Miniature Wargames

Miniature Wargames

Friday, April 30, 2010

REVIEW: Warlord Games ECW Saker and Crew

Well my 2 Warlord Games sakers just came in, I had payed for them sometime ago and they finally arrived.  On that note as I have seen no reviews on this item I thought I would do one.

 Review: Warlord Games WGP-SAK-1, Saker.  Warlord games has made a model of the Saker cannon, for those of you that do not know the Saker is a renaissance era artillery piece.  The Saker used in the 17th century was capable of shooting a 5lb iron ball up to about 2,200 feet and was generally used as a siege piece, but it was also used in the field in support of troops.  Warlord Games has come out with a wonderful piece with exceptional detail to represent this field piece.  The package comes with 4 crew and the 4 piece cannon(Carriage, barrel, 2 wheels) as well as 2 resin items for "effect" one being a powder barrel and a chest.  There was only a little of clean up needed on the carriage itself and that was at the rear base where it was cut from the sprue after pouring.  The barrel itself only needed light sanding on the length to get rid of very minor mold lines, I mean very mild!  The figures all had some mold lines again very mild with the exception of the one figure rolling a barrel which had a good amount of flash.  That only seems to have been on the one blister as the same figure in the other blister did not have any. The figures themselves are wonderful!  With great detail that I am sure will be a joy to paint!  All in all I am happy with the 2 that I got, the only disappointment is the price, that being $27.00 USD per gun and crew.  They are very nicely done, but a little pricey. 

6-15mm British Infantry Units/Regiments etc...

Well I finished painting the 5th and 6th units in this starter group of 15mm British infantry, I had been painting these off and on since the 24th of April.  The majority(99%) are Essex miniatures, anything else is Old Glory.  As I stated in previous posts on this blog I am doing the "black lining method" of painting.  Yes the result are stunning when compared to not using this method and painting the miniature completely and then detailing over the color that you used as your base color.  In this method you leave a little of the black undercoating showing between detail and shirt for example and then painting the belts etc after.  This really makes the detail parts of the model pop out at you when looking at the miniature.  Sorry if this is a poor explanation for this method but it is what I came up with.  Anyway here are the units painted but displayed in the pics in no particular order. Okay, so these have been "Flocked & Flagged", clear coated and ready for battle!

1st Foot Guard
2nd Coldstream Guard
3rd Foot Guard
28th Line Regiment
32nd Line Regiment
42nd Highland Regiment.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Next Project...

Ok so I have 3 units painted so far for my 15mm British Napoleonic army, 2 line infantry and one highlander.  They were the 28th and the 32nd and 42nd highlanders.  At first I was doing these for "Napoleon" which is for 6 bases of 4 per unit.  I then thought that having Lasalle and AOE as well that I had better make the units bigger than 6 bases of 4 figures.  Lasalle uses 32 figure units for the Brits and AOE is variable, from 4-11(4 figure) or more stands per unit. Given that I am modeling the British forces at Quatre Bras, the next units I will add to the Brits is:

1st Foot Guards - Done 042910!
2nd Coldstream Guard - Done 042810!
3rd Foot Guard -  Done 042910!
30th Line Infantry - Done 042910!
42nd Highlanders(last 8 of the unit) - The single stick to the left. - Done 042810!
79th Highlanders Not Pictured - Postponed to do some French and Bavarian's.

With the British cavalry I am just adding units that I have pieces for at the moment and are as follows:

1st Royal Dragoons Not Pictured
1st Life Guards Not Pictured
15th Hussars Not Pictured
18th Hussars Not Pictured
1st King's German Legion Hussars Not Pictured

I have all of these primed and ready to go along with 8(at the back of the pictures) more highlanders for my 42nd to bring it up to 8 bases(32 figures).

Monday, April 26, 2010

15mm ACW Collection

Well I have finally got my 15mm ACW collection ready for the table.  Actually I have had it ready and played 2 games with it over the last month and a half, but I would be remiss in not posting them to my blog. Most of these miniatures are Old Glory with a little Essex and Musket Miniatures thrown in for good measure. The lower 2 trays are my CSA(Confederate) troops and the upper 2 trays are my Union troops.  I guess you can tell by the pictures where my loyalties lie... LOL  I was born and raised in the south and now live in California of all places, go figure.  These armies are based for Johnny Reb III with each 4 stand block of troops being one regiment.  I still have over 1200 pcs of 15mm ACW troops still to paint, but I can see that I need to work on my union troops some more to have parity.  You will notice the black bases in the lower first tray, those are 4 more limbers I have for the Union still to paint which I just noticed are in the Confederate Infantry tray.  I guess I should move them up to the Union trays... lol  Anyway it is not much but it is a start.  I think there are about 600 figures in here and all of it painted this year!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Oivay!!! This is another project I need to get back to working on...

