28mm - Greek Light Cavalry - Victrix

 

A change from Napoleonics for sure!   Yesterday I completed a unit of Greek Light Cavalry made by Victrix.   These were certainly a lot easier to paint than the Napoleonics I have been mostly painting this year. 

There are 12 plastic cavalry in the Victrix set and with enough spare heads wearing later style helmets to cover Alexander's Macedonia.

There are also plenty of arms, so there are sword options as well as shields.  I opted for the classical Greek Light Cavalry of the Peloponnesian War era.  I rather liked the additional left hands clutching extra javelins. This meant a sleek Stanley knife amputation here and there but it means this unit looks like it wants to shower it's foe in javelins!

The figures and horses went together really well. The horses needed a little filling on the rump but this was straight forward. Other horses only had one hoof in contact with the stand. This made them a little wobbly. I used the basing material to try to grasp another hoof to add a little more strength.

The fit of all other parts was generally very good.

It was fun to paint these. Although the clothing is simple, I was still able to add a variety of colours and the addition of bronze always adds interest to a figure.

Some of the horses have a furry creature's pelt upon the back of it instead of saddlecloth. I wasn't too sure what the animal skin was initially.  As I was applying wolf colours I thought I could make out a lions tail.  A little further research and I discovered that Lions were around in Greece until around 400 AD.  This changed everything for me!  Lions aplenty for another 800 years...so lion pelts they became.

I was most interested to read Wargames Illustrated and be inspired by the article about Simon MacDowall's new rules for the period called 'Alala!' published by the Society of Ancients.  There is a lot to be said for period specific rules.  I have spent a lot of time making generic period rules be more time-frame specific.  Rules that cover the nuances of a particular period are becoming more interesting to me.  I was very keen to try them so made the purchase!

The rules have a lot of elements that really appealed to me and having read the rules several times now, I am really looking forward to trying them out.  This gave me encouragement to finish the painting on these Light Cavalry.

I have several things on the painting desk at the minute. I have spent the last month or so rebasing and re-organising and even painted four 'Bloodbowl' fantasy figures (Fantasy...whatever next!). It was actually a really nice change to do something totally different, though at times I felt very much out of my comfort zone!   I'm not sure what to paint next...but it will be fun for sure!

28mm - Napoleonic French - 13e Regiment de Chasseurs a Cheval

 

As if finishing one cavalry regiment recently wasn't enough, I have now done another one!  This time a regiment of Chasseurs a Cheval, equipped and painted as the 13th Regiment in the Peninsular War.

The figures are from the Perry's box set of 14 very nice plastic cavalrymen.  As so often, the Perry's have given a lot of extras and options, so that the unit can be a little more parade ground or dressed in the later Bardin reform Spencer coat.

I opted to go for the earlier Kinski coat and gave the unit a campaign look with covered shakos  and a mix of trousers.  These are either the issued pattern or the locally Spanish fabricated versions in brown wool but with the leather trim and buttons.

I chose to represent this regiment because it was in so many of the Peninsular War battles.  At Salamanca it appears to have had the most squadrons in the field of any French light cavalry formation.

One of the added bonuses of painting this unit was the magnificent contrasting facing colour of light orange which really sets them off. I really like the trumpeter in his reverse facing coat, one benefit of going pre-Bardin reform.  The orange shade probably looks very light due to the camera flash (the daylight bulb went bang this evening!), 

The Officer was a joy to paint also. His uniform is also quite magnificent.  I bought an Osprey book just to assist me with some of the small details, though it does not take much in the way of reasons for me to purchase an Osprey uniform book!

I decided to paint the unit with pom-poms for the 4 x squadrons.  As I wanted to base the figures in pairs (I have tried them in threes previously but found it made the bases unwieldy on the board), I had to have stands where the two cavalrymen are from different squadrons.   This is something that I am ok with. When the unit is acting as a regiment I only have to place the the mixed stand between the others and it works.  The pictures of the regiment together demonstrates this.

Numbering on saddle rolls is something that I'll hold off on until I can get some transfers.  Badly painted numbers would spoil the effect, and I don't trust myself to get the numbering looking correct (my handwriting is bad enough, never mind painting digits!)

Paints used were a mixture of Wargames Foundry and Vallejo.  

I really do like the character that the Perry's sculpt into the faces of their figures. It is not to excess but they do have character!

I still have a large coffee jar of cat litter which I use for rocks.  As I probably place about 50 or so rocks in total per regiment, I might consider the coffee jar to be a lifetime supply!

I normally spray the horses with a matt varnish. I do wonder if they are little too dull and a semi-gloss sheen might be of benefit.  I guess the dust might tone down the sheen in reality. I don't spend time around horses to know how much effort it takes to make them go as shiny as a racehorse.  I might have to research this further.

The Elite Companies always look something quite special.  I kept the colpak and plumes as befitting an elite squadron who undoubtedly would want everyone to know they are the elite of the regiment.

And it was left to label up the magnetic base with the regiment details and take photos for the blog.

I'm not sure I can paint any more cavalry regiments at the moment.  The effort of painting two up  in a couple of months was quite hard going.  I fancy doing something completely different now, something a lot simpler!

28mm - Spanish Hermitage Building - Charlie Foxtrot Models

Ha! No one expects the Spanish Hermitage!  And apologies to Monty Python for that.   It's not often that I make buildings so there is an element of surprise here. Fitting in with my Peninsular War project is this building made by Charlie Foxtrot Models.  Charlie Foxtrot really do make some lovely MDF buildings. 

