On to Richmond/Washington select your favourite option

Having ben brought up as a Nipper on John Ford and John Wayne Cavalry films, it was only awaiting the release of Warlords Cavalry Brigades that has stopped me already having some.

Anyway in an attempt to have two sort of all round starter armies I broke away briefly from the mountains of Infantry to do some Cavalry.

Must admit the one peice figures are nice, being single horseman, you can separate the figures to have on Reg in Kepi, one on Slouch hats and one mixed   I Imagine if you buy 2 you can separate them and say have all Kepi for Union and all hats for Confederate or visa verses.

Initially for my 1st Confederate Regiment I went mixed , though the 1st Union will be all Kepi.

The Horsemen were just a variation of the scheme used for the infantry.

The horses were done various GW contrast Brown’s with a few left in the base grey and a few in Black Templar, Mains and Tails were Generally done in a darker shade than main horse.

So here we have the 1st Regiment of Cavalry ready to make J.E.B. Stuart proud I hope.

Having Finished the Texan Brigade , next is the Stonewall Brigade, for any one interested it consisted of the:

The brigade was formed by Jackson at Harpers Ferry, April 27, 1861, from the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia Infantry regiments and the Rockbridge Artillery Battery of Rockbridge County, 1 unit recruited in or near the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

For thes I decided to add a bit more of the Butternut colour of Uniform jackets (also seen in the Stonewall Brigade Osprey) . I did try this on some of the Texans  with GW skeleton Horde but it was possibly to brown, so experimented on their last Regiment with odd figures using a mix of GW Iranian Yellow and Skeleton Horde. Which seemed to work, so went a bit more to town with the Virginians

And now in the Traditional Blue Peter Style here are some I did earlier.

Whilst watching you tube which has a plethora of videos on the American civil war, I finally found what the name of the march was at the beginning of ‘The Outlaw Joseph Wales’ , which you also hear briefly in ‘Glory’ and ‘Gettysburg’.

It is called Old 1812, so here it is in the form I originally heard it.

Tried downloading but site wouldn’t except it so try

1976 The Outlae Josey Wales HD

Then I thin out Gulliman Flesh, and liberally coat the faces and hands.

The Final stage before the overall wash is gun metal for the Rifled musket barrels and a little stage picking out the couple of water bottles in grey.

Now is time for an overall wash of thinned out about 50/50 with water of GW Agrax Earthade,

This takes a bit to dry  do I use this point to finish of bits on the Gun Crew and Commander.  I could have left them and done them as separate units to the Infantry  but have been doing them as I do each Regiment.

I have Tended to do Union Gun Barrels in Gun Metal and Confederate in Bronze.

Once the way has Dried  I adder a bit of brass to belts and muskets, paint the base GW Death World Forest( it was the only mud green I had) then add flock to base.

Then its only a matter of adding Colours  in this case for 63rd New York, part of the Irish Brigade.

This is actually the 5th Union Regiment   as I forgot to take photos as went along on previous 3!

So after the base Grey Seer spray   I give them an over coat of Tallasar Blue that I used on some of the Confed troops.

Then I mix  GW contrast Levidian Blue and Basilicum Grey about 4/3, then thin it out with water for the darker upper jackets.

From here a lot of the steps are pretty much the missing steps used for the Confederate Regiments. I next do the bedrolls,  which historically could be as varied as Confederate Uniforms  but have decided to stick to one main colour for each Regiment   in this case GW steel Legion Drab, but I have used Blue, Brown, Various shades of Grey on others.

Then I did the rifled muskets, in this case GW contrast Snakebite leather, but I have used Wychwood, and Gore Gunta Brown, partly to represent the different manufacturers of the wpns be they Springfield,’s Enfield or the Austrian model , but mainly it is decided by the brown closest to hand.

Next is a stage that is Union only, I go over the faces  and hands in Corex white,  I had tried carefully painting around them at the jacket stage above, but found it more of a pain than re painting them.

Then its the bit that is the most tedious, boots, kepi peaks and belts  all done in Mp paints dark umbra, I use this rather than black as it allows for a bit of shading on the wash stage..

Some have put white or canvas for the forage nags , tried this on one Union Regiment  but found it a pain to do and it didn’t really add much to the finished figures  so didn’t bother on later Regiments.

Right now I have two  Regiments done as a base how to;

I’ll now do a stage by stage shots , more as a guide fo myself in the future as anything .

Confederates

Grey Seer base

Then a overall coat of GW contrast Gryph charger Grey

On doing a little bit of research after an Osprey shopping spree, and finding the Stonewall Jackson picture for the project blogs header, I had got the idea that the Rebs trousers were all blue wrong , some did wear them but they tended to be captured Union gear.

With this in mind I just picked out afew on each strip and gave them a thinned out coat of GW Contrast  Tallasar Blue.

