Bits and Pieces

As a change from painting ancients I looked in the “pile of potential” and pulled out a battalion of French Young Guard in campaign dress. These are from Elite Miniatures (who by the way give a unique experience in their online store 😉).

So the intention was to give a less uniform appearance so trousers were painted in multiple colours (blue, brown and white). However as you can see from the photographs I wasn’t paying attention when I based the figures up so all the white trousered individuals have been put in the rear ranks doh!

This also brought home why it takes me so long to paint Napoleonic figures when I put away the 23 paints I had used on the figures 😂.

The 02 Hundred Western Desert expansion came with a few unusual figures and I finally got around to painting them up.

These were a pilot and Rommel for the Germans to act as objectives and four LRDG figures all from Artizan Miniatures.

As a quick aside from painting ancient figures I knocked up a couple of dog handlers for 02 Hundred Hours, Now these are from the original starter box so are in European theatre late war uniforms but as is my want I use the rules for the North African theatre so they got the DAK treatment.

One thing I have to do is try and sort out where the leads got broken but that is a problem for another day.

While plugging away at my ancient romans I also managed to finish off another units of Confederate cavalry for the American Civil War.

These are Dixon miniatures (something of a marmite figure range) but I like them especially the ACW range and they do “take paint” well.

This unit has been completed in a range of grey and butternut colours to reflect the lack of “unformality” of the time in the Confederate forces.

Another find while searching for something were a number of “ducks”. Now don’t ask me where or when I bought these as I cannot remember (I painted the broo some years ago) but it must have been when I was thinking of running a Runequest game some years ago and didn’t.

However with the imminent arrival of Dragonbane (just received an email that the lovely books are due to be delivered tomorrow ?) it seemed the appropriate time to paint them (yes I play RPG’s in the wrong way ?).

So it was time for some research of the ornithological nature. The main colourations for the figures came from nature with half a dozen painted as mallards while the others were painted using the colours of the Eurasian Green Winged Teal and the European Pochard to give some variety.

In addition to the Compagnies de la marine  in the previous entry the box also contained another couple of gun crews for the French and Eastern American Natives for a couple of units.

The gun crews are in full uniform but add a bit of variety as they have blue uniform jackets with red waistcoats and trousers. They are also wearing the gaiters worn at the time.

I also noticed from the pictures that they need another coat of varnish as the original matt has dried a little gloss.

Next to be finished were the Native Americans. The flesh colour was completed with the Foundry Native American flesh tone and then multiple colours were used for the shirt and breechcloths. The “war paint” was then painted with colours that would “pop” at wargames view distance so I mainly used white.  This was intentionally done in a rougher style as I do not believe they would have taken mirrors and makeup artists with them on raids.

For those troops carrying torches I now have to work out how I can represent flames ?.

A few months ago I was searching through my “pile of pride” for something, I don’t remember what and I came across a box.

Inside were some figures for the French Indian Wars I picked up in 2013. So forgetting what I was about to paint we were off to the 18th Century and the Americas.

First on the painting bench were the Compagnies de la marine, these troops were raised in France and shipped to the Canada with the intention that they would be given land to settle after their service was completed. As well as being trained as traditional Regular Infantry their postings to the smaller garrisons also made sure that they were capable of fighting the “little wars” that abounded on the frontier so could fight as light infantry.

These figures are dressed in their “waistcoats” of dark blue and the leggings associated with the Native Americans they would have fought with against the British.

Following on from the Garde Francaises I found half a box of the old Wargames Factory War of Spanish Succession Infantry (now produced by Warlord but with less figures in the box ?).

These are basic marching figures but for rank and file in a “massed” battle game the are OK.

I decided to complete the unit as one of the Irish Regiments in French (Wild Geese) service as this would give me a brigade of 3 regiments.

I already had the standard (Reiver Castings) so the regiment would be Lee’s Regiment of Foot (this later became Bulkeley’s with the change of colonel).

The uniform was red with dark green cuffs and trousers.