Commanders, a wargame digest

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The Painting Desk

28th Infantry Regiment

With a slightly darker green used for cuffs and facings, these are in the colours of 28IR Baron Frelich Bohemian.

I had a couple of mishaps with these, unusually for me, causing some damage through carelessness. First the plastic banner pole snapped and I had to replace it with brass and then very annoyingly a drop snapped off the extended scabbard that is in the officers hand. This was glued back on with Revell Contacta. It works, but I will be cautious when further handling as this is clearly a weak spot. 

I thought white uniformed Austrians would be the easiest thing to churn out, but I find whites the hardest of uniforms to get right.

These have been primed in GW Wraith Bone from a rattle can and then the jackets and trousers were coated with Apothecary White Contrast paint. This was highlighted in Vallejo Off White and finally the cross straps were built up with a further couple of coats of off white to get a higher density of white on the strapping. 

For shading I used the thin black ink shader from Black Hat Miniatures. I think these look better than my previous regiment, which I did some years ago, so I am moving in the right direction.

I already have the next regiment on painting sticks and having just put on the Apothecary White contrast paint, I will build the figure up with layers of Off White just dry brushed on and see whether this takes improvement any further.

Flagged as Lord Stanley’s men

These two bases are all Perry plastic and have just come off their painting sticks. They seem to be defending a particularly flowery / tuft plot of land! :-)

They have been painted up from black primer, mat varnished and then a satin varnish dragged over the metal for some highlights.

The flag is from Pete’s Flags on E-bay, which comes as a set of three, including a banner that would be a good fit for a Stanley Command base, which might be a nice addition to do at some point for Bosworth related games.

The background buildings are from Conflix and the road from The Last Valley. The cloth is from Geek Villain.

Soviet SMG for Rapid Fire

Eight Soviet sub-machine gunners based in pairs gives a SMG company for the Rapid Fire Reloaded rules.

I figured that SMG units would likely spend most of their deployment in built up area and so the bases were given more rubble effect than my other units.

These are metal AB Miniatures in 20mm. They are rattle can primed in grey and after painting are  gloss varnished for better protection, before being given a matt coat. Now based, everything will get a light spray of matt varnish once the weather warms up.

French Light Infantry

This is a battalion of my Warlord Games Light Infantry. They are late war, so sit outside my 1809 project time frame - but that does not bother me.

They are easy to put together and come with decals to attach to the cartridge cases (slung to the rear).

There are flags in the set and I have chosen 14th Light Infantry to be represented here.

I don’t know why, but my box had 2 officers and no drummer, which is a bit of a shame.

All-told, I am quite happy with these. They took longer to paint than I would have liked, but I just need to tweak the technique a little.

French foot artillery

Foot Artillery in 28mm from the Perry’s in metal.

All of this was primed in white and then most of the basic colours block painted in Contrast paints.

The next layer used various Vallejo paints to highlight various parts and to do a general tidy up, then a wash was applied, followed by just a very few highlights here and there.

They have had a hand brushed gloss varnish because they are metal, followed by a matt varnish.

They look better to the eye than the super intrusive camera suggests.

I always use Cidadel Deathworld Forest (a green) for French artillery, but here, I am wondering whether post wash, it looks too dark.

These are now just awaiting a spray of matt varnish as a final protection to the figures and to lock the various flocks and tufts down.

I have another pair of guns in the lead mountain, but they can wait until I get some infantry and cavalry done for the ‘Pocket Army’. 

Austrian 6 pdrs

The metal Perry 28mm napoleonic Austrian 6 pdrs roll off the painting table. They just need a quick blast of matt varnish to tie in the flocks and dampen down the light gloss on the figures.

These have already had a gloss varnish, followed by matt and being metal, I don’t think you can ever have too much varnish on them! 

Overall a nice addition to the ‘Pocket Army’, which slowly - slowly moves on.

WWII Era Soviet 82mm mortars

Pack number INS27 from the AB Miniatures 20mm range., gives us two 82mm mortars, each with three crew and some accessory ammo boxes.

The two part mortar goes nicely together as a good fit, secured by a small dab of super glue  and these examples have been set on a 50mm MDF round base.

These were primed grey (rattle can) and the main uniform colour is Vallejo Khaki.  I stepped back from the Super Shader product that I have been using and tried Agrax Earthshade instead, thinned with a little water, as that seems to complement the uniform colour nicely.

They have a hand brushed gloss varnish on them because they are metal, followed by Vallejo matt varnish. Now that they are based, they await a final blast of matt varnish from the airbrush, to dampen down any remaining gloss and to lock down the flock.

40th Mississippi

The latest 28mm ACW regiment moves off the painting table. This Confederate unit has been flagged up as the 40th Mississippi, the distinctive flag originally sold by Redoubt Enterprises and I thought unusual as it is emblazoned with a tree!

This was a straight forward paint job and for the first time, I primed the figures with rattle can grey. I suppose I could have left the primer as the base coat for the uniform, but didn’t, instead putting ValIejo Light Grey over the hats, tunic and trousers.