I must say that it all went together really well.  I checked out the company website for guidance and ideas and from this I was really impressed how it all went together. 

I love the details like the missing areas of plaster showing brickwork. This was neatly done by inserting the brickwork mouldings into the purposely left gaps in the MDF.  I have included some Cacadores  here for scale.

I used the recommended method of putting a sharp blade to the stone work and cutting away chunks of MDF to give the stonework a worn appearance.  I did the same with the step too, to show erosion over time.

I like the little touches. Even the bell is included.  It comes gorgeously shiny but, alas, I felt it needed some weathering to keep it in character with the somewhat neglected hermitage. A black green wash was liberally painted on to the bell. It has a rustic charm all of it's own now.

The roof comes as a resin casting and again it fits well.  The whole construction does not feel weak at all but solid and sturdy once glued together.

I used Polyfilla (sorry if it is called something else in the colonies) to texture the walls. I did this fairly roughly, leaving gaps and gouges. A gentle sanding removed excesses of the polyfilla and gave a really nice surface ready for the paints.

Finally I used various shades of Dark yellow and patches of terracotta and dry brushed to light on the walls.  I drizzled in some watered down green wash where damp and water might gather or run.  The roofing was done with Foundry Terracotta paint, washed with a mid-tone wash and then lightened progressively.  I've kept notes of the exact colours used (I keep a folder which has all the colours used for all of my projects!), should anyone find the information useful.

The building was actually really enjoyable to put together, texture and paint.  I will definitely be getting more wonderful buildings from Charlie Foxtrot models.

28mm - Napoleonic British - 14th Light Dragoons

 

It's been a good while since I painted a cavalry unit. In fact its been a good while since I painted a Napoleonic Cavalry unit, in particular...it would probably have been about 1987 and that would have been 20mm Airfix or Esci. 

I can now see why it's been a while.  Painting these was a labour of love that has taken about 4 weeks including 2 weeks where I did nothing but paint every day.

Was it worth it?  At times I wondered if the Sistine Chapel might have been an easier painting task.  The sheer amount of detail to go on Napoleonic cavalry is never ending.  Yet, there was a joy in seeing that detail come together and create something greater than the sum of it's parts (to use a slight cliche).  Once finished there is something magnificent about Napoleonic cavalry that little else compares with.

These figures are painted as the 14th Light Dragoons.  A regiment that saw action throughout the Peninsular War.  They retained their beloved Tarleton helmets throughout the campaign and still wore it even when the new French style uniform was being introduced for British light dragoons.

I was particularly taken with the orange facings, which also meant that the Trumpeter was going to wear an orange coat in the reverse colours.  Orange frequently has difficulty in being quite a thin paint, so a certain delicacy and accuracy had to be used with it. A black line on it would take several touch ups of orange to hide it.

The figures are from the magnificent Perry Miniatures plastic range.  The British Light Dragoons boxed set give 14 figures with horses and options to use the '1815' French style uniform with Shako or the earlier Peninsular Hussar style uniform with Tarleton helmet, as well as mixing to make transitional uniforms.  This flexibility of options is really good. One box gives a lot of choice.

I moved away from using Micron Pigment pens for the lining in. I had used this recently but found there were just to many inaccessible parts that a brush could get to and a pen couldn't.  In addition to this, I found I had to keep going over bits with the pen and this removed paint from the figure...not good!

The brush just flowed nicely and I could thin the paint as necessary too to aid the lining in flow.  This was an interesting experiment to try the pens but the old methods of the brush and thinned black came out as supreme.

You might notice one omission after all the effort put in to get the detail right.  Yes, I have not put the regimental numbers on the saddle roll or water canteens.  I nearly did but I find that unreadable hieroglyphs done in a scrappy way undo the detailed work done on the rest of the figure.  

Napoleonics seems to be getting a renewed popularity.  There seems to be more rules, blog posts and You Tube videos relating to the period (and some darned awful movie!), and I think that someone will bring out canteen, back pack and saddle roll regimental numbers as decals/transfers.  I have seen them years ago but they seem unobtainable now.  

I think this absence will be picked up on soon and a manufacturer will fill the void (or at least I hope so!).

So is there anything about the figures that I don't like?  Not much. I had to do a little bit of filling with plastic putty on the joins of the saddle rolls.  I think the only thing I would change would be for the Paget carbines to be slung from the carbine belt rather than being stowed on the horse. I just can't imagine that in action the carbine would be stowed and with the lock cover left on.  I also like to see the carbine...I own an original and look forward to trying it out sometime soon.

So what's next.  Well I don't know. I actually have sore elbows which I think was caused by too much painting and supporting my elbows on the arms of my painting chair. A short break would therefore probably be sensible!  I noticed that I have actually removed the plastic stippled texture on the chair arms and they have become smooth and polished by this very motion (rather like the wooden tools of the old timer's where the handles reshape to their hands)!

I do have more cavalry to paint - Chasseurs a Cheval and this is tempting. I also did the crazy thing of buying a boxed set of the Warlord Games epic scale Prussians with an eye to playing Placenoit with General d'Armee rules.  This Christmas madness was compounded by me also buying myself as a present the Warlord Games, La Haye Sainte set in 28mm!  Same period in different scales...crazy!

Something simple to paint - Ewoks for Star Wars  or something similar is also awfully tempting! Dry brush, big teeth and eyes - job done, no dolman's, Tarleton's or Shabraques! We will see!