Plains Warriors Progress

Really on a roll now with another group of dismounted Plains warriors completed. I feel like I'm well on the way towards completing the Little Bighorn project at this point. 

I had planned a trip down to Montana in September to visit the battlefield again as a reward for finishing all of the painting, but that is a bit up in the air now, for a couple of reasons. One, while my original plan was to head down during the week of Labour Day, that's hit a snag as my parents have to stay with me that week as my father has a medical appointment in the city. Two, we are now "at war" (trade war that is) with the United States and I increasingly consider it questionable form to visit and spend money there. So as for the second point anyway, we shall see if relations thaw in the next couple weeks. While we are not political on this blog, I will nevertheless say that I find the current American federal administration's position towards trade with Canada both baffling and frustrating in the extreme. Imposing tariffs that your own importers and consumers pay is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. But Canada will now impose counter-tariffs. I hope we are not entering into an escalating suicide pact. 

ANYWAY... here are eleven more Plains warriors for the project. Above are Walks Alone, Crow in Rain, and Swift White Raven from the Foundry "Young Bloods 2" pack.

Running Rabbit, Wolf Looks Back, Goes Walking. The first two are from the Young Bloods 1 pack and the last from Young Bloods 2.

Fish Arrow, Bear Licks with Tongue, Lazy Boy from Young Bloods 1.

Strikes Like Bear (from Young Bloods 2) and Holds Fire (from Young Bloods 1).

A bit of a show-off of a couple of the shields. I always have a bit of a challenge coming up with ideas for the designs but I think these are OK.

The models were painted in my usual Plains style - flesh done with Doombull Brown under Ratskin Flesh and warpaint applied over top. Basic painting but I think they look OK. With these models done I think I'll have painted one of every dismounted Foundry Plains warrior. I do have another couple packs though and next up is another Dog Soldiers pack. I will do at least one more pack of Young Bloods too. It'll be easy enough to vary the paint jobs.

Until then... hoka hey! 

Moar! Seventh Cavalry Dismounted Troopers and Personalities

The last tranche of dismounted Seventh Cavalry troopers is now finished and the Little Bighorn project continues to steam along. I'm happy with the progress!

Having painted "Autie" earlier I tackled the rest of the models in the Foundry "Personalities" pack. Here we see the General's younger brother Captain Tom Custer (winner of TWO Medals of Honor in the Civil War!), the hapless Major Marcus Reno, and Captain Frederick Benteen. Reno of course was a pretty useless tit in the battle and while Benteen showed moderately more initiative, neither were what you would call "combat effective."

Here are Lt. William W. Cooke, Lt. Charles (Carlo) DeRudio, and "Lonesome" Charley Reynolds. Cooke was Custer's adjutant and buddy. Born in Hamilton, Ontario he served with the Union army in the Civil War under Major-General Ambrose Burnside and fittingly, cultivated immense sideburns. He was the author of the infamous last note sent by Custer back to Benteen urging the latter to "be quick, bring packs." He died with Custer and was scalped twice... the second time losing one of his enormous dundrearies. DeRudio was an Italian serving with Custer and the only man in the Seventh Cavalry to carry a saber in the battle. Charley Reynolds was the chief scout with the Seventh Cavalry who had a bad feeling about this.

Here's a trooper carrying Custer's personal "standard", a bugler (there were many present at the battle) and another trooper.

With these troopers and characters I'm finished painting the dismounted Seventh Cavalry contingent for the battle. I used the standard colours - uniform coats Kantor Blue highlighted Ultramarines Blue, trousers Sky Blue highlighted Wolf Grey, and everything black highlighted Dark Rubber. The initial drybrush of DR helps a lot!

So on to some more Plains warriors now - hoka hey! 

Seventh Cavalry Dismounted Troopers and Scouts

After the slog of painting almost a dozen mounted Plains warriors it's a relief to get back to some quick work. And by that I mean models that are wearing at least some semblance of a uniform. 

I made quick work of the dismounted troopers. The whole model gets a drybrush of Dark Rubber, this takes care of the highlights on the black hats, crossbelt, cartridge belt, holster, and boots. Then uniform coats and pants are painted Kantor Blue, uniform coat is highlighted Ultramarines Blue, pants are overpainted AK Sky Blue and highlighted Vallejo Wolf Grey. Buckskins are AK Khaki washed with Agrax Earthshade. It was hot in Montana Territory in June so some of the troopers are in shirtsleeves. While the issued shirt was grey, many wore privately purchased shirts and these could have been any colour at all.

The Scouts took a bit more thinking as their apparel is a mix of uniform and Indigenous attire. Oftentimes they were given worn-out or obsolete uniform coats so that's what these three got. I painted their trousers as buckskins or brown cloth, and the "breechclouts" were done in a nice red-black tartan with Khorne Red, Mephiston Red, and Evil Sunz Red, and "Hudson's Bay Blanket" pattern on the other model.

So with these done I feel like I'm making progress towards completion. I've got about 25 Seventh Cavalry troopers and helpers now, and a dozen mounted and about the same number of dismounted Plains warriors. Ultimately I want to have 40 (or 50?) models a side so I reckon I'm about halfway there. I just primed more troopers and after that, will get to the mounted troopers and 20 or 30 more warriors on foot. I'm going to use the same skin technique I used on my ancient Germans and that should speed the process up a bit.

Hoka hey!  

At Last - Plains Warriors on Horseback

You know how some figures seem to almost paint themselves and others take ages and ages? Well slot these Plains warriors into the latter category... seems like it's been over a month of saying to myself "I will get those guys done THIS WEEKEND" and it never seemed to happen. But I buckled down and now they are done.