I have been collecting these since late last year and "The 28mm Napoleonic Collection" is starting to pile up! I still do not know what to get to fill out some British Cavalry.  I have narrowed the artillery and characters that I want down to either foundry or Perry(metals).  I was hoping some company would come out with plastic British Cavalry, but I am not aware of any yet.  I am not an expert yet on uniforms for different countries and do not know if I can use the Perry French Cavalry for my Brits as well, is this historically ok?  I also plan on getting some Victrix British Flank Company infantry and also some Victrix highlanders some time this year. So far this is the list of my 28mm Plastic nappies.

FRENCH:
8 boxes of Perry French line infantry(3 boxes are not pictured)
4 boxes of Perry French Heavy Cavalry(2 are not pictured)
1 box of Perry Dragoon's
4 boxes of Perry Hussar's on order for when they come out with FLGS
1 box of Victrix French Imperial Guard

BRITISH:
8 boxes of Perry British Line Infantry(4 boxes are not pictured)
If anyone knows of a maker of plastic 28mm British Cavalry or cannon please let me know...

15mm Essex British 32nd Line Infantry and friends

Well I have managed to paint 3 regiments in about as many days with the last one I just finished the 32nd(white facings).  I am getting the process down for painting the black lining method and once you get that down you are good to go.  I can paint one of these 32 man units in about 4 hours of continuous work.  I actually started at 6am and just finished mounting them at 2pm and am waiting for the glue to dry.  I did not paint continuously as I went out and mowed the yard, did some weeding etc...  So I think about for hours is right.  Anyway here ya go...

Latest issue of Charge! Johnny Reb III quarterly newletter arrived


The post came the other day and much to my surprise issue #26 is the Johnny Reb III gaming society was amongst my mail.  The surprise was that I did not expect it until early next month.  I had just joined this at the beginning of April at the cost of $20.00 per year for 4 issues.  The main reason I got this was that every issue has between 2-5 scenario's in it amongst other things, for example this issue has the following in it:

Scenario: Little Phil's stand at Chickamauga.
Rules add-on: Random events cards for your scenario's.
Rules discussion: JRIII Artillery revisited.
Scenario: Meade's Pipe Creek Line.
And More...

I felt the scenario's alone over the course of a year were worth the cost.  You figure you will get between 8-20 scenario's in that time, hell that is a scenario book that you would pay $20.00-$40.00USD for anywhere else. it is put out by a name(Scott Mingus) you should recognize, if you are at all involved with ACW gaming.  If you are interested in or play Johnny RebIII ACW rules I would highly recommend getting this!  The link is here >  http://scottmingus.wordpress.com/about/

Get it you will not regret it...

Saturday, April 24, 2010

15mm Essex 28th British Line Infantry Regiment

Well, I will apologize upfront for the picture quality, but the macro function on my camera is shit!  Anyway I just finished up painting this unit up, and since some of the people around here, play Lasalle and some play Foundry Napoleon with modified range and move distances and some play AOE.  I decided to make all the rest of my units 8 bases worth, that way I can use 8 for Lasalle and 6 for Napoleon and whatever for the rest.  Also this is the first time I did the "black line" method of painting, leaving some black undercoat between colors. I still need to flock them up but I am waiting for the glue to dry under the mini's as I have ruined more than one brush getting super glue on it.  I really like the results but painting a whole army up like this will take forever!!!  Oh well nothing nice comes easy...

List of Napoleonic era British Line infantry facing colors.

For those that need it, here are I think a complete list of British Line Infantry Regiment facing colors for the Napoleonic war era. Enjoy....


