Old Glory 15mm 19/25th Converged Grenadiers

The last of the Old Glory are painted up as the 19/25th Converged Grenadiers. A few differences in the uniform add a little more fun to painting these guys up.

The figures are sold in a mixed pack of command and marching figures. I would like the option to buy extra command figures for all the infantry packs as their mix leaves me short of musket carrying cannon fodder. As may have been noticed before a handy way round this is to add a mounted figure. In this case making up for the two missing troops. 

Just like the previous post these are great looking figures with good poses and bags of character. The detail on the drummers for instance tick the boxes. 

I have already painted up the 19th Regiment but could paint the 25th which would give me the option of having the grenadiers with their parent battalions though that will probably be unhistorical for these regiments. 

I still have three bases worth of command figures and I suspect these are going to be close to the front of the queue. I have enough to play most games but if I get a larger game in I will need a couple more for sure.

Old Glory Prussian SYW 18th Regiment Prinz von Preuben

I have had these figures since I first started my SYW Prussian army. These (along with some grenadiers) were based up to allow us to play whilst building up a painted force. I just never got round to taking them off their bases and painting them despite their failure to get used after a few months at the start. It always seems weird buying Old Glory from Timecast and Blue Moon from er well Old Glory. I am sure their is an explanation and hopefully it will be added below in the comments section. The flag is from Cadogan Hobbies on Ebay. They do all nations but sometimes they are not listed and you need to get in touch.

The army is based on the Prussian invasion of Saxony something of a walk over given the size of the Saxon army. However it gave me something to build an army round. It fights against Lee's Russian's and Austrian's and Joseph's growing French. 

Old Glory are very nice figures, do tend to need a bit of a clean up but the mixed poses and quality of detail make them both a joy and a task to paint but once finished you can be really happy with how they look. These are one of the two last units I managed to paint before going back to work. I still have five battalions of Lancashire Games figures to paint up as well as a Dragoon regiment and a few more guns. Then the question is get more to build it up further or go after another nation? Of course I can just stick with adding to Joseph's French and not bother going further until I might actually need them?

Rather pleased with how the drummer came out with these. The three colour pompom's were fun too!! At least this was the last army I actually played with. I just need to get all my units out and check what forces I actually have!

Prussian SYW Artillery Old Glory

I add to my Prussian 15mm SYW army with these Old Glory guns that are supplied by Timecast and not the Blue Moon which are supplied by er Old Glory. Whilst I am not really up against it for artillery with my current infantry levels I do have enough figures for another division.

 Lee and myself show number of figures on a base to determine what type of gun is being used. Battalion guns have just two figures so as you can see here two of these are battalion guns. This will give me more flexibility with the current force I already have in play.

One gun has three crew showing it as a standard gun whilst four would depict a medium gun. As you would expect from Old Glory the castings are high on detail but do need a reasonable clean up. Not too bad with small numbers but the idea of cleaning up a few battalions is a bit off putting. Maybe that's why the infantry are still waiting.

I've not had a game against Lee in a few years and despite painting up a reasonable force of French for Joseph we have not got a game in in ages either. His force is coming along and will be the next up for painting in the SYW as I still have three battalions of infantry already prepped and ready to go.

The three figure gun in fact is a Howitzer though I don't think Black Powder makes different use of them it's more to have something a little different on the table.

I am getting through a reasonable amount of painting now I am getting back into the swing. Some of the things in the queue though are a bit more time consuming but I also have a number of quick paints to allow something to be coming off the desk every few days or so.

15mm Companion Cavalry For Sale

Another two units finished but this time in 15mm. These are from Magister Militum from the Chariot Miniatures range. Chariot have been my favourite Ancient figures from when I first got into Ancients in my late teens. Though in those days I was building my Persian army using the WRG rules. That was a tough gig.

I plan to sell these for £30 a unit post paid in the UK or £55 for the pair post paid. Outside the UK I would charge any postage at cost over £5.00 They were for my army but I don't really need them and to be honest it will help with the shortfall of my wage which actually is more like 50% not the 80% talked about due to commission etc that I would also have earnt.

I really love the realistic pike like lances that these guys are equipped with. They do rather get in the way when painting but it's worth it.

I have done my usual basing of sand and masonry paint drybrushed and then flocked and added three different coloured tufts.

The guys on the right are actually Prodromoi but these I have based up as standard cavalry. I do have a unit of these as light cavalry but they don't do well in Hail Caesar and to be fair they don't stick out much.

Good job the lances straighten without the paint popping off, these I did not notice until looking at the photo's.

So in HC and Field of Glory this would be a unit whilst DBA and DBM your looking at four!!

Not the bright yellow you see on a lot of cloaks of companions. Personally I am a bit sceptic of those. Typical of a basic paint job it's ink over a flat colour but looks alright.

