Sunday, 22 February 2015

A bit of a diversion

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to another club member that I had a collection of 15mm Napoleonics at the back of my cupboard; the usual mix of British and French Waterloo era minis.  He said he had a collection and the next thing I knew we were arranging to dust them off and get them on the table for Black Powder.  I found my French tin pretty easily, but still can't put my hands on the tin of British - haven't seen them since we moved house 5 years ago.  Trying to remember where I had packed them set me off on a trip down Memory Lane and I recalled ordering them back in 1992 or 3 as a set of Minifigs packs from the Guardroom - a shop in Dunstable I think, that used to advertise in Miniature Wargames magazine.  I also added some Battle Honours Riflemen and a pack of Battle Honours (not Lancashire Games as I first thought) British infantry the following year at a Napoleonics show in Bridgenorth.

As I can't put my hands on the painted British, I could find the unpainted bag of Battle Honours British infantry, so thought I'd dig them out and have a try at painting Napoleonics for the first time in 20 years.  Just two bases of four infantry in firing pose.  On the whole, I found painting these a nice change from the usual drab colours of ww2 and modern soldiers and they seemed to paint up well compared to my memories of 20 years ago; perhaps my patience has improved or my eyesight has deteriorated.  One or the other.  Anyway, I probably won't win any prizes, but I'm really pleased with the result.  So much so that I'm going to pick up a few more packs at WMMS and work on them on and off as a break from moderns.


Thanks for looking.
at

4 comments:

  1. Tales from Shed HQ23 February 2015 at 14:16

    Andy you must have a team of painting pixies in your shed at the bottom of the garden. Great work as always. Looking forward to seeing you at WMMS on the 8th.
    Cheers
    Richard P

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    1. Andy Canham24 February 2015 at 08:18

      Thanks Richard. I just fancied a change of palate this weekend! Look forward to seeing you at WMMS this year too.
      Cheers, Andy

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  2. Just Jack23 February 2015 at 23:42

    I agree with Richard, great stuff as always, Andy. I so badly want to get into Napoleonics in 6 or 10mm, with giant, nay, massive, armies! But I've actually tried both and it hasn't worked out. My painting looks decent, but it just takes forever to paint massive armies ;) And so I get frustrated and sell them off...

    You may laugh, but I have given R-E-A-L thought to buying loads of 6 or 10mm troops, prime them brown, then give them really crappy paintjobs: one color jacket, one color trouser, black hat, three dots of flesh, then run a brush of silver down the line for bayonets. I'm sure it would look good on the tabletop, especially in the mass I'm envisioning, but I'm sure I'd not be able to help myself and I'd start painting straps, then shako plates, then plumes, then bayonet scabbards; then I never finish a unit and decide to sell them off...

    Whaddaya think: could you play with toys that look 'okay' on the table, but look like crap when you pick them up? I dunno if I could do it...

    I've only played a couple games of Black Powder, but I am a fan. I just love those command rolls.

    V/R,
    Jack

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    1. Andy Canham24 February 2015 at 08:31

      Hi Jack,

      I wanted to try out ACW a while ago, so bought some 2mm blocks from Irregular miniatures. I pretty much did what you're thinking of for 6-10mm - a dark base coat, grey and blue grey with occasional browns, blacks, reds for the Rebs and streaks of dark and light blue for the Union plus spots of flesh colour and brown or silver for rifle/bayonet tips. It worked well at that scale and only cost me c. £10 for the raw metal. I then moved on to the 6mm stuff which is on my blog. I paint a BP unit at a time, using three 40x20cm stands with 16 figures to a base (if using Baccus) less for Adler. Takes about an hour of real painting time to get a unit done, which I don't find too bad. 10mm is even easier as the level of detail is similar to 6mm but much easier to see. I've got some late 19th century colonials on the painting table at the moment that I started while finishing the Napoleonics - the 10mm stuff was really quick to paint, although I find it's worth going for a little bit of extra detail - belts/webbing, white stripes for sailors collars, etc. Makes the figures more interesting but still doesn't add much time.

      BP is lots of fun. I've played it using just about every scale you can imagine, although Will at the club has several thousand 1/72 plastics painted up and he puts on some really big battles which are loads of fun. However, I've played some really interesting tactical games with just a brigade and some cavalry. In fact I've played ECW using Pike and Shotte which is a similar system to BP using just a battalia and a sleeve of commanded shot and a cavalry regiment. Agaain lots of fun and visually quite pleasing.

      Hope this helps,

      Cheers, Andy

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