week, and I have no troops for them to command!  I prepped 168 Union infantry from Raven Banner Games.  All these troops are in overcoat, so speed painting should be a breeze.

Yesterday I got the hair and face basecoat done.  Today I am working on their overcoats and trousers.

I'll have more pictures up tomorrow.  I would really like to hammer these out in a week.  I've never painted so many 28mm figures that fast before, but it should be doable.

Colonel MacPhee, ACW

Mike from Minuteman Miniatures sent me a package with my head on several ACW miniatures!  Pictured below are two versions of me in 28mm, one Confederate and one Union.  

The Confederate colors are from GMB Designs.  The Union colors are from Old Gunny.  I asked him to do the 17th Vermont, in which my ancestor, Private Henry M. Winsor, served.

The miniatures are from Raven Banner Games.  They make a nice match with the Minuteman sculpt!

I tried a different basing scheme for these winter attired troops.  Instead of bright green grass, I went with a dead brown.  I added a few patches of snow.

I have a couple of mounted me left to paint.

A Few 28mm Ancients

While rebasing my Gallic army last month, I realized that I could use some more command stands.  These twelve Old Glory figures came off the painting desk last week.

I also needed two more German cavalry to make up a full twelve man unit.  These are from Gripping Beast, I think.  Has Gripping Beast retired a bunch of their ancients ranges?  I looked for their Germans, Celts, and Romans, but I could not find them on the Gripping Beast website.

Gettysburg Game

It's not too often that I serve up a stinker of a scenario, but that is exactly what happened last weekend.  Jon and Kevin joined me to game the first infantry action at McPherson's Ridge on July 1st, 1863.  I took the Union forces, and Jon and Kevin took the Confederates.

Looking east from the Confederate lines

Archer's brigade in McPherson's woods.

Davis's brigade ready to sweep in on the flank.

The Iron Brigade and Cutler's brigade defend Seminary Ridge.

Jon's artillery cut Cutler to pieces.

The Iron Brigade inflicted heavy losses on Archer.

Davis's brigade was unstoppable.

By the end of the game, Cutler's brigade was gone.

The entire action took us an hour to play.  Archer (Jon) came straight on and fixed the Iron Brigade in place.  Pegram's artillery battalion pounded the Union positions, knocking off a couple of stands each turn.  Davis (Kevin) kept up the pressure on the right.  Three Union regiments simply melted away under all that fire.  Reynolds and Cutler were both killed.  It looks as though the Union army will have to pull back to Mine Run.

More 6mm Gettysburg Buildings

I'm plugging away at my Leven buildings.  Up today are two bank barns and one farmhouse.

McPherson's Barn

Trostle House and Barn

These will be on the table for tomorrow's Gettysburg game!