We Can Get Off Our Horses?

   A project I didn't expect to be painting this year was American Civil War in 28mm. We played a lot of it in 2019, it was my go to club night game for a fair while, then other things came along and the collections dropped to the bottom of the boxes stack and remained there ever since.

   Then this year, my mate Neil decided to get his Confederates out and wanted a test game to see how dismounted troops for his cavalry could work - something that R&P doesn't normally do. This, however, brought to light the gaps in my collections and that, as a historical gaming period to game, it is brilliant for a club night. A few sizeable orders later and we have a fair bit to paint;

   The first thing onto my desk for this gap reducing drive are dismounted Union cavalry units. This means three bases of horse holders (as I already had one in my collection) and 4 units of dismounted cavalrymen - I seriously doubt I will need all 4 units at one point but it stops issues mid game. 

   I probably need to bulk up the horse holders so that every horse is represented rather than it being a token holding base, but then I need to represent the holders themselves in the unit and it starts to get messy fast.

   We played another game using these new additions and obviously neither side's cavalry wanted to follow orders and were shot off the table before they could deploy, so I'm glad I got them painted up in time . . .

Thanks for reading

ECW Topups

   Another project that I did want to get on the table this year but just hadn't managed was the English Civil War / War of Three Kingdoms. There is something about the conflict that means I've had thoughts bubbling away about it for months and months but too many projects to really go back and do anything about it.

   My Covenantors and Highland Scots / Jacobite Rebellion projects were given a kick start when my mate Neil was in the process of painting up his ECW army, but there was more I needed to get done once I had some time. This post is about some of the odds and sods that I had in my backlog for the project.

The cannon limber from Warlord Games to go with the cannon I painted a couple of years ago. No idea how this one took so long to get done

Wagon from Redoubt with a cut down load from Colonel Bills

Warlord Games surgeon to add a bit of character to my bag lines

An artillery officer from 1st Corp, although I plan to use him as a staff officer just keeping an eye on the battlefield

Thanks for reading

Rohan Answers

   This post is another hard to justify job. I've said before that while I would like to get the last of my Rohan painted so they are off my backlog, I know have more than I can ever reasonably see myself using - although, having a large army in case I ever use them for Lion Rampant or War of the Ring makes selling the remainder feel like a bad idea.

   The models painted here are another whole sprue of plastic Rohan infantry with the only extra being a finecast horn blower which my brother bought in a mixed lot of bits off eBay and sent my way. I'm still not a fan of finecast, but the figure is a useful addition to the force.

Thanks for reading

Righting A Wrong

   To date* my most played army has turned out to be my LotR Haradrim. This came as a bit of surprise to me when I realised, as it's an army that I've put next to no pressure on myself to paint, with models just being added as and when I have spare time and as such, none of them have made it onto the blog yet. They are, however, the army I picked, precisely because they were unpainted, for the Battle Companies campaign I've been playing with my brothers.

*with 2 months of gaming left to go

   So far I have painted up a box worth of foot infantry, a box worth of riders, a pair of captains and all the Serpent Guard I am ever likely to buy**.

**have you seen the price of the serpent riders online?

I still need to paint another box of infantry and another box of riders for a game I'd like to play, then I have 2 of the 3 Mumuks I need . . .

Thanks for reading

The Last Of The Egyptians

   While my New Kingdom Egyptians are a project that are on my list to finish this year* the influx of Ancient Egyptian tv programs to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb mean I have ancient Egypt on the mind. So to finish this project off, here are the stragglers from my New Kingdom Egyptian army, a unit of Medjay Nubian archers and the Pharaoh himself.

*for multiple reasons**

**It also helps I'm working on desert scenery for another desert based project next year

I've got no plans to get these on the table any time soon, although I think one of my mates has an appropriate opponent for them, but it is useful to have them done ready for a game whenever it happens.

Thanks for reading

Macabre Cows?

   I was reading the memoirs of Trevor Greenwood - D-Day to Victory: The Diaries of a British Tank Commander - and one of the things he mention is how many fields they advanced past had whole herds of dead cows in. Most seemingly dying from sheer fear or the shockwaves from bombs rather than direct hits.

