What am I up to?

Busy month, and I mean seriously busy! I have spent most of my time in the last 3 weeks split between finishing the final chapter of my PhD (which is tantalisingly close!), arranging things for my wedding in September and applying for jobs and attending interviews. As you can imagine little in the way of wargaming time has been available! Even so I have managed to paint a surprisingly decent number of figures, mainly while watching television with my fiancée in the evenings. The secret has been the Army Painter system, which I am totally sold on. It really lets you paint very casually and yet gives very acceptable results. Now I certainly wouldn't use it for some projects, my imagi-nations figures for example, but for the ACW that worn and ragged look that results is just perfect.

Speaking of imagi-nations I have made the decision to rebase my 2 completed regiments. This was not an easy decision, I love the Grant style big battalions and they look wonderful on the shelf with their individual bases, but one go at moving them round the table in their current organisations immediately sold me on the multi-figure base route. Picking up a row of figures after they have collapsed domino style the first time may be amusing, it is certainly not so on the tenth occasion. I am also driven towards a different ruleset, Die Kriegskunst. The Grant rules are fantastic but unpracticable for my current setup of a 6 x 5 foot table. I want the big battalions, but my tablespace says otherwise. I have also become very keen on the General de Brigade system (upon which Die Kriegskunst and Guns at Gettysburg are based) and it makes sense to stick to one rules family, especially as they are so good!

Anyhow I hope to get some more free time soon to take and post some pictures of my ACW units (especially as I am expecting the arrival of some more Flag Dude flags this week). Toodle pip!

The Marquisate of Valerno marches forth!

Well they are not quite finished but I have been able to commit enough time to painting them that at least the rank and file are done, if not yet based. Both pictures are clickable if you wish to see an enlarged version!


These men will make up the rank and file of IR3 of the Marquisate of Valerno, the musketeers 'Conte Di Costa'. Hopefully their commander Basilio Leopoldo the Conte di Costa and his officers will be completed next week and they can all be transferred to their gaming bases.


The flag below is the units regimental flag, the national flag is to be seen on the info bar to the left. I am not quite sure now why I went with orange, it is a singularly horrible colour to paint as the coverage is awful!


I am now off for a long weekend to Portugal to introduce my parents to my fiancees parents. Should be fun :)

Regt. 'Prinz Hapnick' finished and first artillery

Well it has been a fairly unproductive week painting wise, the last five members of the first Hesse-Witten regiment and one artillery piece and crew, and unfortunately with work mounting up for my thesis it doesn't look like things will pick up anytime soon.

The musketeers 'Prinz Hapnick' in all their glory (click to enlarge)

This regiment has been an utter pleasure to paint. A few people enquired of me after my last post about what painting techniques I use. The answer is as few as possible! Most of the colours on my troops are simple block colours with no highlighting or washing, notable exceptions being the flesh and white areas. In general I feel that simple but careful painting, making sure to leave a thin line of black undercoat to define the edges of colour areas, achieves good results en masse.

Prinz Hapnick's officers and drummer (click to enlarge)

I'm going to have to say a few more words of praise for these Minden sculpts, they really are fantastic and surprisingly easy to paint. The detail is very clear and in most cases has good depth and so is easy to pick out with some careful brushwork. The figures have a lot of character too, and just seem so much nicer to me than the usual cast of peculiarly proportioned figures.

The colour party (click to enlarge)

I produced these flags using a combination of the free vector art program Inkscape and photoshop elements 6. They are printed onto 140gsm paper and then stuck onto the flagpole with good old PVA glue. I want to create unique regimental flags but tie units together with common designs or colours.

My first artillery, Minden gunners with a Berliner Zinnfiguren cannon (click to enlarge)

The artillery arm of the Hesse-Witten Freie Stadt's army is just in its infancy and their rather garish red small clothes have been chosen to give the branch a distinctive identity. The cannon is a Berliner Zinnfiguren 1760 Prussian 12 pounder, I saw this company's wares mentioned on Der Alte Fritz's excellent blog and they do indeed seem to be a perfect size match for the Mindens.

Another view of the gun crew. Feuer frei!(click to enlarge)

First Hesse-Witten Regiment

Today I finished the rank and file of my first Hesse-Witten Freie Stadt regiment. I plan to do two imagi-nations armies for use with The War Game rules by Charles Grant and this is the first milestone in that plan. The establishment for each regiment will be slightly different to that set out in the rules and the changes are mainly to satisfy my aesthetic tastes, and of course the size of my chosen figures from Minden Miniatures. The establishments shall be:

1 Mounted Colonel (worth 2 morale points)
2 Captains (worth 1 morale point each)
2 Ensigns bearing the colours (worth 1 morale point each)
1 Drummer
44 Private soldiers

Currently the captains, ensigns and drummer are still on the painting table for this regiment but should be finished in a day or so. Interestingly, although I thought these large regiments might take an age to paint I finished these 45 models in a little over 1 week of painting (about 2 hours per day).

IR17 of the Hesse-Witten Freie Stadt, the musketeers 'Prinz Hapnick' (click to enlarge)

I really enjoyed painting these figures, Minden's are an absolute joy to deal with and arrived with nearly no pre-undercoating prep required, there was almost zero flash at all. This really surprised me as I am used to having to spend a couple of minutes per figure in preparation when buying from other figure manufacturers. I painted this whole lot as a single batch.

Colonel Proprieter Prinz Dieter Hapnick inspects the troops (click to enlarge)

Colonel Prinz Hapnick is resplendant in plenty of gold lace and detailing, as befits an individual of his station, if perhaps not his current rank. I intend to inject as much character and detail into these regiments and their commanders as I can so that they are not only fun to paint but give me an interesting cast of characters for future campaigns.

A close up of the Prinz, most probably considering retiring to the dubious pleasures of whatever local watering hole he can find (click to enlarge)

I hope to have this regiment done and dusted in another day or so, and am working on the flags now in Photoshop. I shall post up some more pictures when they are all ready. I also plan to write up some background information on my two imagi-nations and perhaps produce a map or two of the opposing states.

A musketeer of IR17 'Prinz Hapnick' (click to enlarge)