Little Landsers: Getting Ready for OGroup

I suspect that like a lot of people in the Too Fat Lardies community that are excited about the release of David Brown’s O Group rules for battalion sized battles, I have gone back to the 15mm WW2 part of my lead mountain to see what I could find.  There is a LOT in my 15mm lead mountain, some of it dating back to the release of Flames of War.   I decided the first thing to do was to increase the number of my early war Germans - a useful force, as I already have a massive number of 15mm Russians for them to contest the steppes with.

The figures are a mix of Battlefront and Old Glory that I bought in a mass order with some friends some years back.  The OG figures are, frankly, a mixed lot, some downright ugly, but they mix well enough with the BF figures.  I filled up enough painting sticks to do several platoons of generic Heer infantry with supports and command.  I put two man LMG figures on separate small bases to stretch the number of figures, so one LMG stand, with a five man infantry stand, is more or less a section.  Seems legit.

The figures were mass produced, and with a “good enough” attitude towards the final outcome.   I am not ashamed to say that I bought a can of Army Painter Field Gray spray primer to give me a base coat, and then picked out the flesh, weapons, helmets and gear.  Everything got a final wash of Windsor and Newton Nut Brown ink, a trick I saw from someone who uses it as a wash for 6mm Napoleonics, and I was happy with the end result.  The bases are coloured FOW size bases from 4Ground, covered with a blend of model railroad turfs.  I'm a slow painted, but I raced through all these figures in about five one hour sessions.

Two tripod mounted MG sections, a tank hunting team with ATR, a sniper team, a 50mm mortar, a section of combat engineers should cover most support options for smaller scale actions using TFL’s Chain of Command.

Finally, I had enough senior figures to make two command stands suitable for company or battalion level.  The fellow with the fancy overcoat has ben dubbed General Von Klinkerhoffen, in tribute to the late Hilary Minster of Allo Allo.

That should be enough for a decent sized engagement.   It’s pleasant to work in this scale again and not be too overly fussed over mistakes on a single figure.  I have a company of Battlefront Commonwealth infantry in the queue as I have become quite excited about 1st Canadian Division in Italy, but that’s another story.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Some Yanks: Vintage Old Glory 28mm ACW Figures

These eight figures are out of production Old Glory 28mm miniatures from whatever came before their Second Edition ACW line - I guess that would been, I dunno, First Edition?  They came from a pack of 25 or so minis called ACW infantry advancing in slouch hat and backpack or some such title.  I bought them easily ten years ago, and as I slowly work through the older seams of the lead pile, I decided to work away at them this winter as I finished my MA thesis.  They’re not really great figures, but they’re useful for bulking out units.  These chaps give me two bases I can use for either my Iron Brigade regiments or I can use them as troops in the Western theatre.  For the federal sack coats I used a craft paint called Midnight from Folkart, thinking it was close to an indigo colour Folkart used to make and I wasn’t that impressed with the result, which looks a little purple to my taste.   However, if you look at these photos of a very good reenactor unit, you see a variety of shades of blue sack coats.  I quite like the scruffy, hard-marching look that these reenactors have achieved. 

 These sculpts are tall and thin, much scrawnier than must reenactors one sees, and they suffer from a lack of detail.  There wasn’t much I could do about the faces About the only ambitiousmthing I tried to do for these chaps was to give them a bit of a suggestion of woodgrain on their muskets, as it’s a look I quite like when other painters get it right.

All but one of these sculpts have the double-bag knapsack commonly issued to Union troops.  Most of the figures in the Old Glory pack came with the British Napoleonic style knapsack with the whitened straps - I used most of those for Rebel troops wearing British suplus kit brought over on blockade runners, but I had one left over so I guess he picked it up on the battlefield. I’ve worn replica double back knapsacks on long marches with about a 20 pound load (greatcoat, blanket, change of shirt, socks and underwear, and some personal items) and it is decidedly NOT ergonomic.  The leather straps are unpadded and bite hard into the shoulders.  I could soon see why troops often discarded items on long marches.  For speed and ease of painting I gave them all the same US issue brown blanket.

 Got some rebs done as well, will feature them in another post.  Until then, blessings to your brushes, friends!

These figures bring my 2015 totals to:

28mm:  Foot Figures: 19; Mounted Figures: 10

20mm 

15mm: Armour/Vehicles: 5

6mm:

Kilometres Run: 150

Saturday Painting Desk

This last week a smelly bunch of 28 Rebs have been camped on the painting desk.  They’re lucky to get 30 minutes attention a day, since it’s all thesis all the time until the end of February.  The four in a firing pose are Renegade, the first I’ve ever painted, and much fun.  The rest are from the eccentrically sculpted, very hit or miss Old Glory ACW range, not my favourite, even though they do grow on me after a while.  Lots more rebs to go after these ones.   Each figure gets a slightly different colour scheme, which means a fairly slow rate of progress, but I like the motley look that results.

Blessings to your brushes!

MP+