1st Royal's Blue

50th Reg. Black
2nd Queen's Blue

53rd Reg. Red
3rd Buffs Buff

54th Reg. Grass-Green
4th King's Own Blue

55th Reg. Dark Green
5th Reg. Emerald Green

56th Reg. Purple
6th Reg. Deep Yellow

57th Reg. Yellow
7th Royal Fusiliers Blue

58th Reg. Black
8th King's Reg. Blue

59th Reg. Lily White
9th Reg. Light Yellow

61st Reg. Dark Buff
10th Reg. Bright Yellow

62nd Reg. Yellowish Buff
11th Reg. Deep Green

63rd Reg. Deep Green
12th Reg. Pale Yellow

64th Reg. Black
13th Reg. Philomot Yellow (Brownish)

65th Reg. White

14th Reg. Buff

66th Reg. Emerald Green
15th Reg. Yellow

67th Reg. Pale Yellow
16th Reg. Yellow

69th Reg. Grey Green
17th Reg. Greyish-White

70th Reg. Black
18th Royal Irish Blue

72nd Highland Yolk Yellow
19th Reg. Deep Green

73rd Highland Dark Green
20th Reg. Pale Yellow

74th Highland White
21st RNB Fusiliers Blue

75th Highland Bright Yellow
22nd Reg. Pale Buff

76th Reg. Red
23rd RW Fusiliers Blue

77th Reg. Yellow
24th Reg. Willow (dark) Green

78th Highland Buff
25th Reg. Blue

79th Cameron Highland Dark Green
26th Reg. Pale Yellow

80th Reg. Yellow
27th Reg. Buff

81st Reg. Buff
28th Reg. Bright Yellow

82nd Reg. Pale Yellow
29th Reg. Pale Yellow

83rd Reg. Pale Yellow
30th Reg. Pale Yellow

84th Reg. Pale Yellow
31st Reg. Buff

86th Reg. Yellow
32nd Reg. White

87th Reg. Deep Green
33rd Reg. Red

88th Reg. Pale Yellow
34th Reg. Bright Yellow

89th Reg. Black
35th Reg. Orange

90th Reg. Deep Buff
36th Reg. Emerald Green

91st Reg. Bright Yellow
37th Reg. Pale Yellow

92nd Gordon Highland Bright Yellow
38th Reg. Bright Yellow

93rd Sutherland Highland Lemon Yellow
39th Reg. Pea Green

94th Reg. Green?/Blue?-Osprey-W020
40th Reg. Deep Buff

96th Reg. Buff
41st Reg. Red

97th Reg. Yellow
42nd Royal Highland Blue

98th Reg. Pale Buff
44th Reg.


99th Reg. Pale Yellow
45th Reg. Grey-Green

100th Reg. Deep Yellow
46th Reg. Pale Yellow

101st Reg. White
47th Reg. White

102nd Reg. Yellow
48th Reg. Buff

103rd Reg. Pale Buff
49th Reg. Dark Green

104th Reg. Lt. Yellow-Buff

Friday, April 23, 2010

Just what I need another time period and scale, this time 28mm ECW

Well I have been wanting to get into painting and playing English Civil War miniatures and games but have been putting it off due to having just too many gaming "iron's in the fire" so to speak, that is until last month's Wargames Illustrated.  The theme for last month was the English Civil War(ECW) and they 4-5 great articles and scenario's that they played and gave historical backgrounds on the ECW.   Anyway I was at my local FLGS yesterday and they had 2 boxes each of Warlord games Parliament and Royalist Infantry sets that I had been looking at for several weeks when I went in.  I also picked up Prince Rupert and The Earl of Essex also from Warlord games.  Next to order will be some Cavalry and Sakers for each as well. Anyway I have been looking rules sets for ECW over for a while as well on the net and after reading reviews on TMP and other sites it finally came down to 2 sets that I would want to try out, the first Rick Priestly's 1644(Ordered) and David Marks "PARLIAMENT, KING or GLORY" English Civil War (ECW) rules(FREE!).  I just downloaded the latter and when I have enough figures acquired and painted up I will give them a go.  Do any of you have a preference for a ECW era rules set?

15mm Essex 42nd Highlanders-finished

I just finished my first British unit, the 42nd Highlanders.  As has already been stated they are Essex figures and while they suffer from the leg shortness problems of some other Essex figures they have very nice detail and are nice to paint.  I still have to finish the bases up but they are mounted on 3/4"x1" metal bases with magnets glued to the bottom so that when transporting them you have them on a metal tray or sheet and they will not slide around.  I still have the 79th highlanders to go but I think I will do some British line regiments before going on to another highland regiment.  Sorry the pics are not better, but I have camera issues... :)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

I Just found a link for painting Tartan's

It is a little late but I just found this link on painting tartan's it cover tartans, like the government tartan, the McKenzie tartan, the Gordon tartan, Royal Stewart, Hunting Stewart, Cameron of Erracht, the Leslie and the Douglas, along with other details of the highlanders in general.  Enjoy for those of you that have not seen this before...

 http://www.angelfire.com/tx/ToySoldier/tartan.htm

Here is the link again...

