Just Horsing Around

Well another week has gone by and I continue to paint and do wargaming stuff for no apparent reason. I can see no potential gaming in my immediate future and I wonder why I keep at it. Not to worry, though... I have to do something to reduce the masses of figures in my possession that are waiting for their share of colourful, acrylic covering.

Over the past week and a bit I've managed to paint up a brigade of 10mm English Horse. This is Palme's Brigade at Blenheim. I must admit that I stole one of the squadrons from another brigade to make up numbers - The regiment with the green flag - The Earl of Plymouth's (4the Horse Regt) which was split up between brigades at the battle. But here they are, reunited in all their 10mm glory! The others are Queen Dowagers Regt (9th Horse) with the blue flag and Lord Cavendish's Regiment (8th Horse) with the yellow flag.

They are a very pretty little brigade and they were very easy to paint. I did the horses using contrast paints, except for the greys, and they came out quite nice. I under coated the figures in black then gave them a good dry brushing with a ghost grey (very pale grey). Then I applied the Contrast Paint - several different shades of brown and a few black. Very fast and effective.

I'm pretty happy with the results and next on the list is a Hesse-Homberg horse brigade which will give the English/Allied army 12 squadrons. (actually, I'm still debating whether to do a Hesse-Kassell brigade: Auroch's Brigade).

Another thing I finished that has been sitting on my paint desk for a while is a train of baggage mules/ponies/horses/donkeys. I was given these a couple of years back by my friend Darryl but I never knew how to tackle them. They were mounted on bases and just sat there for months.

As I was painting the 10mm Horse I decided I'd use these as a test to see if I could use the contrast paints for what they're intended. So that's what I did. Other than the harness and a few other little details these figures are 95% done with contrast paints. I think they came out well and they took very little time to complete once I decided on a painting method. They're not super detailed but they look nice and they can be used in any number of eras. Thank you Darryl.

And that's it for now. I want to do more 10 mm but I might spend this week tackling some of the other half-painted things that have been sitting, patiently on my desk for the past months or years before I get stuck in again. Then again... I may not.

Cheers,

IanKH

Prussian Quick Messenger Service

My Prussians were feeling a bit second rate next to my French. The French had a bunch of pretty looking ADC's but my Prussians had to make do with a handful of individual infantry officers, on foot, pretending to be ADC's. I couldn't find any real Prussian ADC figures (I'm sure there are some out there) so I used a bunch of mounted officers that I already had on hand.

They're a bit of a mix - Three of them are Calpe (I think), two Perry metals and one that I made using leftover parts from a box of Perry plastic Allied Heavy Cavalry. They're a bit rough but they're going to get a lot of handling so there's no need to make them perfect.

These are the Calpe figures. As far as I can tell they're standard infantry battalion commanders but they'll do the job. They have the green collar and cuffs that distinguish them as ADC's and that's good enough for me. Nice figures and easy to paint.

These three are the Perry figures. The one on the left is the plastic kit-bash. I used one of the dragoon horses. I got 3 boxes of Allied cavalry to make two regiments and, as a result I had a few left over figures and horses. I might use one of them to make a cavalry general (even though all the Prussian generals basically wear the same uniform so it doesn't really matter). I have the two metal figures painted up as actual generals/brigadiers but Prussian officer sculpts are limited so I make do with what I can get.

These are for General d'Armee and I'm pretty sure six will be enough for the majority of situations. If I ever need more I'll just place a dice or something else as needed.

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Just as an aside, we've had to make room for visiting relatives so my wife and I had to amalgamate my hobby room and her home office. This means I have limited access to my hobby room during the days she works from home (today being one-such). So I brought my little, el cheapo, Aldi lightbox down and set it up on my desk. It looks bright outside but that was just a momentary break in the clouds. It's a cold, wet, spring day in Melbourne today.

P. S. Listening to The Cramps whilst I work.

One Size Fits All - 10mm Napoleonic's

One Size Fits All was the second record by The Mothers of Invention that I bought some time in 1976 or '77.  How does that fact relate here? I don't know.

I started doing 10mm Wars of the Spanish Succession a couple of years back and thought I might buy some Napoleonic French to see if they are easy paint. I got them prepped them and left them to get dusty. But, now that I'm back to painting and trying to clear things out I decided to try my hand at these tiny guys.

They were certainly quicker to paint than 28mm but not as easy as the WSS / Marlburian figures. Even with a couple of hiccups and a bit of a learning curve, this battalion took about 5 days to complete. I reckon I could do another in about 4 days. They have a little bit of detail in the straps and badges etc, but not too much. I considered doing buttons on their cuffs but I didn't worry about them. The flag is over-sized but I like them that way. I made it myself using Photoshop. In fact I made a whole sheet full of them including the fanions for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th battalions.

They look pretty nice and a few brigades full of these battalions would look very nice on the tabletop. I'm going to do another battalion in a couple of week but first I want to add some more troops to my WSS English (especially some horse). I only have a single brigade at this stage and I need more before I can start gaming with them.

For the sake of comparison here they are next to their 28mm compatriots. I've also added a couple of overhead shots so that you can get an idea of the footprint of the battalion in line and column. Each base is 50mm x 25mm, 2mm MDF.

That's all for this time,

Cheers and thanks for reading.

IanKH