Rowes Brigade compleated

 Still working with the Baccus miniatures 6mm War of Spanish Succession Here we have 3 more units which represent the three remaining units which make up the brigade.

In order they are "Sir Clifton's Regiment of foot" with red facings as with all the units flags to be added when I purchase them as they are commercially available from the manufacturer.




"Scots Fusiliers" commanded by Brigadier General Archibald Rowe. They carried no regimental colours but did carry the kings colours into battle. Red cuffs but yellow facings. I must confess the small mitres were a guess for colours, but I thought the yellow most appropriate. At 6mm (1/300th scale) it hardly matters anyway as I know my players will just identify them by the yellow stripes on the lower edge on their tunics. I felt the need to put the yellow stripes on to distinguish them from the above unit.


"Earl of Bath's regiment of foot." As you can see these have yellow cuffs which the Scots fusiliers do not have. Commanded by Lieutenant General William North.

All three units have a little bit of touching up to do but they are sufficiently finished to box up and put away until I get the flags.

The Final picture is of the complete Brigade. Five foot units each of about 580 men (some slightly larger and some less). As ever there are more units to do, but this makes Rowe's Brigade of the Blenheim Column which was commanded by Lieutenant General John, 1st Baron Cutts of Gowran.

I shall continue to grow this army intermittently but not immediately. So expect some updates in the future. Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be running a game at Skirmish wargames show in Sidcup Kent a small friendly show  with about 25 traders many of which deal in plastic toy soldiers for toy soldier collectors as opposed to wargamers. It is however local and as such worth the time and effort. I will do a show report on Monday. Until then take care have fun and treat yourself to some chocolate...... you know you want to!

All the best Clint

2 Viking APC's

I have finally managed to get round to these two Viking APC's for my Afghanistan game. I know and fully except that such a modern conflict is not to everyone's liking and that is your choice and I respect you for it. For those newer members of the blog this was a game I put on about 2 years ago.

Here is a link VIKING APC to a wiki of the vehicles in real life. I add it because this vehicle is not typically seen on news footage. That being the case it is possible that you may not be aware of them. I am not sure if they are currently serving with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan (2013) but as the game was set in 2008 prior to the change in rules of engagement I am informed that they were present at that time.

The terrain is from the game mentioned above. This is just one of the boards but it shows a variety of cover opportunities from crop fields and mud-brick walls to fully functional compounds. These boards might be getting another lease of life over the winter months, but now is not the time or place to talk about it as I have to check with a couple of people over the weekend to see if the idea has legs.

Anyway both these Vikings are from Grubby Tanks (GRUBBY) formally part of the Britannia Miniatures range. They are resin single part castings and thus require no real assembly. They do come with 2 crew and a machine gun and gun shield in white metal as well as a  hatch cover for the rear top hatch. I did one with hatch open and one buttoned up. This gave me the greater variety.  The only7 disappointment I had with these was that the boxes and bags moulded to the top of the passenger compartment. The disappointment only comes because they were exactly the same. If they were not cast in the same one piece resin It would have been easy to add items to more personalise the vehicles. Should I get another of these I will, which I am tempted to do as it would then allow me to transport a platoon of troops, I will add extra baggage and tarps to create some variety. And that is my only quibble with these vehicles. Other than a Chinook helicopter kit I have waiting to be started that should finish all my forces for the Afghanistan game. I have no idea if I will ever make the Chinook and if I do where I will keep it so do not expect it to feature in the near future.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found something of interest. I will post again on Saturday but for now I feel the need to go back to the painting table and do some 6mm stuff! Cheers Guys talk soon.

Another 3 Pinkertons.

I promise this is my last 3 Pinkertons. Again by Artizan Designs these are another three in their Wild West range. All very nicely cast and sculpted with a few light mould lines and very little flash. Despite my photography you can see that I have settled on a very limited palette of colours in order to unify the figures. They are totally in keeping with the other figures I have done and should now give me enough figures in dusters or long coats to satisfy my usual players at least in the short term. Given the long coats it was a very quick painting exercise as the coats did tend to conceal a lot of detail beneath. Which meant that once the coat was painted very little extra work needed to be done. Just the kind of figure I like. Overall reasonably happy with the results, they could have been better but by crickey they could have come out so much worse. So I'll settle for that.

One of my players wants more Mexican Bandit types and I am happy to say I do have some to paint up, but not quite yet. Not that I pander to their whims I have myself noted my lack of those types of characters in my cowboy figures box which has lead me to purchase them but as yet not open the blister pack. With luck I can get them done by Christmas as I have a few other things I want to do first.

Talking of which one of the guys at the wargames club has gifted me some 10mm Samurai figures. (very nice of him). I am now looking for a good set of rules for this period if anyone knows of any. I would be looking for a simple set to play big battles with (ok starting with small battles and working up!)  I have looked at the Peter Pig set but they seem to leave me cold and seem very much in the same vein as "Bloody Barons" his War of the Roses rule set. And thus I feel it would be the same meat but with different gravy! Hail Ceaser/Black Powder is about the feel I want but more focused on the Period and less generic. So If you have any suggestions I would be delighted to hear them. If not I may have to write my own, you have been warned!

That's it for today. Talk soon all the Best Clint.

Amazon

Nope nothing to do with online retail! It is a lot to do with the latest figure I have managed to bash out. Again a Reaper Miniature in 28mm she is considerably more slender than the male barbarians but to my mind better proportioned more realistic and in a fantastically dynamic pose.

It would have been very obvious to paint her with blonde hair but I went for a dark brown simply because I felt the blonde option was far too clichéd. Also if you actually look around a class of 10 year olds you will see just how rare a natural blonde really is. I don't know about you but "bottle blonds" don't fit my idea of barbarians! Far to Hollywood!

I want to mention the chainmail bikini again completely Hollywood and more a sculptors fantasy than a historical reality. I can proudly boast that I have known a woman with a chainmail bikini many many years ago and that it was reputably "not very comfortable" I'll let you use your imagination as I feel sure it will be totally accurate. And did require it's very own gambeson!

I went for a very stylised shield design. It did take me a while to work out a suitable horse design. I had decided on a horse motif as I wanted something more feminine than most of the shield designs you would normally see. No Axes or Scorpions or the like and by equal measure I did not want anything completely girlie! I did recall (either rightly or wrongly) that the Skythian women did used to fight and it is speculated that is where the Greeks came across the idea of warrior women. I also remember reading that the Skythians had a fondness for red leather. Which did inform me of the shield colours.

Overall as a fantasy figure I must say I do like her as long as we can forget the history and clothing inaccuracies. She will definitely find a place along side the other male barbarians I have painted in the last couple of months.

I have overtime every day this week so I have no idea how much painting will get done so I will sign off now and rush straight to the paining table and try to get something finished. Until Tuesday take care paint figures roll dice have fun and generally enjoy yourself. All the best Clint