Hessian Jagers

I keep finding little bits of American War of Independence projects hidden in interesting places. these guys were on bases, primed or partially painted, in the same box as my Imagination army, the Electorate of Lustigzollern-Grossgesass.

These are Perry miniatures, and I eventually intend to have 3 teams of 6 figures, plus the amusette and command figures(for SP2). These are generally lovely figures, though some times the facial detail was a bit soft, and a wash wouldn't pick it up well.

Whole group minus extra command figures.

Command stand and Amusette team

Command and Amusette from the rear

Jager team. note the somewhat soft facial detail.

Jager team rear

Extra Command figures.

couple things of note about the paint jobs:

1)  Pinstriped gaitered breeches are far easier to paint on the front and outside of the leg, then on the inside and back. The inside is most cases is hard to get to, and the rear is far less flat.

2) the older GW contrast paint Skeletal Horde, the crappier it looks when dry. In those photos some of the buff breeches and waistcoats look really nice(painted a year ago when the bottle was more then half full) and some look really patchy and nasty.  It's definitely magnified significantly in the photography.  I don't see it nearly as much with the naked eye, but there is definitely a quality difference.   I may repaint it later.

Mostly Renaissance Command Stands

I was recently looking through my renaissance armies and AWI continentals and realized I was missing a few command stands.

I had the  2 of the miniatures for the Continental light infantry stand painted already. I did an arm swap on the NCO and I built the musician form an extra  figure I had left over.  The musician arm holding the horn and the both the NCO arms are modified Victrix French 1808-1812 arms.  I had seen some research when I was reenacting that hunting horns may have actually been used in the continental army. one specific reference is to using  conch shells as substitutes because the musician's "horns" hadn't arrived yet.  Horns or bugle-horns adopted by the british jsut ptior to hte American revolution, and presumably by the Continental army, had more in common initially with hunting horns than modern or later 19th century bugles(see Article). Also given the propensity of  Colonists of German descent to equip themselves with German weapons(german rifles anyone?),  it follows they might use the traditional German hunting horns also.  This unit in my collection was painted to be light infantry of a Pennsylvania regiment, so there you go. that's my rationale. 

Continental Penn. Light Infantry Command Stand,
Perry Miniatures, with Victrix arms.

Different angle with better view of musician.

The Eastern renaissance Command stands consist of a Sipahi, a Janissary, and a Polish guard Haiduk stand, All The Assault Group(TAG) Miniatures. TAG  Miniatures are always fun to paint.  THE Polish Haiduk command packs each come with a young boy holding a weapon for his officer, which adds a lot of character I think. The musician is from the haiduk musician pack. the Ottoman Janissary command stand is one janissary officer with one of the "exclusive" miniatures, which is an ottoman higher officer of some sort.

TAG Sipahi command stand

Sipahis Reverse angle

Polish and Ottoman Infantry command stands

Infantry reverse views.

so with this the AWI and Ottoman projects are pretty much done for now. I still have 24-ish renaissance polish cavalry to paint, but I have no where to store them at the moment. and I won't bother finishing them until I have a decent storage option.  Sadly that will be a while as I'm still unemployed at the moment and very low on funds.

Native Americans

 After having done a bunch of AWI figures recently for sharp practice, I had a conversation with some local guys about what figures I had.  I realized that I had an entire old GW case full of Native Americans left over from the French and Indian War project I sold off 5 years ago. 

Upon inspection, I remembered I had updated some of the painting on most of them, but had not photographed them afterward. These are a combination of pre-Warlord Games Conquest Miniatures and Perry AWI Native Americans. the ratio is about 40% Perry, 60% Conquest. 58 miniatures in all.

the full Native American Contingent.

Native Americans with Muskets

Native Americans on the attack

Native Americans with bows

More Native Americans with Muskets

Mounted Native Americans and  Big Men

When I was selling my FIW collection, I liked these miniatures too much to sell. the Conquest miniatures are spectacular miniatures.  directly from Conquest, they were virtually flash free, clean castings, with no mold shifts. The Perry miniatures are equally as good, and the chiefs pack has some great character. I've seen some of the Conquest miniatures on offer from Warlord, and the casting quality has slipped, but otherwise are the same quality miniatures.

I still have a couple of chiefs to paint up, as well as a Christmas miniature(native pulling a Christmas tree) and the Last of the Mohicans character pack to repaint.

Last of my AWI for now...

 this week I finished the last 3 complete units for my American War of Independence SP2 project. I still have a unit of  British grenadiers but I'm missing 1 figure, and I don't have money to buy a replacement right now unfortunately.

This week all 3 of the units are British.  I have 2 units of 6 British light infantry, and 1 unit of 8 grenadiers. The grenadiers are a mix of Perry and Foundry metals and the  light infantry are Perry plastic.  I also had a an extra mounted commander which I painted up as a British officer with the same facings as the light units.

24th Regiment of foot, light infantry,
Perry plastics

=

Grenadiers of the 42nd Regiment of Foot,
Mix of Foundry and Perry Metals.