The second unit's a bit more punchy in colour but not smack you in the face bright. I actually prefer these to the first unit.

Three of these have silver helmets to break them up a little. The first unit has two silver helmets. Looking at images on the nett I saw a fair few with mixed colours.

All these boys have leopard skins for saddle cloths, they were fun to paint lol. I still have a few units worth of other Greek cavalry (and others) and three or four units worth of hoplites so I may well be visiting 15mm Ancients again in the coming weeks.

Lancashire Games French SYW Heavy Cavalry

Recently finished up a couple of heavy cavalry units for The Boy. These are Lancashire Games French cavalry from their Seven Years War range. Having painted up quite a few of this suppliers figures I do find them really quick to paint. The detail is reasonable and I do miss out a few of the smaller details to speed things up but they still come out looking fine.

We use Black Powder rules which allow you to be creative with your basing. Were not over happy with the army list book for this period but it does supply you with stats for the units but beyond that it really does not help in producing a realistic or balanced army. Indeed the author actually states he is no expert on the period!

This regiment is the Royal Cravate, having looked at a display game that used a larger than standard number of figures we decided to copy them. Light cavalry have twelve figures a regiment, dragoons have fourteen and the heavies sixteen making each cavalry unit average about £7.50 a pop. Of course any units that use most of the other suppliers the cost is somewhat more.

The second regiment is Meustre ds Camp and as usual The Boy picked which units he wanted me to paint. He still has a lot of unpainted cavalry so I will be back to this army again fairly soon. 

The flags are from Cadogan Hobbies who sell on ebay and are very good value for the quality. I have the flags for just about all the cavalry and infantry for Prussia and France and for under £28 and that's hundreds of flags!

The Boy is a bit low on unpainted infantry so will look to pick some more of those once I get a couple more battalions painted. I also bought some Blue Moon command figures for him that will give him another two command stands and allow for a mounted officer on one of his infantry bases. Will have to look for other command figures at some point to further expand his command options.

If you do go down the route of buying Battle Packs from Lancashire Games be aware that most of these packs are just the standard figures, command figures have to be bought on top of these packs, annoying if you don't realise and have to make a second order. However shooting Alan a email to check prior works well as he is quick to respond.

French SYW Artillery - Lancashire Games 15mm

The Boy's army continues to grow, he has had noticeable success in a recent game with his guns, blasting my poor infantry to bits as I advanced towards his troops so it was not surprising that he should favour yet more guns.

As such I painted up a couple of battalion guns and a medium giving him a little more flexibility. He will need a couple more battalion guns when I paint up a few more infantry battalions for him.

As he has a artillery Battle Pack from Lancashire Games so still has plenty of guns left to go at. I also have one as well as the Blue Moon gun pack so we won't go short.

In fact these have taken the table once already but suffered from the usual luck that first time used troops tend to suffer. Still The Boy's army continues to grow, he even has two regiments of heavy cavalry on my workbench at the moment that will soon be finished.

His next troops though are likely to be 6mm British Napoleonic's he is hankering after a few horse artillery batteries having played against my French ones a few weeks back.

Two 15mm French Seven Years War French Infanty

I continue to add to The Boy's army, this time with Regiment 43 Bourgogne and as usual these are from Lancashire Games but a slight change to normal I had included grenadiers on one stand.

Having painted a reasonable number of these fellows up it was straight forward, the flag is from Cadogan Hobbies I bought the sets for French infantry and cavalry and the two sets for the Prussians  so literally have hundreds of the buggers.

These have already seen action in a rare loss for The Boy. The three bases allow us to move them in march column or deploy in line. The cavalry come on 60x60mm bases that conform to three bases of infantry.

Just four grenadier figures on the right hand base allows them to have the correct position and adds a little something to the base. Difficult to believe we have been building these armies for over two years now. Still once I have a couple more cavalry units painted he will have a reasonable force for a full game.

It's never worth just doing one regiment so her we have Regiment 37 Royal Roussillon, The boy picks the units he wants painting based part on uniform and part flag. Mostly the flag is the driving force behind the regiment, here the two uniforms colour pops nicely.

Again I did grenadiers for this regiment, not sure how many more units worth of infantry I have for him left to paint but I have at least two units worth plus at least four of cavalry.

Not a fan of stiff flat flags I like a little movement in them so some repainting tends to be required where the flags show white crease lines but it's worth the extra effort.

15mm Macedonian Phalanx or Two

These are the first figures finished post challenge that was not actually started during the challenge. I don't even know the supplier of the figures as these were given to me by a friend years and years ago now. I ended up just doing a very basic paint job on them but they look OK on the table.

All but sixteen of the figures needed the pikes adding which was OK as I have plenty of wire to snip and glue in place. These continue with the plan of putting all the figures on a single base for use with Hail Caesar which will make it far easier to move them around the table.

