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!

Happy New Year!

 Happy New Year!

As 2020 draws to a close, I finished 8 french command stands.

French Generals

Light Cavalry Generals

Divisional Generals

Heavy Cavalry Generals

I decided this time to add more stuff to the bases to make them a littler more interesting.  I have a bunch of leftover pieces from various 4ground kits, including a ton of wagon wheels.  I'm happy with how they turned out.

Looking back at 2020, I had a pretty productive fall. Since September I've painted 122 Cavalry, 378 infantry, 4 cannons and 5 limbers/carts. that's pretty good. the rest of the year was pretty much a wash. Thanks Covid.

Looking forward to 2021, I'll be painting many more Napoleonic miniatures.  I have a Russian and a Prussian division, and  I have more French, mostly cavalry and artillery.

Heres looking forward to a better 2021!

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.

Pandemic Projects: Finishing off a few Loose Ends

 This week I decided to take it easy and slow down before I burn myself out. I  had a half finished Front Rank French foot battery half painted( 1 gun and 4 crew painted), and half-based individually from my skirmish project. Also, having decided to switch my personal  artillery to 4 crew on a gun on a 60x80mm base, I went a head and converted my lone Prussian battery to that standard. I found a bag of Front rank Russian foot artillery crew, so I fully intend to get my 3 Russian foot batteries upgraded to this new standard once the bases arrive.

Stuff I put paint on this week

 

I also had some regular french infantry in great coats and a Prussian command base kicking around in various states of being painted, so I took some time to finish them off.

 

Front Rank artillery battery with
Perry  infantry in great coats

Front Rank Artillery Closeup

I had the left gun and crew painted and individually based for skirmish.  the right gun and crew were primed but not painted. I managed to Match the dark blue colour pretty good.  then both were based on 60x80mm bases.

Perry plastic infantry with
some metal command added.

 Prussian I Foot Battery, Perry Miniatures

Blucher(left) and Gneisenau(right),
Perry Miniatures, on a 60mm base

The Prussian foot battery was  finished and based as 1 gun and 2 crew on a 50x50 base. Recently I have decided to abandon this basing because Perry guns come 1 gun and 4 crew to a pack for about $16.20 CDN (£9.50).  most companies o comparable quality don't sell individual guns and crews.  Front rank are the major exception. but a FR gun and 2 crew cost almost as much! so I decided to completely convert to the Perry artillery standard on 60x80mm bases. I do admit this looks nicer on the table. it still going to be awfully expensive for my 2nd Russian division's artillery.  I need 3 batteries of 3 guns(9 guns total).

This week I also assembled a  Perry Prussian regiment ( 1 fusilier battalion, 2 infantry battalions), but I'm still waiting for bases to arrive so I'll need to find something to keep my occupied next week.

Pandemic Projects 6: French Old Guard Grenadiers(etc.)

Before I left Ontario 5 years ago, I picked up a box each of Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers and Chasseurs. Once I got here I found that there was only a small historical community, and they didn't really do much that I had an interest in, so many of my historical projects got neglected. after digging through my project tubs in the last month, I came across the sprues for these and decided they needed to get painted. I also had a unit of Perry cuirassier laying around and decided they also need some love.

This weeks painted units.

First unit this week is Perry French cuirassiers.  These are wonderful models.  I have more of these but I need to order a pair of command sprues to finish the units.

Perry Plastic French Cuirassiers

Next up is the Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers.  Each box of Old Guard has 60 models: 48 infantry and 4 sets of 3 command figures.  i used one set of command figures with some Perry plastic french in greatcoats, and there were 9 figures left over so I used them to make an 8-figure skirmish unit. I'm not sure if the Old Guard actually used skirmishers, but its a good use of figures.  With all that done, I have but a single figure left. I have the say that these boxes are much easier to assemble then Victrix' earlier offerings.  the figures have 3-5 parts.

the 2 command stands are from the Victrix(now Brigade Games) Metal Old Guard commanders. In the blister I wasn't really keen on them but I got them cheap.  Unpainted the bearskins make the figures look strange. once i painted them though they looked far less odd.

Victrix Metal Guard commanders and Plastic
Old Guard Grenadier Skirmishers

Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers charging

Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers marching. back unit
flipped to display the detail on the backpacks.

overall I'm very happy with this weeks productivity.  I still have the Old Guard Chasseurs to paint, but  they are essentially just head swaps of the same figures so I'm going to give it a bit of time before I try to paint them. The edging on the backpacks made me go cross-eyed. I'm sure I can find something to keep myself busy next week!

Pandemic Projects 5: Napoleonic French Cavalry

 This week I decided I was going to start eating in to my 28mm Napoleonic pile.  I have a Russian Division, a Prussian Brigade, and a whole host of french kicking around unfinished, mostly Perry with a bit of Victrix mixed in.  The french are the least represented in my painted collection(especially cavalry), so I decided to start there.

Perry French Dragoons and Hussars

Normally I pick a section of an Order of battle to build my formations and decide on regiments, but I haven't really done that with any of my french.  these dragoons are no different.  I have 3 units now.  these 2 are pink faced(Regiments 13-18) and yellow faced(regiments 19-24). I already have a unit that is orange faced(regiments 25-30). I intend to do the other half of all 3 regiments eventually. These colours almost fit the 6th Heavy Cavalry Division, 5th Cavalry Corps at Leipzig. I also converted 2 of my individually based dismounted units into my mass combine system skirmish units. I only got 1 based in time for the photo shoot. they were less important as I figure thy won't get used to often.  I'll need 2 more boxes of Perry Plastic dragoons plus an extra command sprue and a pair of horse artillery guns to finish off this division.

Dismounted Dragoons skirmishing

Dragoons from a random regiment 
between 13 and 18

Dragoons from a random regiment 
between 19 and 24

Unlike the Dragoons, Hussar regiments are pretty unique in colouring, so I did find an order of battle for Leipzig, and chose my regiments that way. I chose the 2nd Light Cavalry Division, 2nd Cavalry Corps. These units represent half of the 5th and 9th Hussar regiments. i have another hussar box kicking around, so if I order an extra command sprue I'll be able to finish off these regiments. in order to finish off the Cavalry division, I'd need 3 units of Lancers, 4 units of chasseurs a cheval, and 2 Horse Artillery teams. that translates into 2 boxes of Warlord lancers, and 2 boxes of Perry chasseurs cplus 2 extra chasseur command sprues.

Painting the hussars was a bit of a daunting task due to the lace. I wasn't sure it would turn out well  but I'm happy with the result.

Hussars from the 5th regiment, Perry Plastic

Hussars from the 9th regiment, Perry Plastic

I have to show off the lace on those white jackets. 
it turned out way better then i anticipated!

 

I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing for next week. might be more french. It'll probably be more Napoleonics, as it makes up so much of what I have left to paint.