AHPC XV Submission #8 - 15mm American Civil War Cavalry

 

 My eighth submission of this year's challenge is a collection of 15mm American Civil War Cavalry, both Union and Confederate. The figures are from a variety of manufacturers, although I have only been able to identify those by Old Glory and Essex.  I think the bulk of the Union cavalry are by Falcon, but I am not certain regarding that. Perhaps some of the "grognards" out there can provide some insight as to their origin.

 With terrain being dropped from the point tally, I needed to do a last minute course change, and found all these figures in a box in one of my storage drawers, already primed and glued onto popsicle sticks for ease of handling. They had been prepped some thirty years ago when I was gaming with a group that did a lot of American Civil War using 'Johnnie Reb' rules, but for some reason (available time, family obligations, the new 'shiny', etc.) that was as far as they got. 

 As mentioned above they were already primed black with a rattle can. I then painted them with Vallejo acrylics. The Union cavalry was the easiest to paint, both in terms of the standard colour palette, and the poses. The Confederate cavalry was more challenging as I tried to put some variety into the uniform colours with different shades of brown and grey, plus some of the poses made it difficult to get the brush into some of the deeper recesses. Regarding the sculpts, I liked the Essex and Falcon(?) the best. The riders were separate from the horse and saddle, and the poses and detail were easy to paint. The Old Glory sculpts were much more animated, but the fit of the rider and saddle (which came as one piece) to the horse often had large gaps between the saddle cloth and the horse's body. I would also describe the sculpts as a bit more 'rough and ready'.

Here are the final results - four 15 figure Union cavalry regiments, one 15 figure dismounted Union cavalry regiment, one 15 figure Confederate cavalry regiment, two 11 figure Confederate cavalry regiments. 

Encounter in the East Cavalry Field

Confederate troopers of General Jeb Stuart

US troopers of General David Gregg

Union cavalry brigade deploying

Union cavalry regiment No. 1

Union cavalry regiment No. 2

Union cavalry regiment No. 3

Union cavalry regiment No. 4

Dismounted Union cavalry with horse holder in the background

Confederate cavalry regiment No. 1

Confederate cavalry regiment No. 2

Confederate cavalry regiment No. 3

Anyone recognize the manufacturer?

Anyone recognize the manufacturer?

Thanks for stopping by.

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII Submission #13 - The Last of the Special Studio Challenges

  This is my final submission of projects completed for AHPC XIII which consists of a grab bag of Special Studio themed challenges. For the 'Swords and Sandals' challenge I painted a 15mm Spartan De Bellis Antiquitatis army consisting of 12 stands of Spear and an optional stand of Psiloi. If I recall correctly these are from Falcon Miniatures that are now no longer in production. They were cleaned up and primed a quarter century ago, and have been sitting in the pending box ever since. Once again, the Special Challenges has cleared a project from the 'To Do' list. They were painted using Army Painter Warpaints Tannned Flesh for all the skin areas, Partha Paints Bronze Metallic for the helmets, greaves, and shields, and Vallejo acrylics for everything else. They were mounted on metal bases of the appropriate DBA dimensions that I still have in my storage boxes, and the groundwork completed. The temple in the background is one I built for a scenario that Curt hosted back in the early days of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts. 

 

This is Sparta!

A closeup of the General's stand

 

Next is a figure of Alex Kingston as 'River Song' in the Doctor Who episode called 'The Impossible Astronaut'. That may sound more like Sci-Fi, but she's wearing jeans and packing a big iron on her hip. That says Gunslinger to me. This figure was a freebie that came with my order from Warlord Games back in December. Just the thing for the Westerns studio.

 

River Song

 

  For the 'Book' theme I was inspired by C.S. Forrester's 1933 novel 'Death to the French' featuring Rifleman Dodd. The figures I have are two Perry Miniatures plastic 95th Riflemen that were another freebie with an issue of Wargames Illustrated that sat in storage until now. They are very nice minis with lots of detail, easy to assemble with minimal cleaning of mold lines. Their rifle green uniforms were painted using Vallejo Luftwaffe Camouflage Green, followed by a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil. 

 

Riflemen Dodd and Harris

 

 The last entry for the "Director's Chair" is a De Bellis Antiquitatis army for the High Medieval Period, specifically IV/13(a) Medieval German 1106 - 1235CE consisting of 1 x 3Knights (General), 4 x 3Knights that can dismount to 4Blades, 4 x 4Spear, 1 x 4Crossbow, and 2 x 2Psiloi(Skirmishers). This is another army that has been sitting in the 'Pending' tray for at least quarter century. I had bought it as an alternative to my Teutonic Order army that I had been using in a local biannual DBA tournament, but never got beyond the priming stage. It gathered dust for many years in a tray on top of my filing cabinet before being put in a storage box where it was 'out of sight, out of mind', keeping my unpainted Spartan army company until now.

The figures are all Gladiator Miniatures from prior to the line being taken over by Black Hat Miniatures. Since 2018 they have been available from Fighting15s. While some of the figures look a bit chunky, I liked the attention to detail that the sculptor put into the armour. The only down side was that the mounted figures don't come with spears, so I had to make them from florist wire. I probably thought I needed to have bright colours on the figures, so I had primed them in white rather than black so many years ago. They were painted using Vallejo acrylics, including all the shield designs. The foot figures looked a little too clean, so they got a wash of Citadel Seraphim Sepia at the end. Here is the final result.

 

IV/13(a) Medieval German 1106 - 1235CE

5 stands of Knights with the General in the center

4 stands of dismounted Knights that count as Blades

4 stands of Spears

1 stand of Crossbows and 2 stands of Psiloi

 

That concludes the backlog of my AHPC XIII submissions. Thanks for reading.