15mm Old Glory, Union - 600 March Attack

When Stuart MacDonald died, late in 1998, he had many friends who helped sort through his gaming stuff for his estate. In the process, some took souvenirs to remember him by, and in a few cases, took the command stands from various regiments. At the time, he, as I did too, painted his flags by hand. I had it easy supplying the one-flag Confederates, but he had to do national flags for all of his regiments. One was enough and he didn't bother with the accompanying Federal flags. In any event, these command stands then, represented the very best of his work and were splendid to behold. However, their removal made these few units unusable for gaming purposes. I inherited much of what was left behind, but thought I'd restore them for table top use by filling in the missing stands. 

In the day, it was a treat to just select the figure for the regiment and Old Glory figures had a massive amount of variety such that units could be built where no two figures were the same. It was fun picking out which command, which figures were doing a particular thing,(firing line v marching v charging, etc) and building 5 small dioramas out of them for each regiment, These units were augmented with figures from the Dead and Wounded pack as well as the Energetic Infantry and sometimes the Melee Infantry bag that had Union and Confederate soldiers locked in a life or death struggle on the same casting. Marvellous stuff - stuff nobody does today in any scale I'm aware of. Old Glory were so dang creative with creating these unique sculpts and we loved picking through them all to make one-of-a-kind units. 

The figures then were bagged into 100 figure bags, which left a lot of leftovers. Most of my figures have already been "assigned" to their regiment and are still in their hardware organizers with the little plastic drawers. They sit along drawers of unpainted Stone Mountain, Essex, Battle Honors, units such that we referred to them by manufaturer and gneral activity along with how many men were represented. This unit for example was "600 Old Glory - March Attack" because of their aggressive postures and the presence of casualties dropping in the front ranks as if advancing through a withering fire. 

So, my task was to go through my remaining Old Glory leftovers and see if I could put together a command stand for this unit. I have a whole division of Union with artillery and completely assigned vanilla regiments in it so those had to be left alone. Unfortunately, I needed some marching figures and TWO flag bearers to take advantage of all the wonderful flags from Rick - "The Flag Dude."

I can do a one-off Confederate flag, a stars and bars or a battle flag easy enough, but I don't want to get involved with doing two Union flags, especially the federal flags with the eagles, shields and text-filled ribbons all over. 

Also, I needed slouch hats to match the style of this unit. I was able to pull this together, but not without some compromises, including the one kepi in the whole regiment - the drummer. 

I also had to use a Battle Honours guy as I was out of marchers with slouch hats! 

There's a reason why some of these guys weren't already assigned: the sculpting was awful with a lot of chunky blobs in the crevasses that could not be removed easily. 

The crook of his left arm, beard, and left side of his face were so disfigured as to have made Joseph Merrick jealous. I just decided this would mostly go unnoticed once tightly in the ranks. All these shots are from below, angles unlikely to be ever taken again. 

What a mess!

Similar blobs on this flag bearer - it was all I had!

Marching guys with slouch hats were in even shorter supply! What abomination is this?! 

But at a straight-ahead angle, it's barely noticeable. Fine. Not ideal, but fine. 

The other consideration required that I go back and paint in the style Stuart did over 30 years ago, but also to try and match colors for what was mostly Polly S paints - a line of acrylic paints formulated for diorama and model train enthusiasts. 

We didn't do a lot of clever three-layer highlights in those days, and Stuart left the darkest shadow as simply black. I did strugle with that, and couldn't quite get it right, as it's against all my instincts in areas such as the trousers and the skin/faces.

For black leather gear, Suart just painted them with a gloss back, which explains, in part, why he was able to field so many units at a decent clip in our little "arms race." If a unit was painted and based, it could be used on the table. We didn't do historical engagements with proper OBs - just fielded brigades of five to six regiments with accompanying artillery and cavalry in support. 

Most details had just one highlight on it that was mostly very subtle. I did my best to color match as close as possible, and I think I mostly got away with it. I was worried about getting the basing to match up. I was out of this particular grass cover and have been for years. So I cheated. And not just on the bases. For the red blankets, I dabbed the current highlights onto the old models, so they would have the same hue in place. Same with bayonets: both new and old models got the same silver highlight to bring them all together. Finally, with the bases, I glued on patches of my new mix onto Stu's old bases to get it all to harmonize. I did find an excellent color match in Pro-Acryl Drab Brown for those bases so that helped considerably. As I recall it, we applied static grass over wet paint, rather than with a PVA as we so now. I eschewed the PVA here too. 

At last, I think it all worked out. The flags look grand, the figure defects are well hidden, and even a close look could fool one into thinking this unit was assembled and painted all at once. 

One thing I completely failed to apprehend throughout this process is how big these flags are - especially when compared to Stu's forces. These units will definitely stand out as a result. Here's one of his other command stands so you can compare: 

Big problem or no? 

My ability to fill out another Old Glory marching unit now is pretty diminished. I have a 500 man Essex Firing unit I think I can do. I also noticed one of these units has its command but is missing one of the side stands. Another is missing TWO of the side stands. I'll likely have to buy more models in the future to complete these, but I think it will be worth it. 

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858