   I mentioned to one of my brothers that I was half planning on buying some dead cows to put in a field on a WW2 board and then to my surprise a blister pack of Warlord Games Dead Cows turned up on my birthday. While its a bit ghoulish (especially from a vegetarian), I think the war should be portrayed as accurately as possible and with a game lined up, it seemed the right time to get them painted.

Thanks for reading

Fantasy Dwarves?

   Advanced warning, my next few posts will be bouncing all over the place. I've got a few projects I want to finish before the end of the year and a few things to do for games in between, plus posts like this, that quite frankly, I can't justify well enough.

   I want to do a whole spiel justifying this, but I can't so I won't waste your time, but suffice to say I got carried away and bought about 24 points (possibly slightly more) of Oathmark Dwarves. The project is nowhere near the top of my list and to date I've only built this one test unit, so don't expect to see more any time soon, but as a cheap project to scratch an itch, I'm looking forward to getting them all done and on the table in the new year at some point.

   I spent a lot longer than I should have trying to decide what direction to take the paint jobs on these models. My choices were to go as historical as possible and treat them as short vikings, or embrace the fantasy and go with bright unified colours. As you can see fantasy won, simply because it scartched the itch even better and I've got dark age armies so I don't need a fake one.

   My only disappointments with the regular dwarf infantry sprue are that there aren't enough helmeted heads for every model (more cloth hats etc) and that the missile option is a bow and not a crossbow - but that might be Warhammer colouring my expectations for the whole race. I've got half an idea on how to convert up some crossbows but I have emailed North Star Miniatures to ask if they would do them as a metal upgrade pack like they have done for their other plastic kits.

Thanks for reading

A Lowland Bash

   Upon finishing the highlander elements of my Culloden themed army, I am pretty sure I admitted to having bought more infantry for the project but that I wasn't going to work on any of it. Well that turned out to be a lie. When the lowlander musketeers turned up from Front Rank/Gripping Beast I built and sprayed them within 24 hours and put them onto the to do shelf as part of the immediate painting queue.

   Historically, I believe these units should be much more of a militia than a raised unit and thus shouldn't have a uniform jacket, but the thought of painting different jackets, trousers and tartan sashes filled me with dread, so I went for a uniform for the jacket and mixed everything else up*. I've not gone for a banner in either unit to show they are more ad hoc than other units that will be coming. The tartan is mostly earthy colours as I want to show these guys don't wear tartans on a regular basis and have probably bought cheap cloth just to show allegiance, but there are a few of the more modern brighter tartans mixed in for variety.

*if I do another unit in the future I'll do a different jacket colour and mix them in

   Figure wise the bulk of the units are made of the 3 lowlander sculpts in the Front Rank back catalogue but once you get to the point you are ordering 8 of each of 3 figures for only 2 units even my lack of worry about variety started to get nervous. To remedy this I added a highlander officer, a single guy in a kilt and 3 government deserters. This bought the other sculpts down to a mere 6 each. . .

I'm now fairly close to finishing this project, so do I focus on more important stuff or just carry on?

Thanks for reading

Medieval Wagons

   Have a called a post this before, I feel like I have? My drive to add wagons to every army hasn't diminished in the slightest as I think they add so much to the feel of a game even if they aren't part of the game itself.

   I've had an open basket with Colonel Bill's for a good few months that changes weekly as I have different ideas. In it I've had a couple of wagons for my crusade era armies to allow a escort scenario, ACW wagons to boost that project, various other medieval or dark ages wagons, then at SELWG  a couple of weeks ago, I noticed Colonel Bill was there, so I had a quick look at the shelves while my little boy was distracted by his grandad and made some decisions.

   It was the agricultural loads that really got my attention and with a bit of going back and forth with what wagons sizes each era had to match loads (sadly I couldn't fit the looted goods into a medieval wagon) I picked up an ACW wagon*, a pair of mules and a pair of medieval carts.

*future post

   It was only that night as I unpacked my bag that I noticed I had forgotten to buy any animals to pull the vehicles and another order had to be made online. . .

   I decided to mount the mules on a single base rather than separate figures like I tend to do. I think this makes a better looking scene and probably makes them more useful in game too, so it's something I expect to do going forward with any others.

I have my eyes on more wagons from Colonel Bill's now that I've had some in my hands. Maybe something for my Ancient British to add to the Laager, or those crusade wagons I had an idea for. So many ideas.

Thanks for reading