From IanW - 6mm Fest - Surprise Surprise (113 Points)

I have two lots of British Napoleonic's to paint, one lot for my son and the others for a mate for his Waterloo game. I have never painted British Napoleonic's before so a rather nervous first as these are supposed to be for a display game at the Worlds.

I have a total of 22 Battalions for Steve (as well as cavalry) so these are samples for him to give the thumbs up or request changes for the rest. He gets to see them Thursday, so you steel the march on him a little.

I find something stirring in me when I see the Union flag rippled by the wind, by the time I had painted all the edges on the third one something else was stirring too.

All units today are the 2nd Battalion of their respective Regiments. First up the 30th Regiment. The yellow facings proved a little tricky, a surprise given I have had less trouble working it onto Prussian Blue previously.

The 33rd Regiment has a white George and I have a flag sheet on order from Baccus along with a few other bits so these won't be finished for at least a few days. 

The 69th Regiment has a bright almost mint green facings and as the following regiment has a darker green facing I wanted to try and show the difference. Unfortunately I failed to get a close up of the 73rd, try and get that sorted out.

No backpack straps to paint, yippee. I have to admit that I found the experience rather pleasant, now ask me again when I have the current thirty four battalions finished how it feels.

The next submissions, well I blame Clint, well he did ask for more. These like all the figures today are Baccus. Some rather splendid stone throwers. I have some of these from Essex for my 15mm but you really get the feel of BIG with these boys.

I have experimented with using one of my hairs to provide the wire/rope?? that flings the stone, you may just about see it. Maybe next time I will use one of the grey ones.

As I want to use Hail Caesar with my Ancients I thought it nice to use casualty markers rather than dice to show unit loss. So I may as well have a go and see what they look like.

The markers are the smaller Warbase models costing just 60p each and are reasonably small. This Hoplite curiously seems to be missing his head so I have painted him up with a cloak possibly covering said head.

Another Hoplite but more obviously dead. I have a whole bag of these guys so some will make it onto the normal bases for flavour.

I also painted up one of the cavalry casualties and I really like the way he is posed against the horse. I want the bases to be fairly minimal so not a great deal of Static grass. Still experimenting with the Baccus Huff Puff but I feel I am getting there as the grass stands up rather well. Time consuming but I like the effect.

Last up (for now) is a nice bright corpse, this time an unarmoured Hoplite. It's had to see but he is lying on his shield.

I originally planned just two units of Light Infantry with javelin but overestimated how many figures would fit on the 60x40 base so in the end I painted up four units. Whilst I don't see me using four in the early games maybe if we build up massive armies then I will need them, time will tell.

Rather than have them all facing forwards I have some of them running back from the enemy hoping to draw them on. Again I want the bases to look like what I think they would in action, not just a few figures on a small base but spread out.

I also did the same with the bow armed light troops, my only quibble is that they look like they are armed with longbows rather than the smaller bow of the time. Not that I am an expert so could be wrong on this.

I would ideally preferred more than two posses but again this is not really a moan as a wish for more character on the bases. I suppose if I was really fussed I could check out the Rapier figures to see if they are comparable.

As well as light infantry units Hail Caesar has skirmish units, to represent these I have put two figures per base on a 2.5cm round I picked up at The Worlds last year in the goody bag. I would have preferred them to be thinner but they are fine.

Last up the same but with Javelin. I still have yet to paint up test units of my Hoplites, Agema cavalry and Peltast's as well as plenty of Pike. Long term I am looking at 10 blocks of 96 pike and hope to be able to field them probably by the end of the next challenge.

Figures wise I have

96 British for 48 points

96 light troops for 48 points

3 infantry and 1 cavalry casualties for 1.25 points LOL

Large stone throwers 16 crew for 8 points and whatever Curt gives for the balista's.

So 105.25 plus the lobbers.

Next week will be back to the 15mm Roman's and maybe a few more Vikings in 28mm


From Curt:

Okay, so what's with all the people using their body exfoliates  for modelling? It's starting to freak me out. It reminds me of the scene in 'Black Adder Goes Forth' when Baldrick informs BA that, because of the rationing at the Front, the 'coffee with milk and sugar' is actually mud, spit and dandruff...

Those British Napoleonics looks great Ian. I can't believe that after the zillion 6mm Nappies you've painted to-date you've not done any Brits - how does that happen?! Anyway, your friend and son will be delighted with these little gems.

You know, I actually think the 6mm scale works better with those casualty markers than the 28s you've done previously (which were excellent in their own right). The extra real-estate allowed for the basework seems to compliment the whole arrangement. But, maybe it's just me.

Again, wonderful job Ian. Now, don't get tempted with doing multiple units of HYW English archers or you'll make yourself bald from the bowstrings... :)