Union Reinforcements from Perry Miniaures

I hope this finds you well!

I dedicated most of my hobby time in January to finishing some American Civil War figures languishing in the Mad Padre’s painting chapel, including three lead mounted officers from Perry Miniatures.   Two are based separately for either Sharpe Practice or to use as Staff Officers in Pickett’s Charge, which I hope to revisit soon.

The third figure in the Perry set, a duplicate of the chap in the kepi with his hand raised, was pressed into service as the colonel of the newly raised 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

The foot figures are also Perry Miniatures, from their plastic box set, Union Infantry Skirmishing. I don’t like assembling plastic infantry as a rule, but ten bases worth of 28mm figures for about $1.25 Can a figure was a good incentive to stick with it.

The flags are by GMB.   I had them set aside for a someday purchase of a third regiment for the Irish Brigade - I was looking at the Steve Barber figures with the Irish Brigade heads, but the flags included in the Perry Box, for a US Regular regiment, didn’t work out, so …    I found the detail on these figures somewhat lacking, and could definitely have achieved a better result with lead figures, but as I said, cheap and cheerful.  I’d give this box set an A for economy and a B for detail.

Finally, I had this Foundry Union cavalryman in my finished and orphaned box for a long time, so gave him the fourth horse from the Perry Union horseholders set.  

He makes a nice little vignette, maybe a deployment marker for Sharpe Practice.  

With all these figures added to the ranks, I should definitely put them all on the table and give the Pickett’s Charge rules another look.  Who knows, perhaps these troops will be deployed to the Canadian border.  I hear that there’s trouble brewing there.

Thanks for looking.  Blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Banner Blunder!

Good morning and happy February!   I hope this finds you and those you love well and healthy, and that we all get good news from the groundhog tomorrow (is there a COVID groundhog, I wonder?).   In January, my main effort at the Mad Padre’s painting chapel has been finishing a box of Perry Miniatures plastic Union Infantry Skirmishing.  They are finished and just waiting the final touches in the Basing Barracks before they muster into service, but I wanted to share a small tale of woe with you.

Notice anything wrong?

Probably shouldn’t have put the regimental banner on dark and early after only half a cup of coffee.   Looks like the Union is in trouble!   Good thing I got the national flag right.   A great pity, as these banners were included with the figures in the box, and the print and paper quality were sufficiently high that I was quite happy using them to make this a new unit of US Regulars.  Alas, trying to get the regimental flag off the pole intact proved impossible and it had to be sacrificed.

Fortunately I spoke to the War Department and we agreed to muster this unit into the Irish Brigade as the 116th PA, as I fortunately had the GMB Designs flag set for that unit in my stores.   This will allow me to bring the strength of the Brigade up to three regiments, which is quite respectable on a 28mm table.   Col. Meagher will be quite pleased.

Morale of the story, go slow and drink lots of coffee!   I won’t mention the slight damage I did to myself with a new Olfa blade when I finally decided to remove the old flag - that’s another story, but these chaps now march on a bloody battlefield.

Cheers and blessings,

MP+

Reinforcements For The Iron Brigade: 24th Michigan

My first finished project of 2016 is mustered into service.  This is the 24th Michigan of the Western Iron Brigade.   The figures are by French manufacturer Forgotten and Glorious.  I’ve talked about them previously and finished some of their brigade command stands in December.

I love the command stand.  It includes F&G’s sculpt of Colonel Henry A. Morrow, the 24th’s commanding officer at Gettysburg.

Col. Henry Morro

On the first day of Gettysburg, when  the 24th was engaged with the 26th North Carolina, Col. Morrow picked up the colours and carried them after the colour bearer was shot, as seen in this painting by Don Troiani.  Morrow received a non-fatal wound in the head during the fighting at Missionary Ridge and was taken prisoner when the Rebels captured the town of Gettysburg.

And here’s F&G’s Col. Morrow.  I really like the way the sculptor included his Hardee hat on the ground by his feet.  The flags are by GMB.

I tried to mix up firing and loading figures to show the chaos of a firefight, as opposed to the symmetry of drill. When I was a reenactor I hated two rank firing.  I was always afraid of not having my muzzle far enough in front of the face of the front rank man, and when I was in the front rank I always hated having muskets going off near my face.   And that was with no one shooting back at us.

