Olustee - Perry USCT part one

Posts to this blog, like London buses: you wait a year for one and then two come along at once. Anyhow, although Gettysburg day one is the long term project, I've had a long term interest in the Battle of Olustee or Ocean Pond.

Fortuntely it has one of the best civil war websites dedicated to it http://battleofolustee.org/
which has a huge amount of research on every facet of the conflict. One of the features of the battle is the deployment of US Coloured Troops in the Union orbat.

At Salute this year, with this battle in mind; I picked up a couple of packs of metal heads (both Black and Confederate sets) to go with the plastics I bought... two years ago... My excuse is that the plastic sets didn't offer enough variety ;)

There are 36 heads per pack (12 different heads x3 arranged on 6 sprues) one sprue seems not to be as crisply cast as the others, but fortunately I only needed 5 sprues for the regiment I'm building.

The first stage was to remove all the existing heads; I found a twist with pliers to be the best method - although these are 'hard' plastic, a scalpel still makes short work of them. Luckily the musket I chopped in two was recoverable!

Next stage involved drilling a hole in the neck to accept the 'plug' attached to the heads(saves pinning each head individually). The first one was done with a pin vice, but I got bored and used a dremmel on the rest (point to note: the drill bit will melt plastic at high rpm).

Having successfully attached the heads (I found cutting down the collar of the sack coat allowed the head to sit correctly; using a thick superglue meant I didn't need to go over the collars with putty which was a bonus), I then looked at the command figures. I wasn't going to use the plastic standard bearer as he is wearing a shell jacket so I had to get the metal command set - oddly slightly taller and more willowy than the plastic troops they command. I debated whether to use them 'as is' but decided to do head swaps for the drummer and NCO. The standard bearers retained their original heads as removing the large beard would have damaged the miniature and in any case, the flags will cover their faces.

The last image shows a selection of the completed regiment. The head swaps are an ideal way to add variety to the massed plastic ranks. Hardee hats next please! (although I imagine the Iron Brigade may be released in metal in due course).

Foundry EIR Auxilia

Ooh. Can't believe how long since the last post on this thing; I did say it was irregular... Anyway, I found these photos hiding on the hard drive: Foundry Imperial Roman Auxilia. Again these were knocked out on a production line, so true wargamer's standard for these!

The optio's spear has been replaced with wire; the original looked like a tree trunk, but apart from that they are unconverted. The shield is an overpainted decal.

Roman EIR work in progress

A few months ago I posted an entry about a Roman unit I was painting up to see how quickly I could complete them. As with most things, it took a lot longer than planned...

Even now, they aren't quite complete - the scuta (shields) desperately need transfers - if anyone has any going spare please get into contact!

The pila also need to be attached, static grass applied to the bases & I'm probably going to do another layer on the tunics.

Painting this number of figures at the same time requires a certain degree of discipline - but I'm reasonably happy with the results.

I've already started on a unit of 24 Pretorians & a smaller unit of archers. Over the Xmas holidays, my painting schedule has been cleared to finish off the remaining Romans, so hopefully I'll have about 150 done by January...

Rally men, Rally!

Haven't had time to paint much recently, but aim to put that right over the Xmas hols.

This unit represents 13th Mass. Volunteers, who formed part of Paul's Brigade (1st Corps, 2nd Div). The unit was engaged in defence of Seminary Ridge on the first day, suffering heavy casualties.

As for the figures themselves, they are as always from the Foundry range, with several small conversions. A couple of the casualty figures have been resculpted from Foundry's colonial ranges - the Boer in the foreground of the first image with a blanket sculpted over his bandolier, and the Sikh Wars figure I posted about previously.










To break up the uniformity of the charging line, many of the rifle arms have been swapped around to create the impression of movement.

Foundry Gordon Highlander - North West Frontier

Another one from the lead pile, one of the Perry sculpted NW Frontier range from Foundry.

I assume he's a Gordon Highlander because of the tassels on the sporran, and it would fit with the campaign - he'd be perfect for storming the Dargai heights!

The yellow & blue in the tartan may need a little more work, as it seems to bright, although Photoshop's levels may be to blame - it doesn't look quite as conspicuous in reality. Also note the black and red stockings; which became red and white in later conflicts.

The tunic was painted in a mix of the 'Moss' and 'Linen' Foundry paints, the leatherwork Vellejo Cavalry brown / red leather. The choice to use brown for the leather is inferred from various paintings detailing the campaign; I don't usually rely on these second hand sources, especially when uniforms are so often subject to artistic license.

The Roman unit I began has expanded slightly - I now have about 60 individual miniatures based, undercoated and in various states of completion. Other things on the work bench include some of the new Perry ACWs and a couple of old Citadel knights (the 'Barons' War' range later released by Foundry) I have had since they were first released!

CS Divisional Commander

The Div. command base would (according to the FnF rulebook) usually be a single mounted officer; but although mounted on the correct sized base, I felt the foot figure added a 'story line' to the base.

The figure on foot is from the Crimean British command pack, with a hat taken from one of the ACW mounted packs. I particularly liked the turned down collar, which is under represented in the ACW range itself, despite its prevalence in period images.

The horse also originated in the Crimean range, although I had to resculpt the saddle, blanket & pommel oil skin.

The mounted officer's lower half is from the CS mounted infantry officer, pinned at the waist with the CS artillery officer miniature. The sash and sword belt are made from green stuff & hide the join.

By the way, the figure on foot is reading a map, not feeding the horse!

Completed fences

This is what the fences look like painted & based; I just put this little scene together to show what they'd look like on the gaming table.

They are really quick and easy to make, and I think they look pretty authentic. All from cat litter & lolly sticks :)