Long Island prep (6)

The end is in sight now, so I have chosen the final items that I am going to paint up for the game. The light infantry and most of the grenadiers are finished. Any concern I had about not having the light infantry "doubled up" in both close- and skirmish-order bases has been dispelled by the fact that I, apparently, will be commanding the British light infantry at the game. I intend to use the brigade as elite shock troops, to keep them in close order and try to win the battle all by myself. Consequently, I don't need any lightbobs on skirmish bases...Problem solved. I just have 4 highland grenadiers to finish off and then all the things I had to paint for the game are done.

When I finished the last of the lightbobs last Sunday morning I thought about what I could usefully do for the remaining 2 weeks. Of course a game two weekends hence does not, in fact, give you 2 solid weeks of painting as you have to factor in varnishing and basing, which means that realistically I'm going to have to down tools next Tuesday. So whilst I toyed with the idea of trying to paint one of the 3 British line regiments that I don't as yet have, I rejected it as being too onerous. In any event, it will be good to give the substitute regiments an airing and ultimately A N Other British line battalion is not going to be noticed on the table; better to do something with more visual appeal. So instead, I decided upon a second limber for the British artillery (see the pic above) and having a crack at Smallwood's Marylanders, which was on my original list as something I'd wanted to do. Also, if I have time, there is a pack of Front Rank civilians with spades, picks etc which would be suitable to have working on the Brooklyn fortifications. But the focus will be on the Marylanders, and by using the hunting-shirted North Carolina troops I painted over the summer I only need to paint 12 figures - the command stand in red faced buff coats and some more hatmen in brown shirts and buff breeches. This unit should stand out because I'm going to paint a flag based on Lord Baltimore's coat of arms.

Long Island prep (5)

After a rather disasterous end to September, I have picked up the pace a bit, managing to paint 8 figures over the weekend in addition to finally finishing off the Hessian artillery and my last unit of Southern militia, the collapsing firing line. Above are a couple of photo of the militia. I spent a good while trying out different basing combinations and eventually settled upon a 36mm x 70mm base - this keeps the standard "British Grenadier" frontage but adds more depth so that the figures running away are more detached from the main line. The extra depth also allows me to add a ruined fence to the front of the line and tree-stumps to the rear - the fence posts are glued in place but the other bits will be very discretely blue-tacked in so that they can move around a little as the bases are placed together. I am working on a hand-painted flag for this unit, which I hope to have photographed at some stage over the weekend.

In the meantime, the British grenadiers are continuing apace and are, I think, turning out pretty well. Two wip shots are below; I have deliberately gone for a "campaign" look with different coloured trousers. This is the second of three grenadier battalions that I want to field at the game. Eclaireur may need to provide another one as I think we are going to need the full complement of four grenadier battlions for the British side. Once this second battalion is finished I will turn to the third, which consists of highland companies from the 42nd and 71st (which will require the touching up of existing figures and 2 brand new ones). In order to make up the time I lost the other week, I am now trying to paint 8 figures in one go rather than 6. The plan is to have the grenadiers finished by the start of next week and the British light infantry by the end of next week. That should then leave me with a week and a bit to do other stuff, which hopefully may allow Smallwood's Marylanders to get a look in and perhaps another limber for the British artillery. Oh, and I need to ensure I have enough British cavalry too - I keep forgetting about them....

Incidentally, I hope British readers are managing to see the television series "John Adams" on More 4 (Saturdays at 5.30pm). It concentrates on politics rather than military action, but is well acted, meticulously researched and altogether quite excellent.

Long Island prep (4)

Despite a horrendous spell at work last week, I managed to finish 16 figures and one artillery piece. I think this increase in production is a subconscious way of sticking two fingers up at the credit crunch: no matter how busy I am at work I'm not going to let current circumstances interfere with my painting. Or something like that. So von Lossberg is finished, with only basing and flags to do (full pics on Friday, I hope), and I have started on the Hessian artillery. The extra 4 figures I sneaked in are the command base of the British 3rd Light Infantry Battalion. This morning I fired off an order to Messrs Perry for the rest of the unit, together with another pack of highlander grenadiers and one or two other things. The aim is to have all the Hessian stuff finished by the end of the month, to be followed by the lightbobs and then the grenadiers. Finishing the Lossberg, at 24 figures the largest unit I have to do, is to jump the first major hurdle of the project; and completing the unit in 13 days isn't bad, really. Above are a photo of the finished regiment and other bits and a close-up of the Lossberg command stand's back row.

