25mm Old Glory African Mud & Grass Huts

These will appear in the Carribbean instead of Africa for now, though I do have a mess of Darkest Africa stuff I've never even primed.  
Old Glory Voodoo Warriors and a West Wind Gothic Horror guy at right.

West Wind Gothic Horror figure is from the"Island of Dr Mereaux - The Doctor's Assistants"pack.

 

Yes, yet another diversion from Napoleonics. These had been taking up space in my prep area and I didn't really have a good place to put them. Besides, I like the quick high of a relatively quick dry brush job and Bob's your uncle.

Thanks for looking- questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!

15mm Hovels' Procession of Monks

Remember these? I painted these over 10 years ago for my Vikings games. See here for that blog entry.

Last year though I received a half dozen more as a bonus for ordering a bunch of 15mm English/Rural buildings and accessories from Hovels. Pretty sure they always throw in some extras with each order. I think I also got a well in here too?

They are easy enough to paint, uncomplicated figures, lightly equipped, so I tackled them from start to finish this morning thinking they were identical to the ones I already had above. Not so - turns out these are noticeably bigger. Enough to make the others appear as child acolytes. 

Originals at left - newer ones at right.
Presumably, the newer ones are available here:

Again - originals at left - newer ones at right. The modern me wanted to highlight them one more time, but decided I'd rather they fit in with the originals so left it as pictured here.

The size difference is much more apparent in the side-by-side.

The newer ones, though bigger, are slightly worse than the originals - faces in particular are almost a blank canvas. Free is free however.

Can't get a non-blurry shot of these, but you get the idea.

 Thanks for looking! Now back to Napoleonics ...

28mm Warlord Napoleonic French Engineers

These were designed with Waterloo in mind, but I've taken them to Russia. I can't find a whole lot of info on shako wearing engineers, but I assume there must be a origin for these guys. I think sculpture notes ought to be available for customers.

Instead of the guy swinging the shovel - basically a duplicate figure of the guy swinging the pick axe, I wish I had received the stabby bayonet guy as seen in the Warlord stock photo: https://us-store.warlordgames.com/products/napoleonic-french-engineers

Not a whole lot to say about these other than I was trying out an alternate blue strategy for the coats: Polly-S "Sea Blue N.S." lightened by adding Vallejo Game Color "Cold Gray". I'm always struck by how black French uniforms appear and I think I kind of accomplished that here.

If I may say so, I like the way the shovel heads and pick axe blades turned out.
 (Pre-painted building by Pegasus Hobbies)

How to use them in a game is unclear - I may give a bonus to foraging parties who have an engineer attached to knock down doors, then roll for supplies, etc. For the campaign, if any of these five should fall, they are not replaceable so folks might want to keep them safe or use them sparingly.  But what if Cossacks are pressing in and food/powder is again dangerously low?

Still have some line infantry nearing completion, but I do, like everyone else, get sidetracked from time to time. Thanks for looking- questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!

[placeholder] 25mm Old Glory, Napoleonic French, Center Company, March Attack in Great Coats

The star of this campaign is actually the voltigeur company, however. I couldn't resist including other elements of the regiment - the Colonel, sapeur and color guard are here:

What will follow are what's left of the fourth company. the first, second and third companies have been destroyed, lost, captured or are otherwise unavailable when we start.

To kick off, here are the two surviving officers and the lone drummer. The rank and file will follow shortly. Note that this game will feature a 1:1 figure ratio.

Little rough on the 5'oclock shadow, but still he came out ok.

Here I've finally alighted on what will be my paint recipe for all French Blue uniforms from here on out: All from Reaper Master Series: Shadow: Nighshade Purple, Base: Midnight Blue, Highlight: Twilight Blue. (The swatches on the Reaper site are not correct.)

As always, evidence of haste in the sculpting of OG figures. No apparent belt or strap for the gourd canteen. Still, nice, simple figure to paint up.

Foundry Drummer.

Two NCOs and thirty others are very much in progress, nearing completion and will be featured here shortly lest I finish the Eureka Cossacks, also well along, first.

25mm Napoleonic French, Tête de Colonne [Edit - 6/21/18 - added Fanion Bearer]

Finally starting to add in the French for this campaign game. I actually like painting figures that are the same so I'm not worried about not having something interesting to do later so these will precede the rank and file.

 As I envision this game, it will have a  1:1  figure ratio. That means this is the only color party that will be portrayed on the French side. I am zooming in on what's left of a French battalion with the voltigeur company being the star of the campaign. However, here I am going to model elements of the battalion command as well as what's left of the fourth company. There should be drummers, but I've delegated them to the 4th instead of the battalion command.
The Perry "Retreat from Moscow" range will be folded in and with other odds and ends, but line infantry will represent other battalions than this one.

This is an Old Glory (OG) figure. I added the scarf. Flag by GMB. GMB flags are too big for OG poles so once this figure was sealed. I snipped off the pole at about a quarter inch from the eagle, wrapped and glued the flag around what remained, then dropped the stub and eagle back in to the hole at top. So yes, there's basically a hollow gap in there but the flag itself is quite sturdy so I'm not worried too much about it all crumpling.

Prior to that maneuver I had every intention of painting up my own flag that fit precisely, but abandoned it midway through. I may still finish it someday, but it's not quite right upon close inspection, though all that was left to do on this side was some highlights and the gold lettering over the brown.

Foundry Deuxième & Troisième guards. I wasn't comfortable putting in the stripes on their arms so left them off. I also haven't seen a clear representation of the lettering on the halberd pennants so left those off too. The carabinier helms are sufficient to visually call them out.

A Foundry regimental Sapeur. For the coat, I did the Foundry Napoleonic French Blue triad, right out of the bottles.

Once I got to painting this guy I came up with "Pierre Roquefort" as his jokey name and it kind of stuck, you know, son of a cheese monger who meritocratic rise puts him at the head of this battalion in time for the Russian Campaign. Since I'm still waiting for voltigeur cornetists in greatcoats, Roquefort will be attached to the remnants of the 4th company instead. That's on the workbench now, where I've made considerable progress of late.

Late addition - I prefere the Old Glory Eagle bearer to this one that came with the above figures, but didn't want to sideline him. So I added a battalion flag instead. The fanion is scratch built out of wine foil and the design occurred to me as I was sitting there, totally imaginary. Though I have seen many that appear to have been inserted into a musket barrel, I wanted something more substantial. I suppose the "4" could represent the 4th Regiment or the 4th battalion. I also assume that whoever assigned to carry a fanion would be attached at the brigade/regiment, not the company level, hence the white pop-pom.

 Thanks for looking- questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!