I picked these units at random.  I liked the idea of dark green horse hair crests on the "saratoga" cap so I did the lights as that unit. I just like the blue facings on grenadiers, so I picked a random unit that would have used that facing colour.

I realized last week, while talking with a friend, that i have 50+ native Americans that I kept from my FIW project, as they were both the nicest figures form that collection, and probably the best painted. I don't think they've been photographed since i touched them up, so I'll be taking pictures some time in the near future.  Expect that to be my next post.

Brown-coated Continentals

 I've been pretty lax of late with the painting. I've already missed my aim to update no less then once a month.  I've also been lax on getting my miniatures photographed, as I've had these miniatures painted for about 10 days.

Anyway, here are some brown-coated Continental Infantry I painted for Sharp Practice.  These are the left over from the 2 Perry Continental boxes I bought, hence why there is only 16 instead of 24. I have 2 extra unpainted. I threw in the mounted overweight militia colonel from AW195, as its just a great miniature.

Perry plastic Continental infantry,
with metal colonel from AW195

I have 20 British  infantry left for this project on my desk, partially painted. I'm hoping to get them knocked off next week.

Cheers!

Pandemic projects: American War of Independence

 I started my 28mm American War of Independence  skirmish project a little over a year ago. I painted 120 figures in about plus artillery and command in about a month. I used the project as a test bed to learn how to use GW contrast paints. It was also the fire project to seriously use tufts during the basing. i learned 2 things:

1)  most Contrast paints aren't really worth using.  The Blood angels Red is the most notable exception. it shades constantly and produces a red that works well for British uniforms. other notables are skeletal horde and Apothecary white.  most other colours I used were either the wrong tint and required mixing multiple colours to a close enough colour and/or they went on with an inconstant effect. 

2) tufts are way too expensive to use on every project. I spent over $40CDN dollars on just tufts! it literally doubled to cost of the basing. they look nice, but if i used them on every project I'd definitely have fewer projects! unless there is a viable way to bulk buy them(in Canada, specifically), its not worth it in my opinion.

Everything I've painted since last post, last week.

 

Anyway, I had not painted 2/3rds of 1 group of 24  in each army so  I pulled them out, touched up the finished figures and painted the remaining ones. I also finished up the remaining artillery bits and officers.

I refer to each unit of 24 figures as a "regiment"  as I only paint 24 figures from a given regiment usually. since its a skirmish project, obviously its not an actual regiment, its not even half a company. its just the terminology I use.

Continental(top) and British(bottom)
grasshopper guns and limbers

Grasshopper guns, limbered

I had a pair of Fife and Drum grasshopper guns to paint. 1 each for continental and British. i decided to leave the gun loose so I could limber it as shown in the pictures.  I coated the peg on the limber in carpenters glue to protect the paint.  The guns fit securely on the peg, so when I store them they get stored limbered. I don't normally do this with guns so this was a bit of a viability experiment.

A pair of limbers for my 6pdr cannons

These limbers belong to my 2 6pdr cannons, 1 British, 1 continental. They are also Fife and Drum miniatures.

Continental light infantry, from Pennsylvania

These continental light infantry are Perry plastic with Perry AWI British arms. I just didn't paint the lace in the cuffs. they are painted up the same as my Pennsylvania regiment, and there was at least one entire Penn. regiment that wore light infantry caps, so they can be used either way.  a 24 figure light infantry "regiment"  can be used as show in 3 units of 8 line or 4 units of 6  skirmishers in Sharp Practice.  I repainted the blue coats and all the white on the 8 figures that were painted last year. the mixed contrast blue I made(Tallasar blue and Ultramarines blue) didn't consistently shade to my liking.

this "regiment" also has an attached amusette team not shown that i had previously painted. I did some reading and found that at least one armoury in Virginia? made amusettes for the Continental army. There are even surviving examples. so I bought a pack of Perry Hessian jager amusettes and converted one team to be in (plastic)light infantry caps, and then painted them to match my light infantry.

Loyalist Kings Carolina Rangers

The Kings Carolina Rangers are Perry British plastics. they can be used as any green coated loyalist regiment. I picked Kings Carolina Rangers because they name sounds cool, and because they had green lapels on green coats with no lace. Easy to paint! I repainted a lot of the white on the 8 figures that were already painted, as well as added some colour variation in the gaitered breeches.

Bits and pieces

 I had a few bits and pieces of other "regiments". The commander and infantry in hunting shirts belong to my Maryland regiment, and the brown coated commander is going to be the leader to a 16-man unit of brown coated continentals/militia that have yet to be assembled. the water cart is a 4ground accessory I think.

I really like these figures.  I only used the collection once before the pandemic began, but I'm looking forward to getting more gaming in with them when the pandemic is over!  I still have some British grenadiers to paint, and enough plastics for a 16 figure continental/militia "regiment"in brown coats, and a couple of 6-figure British light infantry units at the trail.  I plan on ordering some cavalry eventually but that is down the road a ways.

