Current activity 2 - some 28mm Napoleonic Italians

No posts for ages, then 3 show up at once.  :) 

This is my current painting project. I'm trying to get these Victrix Napoleonic infantry finished. 

First, the chaps nearly finished. This is an officer and a detachment of the Italian 1st Light Infantry. This was done using my favourite semi-wash technique over a white undercoat, followed by more detail painting and a small bit of shading.  

And some chaps that are work-in-progress.  White undercoat again, and shading in the folds. 

And waiting on the tray are the rest of the chaps. There are 60 figures in total.  

I'm not sure if I'll keep them after this. Painting them is fun, but the force was put together for Sharp Practice, which I'll not play again, and I may not use them for Black Powder. I'll see how I feel after they're all done, and then offer them to chaps at the club or put them on ebay. 

Hopefully more posts soon.  

Current activity - some 10mm WW1

Here are current activities.  First a bit of stumbling with WW1 figures and black undercoat. 

Now, I'll admit, I've never really liked a black undercoat, much preferring white.  I think it's really because I can't see any detail on a black undercoat. And so, when I got some Kallistra 10mm WW1 figures I had a debate about which to use, then decided to trial both. 

Here are pictures. After undercoating black, I gave the those figures a top down dusting of pale grey. It looks OK so far. 

Then I applied some field grey, and washed over it with a green wash, because I understand the WW1 German uniforms seem to have been slightly more green than in WW2.  It's OK so far, though I'm not convinced the black really achieved anything. 

However, at the back was my airbrushed attempt to do the blue coat on the French, and it was a mess. I just didn't like it, and after a bit of a debate, decided to strip the paint and start again. 

And a final shot of the figures after being brushed with isopropyl cleansing alcohol.  It was like reverse dry-brushing.  

After all this I've decided to pause and think some more about how to paint these figures.  I think I may even rebase to 3 infantry and 2 cavalry per base. 

More later. 

games have been happening

I've not posted in ages, though gaming activity has continued. There were a lack of decent pictures on my part, mostly down to forgetting on the day and sometimes a shaky hand on the camera.  

Here's a selection of reasonable pictures. 

First was our first game of 1914. It was a new rule set and we played with 15mm figures belonging to a couple of the chaps at the club.  A nice game system based on playing initiative tokens to do stuff. As the name suggests, it's for 1914 and the initial battles where there was still an element of movement. I liked it and would like to try the game system again, but we have so many games to play. 

Next is a snapshot of a Black Powder game and an AWI scenario.  This battle took place in open woodland, hence the scattered trees.  The British were advancing from the bottom.   

And the clash when the two lines met.  This was another fun game using Black Powder.  

Back to the great war, this time in 6mm and using the Spearhead rules.  The figures were by a fellow club member.  6mm may not be to everyone's taste, but I like the more operational possibilities in games like this. While 28mm looks very good, many games do tend to involve charging over the table as fast as possible and throwing lots of dice.  

If I remember correctly, each base represents a company, and this is me, as Germans, trying to take a river crossing on my left flank, with 3 battalions of a regiment with accompanying machine guns and artillery support somewhere off to the rear.  

And this is my corresponding attack on my right flank with a similar sized force. 

Back to Black Power and a Great Northern War scenario. Holzowyn.  This is the only decent picture I took. At the top of the table the Swedes have just emerged from the marsh to attach the Russian right.  The rest of the Russians stretch down the table towards the camera, and are defending a long low ridge against more Swedes advancing from the left. 

The objective of the scenario is that the outnumbered Swedes have to attack and win before all the Russian reserves arrive.  It was a really goo game, but we stumbled a bit by having 7 people round the table, most of whom were new to Black Powder.  I'd really like to do this scenario again with 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2, to play more slowly and demonstrate the rules  a bit better. 

 More to come.