Then I decided to pick out some with GW Contrast Skeleton Horde, for those who’s uniforms had the butternut effect  some the trousers, some the jackets

Noticing that the grey base could vary a bit I then did the same with trousers and jackets on some of the figures in  GW Contrast Basilicum Grey

I then started block painting belts in an MP paints Dark Umbra( it allows a bit of shading in the wash stage) .

Rifles are done in  GW contrast Gore Gunter Brown  though for the original  Regiment I used GW contrast Wyldwood, to some extent to reflect the varied sources of supply that the Confederates had in wpn supply. Its funny that the figure strips don’t look right till this stage is done.

The block painting stage is also the bit were I forgot to do Lloydy style photos of each stage  .

On the original Regiment I phaffed with basing  I thought a static grass base would be a bit overwhelming,  I tried putting on texture paint,  but made the mistake of  sticking king the strips to the base  and it was awkward trying to get the brush between the strips  . On the Union I stuck on one strip and then tried adding the textured paint  still a pain  and the end result looked patchy despite all the effort, so I tried adding static Grass  more out of desperation than anything and found it didn’t overpower the figures and actually looked quite good as can be seen in my initial photos.On one strip I tried to see if I could just put the Flock straight on the bases  but found the thinned our pa glue wouldn’t adhere and pooled, so just gave the bases a green overall paint, apart from thin strips left bear for the plastic glue to adhere too when sticking the figure strips on

This now epic project (one for Llloydy here) nearly raised its head the moment wargames Illustrated put a preview sprue in one of this years issues.  I  looked at it, thought cool idea and then it put in a possibly to do box and forgot.

Anyway looking at the latest list of releases for June decided to jump in and buy the starter box. Whilst waiting for it to arrive and while my enthusiasm  was at its height I decided to have a got at above sprue to see what I had let myself in for .

With the a national predeliction for lost causes I decided to paint above as Confederate ( they were grey plastic, you get the sprues in blue and gray in the starter, with green bases for those who dont want to paint Warren).

Funnily enough I watched the gane questions and answers on You tube a few days back, and the whole idea for epic battles to some extent came from the old Airfix ACW boxes where you had confederates in Grey, Union in Blue, can’t remenber what colour the Artillery was but Remember the Cavalry was in Dark Blue, I was a nipper about 8 when I got my box of Cavalry , which I brought more for bashing Indians (pre pc) than anything . remember could never find a glue that lasted any time when trying stick the horses to the bases with that soft plastic.

Remember during the 1st years of Alumwell Wargames club a couple of guys did a all day Sunday game using the Airfix figures , stuck in massed ranks to green bases, even unpainted it looked good.

I sprayed them GW Grey Seer as a base , and then gave them an all over coat of  GW contrast Gryph Charger Grey to start with.

Now as a starter regiment I decided to paint them as a. n other Regiment ( its a state to the South of Georgia and north of Florida sort of on the border). Hadnt got much research material on Civil War Uniforms so decided to do them based on the old Timpo confederates I had as a kid and did all the trousers blue so gave the trousers a thined out coat of GW Tallassar Blue..

Reading up a bit on the variation with the buttercup colour as the grey dies on uniforms, went over odd tunics with Skelton horde, which seemed to work.

Faces and hands were done in  GW contrast Gulliman flesh . with beards and moustaches occasional picked out in various browns

Boots and belts were done in MP paints dark umbra .

All then given a 50/50 GW agrax Earthshade coat to give them a bit of the rebs grubby look.

This seemed to have worked well but looking at the picture I pulled for the cover of this topic think I can go bit more to town on variation on  the next regiment.

With the arrival of my starter box I decided to balance things with a Union Regiment ( I was sorely tempted to paint all 24 Confederate but wasnt sure if I would find anyone else doing it)

Having sprayed them Grey Seer as the confeds

I tried a couple of methods on a couple of strips at a time, 1st do the jackets basiclum grey and wet blend tallisor blue, then Levidian blue , both with Tallso blue tousers, both looked pathcy and were fidly to do so finally based a bit on the W.I  suggestions

Went do the lot Tallasar Blue, Jackets Levidian Blue, a home brew gray for bed rolls ( if I dont get right shade each time I do them it wont matter)

Faces Gulliman Flesh

Boots and belts as the Confeds, likewise an over the top Agrax Earthshade 50/50 dilution with water wash

I used a an MP paints cream to lightly dry brush the faces for hightlight and

viola!

For anyone interested since these guys were painted I gave them a Texas Regiment set of Colours.

So my 1st Confederate Brigade will be Hood’s  Texas Brigade.

For anyone Interested its orbat was:

• Battle of Seven Pines (May 31 – June 1, 1862); assigned to Whiting’s Division; Brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood
  • 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas Infantry regiments
  • 18th Georgia Infantry Regiment