25mm Wargames Foundry - Animated Scarecrows

 That's right, Wargames Foundry. I own a bunch of this stuff for my Sleepy Hollow and witch hunting stuff. Hard to believe what was once state-of-the-art are now simply, quaint. Anyway, painted up, they are perfectly serviceable. 

The minions of the Pumpkin King, or the Headless Horsmean (or whoever), are divided along two styles: first, all the pumpkin headed things from the Wars of Ozz range, Reaper, West Wind, and other odds and ends. I still have the Headless Horseman - several different models, and the mounted pumpkin heads. The latter are the animated Scarecrows: I've not yet decided what effects or abilities they will have, or even if they will differ appreciably, but this is the second tranche of scarecrows with some from West Wind comprising the third.

Followers of this blog, know I make a ton of mistakes and then try to fix them without redoing the whole thing. Sometimes this works, other times, my ministrations are marginal.Here I was trying out a zenithal prime for a slap-chop and left way too much black on the front of the models. Some additional dry brushing helped but again, I have to paint over speed paints because the results just looks terrible. 

Here's the result: 

I spent some time and energy this year punching out leaves in construction paper from Green Stuff Games and was relatively happy with them. Bur when applied, I find some of them, in particular the yellow and orange are so candy colored that they stood out in very unrealistic ways. 

So I glue down a patch of real leaf material - the material has no actual leaf shapes in it but are cut, or crumbled, from real dried leaves of some kind. On top of these I glue down the distinctive leaf shaped parts. But as you can see they appear to be standing in bowls of Fruity Pebbles. Delicious, but quite inappropriate. 

The fix is to apply Citadel Contrast Ratling Grime over the colored ones to help them blend in, which has been done above.

Group shot! These were all painted at the same time - the second tranche of scarecrow minis: the six Foundry, two from Ral Partha, and a Reaper, (Fellclaw, the Scarecrow Guardian, posted here.) The first tranche were the Harvesters from the Wars of Ozz range seen here.

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

25/28mm Trent Miniatures - Haitian Revolutionaries

I have enough pieces finished already to play this particular theater - be it zombies, or Cthulhu cultists but couldn't resist picking up these great minis from what was Trent Miniatures. There's still some sculpts I don't have including a pack called "Maroons" that I'd like to get at some point.

Skin here is the Foundry Dark African Flesh triad - I like it!

 

For the skin on these models I used the Foundry Triad called African Flesh

The center dude with the pistol was wearing a Napoleonic-era French tunic. Since this is set over a hundred years after that period I tried to imagine what the colors might look like assuming the fabric had avoided total disintigration: red piping and turnbacks became pink, the blue became very light and the whites became yellowed.

Here they are deployed on the tabletop. In this Caribbean horror setting they'll never fight the French, but I'm not sure if they need to be the good or the bad guys yet!

 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

Stuart Phillip Frederick McDonald & the Great Mutiny

I was looking for something else entirely when I came across these photos that I would have sworn I had never possessed, but I am delighted to find them and to thus share them here. [This is partly going to be a third part tribute to my old friend S.P.F. McDonald (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here) who gave up the ghost just over twenty years ago.]

By this time in our friendship we had gone our separate ways so I wasn't around for any of this which means these had to have been taken in 1997 or maybe even 1998. 

I don't know who the players were, what rules he used, nor who took the photos, but they are extraordinary being as old as they are. I feel like teddy bear fur only recently became popular in the last 10 years so he was definitely ahead of his time, true to form. (The internet was only barely taking off around this time, and Google was nascent.) We were always committed to the best spectacle we could put on - a standard I try to maintain to this day.

I didn't alter any of these other then to crop out the yard equipment and loungers seen in the background. It appears he just dragged the table out into the yard for this engagement and the sunlight with the accompanying harsh shadows make these really immersive.

It's clear that this task force of Brits are to retake that mutineer held village.

Sepoys advance in disorder? Something's off here, perhaps they advanced faster then they could maintain cohesion?

Note the Camel Corps at the right fore - he went a little more purple than I would have but who's quibbling?

Mutineer cavalry rolls forward at center.

