New Book, Terrain Bits and Excuses

Hello everyone!

It's been kind of slow here the past few weeks, and for that I apologize. It's not for lack of painting... it's just that I've been painting a 1:1 scale Navy ship instead of my miniatures! I'm hoping that in the next month or two I'll be able to move into a place more conducive to painting productivity than on my ship.

In the mean time in-between time, I've purchased a new book:

"1812: The Navy's War" takes a look at the Napoleonic sideshow fought between the United States and Great Britain that was the War of 1812 from a Naval perspective. This is especially fitting for me, given my current profession, and is incidentally one of the subjects that initially piqued my interest in the Napoleonic timeframe. While I've only just begun this book, it certainly seems promising!

I also picked up a small, plastic, Spanish-style fountain from my local Michael's craft store which I will eventually use for a terrain base. I'm thinking it will be the centerpiece for either a "town square" or "monastery" base for my Peninsular games.

Coming soon: Not much, unfortunately. I may purchase some figures here soon (I have a couple of things  earmarked for myself) but I probably won't be painting anything for the next month or so.

Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

4th (King's Own) Regimental Colour Party--28mm

Hello everyone!

As promised from yesterday, here are a few shots of my completed and based command for the 1st Battalion, 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot. (Remember to click on the pictures for bigger versions.)

 

Note the tufts of grass at the feet of the colonel and just behind and to the left of the Ensign carrying the Regimental Colour. These are Citadel "Mordheim Turf" tufts; the color, I think, fits in with the color scheme of my bases quite well. These were quite easy to apply by placing a tiny drop of super glue where I wanted the tuft to go and gingerly maneuvering it into position with a pair of small tweezers.

The 4th Regiment of Foot saw service in both the Peninsular War and the War of 1812, seeing heavy fighting in both. The 1st Battalion also saw service at the Battle of Waterloo. These lads have the old Peninsula stovepipe shakos, so could theoretically serve in either Spain or the Americas. The 1/4th are wearing their grey greatcoats over white trousers, with white crossbelts. The colonel and the two ensigns are wearing their sashes and swords on the outside of their overcoats, as well as white gloves, while the poor drummer must deal with bare hands in the cold weather. I always feel kind of cheaty when I do greatcoated troops as they're so easy and quick to complete. The Colours are homemade: see my previous post.

For the bigger figures, I've decided to go with four figures to a base for regular troops on the same 4cm x 4cm bases that I usually use with my infantry. (My 15mm/1:72 regular infantry figures are six figures on the same size base.) I think this gives the base a nice look, being full but not too crammed, and should look quite nice with a full 24 figure battalion all together.


All in all I'm rather pleased with how they came out. I look forward to finishing up this battalion, as I think they will look fantastic! Speaking of which...

Coming soon: I placed a few orders last night for various things, the largest of which was an order for Knuckleduster Miniatures and their War of 1812 line. I bought enough British figures in greatcoats to flesh out the 1/4th Regiment of Foot, as well as enough miniatures to flesh out a unit of 28mm American militia. I also picked up a pair of draft horses from Knuckleduster to pull a MDF French artillery caisson that I ordered from a British company called Blotz. This will be painted in light blue for service with my American Regular Artillery.

Speaking of artillery, my French 12 pounder has yet to arrive from brigade; I got an email from them today saying they were quite backordered after having just got back from vacation following Historicon. It's no big deal; Brigade has done very well by me over the years, and I'm willing to patiently wait. But I didn't have to wait for these chaps:

These are 15/18mm Napoleon At War French Old Guard Chasseur figures, a battalion pack, with some Essex minis to flesh out a full battalion. I'll do a proper review of these lads sometime this weekend. So lots of exciting stuff coming soon!

Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

Old Roman Bridge

Hello everyone!

I finished up the Roman bridge that I needed for this week's game, and now that I have all the trees that I need I'm all set. There are a lot of old Roman bridges in Spain, and a lot of good pictures of them on the Internet for inspiration. Here's a little step-by-step tutorial of how I made my bridge; I think it turned out well. (Remember to click on the pictures for bigger versions.)