The Colonel Morrow figure allowed me to use the officer from the command pack as a company line officer, cooly watching the effect of the men’s fire.   I rather think it would take a lot of sand to stand there with a sword and try to act cool and collected to inspire the troops.

My order from F&G also included a vignette of two privates running with an ammo crate.  I liked the pointing sergeant from the command pack so I paired him with this duo.  I hope it looks like the sergeant is directing them to the crisis point in the line where the ammo is running low.

I suppose I could use this as another regimental stand or as a marker to show low ammo or out of ammo, though I don’t think I have any rules which get that granular.

Finally my order included a set of mounted and foot officers.  Col. Morrow freed up a standard bearer from the command pack, and since I had an extra 1st Bde/1st Div/1st Corps banner I decided to make them part of brigade headquarters.  The mounted officer is getting briefed by the chap on foot, pointing to something very important.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these command stands.  Fortunately I’m fond of vignettes on the table top. I should say that the circular stand is the only one in this group that I made.  The square bases are all laser-cut MDF.  I’m a convert.

 

These brave sons of Michigan are now mustered into service, and bring my Iron Brigade collection to three regiments.   Sounds like a good excuse for another game of Longstreet.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

These figures bring my 2016 totals to:

28mm:  Foot Figures: 29; Mounted Figures: 1

Introducing the 88th New York in 28mm

One of my objectives this year has been to double down on my half-finished and unpainted ACW figures, and I am promising myself a test-drive of the Sam Mustafa Longstreet rules if I can get some more guys on the table.   Here is one project ticked off the list, the 88th New York, a collection of 28mm Redoubt figures, infantry in shell jackets.  It’s only taken me two years to finish them.  The flags are bespoke 88th NY flags from GMB.  GMB has been my go-to place for flags got a long time, though I have to say, I like what I’ve seen from a US shop, The Flag Dude.  I am retrofitting my SYW Russian army with his kit.   The split-rail fencing was kindly made for me by my friend Mike Barratt, one of the Rabbitmen in the Basement crowd.

The officer was a bit of a challenge as I think the sculptor intended him to be a reb, since there was braid on his sleeves and on the top of his kepi that had to be filed off before painting.

 

Since I had an early war feel in mind for them, I gave some of them the red leather canteen straps that were issued early in the war, and then a few the white canvas straps that became common later on,  just to add a small note of variety.  Likewise, I gave most of them the standard brown army blanket (painted with Vallejo English Uniform) but a few got gray blankets, again, just for the variety.  

 

Madame Padre looked at them and said “They look like they’re wearing blue jeans”.  Maybe I overdid the light dry brushing a bit?   More on that in a later post on painting Union troops.   I am reasonable happy with the final look on the faces and with the suggestion of woodgrain on the rifles.

 

 

Now that they are mustered into service, they needed their standards blessed by the Brigade chaplain, Father Corby, while Col. Meagher and the Division commander look on (the mounted figures are also all Redoubt minis).  I suppose, since I am a priest, I could have blessed them, but that seemed not only inappropriate but potentially unfair to my gaming friends.  Besides, that’s what the Father Corby mini is for.  The men know him and like him.

 

The 69th, followed by the 88th, on a route march.  After I looked at that photo, I noticed how jarring it was that some of the bases were not edged in green paint, so I’ve fixed that and they should fight better because of it. Now that I have two regiments of the Irish Brigade done, I am starting to think of a third.     Does anyone have any suggestions as to what options I would have in this scale besides buying more Redoubt figures (not that I don’t like Redoubt, I just like some variety)?   I am thinking I should look at Sash and Sabre but I’m happy to take your suggestions.

 

These figures bring my 2014 totals to:

28mm Mounted: 13, 28mm Foot: 42, 28mm Artillery: 1

20mm Foot: 33, 20mm Artillery: 2, 20mm Vehicles: 2, 20mm Terrain Pieces: 2

15mm Vehicles: 5, 15mm Foot: 26, 15mm Terrain Pieces: 3

6mm Foot:  120, 6mm vehicles: 4, 6mm Terrain Pieces: 2

Kilometres Run: 861