The Hessian artillery and British light infantry are not as complicated to paint as the Hessian fusiliers, which is good news now that my painting time is being squeezed at both ends of the day. Maestro Woodward will not be impressed to know that I have found myself starting at 7am rather than (the only marginally more impressive) 6.30am, now that rosy-fingered dawn takes longer to appear. I will lose next Saturday as I am on a stag do all day, and given that it's with a bunch of barristers I expect I won't be in a condition to paint much on Sunday. But 8 artillerymen and 1 gun should be do-able by next Monday. Once the Hessian brigade is finshed I will give a thought to the American brigades I need to put together, perhaps seeing if I might have time to get to work on Smallwood's Marylanders.

Long Island prep (3)

I thought I would try to post updates on what I'm doing for the Long Island game every Monday or Tuesday. I am trying very hard to stick to my "12 painted figures a week" a rule. This is my usual target, namely to finish 6 figures during Monday to Friday and a further 6 over the weekend. The latter batch is usually harder work to finish on time than the former and sometimes spills over to Monday. If I paint 2 hours a day on average during the week, I have 10 hours' painting time, which is a stretch to replicate at weekends. However, starting painting at 6.30am each day is paying dividends, and is making up time that I am losing in the evenings due to ever-increasing pressure at work (thank you XL, Lehman Bros., AIG etc). I have also been asked by the Kiwi to officially record her forebearance and understanding in allowing me to paint more at weekends than I would otherwise manage. I'm sure her need to spend time watching endless wedding shows on tv is completely unconnected to her indifference to me spending time in my painting room...

I am now half way through the Lossberg fusiliers. I started these last Monday and as at Sunday afternoon had the first 12 finished. I had forgotten what a total pain it is to paint Hessian drummers. I have made good progress with the next batch of 6, which I will start "blacklining" tomorrow morning with a view to having them finished on Thursday. I can then get ahead a bit on Friday with the last batch of 6 figures. That leaves next week for the Hessian artillery, and by the end of the month the Hessian brigade should be finished. I have also managed to sneak in a couple of extra figures, namely an officer and musician for the 3rd Light Infantry battalion. I was heartened to be reminded how quickly one can paint Brits in roundabouts and slouch hats. So I'm currently on target, and to be honest it's good to be painting Hessians again - they do look good en masse. The photos above are wip shots of the Lossberg fusiliers. Oh, and I need to finish that unit of militia!

Long Island prep (2)

When I first received the orbat for Long Island I was carried away on a tide of enthusiasm and wrote of great plans for what I would prepare specifically for the game. Nine days into September and reality has kicked in - the putative painting target I set a week ago is clearly unworkable and already I am paring down what I intend to paint up; I simply will not have time to paint everything I would have liked. So I have decided that the three extra British regiments will have to go, and I will need to find substitutes. I will not paint up Smallwood's Marylanders, but I think I can piece together a regiment in hunting shirts from those Carolina regiments I painted a couple of months ago. The regiment is recorded as wearing tan/brown hunting shirts with officers in scarlet faced buff coats. Rather than paint this 24-figure unit from scratch, I should be able to paint up a 4-figure comand stand in uniform coats. So this leaves to be painted the Hessian Lossberg Fusiliers and 2 gun crews, a light infantry battalion and a grenadier battalion - much more manageable and this should also leave me some time to paint up a couple of vignettes and other stuff that one would expect to see havering around a game of this sort.

September, then, is the month of the Hessians, and I was suprised to see that I have not painted any Hessians since the von Bose last Christmas. The brigade is as follows: Rall Grenadiers (24 figures), Knyphausen Fusiliers (24), von Lossberg Fusiliers (24), two 4-pounder guns and crews (8); von Mirbach personality figure as brigade commander. Rall and Knyphausen I already have, although the reason why Knyphausen's Fusiliers are not featured on this blog is because I painted all the cuffs red instead of black, and I haven't as yet changed them. If I find the time, I will do so. But that is not a priority and the next 2 weeks will see the von Lossberg Fusiliers zipping through the painting table, followed by the artillery. For the von Mirbach command figure, I will prbably use my Perry General Stirn figure or perhaps one of the Old Glory personality figures that I have.

