1914 Belgians - part 4

 

The rest of my Belgian Line Infantry and Carabiniers involved more head swaps.  The base figures were a few more Deetail FFL and Call To Arms Iron Brigade.  The latter's coats aren't really long enough but to my eyes they convey the right 'look'.  

I also made up two MG crews.  The gunners are both old lead hollowcasts.

Forward to the past!

I have been tinkering on and off with some ideas for an 18th Century toy soldier game for some time.  Recently I decided that it was time to inflict the thing on other people.  Five players - John, Pete, Russell, Diego & Lloyd - assembled and I provided a couple of boxes of 54mm toys.  The 'rules' such as they are, borrow elements from both Funny Little Wars and Charles S Grant's The War Game.  Infantry and cavalry units are composed of 12 and 6 figures respectively.  For this test game the Earl's Army Red had 5 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 gun.  The General's Army White had 6, 2 and 1.  

The toys are virtually all plastics, mostly BMC and A Call To Arms.

The General's troops soon surged forward into a hail of mostly ineffective musket fire.

Some brave souls ventured into (party popper) cannister range!

Eventually the Whites ran out of steam and shuffled off.  The game took 2 hours and kept all six of us us entertained.  And it looked pretty good.  More importantly, with a couple of tweaks the rules worked!  Expect more of this sort of thing.  Now, where did I put my tricorne hat?

My thanks to Russell, Pete and Diego for the use of their photos.

1815 Dutch & Belgians

I’ve become involved with another 1/32 Waterloo game. Happily, there is no chance of the figure-painting ‘burnout’ I suffered in the run up to the 2015 lawn game (see here and the subsequent four posts) as due to that game I already have a good number of suitable figures ready for action.  However, despite decent quantities of French, Brits, Prussians - and a few KGL, I had no Dutch or Belgian troops. I knew I had several boxes of the relevant Call to Arms figures in stock, and Lloyd owed me some painting...

I took delivery of the chaps on Wednesday and managed to get them based over the weekend. I think they look pretty good. 

There are three Dutch and one Belgian regiments - the contents of four boxes of ACTA and a few old Timpo Brits. 

The three Dutch regiments. The flags are a bit on the small side but I already had them printed. 

 The Belgians. With Timpo standard and drummer.

A closer look at one of the Dutch regiments. 

a little more painting

Here are a few more brave chaps from 2 centuries ago, but painted - as an experiment - rather more recently.  They are from the Call to Arms AWI Maryland Infantry set but painted as Brits.  After all, one bloke in a tricorne hat looks very much like another.  I think the experiment is a success so you may expect more of this in the future.

Call to Arms Cuirassiers complete

The past few weeks have revealed that - much to my own astonishment - I can actually paint 54mm Napoleonic figures quite quickly and to a tolerable standard.  As I indicated in my earlier post, I have been putting off painting these chaps for quite a while but now I'm not sure what I was worried about.

 With this lot galloping at you the paintwork will be the least of your troubles!

Speaking of paint, Col was asking what blue I use.  No.22 Mid Blue from the miniature Paints range.  It may be way too pale but somehow it looks right.

A pain in the cuirass?

This gaggle of A Call To Arms 1/32 cuirassiers has been hanging about undercoated for a few months now.  They have been sidelined by my tacking quicker 'wins' in terms of churning out stuff for the Waterloo game but this week the time finally came for them to confront a loaded paintbrush.
Being such nice figures painting proceeded quite swiftly and I hope to finish them over the weekend.

Yet another box of delights - part 2

In a shock development, only 24 hours after getting these chaps home I had them PVA'd onto my usual mdf bases.  Next will come tickling up the paintwork and applying a lot of varnish.  There are about 30 French infantry (2 units) and 10 Old Guard, plus the four Brunswickers and 20+ Brits.  Not in the photos are the 7 French Dragoons and 5 Brit cavalry.  That there are only 11 horses isn't a big issue as I have plenty of remounts.  The figures seem to be a mix of Airfix, Timpo, Italeri and Call to Arms.