A Wander Into Wellington's Army

I have always loved Napoleonics but until recently I have never painted anything for the period with the exception of my vast Slaughterloo armies. As I have been enjoying Sharpe Practice II and General d'Armee with borrowed forces I thought that it was time to build my own armies.

As I have not painted any historical figures for this period (most people, wrongly obviously, don't count Slaughterloo figures as Historical) I needed to establish the technique. So I decided to undercoat 15 figures, five each in white, grey and black, to see how that changes the method. I am painting British infantry in the test and first group.

First five, white undercoat

These were the first five done, using the white undercoat and finished with Army Painter Soft Tone.
I am not happy with these first five, I think they are washed out and I found them really challenging (hard!) to paint.

And then fortune intervened. I lucked into 120 odd pro-painted French and British for an excellent price. Not only did I have a substantial kernel to build my army around, they were partially based and saboted, just what I wanted to do.

The basing and painting production line

I then spent a couple of days really looking at the deceptively simple pro paint job. I can't match the quality but I thought I could use it's example to improve. They were obviously done with a black primer. So on to the grey and black undercoats. At the same time I decided to finish basing the bought ones, and carry the same basing scheme through to any I painted. At first glance, from a distance, they will hopefully look similar.
The grey undercoat was easier to work with than the white but the black was easiest of all. I also changed to a Strong Tone Quickshade, mainly to try for more definition, particularly with the grey base. Not 100% successful.

I will paint the rest of the British on a black undercoat and sparingly use the Soft Tone (mainly on the trousers) to give a bit of definition.

Black base to left, grey to the right. Black is the winner.

My Goodness! Mistakes Were Made.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Melbourne and spend a day gaming with my friend Mark N. We had long discussed us playing All The Kings Men, a set of rules from the US toy soldier company of the same name. As the name implies, it is a Toy Soldier company specialising in 54mm old style figures.
Mark's particular obsession is the War of 1812 so we had a game set loosely in that period, not a recreation of a real battle, just a bunch of toys on the table.

The field of battle

The toy soldiers are deployed in four types of unit; Infantry in 12 privates + Officer + Ensign, Skirmishers 6+O+E, Cavalry 6 + O +E and Artillery 4 gunners + O + E.
The rules are simple enough, with activation by random playing card draws, red for one side, black the other. Certain cards give you the ability to make special moves. Each play through of the (shortened) deck can allow your units of figures to make multiple moves in a full turn. However each move degrades their quality level from green to yellow to red. Green is good, yellow is ok, red is bad.

Get 'em lads, they is on red!

Battles are resolved with a simple roll of D6s, the number required for success grower higher with each drop down the colour scale.
As I said, rules were simple, toys were on the table and battle was rollicking. We played until the last toy standing and due to a good run of activation cards towards the end, and some lucky dice rolling, I emerged victorious.
This is not a game for anyone to take seriously but for a fun few hours or perhaps a light-hearted club night game, this fits the bill.

What? These old things? Had 'em for ages.

In fact, given my constant moaning about not being able to see 15mm figures to paint them, and the simple style inherent with toy soldiers, mistakes were made.
I spent the evening with Mark and his wife eating, drinking and discussing the idea of doing the game in Napoleonics. And now this huge box of figures have turned up at my house. I wonder where they came from? Looks like it's time to start painting old school.