Another TYW Unit

 Managed to finish up the painting and basing for the Grey Regiment.  Still needs varnishing and flags adding...

More Epic Pike and Shotte 30YW

 I have spent some time today painting another frame of Epic figures and thought I'd show them on the frame.

They are nearly done - need to tidy up the separate figures (which I find harder to paint) and then they can be removed, edges repainted and then based up.

These are a Swedish Grey regiment.

Same technique as before. These took about 3.5 hours to paint on and off during the afternoon.  I am actually enjoying painting these.  There is something pleasing about impressionist painting and getting figures finished quickly.

I have now bought the Push of Pike starter set as it was heavily reduced on Amazon (with free postage) so there will be lots more of these, after some French Marlburians are finished off.

Painting Epic Pike and Shotte

 I have been asked by a few people to explain the steps I used to paint the Epic Pike and Shotte figures quite quickly.

Basically the process is:

Leave everything on the frame and undercoat it grey (both sides!) then heavily dry brush white  brushing downwards.

I have some sample Army Painter Speed paints I bought to try (out of professional curiosity) so I used a mix of those, ink washes and normal Coat D'arms paints.

1) Paint the main coat colour with a wash (I used Army painter Magic Blue for the first unit) - just splash it on and cover everything.  If the unit wasn't fully uniform in colour I would miss out a few figures here and paint their jackets or trousers when I painted the hats.

2) Paint the hats in various different shades of Brown, gray and black using washes again. 

I also painted all the shoes with either black or brown at this point, and I used two of the browns to paint the bags which are on some of the backs.

I used one of the browns to paint the bandoliers on the musketeers.

I also used the black to paint the sword hilts.

I also used one of the sandy browns to paint the gloves on the officers and pikemen

3) Paint the Muskets and pikes wood colour

4) Paint the musket rests a dark brown chestnut and paint any hair on the back of the figures.

5) Paint the straps buff

6) Paint the barrel of the muskets, plus swords, top of musket rests and pike points Chainmail silver

7) Paint the armour and helmets (I used army painter Broadsword silver which is fairly dark  -your could paint them chainmail first and then wash them).

8) paint the stockings, drum bits, collars and feathers white - could do hat bands but I didn't bother. I dabbed in the stockings at the front as you can't easily reach all of them.

9) Paint the flesh on faces and hands (I didn't bother painting beards).

10) Paint sashes Red

11) Paint gold on drum rim and anything on the officer that seems it needs it.

11) Touch up anything that really stands out - like white in the wrong place.

12) Remove from the sprue - touch up sides of arms where they were attached with coat colour. Glue on bases, varnish and when dry add flock to base and glue on flags.

DONE

The secret to speed is not worrying if everything is completely neat, as you are just aiming at the look of a whole unit viewed on the tabletop and also using a colour in more than one place -so muskets and pikes the same brown and using the same washes for some hats, bandoliers, bags, etc I did wonder if the figures would benefit from a thin black wash to separate the colours more but decided it wasn't worth that extra step and it would dull down the colours.

Hope that helps a bit.

I reserve the right to change my mind!

 

I have been mulling over the Thirty Years War project I would like to do. I had tried painting a free sprue of Epic Pike and Shotte but didn't really get on with them.  I also bought a test box of the 28mm Pike and Shotte plastic figures.

On Monday I tried assembling the 28mm plastics and got so frustrated with them (I really don't get on with multi-part 28mm) that I threw them in the bin in disgust!

Then I had a look at metals and realised it was going to be far too expensive for the size of games I wanted (circa £40 a unit).

I have been playing around with washes to paint some fantasy and boardgame figures so wondered if perhaps I could use that approach on smaller figures.  I bit the bullet and bought a box of Epic Pike and Shot Battalia for the 30YW on Amazon (£7 a unit - much better!) and they arrived Tuesday morning.

Got them undercoated and started painting on Tuesday - finished today.  I think thay look fine!  They are pretty quick to paint and, once you decide to treat a spue like one 28mm figure, you can gloss over the detail you aren't going to see anyway.

25mm WSS French

 

Test paint of one painting strip of Minifigs 25mm French Marlburians - trying to get a colour I like.  Happy with them so on to the other 19 in the unit..

First 40mm AWI Game

Having managed to finally finish painting enough figures for a 24pt force for each side for Rebels and Patriots, I finally played a game with the figures at the club on Monday against Martin.

Martin took the British and I took the Americans.  We played an encounter game as it was the simplest and Martin initially had the best of the movement and firing.  Things started to turn when his grenadiers charged and stopped at the bottom of the hill enabling my Militia unit to charge them.  They lost the melee but did cause some casualties on the Grenadiers before fleeing the field.

After that, things started to even up and Martin's luck changed with one of his units even firing on the commander's unit at one point (double - one blunder roll).

It was close but I finally broke the Grenadiers and then Martin had a turn in which he failed to roll above 4 on any rally roll and two more units went and it was an American victory.

Fun game and really nice to get these on the table.  We discovered afterwards that Pat the the club has some 40mm French Indian Wars so we are planning to use those as well for another game.

More 40mm AWI

 

I have finally finished the last 2 units of 40mm AWI Americans (which double up to a 24 figure unit).

I now have enough figures painted for a small 24pt a side Rebels and Patriots game which I have booked for next Monday at the club.