New Project: AWI for Sharp Practice

Sometime back in September i started painting up the American War of Independence miniatures I have had sitting around since just before I left Ontario. I used them as a test bed for using GW contrast paints.

generally speaking, I really like the contrast paints. I wish their coverage was a little more universal across the line though. some are go on way to heavily, and do almost no shading. and some are way too week. weak enough you might as well just use a army painter wash.

That said, the Black Templar(Black), Dark angels Red, Apothecary White and Skeletal Horde(off white/light tan). Dark angles red is perfect for black powder era British red coats. i use 3 parts Talasar Blue to 1 part Ultramarine Blue for Napoleonic french/AWI American coats.  for green coated troops I'll be using 1 part Dark Angels Green to 1 part Ork Flesh. and for brown coats I'll be using 1 part Snakebite leather to 1 part Cygor brown. These mixes tend to give me a colour I like, with the right tone and amount of coverage(shading and highlighting) I'm looking for. they go on in basically one coat and save me a lot of time.

Fife and Drum British artillery, Perry everything else.

New york VOlunteers(3rd American Rgt.), Perry Plastics

British 62nd Regiment of Foot.  Perry metal minis

(left) Maryland Continental Infantry
(right) Pennsylvania Continental Infantry

(back) Perry Ammo cart and Fife and Drum 6Ib Cannon,
(Front left) Perry Amusette team
(Front Right) Pennsylvania light infantry

(middle)Deployment points, (Front)moveable deployment
points, and (back) Mule train

I made some Deployment points out of some Wizkids Deep Cuts barrels and crates.  i added in some TAG muskets and swords, some buckets from the Fife and Drum artillery accessories, a a few extra hats from the Perry plastic boxes. the mules are also from the Wizkids Deep Cuts RPG minis line. there are some fantastic little bits of scatter and scenery. I used some casualties from the AWI British plastic box to make the moveable deployment points.

I'm particularly proud of the Continental light infantry Amusette team I kitbashed.  This is actually one of the Perry Jager Amusettes. I cut off the tricornes and affixed some spare Continental light infantry caps in their place. I wanted an american amusette because i know that the Virginia state Armoury and nearby Rappahanock Forge made amusettes for the American army. in fact 6 still exist in collection in the US to this day. but absolutely no one makes a team in 28mm.


I do have more planned for the AWI project.  I have more green coated Infantry, the Kings Carolina Rangers, to paint.  I also have 16 more Continental infantry in light caps.  I also have 2 Fife and drum Limbers for the 6Ib cannons and a pair of Fife and Drum 3Ib grasshopper guns and limbers. i also have enough figures left to make another unit of American infantry, something in brown coats. I'm doing the green and brown coats for a splash of colour.

Settled in Edmonton and New Room Set Up.

I've been in edmonton for 2 months now.  Things are starting to settle down a bit.  I've managed to get most of my gaming stuff unpacked.  and i've picked up some display cases and shelves to equip my " computer cave".

the 4 utility shelves arranged along the 12 foot wall. 
my  computer desk is in the opposite wall at the end.

The week after we moved into the new house,  Home Depot was having a sale on black plastic utility shelving.  $27 per unit.  I grabbed 4. they are 18" deep and 36"(3') long. they fit perfectly on one wall, as the wall is 12' long.  nearly all my miniatures, terrain, and supplies fit on them. On the opposite wall there is an alcove that is 6' wide, and 32" deep.

The Alcove, After furnishing

I picked up 2 Detolf display cabinets a few weeks ago form Ikea.  I was back down in that area last week, so I picked up a pair of Dioder lighting kits.  This past weekend I was in Canadian Tire and they had a bookshelf on sale that perfectly fit the space I had left over.  My books finally have a home!

so with that my little room is complete.  I bought 4 folding 6' x 2.5' tables, which i can set up in the main basement area(rec room) for games.  My only problem at the moment is that i don't have a gaming mat big enough to cover all the tables.  So now i have to come up with a plane for a 5'x12' gaming mat!  Always a major project in the works!


I have done some painting in the last month.  I painted up a unit of 8  foundry continental Infantry for the forthcoming  AWI project, using Muskets and Tomahawks.

first unit of the 2nd Pennsylvania regiment

 I've found after several playtests that using the "varied" unit sizes in the main book doesn't work well.  Because of the way the rules represent firing,  a max sized unit of 12 line will crush an 8 man  of rangers, or any other irregular force(other the light infantry).  sure, irregulars have better firing, but if the line unit has 50% more fire, the better to-hit is irrelevant.  now this is more pronounced in the more irregular forces (rangers, Couriers de bois, various riflemen, militias etc)which are limited to max units of 8, or sometimes 6.  i know many of these units are supposed to be weaker then line units, but in many cases they were not, specifically in the north American theater, where la petite Guerre was so common.  but the morale system, coupled with the high casualties rate from fire, cripples units of 6-8 in often a single volley.   my simple solution is just to keep everything in units no larger then 8(few units can be smaller then 8 anyway). this levels the playing field, and lets the point system balance all other differences, in my opinion.