Tiny and Tinier

I've been struggling to get my wargaming mojo back recently so, on a visit to Eureka Miniatures, I invested in some Irregular Miniatures 6mm War of Spanish Succession to try and kick start me back into painting.

I did a couple of regiments of foot and one of horse. I didn't know how to base them and I had no game system in mind. I just painted and mounded them so that they looked good to me. And my plan worked because I did get my painting mojo back.

Each unit has 77 individual figures. Each block has 18 figures and each regiment has 4 blocks plus a command strip. They look pretty nice and they're easy to paint but I doubt that I'll continue with this era for the foreseeable future but I will continue with 6mm.

This unit is the 1st Battalion Nivernais.  I did this unit in 28mm some years back.

The next unit is the 1st Battalion Bourbon.  I did this unit in 28mm some years back too.

This is just a generic regiment of horse.

And just in case you've never encountered 6mm miniatures before, here they are with a 28mm wizard.

Painting these made me drag out my 6mm ancients and I forgot how much I like those figures. So I went to the Baccus website to see if anything caught my eye... And I decided on Wars of the Roses. I've always wanted to do WotR's but I've always been put off by the amount of painting requited to do all the livery and stuff. But in 6mm I don't need to worry too much about that and I think I be able to get a really good massed unit effect happening. So I ordered their two army pack (with a few added extras).

And:

You probably noticed something else in the top photo. This is my attempt at making a 2mm Roman Legion. I watched the youtube series of the new Too Fat Lardies game "Strength and Honour" and I liked what I saw. I searched on line for 2mm figures and found pretty much nothing. I did find some DIY ideas so I began to think...

Here's what I came up with:

A 20mm square of thick card.

I stuck it onto a plastic base with blu-tack.

(The plastic base is just to give me something to hold on to.)

I added a thick coat of tacky glue.

I dipped it into some hundreds and thousands (I don't know what these are called in outside of Australia but they are little balls of sugar usually sprinkled on birthday cakes or used to make fairy bread).

I stopped taking photos at this stage because after giving them a coat of pva glue the turned very tacky and I was going to chuck them out. But they dried very solid overnight. So I glued them onto a 150mm x 750 mm base and gave them a thick undercoat of Vallejo black undercoat. Then I did a bit of dry brushing and a very, very basic paint job. Some flocking and here they are.

And that's my attempt to make a 2mm legion. This method would be a really easy way to make warbands. Just cut out an irregular blob shape, glue it on a base and add the hundreds and thousands. You could easily make a vast army in an afternoon. The most time consuming thing was waiting for the pva coating to dry to a solid consistency. I left it over night but I'm sure if you placed them in a nice warm area they will cure within a couple of hours.