The Vallejo was surprisingly close to the primer colour, but overall I felt that the extra painting added some subtle variables that the very consistent primer didn’t, which looked overly flat and so the final result looks a bit more painterly.

Dismounted Confederate Cavalry

These are metal Perry Miniatures. You get six to the box and a matching set of six have been done for the Union side.

These are based on 50mm pill bases, with terrain and scrub added to reflect the kind of cover that dismounted troops might seek.


1/72 Engine Shed

This is a plastic 7 part kit from Nightwing. It has been based and has track running from it so that it can join up to any track that is being used on the table.

Paving slabs have been added using thin card and steel pipes and a section of iron girder also dress the base.

The question was whether to glaze the windows or not. However, the insides of the windows do not lay flat and so glazing would not have looked right,not that there would be much left in a war zone!

A knocked out tram

Looking for a bit of street furniture for a city fight scenario with 1/72 figures, I sourced an HO/OO scale die cast model tram and set about 'ruining it!

There are just two things needed, one is to deconstruct the tram by adding damage and then to cover both the base and the tram with falling debris, to suggest the collapse of nearby buildings. The background building is actually a 15mm factory from Battlefront pre-paints.

There is a post over on the blog that explains the various stages of the build. LINK

http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2022/01/city-fight-tram-modelling-on-budget.html

StuGs

1/72 Stug III’s from The Plastic Soldier Company.

Nice kits. It’s not really clear from this picture, but I have cut and bent one of the skirt panels back to show a bit of damage, other than that, these are ‘out of the box’ builds.

You don’t get decals with these sets and I can’t recall where I got these from, but they are just the ticket.

After painting, these were lightly sponged with watered down Vallejo German Beige WWII and then very lightly dry brushed. The completed vehicles have a Vallejo mat varnish.

Snake fencing for ACW

These are four 8” strips of snake fencing that have been built to match the existing six pieces and they are close enough that differences are not too noticeable.

The snaking has been kept unrealistically narrow, just to help the footprint on the games table. The base is balsa wood and the fencing structure is formed from BBQ skewers, with the rails whittled with a knife to get a rough cut look.

1/72 T-34 kit from PSC

Plastic Soldier Company sell these in boxes of three. What I particularly like about this kit is that you get two turrets. One for the 76mm gun (shown here) and the other for the 85mm turret and you can just swap them as needed.

You don’t get decals and I can’t remember where I got this lot from, but outside of that, the kits are very good and easy to assemble.

This was just undercoated in Vallejo Russian Green and then highlights, washes and some sponging applies to it.

New WotR Characters

The imaginations world of Piggy Longton get some new characters.

The pigs have been painted with a nod towards the Gloucester Old Spot, though this breed would not have existed at the time, with pigs having a much more boar like resemblance. I just prefer my pigs to look like …. Pigs!

The Bishop and his attendant I believe to be Gripping Beast figures, which I picked up from Colonel Bills. After doing some ‘robe’ research, this appears to be a fair approximation of the clothing that some reference images suggested.

In my imaginations, he has been previously known as Stephen the Fearless, before taking up his priestly duties, so we will see what falls out of that!

Yorkist arrival

A fellow blogger kindly donated me some figures. Firstly we have a professionally painted foot knight, wearing a tabard with King Edwards livery. Having found a Perry flag from my stash for Lord Cobham, then that is who our foot knight becomes.

Also donated was a raw metal mounted herald, which I thought would look rather nice on the base. It is the first time that I have mixed horse and foot and the horse does take up quite a bit of space on the 80mm base.

to make up for that, I dropped the die holder at the rear of the base so that another infantry figure could be added.

There are some pictures and commentary over on the blog re the painting of the unit, plus details of a handy small footprint bridge from Warlord Games. LINK.

http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2021/09/wotr-recruiting-continues.html

Wars of the Roses gun.

This one by Perry Miniatures, 28mm in metal and based on a 60mm wide by 80mm deep base.

A 10mm die frame has been added to the front on the far side.

Handgunners Wars of the Roses.

Four 28mm figures from the Perry’s plastic Mercenaries box.

These are on a 80mm x 50mm base and set up as a skirmisher force. The base has had additional cover and rough ground added (some slate stone and broom bristles), just to differentiate the and their role from ‘line’ troops.

28mm Wars of the Roses

A bit of re-basing and some new figures added gives 3 new contingents to the 28mm Wars of the Roses Pocket Armies project.

Each unit is on a 80mm base, with Percy and Bayton going into the Lancastrian army and York’s contingent going to the Yorkists (obviously!).

A post has gone up over on the blog that describes these units a little more. LINK

http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2021/05/28mm-wars-of-roses-pocket-armies.html

1/72 Tiger II

This is one of a pair that come in the Pegasus fast build sets.

Proportions and angles look right, though track face details is generic and the model does not come with its own decals.

1/72 Pegasus 38(6)

One of the ‘fast built’ kits from Pegasus, that come with two vehicles to the box. 

A robust model that holds better with super glue rather than plastic cement.

As with all the vehicles in the range, track detail is representative and the kit does not come with decals. The ones used here are from the Plastic Soldier Company.

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