The bridge's base is a 6 inch by 3 inch chunk of corrugated cardboard. The structure of the bridge is made up of pieces of foamcore supporting a halved lengths of toilet paper tube. The road bed is a long strip of posterboard held in place with hot glue.

The sides were then glued in place. These are foamcore as well. The wood strips between the arches are for decorative purposes. The gaps between the roadbed and the sides was filled with hot glue. At this time I also built up the "banks" of the stream with blobs of hot glue.

A picture for scale. The road be is approximately 5 cm wide, which is perfect for infantry stands like these French grenadiers, but the bridge is just too narrow for 5 cm wide stands for cavalry. This isn't ideal, but it is what it is and I can't change it now.

The painting begins. I started with a coat of light gray paint on the entire bridge.I used a cheap craft acrylic called "Country Grey."

With a darker grey ("Pewter Grey") I picked out the stones. I only concentrated on the most prominent: the stones lining the arches, the stones "supporting" the arches, the stones on top of the bridge sides and the roadbed. I painted these rather wide, The roadbed pattern was made purposefully random.

The widem dark grey lines were then gone over again with a narrow pass of black to pick out the "cracks" between the stones, leaving the dark grey showing on either side of the line. This step gives the stones a three dimentional look.

I then painted the base. The water is a color called "Pool Blue" with some white highlights, while the banks are painted in two coats of brown.

The completed bridge. After painting the banks were flocked to blend in with the other terrain.

Coming soon: Really all I have left to do is brush up on the Black Powder rules and I'll be ready for the game tomorrow. I'm rather excited for my first game played with my own Napoleonics on my own terrain! It will probably be Tuesday before I can get the game report up on the blog, so stay tuned.

Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

New Purchases...There was a Sale at Hobby Lobby!

Hello everyone!

Today I drove about an hour from where I live to Paducah on business. Its one of the largest cities in the region, and also happens to be the home of a Hobby Lobby. Of course, I had to drop by and check things out when I was done with my meeting. I managed to come home with a few things, and got a couple of deals to boot!

Terrain

Toob is a funny word.

 I found this "Toob" of trees while there and picked them up to use for terrain. There were 10 in the toob, 9 of which were usable (there aren't very many palm trees in Europe!) and they average about 2 1/2 inches in height, perfect for 15mm figures. Plus, they are already painted, and won't shed a bunch of flocking like Woodland Scenics trees do.

Trees, ready to go!

Figures

I also picked up two packs of 1/72 plastic figures, both of which were on clearance for $3.59 each! The price was too good to pass up, even if they weren't exactly right for Napoleonic wargaming. I will however be able to shoehorn a few of the figures into some of my existing projects.

Lewis & Clark

This set is the most closely related to the Napoleonic time frame, as the Lewis and Clark expedition lasted from 1804 to 1806. Unfortunately, even though both Lewis and Clark were soldiers, none of the figures in this set are wearing any type of military uniform, just 'frontier' garb: fringed shirts, broad brimmed hats, and one fellow is even wearing a coonskin cap!

The set comes with members of the Corps of Discovery, some boats, baggage, horses, two teepees and a bunch of Native Americans. Unfortunately, even though the set has a bunch of figures, only a few are usable as they are; I'm sure some of the others will find uses for conversions.

All of the figures from the Lewis and Clark set suitable 'as is.'

American soldiers/Corps of Discovery: I will use these guys as volunteer American riflemen from the Battle of New Orleans. There were three regiments of Tennessee volunteers and four regiments of Kentucky riflemen at New Orleans.

Native Americans: These will also be used for New Orleans. A force of friendly Choctaw riflemen anchored the American flank during the battle. Unfortunately most of the Native Americans in the set are wearing clothing associated with the Plains Indians, not the Eastern Woodlands like the Choctaws.

Extras: a string of pack horses and a campfire. The packhorses will probably serve in the British or Spanish baggage trains, and the campfire will be used in terrain.