I will have some photos of recent bits and bobs to post shortly. In the meantime, above is a wip photo of a militia unit I have been working on over the past couple of weeks. This uses all the new Perry Southern militia figures and is designed to show a firing line that is beginning to disintegrate. None of the figures are based (and a few in this photo are not finished) as I am still toying with various ideas as to how to base them. I may well use deeper bases to give more space to those figures that are running away and to add some scenic features. I have an idea or two for a home-made flag....

Long Island prep (1)

Following last week's discussion, today Dr. Eclaireur sent me a provisional orbat for the November Long Island mega-game. I call it a "mega-game" because after a couple of minutes with a calculator I realised that we will need in excess of 1,300 figures (25mm, natch), all of which will be taken from Prof. Eclaireur's and my collections. I experienced a short moment of panic when I first saw what I am responsible for, but reading the orbat through I realised that it's no so bad, and in fact perfectly manageable. What I like about games such as these is that it gives one an excuse to paint stuff that has either been hidden away in the leadpile or which ideally one would like to have, but wouldn't really bother with. The game is the weekend of 1/2 November, so I have exactly 8 weeks of painting time - that's about 80 figures' worth. I thought it might be interesting over the next 2 months to post on how the preparations are going and the various decisions that need to be made when fielding such a large collection "in public".

First, the Americans. This is the easy bit, because over the past few months I have been painting all those militia and Continental units with half an eye on this game. All these regiments should see an outing (thereby condemning the American players with the "newly-painted units rout in their first game" rule). I am responsible for 3 brigades' worth, totalling ten regiments and 2 units of skirmishers. I have a few "line" graded Continental regiments, such as Hazen's Delaware Regt. which will be pretty smartish in appearance. Other units are graded militia, which will allow me to field those "Southern militia" types I have been painting; a couple of these regiments are officially Continentals but are graded as "militia", so using militia figures might assist the players. The only unit I might paint up specifically is Smallwood's Maryland regiment, which I have had my eye on for a while now. However, given the amount of British figures I need to paint, these chaps may have to wait. We'll see. I may also need to paint up some siege guns. The fortifications at Brooklyn will be represented, and they required nine guns of 12-pounder to 24-pounder calibre.

So to the Brits, and here it becomes more of a challenge. I have Mirbach's Hessian brigade, comprising the Knyphausen and Lossburg fusilier regiments and the Rall grenadiers. I do not have Lossberg, so that is a priority. I also need 2 Hessian gun crews. Then Clinton's flanking force: 3 battalions of light infantry; 3 of grenadiers, 1 of which consists entirely of highlanders (for which see the photo above); and Cornwallis' elite brigade of the 33rd and 71st (the 71st have three battalions here, so EC is providing the third). I need to paint up the 3rd and 4th Grenadier Battalions, although I have most of the highlanders for the 4th already. I will need some more light infantry too. Then we have 3 brigades from the main force: Pigott with the 5th, 28th and 35th; Jones with the 10th, 37th, 38th and 52nd; Smith with the 43rd, 54th and 63rd. Finally, Brigadier Cleaveland and his 12-pounder battery, various 3- and 6-pounder guns and the 12-figure 17th Light Dragoons. Throw in lots of wagons, ammunition carts, limbers, dragrope men, civilians, high command stands, vignettes etc, and you have my total contribution.

Looking first at the British foot regiments, there are in fact only 3 that I do not already have: 22nd, 37th and 54th. The 37th appears at a couple of other battles, so it was "on the list" anyway. The other two regiments seem to be "one hit wonders". The message from EC is that there isn't any real need to field the exact regiments for the Brits, as there are so many of them. Therefore, I may well be able to double up from existing troops; the 22nd, for example, had buff facings so I could use the Inniskillen, which otherwise are not in this battle (perhaps just painting a new command stand). Again, we'll see. I'm provisionally slating these 3 regiments in for October's painting time, as it would be good to have them all done and on the table. Artillery won't be a problem, and I'm going to park the 17th Light Dragoons for now....

So in terms of what needs to be painted, we have the following:

1) Hessian Lossberg Fusiliers (24 figures).

2) Hessian artillery (10 figures).

3) Grenadiers: 3rd and 4th Battalions (18 figures).

4) 3rd Light Infantry Battalion (16 figures).

5) 37th Foot (16 figures).

6) 22nd Foot (16 figures).

7) 54th Foot (16 figures).

8) Smallwood's Marylanders (24 figures).

That's well over my 80-figure limit, so some of the above will need to be jettisoned. We'll just have to see how we go. I'm already behind, as this week is being spent painting up a divisional command vignette for the British grenadiers and light infantry...