Essex 15mm British Highlanders Update #1

Okay so this is my first attempt at doing a tartan and I was trying to mimic the 42nd Highlanders tartan, I do not think I got it, so I am looking for feed back.  For those of you that have done tartan's what process do you use?  So please let me know what you think.  One last thing my camera is proving to not be very useful even when using the macro function, so I apologize in advance for the pictures not being the best.   These are about the best I can get, I expected more from a Nikon L10, but I guess that is what I get for getting a camera that cost well under $100.00.  I have a job interview today, so if I get this job, I will be buying a new camera soon, something like a Canon Rebel XTi or XSi...  I hope... anyway wish me luck on this interview as well... :)

Monday, April 19, 2010

15mm Essex British Highlanders and some Rifles...

I am starting to paint up some of the new stuff I got the other day and figured I would start with the 1813-1815 British Highlanders I had, the first will be the 42nd and the second unit will be the 79th and then a unit of rifles which will of course be the "sweeps", the 95th Rifles. and lastly I also thought that I would start to paint up some generals for my army and who better to start with than "Old Nosy", Lord Wellington.  So here are the first pictures of them primed up.  I will follow up with later updates for them as I go.  After posting them I saw that they needed more lighting, well they are black, so what difference does it make??? LOL  I will post pictures with better lighting as I go along...

Well here is the lot from the trade I did yesterday and this is not all of it!!!

Ok lads here it is, this is about 90% of the stuff.  It was kind of a hap hazard collection, like the Prussians are from 1806 or there about's and the Brits are mostly from 1814-1815 but then there is a bunch from 1806.  I even found some Russian hussars. It is so much stuff I will never be able to paint it all, but I will try!!! :) I had a lot of unmarked stuff of which the infantry I was able to identify, but the cavalry is some what hopeless!  I must have about 100 packs of Cav from various nations that I just can not figure out, and Essex' website is less than helpful.  Do any of you know anyone that is an Essex Nappie expert?
The picture above is just the British, and don't let this picture fool you it is stacked deep! Below is most of the collection which also included about 1000 ACW miniatures pictured in the top center.

I imagine at some point I will trade some of it off, as I need French Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry especially  Cavalry.  So if you are up for trades PM me and I can get lists out of stuff for you too look at...

Sunday, April 18, 2010

New test pieces for my 15mm Napoleonic French Army

While I am waiting to leave to pick up my huge Napoleonic's trade I mentioned earlier I started painting and did these two The first is a base of 4 Old Glory French Line Grenadiers and the second is 15mm Old Glory Gardes d'Honneur based in a pair. Let me know what you think.



Saturday, April 17, 2010

Trade: Huge 15mm 5,000+ piece Napoleonic's collection trade deal in the works!!!

Well, I am slowly but surely trading off my GW stuff and this time leaving my house are my Lizardman and WOC armies. In return I am getting a huge 5,000+ piece collection of Essex, Old Glory, Minifig. 15mm Brit, French, Prussian, Portuguese, etc miniatures, NOT PAINTED IN THE BAGS STILL! I guess he got them at an estate sale or something anyway, along with that I am getting about 1,000 pieces of 15mm ACW stuff and a little 7YW stuff to boot! I will post pics when I get the miniatures sorted out...

Perry French Infantry "Dallimore" Update #2




Ok well, I am not sure I like how they turned out, there are some parts I like and some I do not like. I still have not painted the Shako details or the oil skins as I am trying to find the right colors. I decided to make this the 21st Ligne Regiment and the other regiment I had done already the 18th as I painted the facings on both a Scarlet, Red color. Anyway any idea's on colors for the oil skins? Also on the Shako details?

Friday, April 16, 2010

Perry French Infantry "Dallimore" update # 1



Well here is the first try at doing a "Dallimore" paint job. It is a lot more time consuming than I would like for general troops, but I will have to see. I think I like the results so far, as for these pictures they kind of show a step by step process of painting these 28mm Perry French Line Infantry up. Anyway any feed back on these would be great...