American Western Settlers

This set I picked up mainly because the price was right. I bought this same set many many moons ago--in fact, I used part of it for my Spanish Artillery Limber--and while there really aren't a whole lot of figures appropriate for Napoleonic wargaming, there is a bunch of other useful stuff in the set which makes it handy.

The whole set.

Probably the most useful part of the whole set, the pair of Conestoga wagons. Even though they are quite clearly Conestogas, I think that it will be pretty easy to convert them into Napoleonic supply wagons. One will more than likely be French, because I already have some 1/72 French wagon drivers at hand.

The other sprue. The animals may or may not be useful for terrain pieces, while a few of the settlers themselves can probably be converted to resemble Spanish peasants by removing a few of the obvious late 19th Century clothing items.

 Well, that pretty much sums things up. I was really pleased that I was able to pick up the figures on sale; you don't come across stuff like that every day. I'm glad I dropped by Hobby Lobby while I was in town!

Coming soon:

The last Spanish field piece, and another stand of 3e Hussars. I will finish them one day, I promise!

Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Chuck

A Quaint Spanish Village

Hello everyone!

 

Here's a little project that I've been working on for a while now but have just completed. Back in December I decided that with the number of miniatures I've painted recently I would soon have enough to game with, but I had absolutely no terrain for them to fight over. As such, I decided to build a small Spanish village. Here's the fruits of my labor, with a little "How-I-did-it" tutorial.

 

(Remember to click on the pictures for bigger versions.)

 

Here is what all of my buildings started life as, a small block of "florist foam" that I picked up at Walmart. This was cut from a larger block with a saw, as it was too thick for an X-acto knife. Next to it is a 15mm figure mounted on a painting base for scale.

The foam was then carved with my X-acto in order to get the basic shapes of the buildings down. Here is the village church, complete with bell tower.

Next came the really messy part. I used Liquitex Modeling Paste (gel medium) to cover the outside of the foam. This stuff gives an authentic looking stucco appearance to the buildings, and it dries rock hard, protecting the rather fragile florist foam structure.

I waited a few days for the modeling paste to dry before I began to glue on the roofing material and details. For a tile roof look I used a piece of corrugated cardboard that I peeled off one side of the paper, leaving the corrugation exposed. This gave a nice, tiled look. The gable and cross are made from the craft matchsticks that I have, and the door is part of a craft stick.

Here is the start of the base. It is merely a piece of 6 inch by 6 inch corrugated cardboard. I marked out where the buildings would sit, then I painted the "street" areas with a coat of dark brown paint.

While the dark brown paint was still wet, I applied a coat of lighter brown on top. This was to give a mixed brown that is an attempt to look like a dusty, dirt street.

I then painted the buildings. The walls were first coated with a flesh color mixed with light brown, then with a little bit of white, and finished with pretty much pure white. This was to give the walls a sun-bleached mud look. The tile roofs were painted a mix of red and dark brown, Wooden details like the cross, doors, window lintels and support beams wer painted medium brown.

And here's the completed village, with a church, two houses, and a communal garden.

The garden walls were made with strips of carboard coated in modeling paste. The rows of plants are strips of fake grass used in Christmas village modelling that I picked up in an after-Christmas sale years ago.

The single story house was modeled after a picture in the Black Power rulebook.

I meant to get a picture of the village with a stand of figures placed in the center of town for scale, but it didn't get done. I've designed the village to be able to hold a full six-stand battalion's worth of figures within the base. It's a bit cramped, but the stands all fit. Overall, I'm pleased with the results.

On the buying front, I recently purchased enough British figures off of eBay to hopefully complete the 88th Regiment of Foot here pretty soon... it all depends on what kind of shakoes two thirds of them are wearing; the pictures were hard to see. Anywho, I'll find that out in a couple of days.

Also, I'd like to welcome a new follower to the blog, 1/72 Figures collect & paint. Thanks for following my humble efforts, and I hope that you enjoy what you see here!

Coming up: I have some Spanish artillerymen, Portuguese infantry and French hussars on painting bases currently, so we'll see. I may get all excited when my new figures arrive and paint up a few Brits next.

Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated! Thanks for looking!

-Chuck