  

They are of course the excellent Foundry models. Here we see the model I've painted as Crazy Horse, flanked by two compatriots. I found a suitable model for Crazy Horse (he had to be wearing a breechclout only, no war bonnet, and wielding a carbine - the Foundry model is "Walks Alone") and converted him to hold a pistol in his left hand. The pistol is from an excellent Wild West sprue from Wargames Atlantic which also came in handy later. The other two with Crazy Horse are Touch the Sky and Voice Like Thunder.

Here are Bear Licks with Tongue, New Fire, and Holds Fire. The models were painted with my indigenous skin recipe of Doombull Brown highlighted Ratskin Flesh. The horses seemed to take a long time as I painted several as Appaloosas. Also there was some warpaint on the horses and warriors. I should do more of that but it can be a lot!

  

Here are Lazy Boy, Fish Arrow, and Little Crow.

And finally Walking Rain and Strikes Like Bear.

Finally here are some excellent models sculpted by my friend Paul Hicks and sold by Brigade Games. They are from the civilians pack but converted by me to have revolvers, which came from Wargames Atlantic. Easy conversions. Here I've painted the models as Antelope Woman and Moving Robe Woman, both of whom participated in the battle. Antelope Woman (also known as Kate Big Head) was a Cheyenne woman present at the Little Bighorn battle. She was the sister of White Bull and participated in the battle by encouraging the warriors, helping the wounded, and gathering horses and weapons.

Moving Robe Woman (aka Her Eagle Robe) was later known as Mary Crawler (her father was Crawler, a Hunkpapa). Her little brother Deeds was killed early in the Reno fight. Moving Robe Woman took up a revolver and rode into the fight to seek revenge. She got it - killing a Seventh Cavalry soldier with her knife and shooting interpreter Isaiah Dorman with her revolver. This was pretty well documented as Dorman was the only black man in the battle and his fate drew some special attention. He was married to a Hunkpapa woman himself and was well-known to some of the Hunkpapa at the Little Bighorn, some of whom referred to him familiarly as "Teat". Although Moving Robe Woman didn't personally recount killing Dorman (his body was mutilated by his killer and others in a pretty grisly fashion) she did say "in this narrative I have not boasted of my conquests" and did not disclose her whereabouts when Dorman was killed. The Oglala Eagle Elk (cousin of Crazy Horse) said that Her Eagle Robe had a conversation with Dorman before she killed him with some enthusiasm. It is entirely likely that Moving Robe Woman didn't fully disclose her actions on the battlefield out of concern for later retribution by whites. You can read her own recollection of the battle in Richard Hardorff's book "Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight" and a description of her encounter with Dorman in Greg Michno's excellent time-study "Lakota Noon," among other places.

Lastly, as Moving Robe Woman herself said to her interviewer in 1931... Eyes Hen La! I have said everything! 

Little Bighorn Project

 

Better late than never I guess, but here is the first sizeable tranche of my 2026 project, the Little Bighorn in 28mm. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the battle and as I've said before here, I have some stuff planned, so I have to get off my kiester and get painting.

The models here are a mix of Foundry packs - some from the Young Bloods, and some from the Dog Soldiers packs. Above L to R we have Bear Licks With Tongue, Three Fingers, and Wolf Looks Back.

Here are Running Rabbit, Goes Walking, and Little Crow. As you can see from the photos these models are all characters and don't really lend themselves to "assembly line" painting like the Seventh Cavalry models do. But I did the skintones the same on all of them - GW Doombull Brown highlighted with Ratskin Flesh. I hate the name of that paint but I think it gives a good Indigenous fleshtone.

                                     

 Lastly we've got Pawnee Killer, Touch the Sky, and Plenty Coups. I did put warpaint on a few of the models but I may go back and do a few more as I like the look. 

The apex of the Indigenous resistance against white settlement and colonization was of course the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where a coalition of Indigenous warriors wiped out - to a man - five companies of the US Seventh Cavalry led by Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer (often referred to - incorrectly - as "General Custer" owing to his holding the rank of brevet brigadier-general in the Civil War).

                                 

Well there's the first bunch of Plains Warriors done. Only about 40 or 50 more to go...? Shouldn't be a problem this summer as long as I can stay away from Khornate distractions. We'll see.

                                        

As for the Seventh Cavalry, here's the first bunch. I've painted some troopers here (Foundry) as well as an officer, guidon bearer and trumpeter (not sure who made those!)

This first bunch are mostly Foundry models, I have a lot of them to paint. The command group above are from an unknown manufacturer, I'm sure someone out there knows who. The guidon is of the type used by the Seventh at Little Bighorn and was handpainted by me on paper.

The last eight models in the post are Foundry's "Old Sweats" pack, sculpted by Mark Copplestone.

They're super-nice models as you'd expect from the Foundry. Paint formula is Kantor Blue highlighted with ancient Ultramarines Blue for the jackets. The pants have been troubling for me. The blue should be light blue but not TOO light... these ones were too light and I toned them down with a blue wash, but still not happy with them. Will do some more experimenting with the next group. Black hats, leather equipment and boots were highlighted Dark Rubber. The yellow is Averland Yellow with an Agrax Earthshade wash, then re-highlighted. Rifle stocks are Dark Brown highlighted New Wood.

Anyway here's one interesting thing about the models... when I was at the Little Bighorn battlefield in 2008 I filled a jar with dirt from Last Stand Hill (as you do) and a little bit was sprinkled into the groundwork on each of these models, just to connect the models directly to the place where it all happened. Having the actual dirt also helped me do the colour for the groundwork - it's AK Khaki washed Agrax, then re-highlighted.

I'll keep posting as the project continues!

Dallas