The shields have Little Big Man transfers on them costing £3.50 per sheet. I needed two sheets but that leaves me with enough spares to do a third unit which I will do at some point. Very fast service and low cost postage means I will be happy to use again.

The transfers went on with ease though I really need to improve on my placement as you can see from the photo's.

This unit has a mix of different helmets which with the varied positions of the pikes make them look a bit more interesting.

The second block has two different makes of figure and I have put the ones with cast pikes to the front as their shields are domed whilst the rear ranks have flat faced shields. The front rank could possibly be Essex but that is a guess.

With these two blocks I now have about three blocks more than I need. However as I have far more Persians than you would expect to see in a game it's possible for my extra blocks to be used in a monster game sometime. Of course I can always use more pike in a game and cut back on other troops.

With Joy of Six just around the corner I am starting to feel the need to make good progress on our display game for next year. As such I have the Cataphract's  on the painting table at the moment. I plan to get them done before the end of the month and either move onto some SYW or keep on  with the Ancients and get the five phalanx units I have in stock painted. I still need to buy more of these as well as plenty more figures before I have all the units required. With over 4600 unpainted figures in hand I am not exactly short of stock, just seems I have the wrong figures at the moment.

Persian Satrap Cavalry Part 1

OK almost a month between posts! Still sluggish from the Painting Challenge but my mojo is returning as I finish off the figures started during the challenge. It is  unusual for me not to paint from start to finish so having unfinished work for any amount of time is not the norm and I think has really hampered me in getting at them again. I just have a few bases of Greek command in 6mm to finish, something that should get done in a single session if I get down to it. However todays post is about some old Chariot Miniatures I bought over a year ago that I needed to buy four more figures to finish off. The next post will be more Persian Satraps but with a difference.

As mentioned I had to buy four more figures from Magister Militum to finish this unit as they hold the licence to make Chariot now. I have bought quite a few minis from MM and always really happy with the service. Anyways this finished unit will give me far more cavalry than I should expect to need for a game but if I ever want a massive game I at least have most of the troops I would need.

I went with a very basic paint job as I wanted to get them off the table so missed a few details I really should have dealt with.  However they will look fine on the table. As I plan to rebase all my old 15mm to the newer basing style these could be needed just to get a game in anyway.

In reality my Persian army should really not want for anything as I have far more units that I could expect to use though it does allow me to go horse heavy or infantry heavy however I decide to build an army for a game.

I have between two and three units of hoplites worth of figures left to paint (from the same Chariot purchase) so will get these done at some point. Meantime I have a couple of phalanxes with my name on and in 15mm too. After that I will get back into doing a couple of SYW units before getting on with the 6mm Seleucids.

Talking of which I was over at Lee's a couple of weeks ago where he pointed out that I had done my maths wrong. I have ordered the required four 96 figure phalanxes but in fact I missed another FIVE off so need to get even more. That will be just under 30 blocks for the game! We will be starting the rule playtests and scenario tests at the same time. Shame most of it will be just bases for the time being.

 

15mm Lancashire Games French SYW Infantry

Well a month without posts and it flew past. Not having your own computer was a real pain in the backside. Though I was not aware it had been a whole month since I posted here. Well I now have my own computer again so expect more posts again, though I have painted far less than you would expect without the distraction of a computer.

Two more regiments for The Boys army, it's starting to take shape now and we hopefully will be getting a few more games in soon.

This is the 6th Regiment La Marine which fought it's first battle of the Seven Years War on the 26th July 1757 at the battle of Hastenbeck which was won by the French. This was to be the only major action the regiment was to actually fight. It was at a number of other battles but was never fully engaged, though detachments did fight a number of actions.

The regiment wore grey-white coats with black facings making them a little different. The red waistcoats are hidden on most figures but you get a good view of one in the first picture.

The colonels standard is fairly plain which is good as I don't want the whole army to be a blaze of the more fancy ones. Talking of which......

Having the odd blaze of colour and detail makes the army look better so I think he can be forgiven for picking these guys.

These are Regiment 16 Dauphin which also was part of the same army as Regiment 6 but these were more involved in future battles so look to have seen more action.

The coats are white as have been most of the regiments I have painted for The Boy and this really helps make the light blue facings pop.

So overall I am impressed with the Lancashire Games casting's. Some of them shave the ammunition pouch somehow cast so that at the mould line they are staggered and whilst it is not very obvious it's still disappointing when the rest of the figure looks good.

Above is the four regiments I painted during the Analogue Painting Challenge making five painted up all together for him. I need to add a few more and more cavalry and then he will have a more balanced force.

Talking of the challenge, it finishes on Monday. I have two small submissions so rather limp over the line this year but I have still painted up far more than I had expected.