Only to be met by a hastily formed, but secure square. They must have been run off as they never reappear in this game.

Belooch or Baluch infantry storm the guns. Maybe the Fresno group painted up some of these, but I've never seen them in a game until here.

Camel Corps gives rout to their immediate opposition.

Stuart loved a wide variety of forces in his armies.

Mutineers in trouble as their left folds inward.

Baluchs sandwiched but with support pressing in favorably.

I've had a framed version of this one on the mantle for decades, but thought that was it.

A small rear guard moves forward, but it's all over but the shouting.

Looks like a fine game with a British victory as they dismantle the second and final mutineer barricade. The photos themselves have numbers from the developer printed on the back so I was able to determine the narrative accordingly. There are quite a few shots missing from the sequence though which unfortunately ends with this one.

I don't really have a good picture of Stuart other than this oddball one of him and his dog Dooley. Dooley was fiercely protective and even though he knew you, he would bark at you incessantly. Weird, but I guess typical of his breed. In any event, I think I've shared everything I have now of good ol' Stu. He continues to be missed and remembered.

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!

28mm Empress Miniatures, Family Defending Homestead

Once again I've borrowed miniatures from Empress Miniatures to take them far from the New Zealand setting for which they were intended. The children have been flung back to 1812 to participate in Napoleon's invasion of Russia.

Father's been shipped off to my Victorian London collection. But here's the pack contents as assembled by Empress. Available here:

It's estimated that there were at least 50,000 women and children who accompanied the Grande Armée in 1812. (If you can find any data for that I'd be grateful.) There are certainly many eye witness accounts describing the perils the camp followers suffered. Here's a good one from the great, but now discontinued, blog Napoleon1812:

Colonel Lubin Griois is cut off from his guns and finds refuge in a hollow square formed by the Italian 92nd regiment.  The mass of stragglers among the ranks makes maneuvering and issuing orders difficult.  “This mass of isolated men, recognizing neither chiefs nor discipline and only heeding it thirst for pillage, was sorely tried.  At first the cannon shots it had halted, not knowing where to go in the fog that surrounded it.  Swollen by…  vivandières and a multitude of little carts laden with children and foodstuffs, it was throwing itself now to one side, now to the other, according to where the last projectile to strike in its midst had come from.  This flux and reflux of round shot, ploughing furrows in every direction and from which arose screams of despair, presented a horrible spectacle.  For very good reasons the units that were fighting repulsed these fugitives who were trying to take refuge in their midst, so that the poor wretches found themselves exposed to the enemy’s fire and sometimes to our squares’ too.  They floated in disorder over terrain littered with dead, wounded and shattered vehicles.”

That account and dozens of other mentions of women and children on the campaign made this an easy purchase. Apart from the very young Cantiniere, whose "uniform" I devised through paint alone based on contemporary illustrations, the other two would have served as washer women or would have fulfilled any number of functions. For most people, for most of the time, children worked in some capacity the moment they were able.

The pepperbox revolver? Probably not an anachronism here if you imagine in place a flintlock mechanism.

By the way, for the blue on the gal at left, that's the Napoleonic triad from Foundry called French Blue. I think I've come up with an even better recipe, but I do like it. The color swatches they show at the link are inaccurate and the paints themselves provide a more natural progression than pictured. More on that later. (Fences by Renendra)

Mes filles sont en danger! 

For a size comparison I've added an old Foundry sculpt at Left and the Warlord Vivandiere at Right. I honestly thought they were women when I snap purchased them at Historicon not realizing how small they were. They probably should have slightly bigger heads, but that's nit-picking of an extraordinary nature.

Another shot of the girls in peril. These will make great scenario fodder for this campaign. (Warlord Mule in foreground, Old Glory Cossacks in the roles of Heavy #1 and Heavy #2.)

I also have the Perry 1812 Campaign stragglers primed up and ready to go and I'll be folding them in at a later date, continuing my apparent strategy of painting EVERYTHING but the actual French infantry. In 15's I can handle it, but painting over 100 near identical troops at once intimidates me, so I'll continue to stall a bit. After all, I still don't have any voltigeur cornetists in greatcoats!
 
Thanks for looking- questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!