28mm Perry French Napoleonic Line Infantry 1812-1815

In this series of blogs, I will make a first attempt at the Foundry "Dallimore" 3 color paint scheme. First up is the Perry Bros. excellent "French Napoleonic Line Infantry 1812-1815" unit of 24 based for Foundry's "Napoleon". I got a little ahead of myself in posting the images after I started painting. I wanted to have the first pics to be of primed only figures. Here I have the base coat of flesh painted. After I finish this series up I will then do a Perry Bros. "British Napoleonic Line Infantry" regiment of 24 and based up for Foundry's rules "Napoleon".

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Wargames Foundry Napoleon Rule book has arrived!



After purchasing several rules sets I could not decide on which one until now. I first started "back in the day" with playing Guarde Du Corps when you had to buy it, which my friends and I played a lot. We also played Empire III but stayed with the former. So after being out of Nappies since the mid 80's I decided to get back into it, and on the recommendation of some guys in my local club got Age of Eagles. Now while I like the support out there, and the rules are good in general, I did not like the Unit sizes. Each unit is a Brigade and the units can vary in size from 4 stands to 15 or more stands. What I did not like is that the unit was several regiments combined into the one unit with one command stand and it seemed to me no way to collect an army. So then I got Lasalle, which was a step in the "easier" direction that I was not necessarily looking for but it appeared that the units where Battalions with 2 making up a regiment, please correct me if I am wrong. Anyway while the format and presentation was nice it just did not strike me as what I was looking for. Lastly and just recently Wargames Foundry's "Napoleon" arrived and after looking at the game, how the units are presented, the historical materials and background included in the rule book, and the rules in general are just great! I am hoping to play my first game with these rules soon, but so far I have a winner "Napoleon" from Wargames Foundry. I will post more on the rules as we play.

28mm FOG Foundry Principate Roman Army



I got this in a trade for some of my FOW Desert Brits I had. After I got them, I then discovered much to my surprise, that they were foundry mini's! Yes I am pretty happy about it, so at some point this year if I can not find work I will be painting these up. Also got 2 boxes of Warlord Games Roman Auxiliaries as I did not get any in the trade. I do not know why whoever bought these had a things for small bolt throwers, as I got 14 of them in the trade! For FOG armies I can only use a total of 3 BG's with 2 bases per group, so that is 6 that I will be using. Anyone need some bolt thowers LOL???

15mm Old Glory Seleucid Cataphact



Here is half of one 8 base unit of Seleucid Cataphract. Again they have those lame metal spears, I wish I could find a better manufacturer of 15mm Seleucids, I like the Old Glory figures, they are inexpensive, easy to get etc. but hate the spears. At some point I would like to make a Seleucid army in 25mm/28mm but the Figures I like for this army the most are Gripping Beast Miniatures but from what I can tell are not available in the States. I wish they would get that sorted out soon...

25mm ACW OLD GLORY Rebel Infantry



Here are a couple of stands I have been painting up for my 25/28mm ACW games. I have been using Johnny Reb III and once you get past the lousy rules layout of the game, it is very fun to play. Anyway here is one Regiment I have finished so for of a 12figure Regiment.

15mm Old Glory Seleucid Argyraspides in progress


Well here is some of my miniatures I have been working on for a while. In these images are my 15mm Seleucid Argyraspides, they are Old Glory and mounted for Fields of Glory. Over all I think the figures are splendid but I have never taken a liking to the metal pikes that are supplied with these figures. I think they turned out ok, I am still working on the shield emblems. I have the first shield done in the center of the first rank as a test piece. Anyway what do you think?


Change of scenery so to speak

Well I have not posted anything for several months as I have been desperately trying to find work after being laid off last year in May 2009. Well that search is rather like wading up an avalanche trying to get to the top of the mountain! There simply is very little work out here in California and what little there is out here, there are probably 100 applicants or more for each position. Anyway I have traded off a lot of my Warhammer 40k, Warhammer fantasy battle and Flames of War armies and getting both 15mm and 25/28mm American Civil War miniatures, Ancients in the form of Foundry 28mm Principate Romans(100A.D.), some 15mm Seleucids and lastly Napoleonics in both 15mm and 28mm. I am hoping to finish a trade this weekend of my Lizardman army(WHFB) and other bits and bobs for a huge unpainted collection of over 4000 pieces of Essex 15mm Nappies, French and Brits along with British Allies. I also have gotten into Seekreig III after not playing that since the Mid 80's. I got into this by accident as I got some 1/2400th scale ships in a trade with a guy in Tennessee. I traded my FOW Russians for some wonderfully painted Foundry/Old Glory 25/28mm ACW figures and the ships came with this trade. Anyway I will have more to post as I go along...

Cheers for now...