Old school versus new school

Fads come and fads go, but ever since the Master of Tradgarland explored his old school ACW, I have been thinking about doing something similar involving tricornes and muskets and all that.

See the Duchy of Tradgarland post here,

http://tradgardland.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/brief-battle-report.html

So I got the Introduction to Battle Gaming by Terry Wise and The War Game by Charles Grant, both vintage and influential books from many, many moons ago. I started to wonder what I could do and had a look for figures.

And here now comes a dilemma. On the one hand there are the vintage classic Spencer Smith miniatures.  Very basic sculpts but having a charm all their own. 

And on the other hand are modern sculpts like these Perry miniatures.

What to go for, if indeed I do get some figures?  The Spencer Smith used to be cast in soft plastic, but are now metal. Metal is OK, but with 50 plus infantry or 25 plus cavalry in a unit, expense and weight become influential factors. Especially weight. Plastics seem the better option at the moment, particularly the Perry minis.

Maybe my current rambling thoughts will not result in any purchases or painting, but it's fun to think about the possibilities of using old school classic rules with either vintage or modern figures.

Dystopian Wars French fleet

To get away from red tunics for a bit, I decided to do a basic French fleet for Dystopian Wars.  Blue and white were the main theme, with a bit of grey for variation.

Here they are not long started with an undercoat of yellow for the bits to be painted brass later, and the basic grey and blue camouflage market out.

Paint splashed on the air units.

The pocket battleship. The yellow and orange donut at the front is a heat lance.

The cruisers at the back are surface skimming models and will be mounted on bases, hence why they don't sit flat. At the front are some frigates.

And more frigates.

The fleet.

The big red planes are heavy fighter bombers and will be mounted on clear plastic bases.

The little chaps are fighters. 

I have to go back and tidy up some odd splashes and overspills of paint, but overall, not too bad. 

Back to the horse and musket era soon ... and more red coats.

Two more British units

I managed to finish off two more British Napoleonic units. Here are the pictures. Facings this time are white and buff.

And a view from the British side of things, because we rarely see photos of the backs of figures. 

And a closer view of the units. 

I'm not sure what will be next, if I'll move on to artillery and light dragoons or try to finish off the remaining three infantry units.  I don't know about you when you paint lots of the same uniform and if a colour fatigue creeps in after a while. At this moment, I may want to move away from red uniforms for a bit.

More later ...

back to normal and some finished or nearly finished stuff

These were nearly done last week and I was able to wrap up at the weekend.

First the Inniskilling Dragoons I'm painting for a friend's 18mm British army. This completes the Union Brigade and I'll try post a picture of the whole brigade later.

And the 28mm WW2 British. The figures are done, but I'm still deciding on some static grass. I have some of the grass, but it's not that long and I think these figures might be nice with some longer patches or clumps of grass that come to mid-calf or knee. The sniper could really benefit from hiding in long grass or bushes.  I'll have to have a look at what tufts and clumps are out there.

More later.