Last night I finished the final primer basecoat of the last of my core units for the 18thC India project. It has taken sometime but a mix of the weather (still awful for July) and focus, the latter rather unusual for me, has meant that I can now start the main job of painting. As you can see from the images below, this will probably take some time!
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| A quick parade of the troops as they are expected to deploy. Essentially 3 Brigades of Line Infantry, with Light Infantry and Cavalry on either wing. |
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| Each 'Wing' will comprise 2 units of Light Cavalry, two of Light Infantry and one Zumburak Elephant unit, which will count as Light Artillery. At present I'm not sure if to have the Light Infantry as normal (ie 2 bases) or large (4 bases). Some play testing and chat's with Dave will sort this out I'm sure. |
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| The Centre mad up of 3 Brigades, with a mix of British, HEIC & State Infantry. The mix will vary slightly with the right hand Brigade being the most powerful as befitting their post of honour. Support will be provided by Medium Artillery and some rather nice but not very effective Indian State Heavy Artillery. |
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| A small Reserve of Heavy Cavalry and State Infantry is planned, but could expand or not be included at all. |
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| The whole force plus a few extras such a bullocks to pull the guns easily fit in an A4 box file. Normally I could include two forces, with a shelf about half way up, but the flag poles and elephants prevent this, unless I leave a double height opening at one end. |
I'm looking forward to starting to pain these, focussing on the easy wins first in terms of the Light Infantry and Light Cavalry, slowly working my way up to the trickier British Line Infantry and finally the Elephants. With luck most units will take a day to paint, but even at this pace, that is still a good months painting I reckon! At least I have broad ideas for colours for the uniforms and flags sorted, so it should be a case of just steadily working my way through. Updates to follow in due course.
This Sunday I'm off the Chris Gregg's for the Napoleonic game which should be fun and then the following week there is a local IPMS and Wargames Show which I missed out on last year. Reports from both will be posted as and when time allow.
TTFN.
Cool. That’ll keep you out of trouble for a wee while. Lol. Who makes the figures?
ReplyDeleteHopefully trouble free Mark;)! All Pendraken from their Ottoman, AWI and North West Frontier ranges, bar the elephant which is Magister Militum. Fortunately at this scale you can get away with a lot of things in terms of 'historical accuracy'. To me as long as they sort of look OK for the period, that's good enough for me.
DeleteYou have some work ahead of you. You base before painting? Is that your SOP? Enjoy the model show. Are you entering any kits into the judging?
ReplyDeleteOut West, we have had no rain for a very long time. We could use some of yours.
I certainly do have my work cut out, but it is nice maintaining focus given I have a goal to aim for. Plus once finished then I have an opponent force that I can finally get some HoW games in solo:).
DeleteI've always based and then painted at this scale, no matter the period. With drybrushing the brown on, it sort of acts as a general shadow for parts where the paint brush can't reach, ie the bottom parts between the two rows of figures. Then add in the flock and it all sort of comes together. To be honest once on the table you really don't notice those bits you've missed. As my friend says, it's really bases, backs (from your side of the table) and flags you notice and as long as they're consistent, it all sort of hangs together.
The model show is full of stuff that would grace any of the main scale model magazines, which is way better than aything I could produce, even if I was tempted to. Always full of inspirational models though and a damned good mix of traders too.
After the very hot and dry June, we now have some parts of the UK that have 2 1/2 times their monthly rainfall already. I think we are lucky to be on the Northern side of the jet stream to avoid the extremely hot weather that part of Europe and the US have been experiencing. Fingers crossed you get some soon.
Good progress Steve, enjoy the show.
ReplyDeleteThanks Norma and I'm looking forward to going as I haven't been for a number of years (pre Covid I think?).
DeleteLooking great sir!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteSounds like me Steve. As long as the hats look right the figures are right.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing the finished articles.
Chris/Nundanket
Thanks Chris. I think we get to a stage and/or age where we worry less about the fine details, with the overall look and enjoyment of the game being more important. Years ago I would have worried about not having the 'right' figures, but with my move much towards ImagiNations stype forces, this is much less of an issue.
DeleteI love the fact that you wrote pain instead of paint. Probably a typo but maybe a Freudian slip?!!
ReplyDeleteGood progress. Good luck with it. It’s a tall order but time and effort will see it done. 😀
Definitely a typo due to my dystonic tremors in my left arm, but maybe a Freudian slip as you say Stew? Ditto typing Norma instead of Norm in a reply and being unable to correct it (as far as I know).
DeleteHopefully given that I've made good progress so far and for the most part it will if it looks good at arms length painting, then I should be OK. Commanders and a few other units might get a bit more TLC, but time will tell...
LOL - I noticed that too Stew and immediately thought of you LOL!
DeleteYou should be able to correct typos Steve - go into DESIGN in Blogger and then either POSTS or COMMENTS and you can edit anything you have cocked up - I know, I use it a lot!
DeleteThanks for that tip Keith:).
DeleteIntroducing typos into the comments is where my downfall lays. Can’t edit those!
DeleteSomething else I learnt! Typos have been my bane these past few days, so I'm having to check my writing rather carefully, but still miss stuff:(.
DeleteGood progress so far Steve.
ReplyDeleteWill you be having any camel mounted zamburaks? Or any rockets? Even if you don’t get to use them in the actual battle they’d be decent additions to the army camp and their very presence might serve to worry the enemy.
Good luck with the forthcoming game - remember to roll high 🎲 Not that I can work out how to make the previous image show anything other than a One ☹️
Cheers,
Geoff
Thanks Geoff! I have a few camels that I would like to convert, but I've parked those for the moment to focus on my core units. Ditto the rocket troops. I hope to have an army camp type vignette too, but again only once the main force is finished.
DeleteI'm looking forward to the game, but joining on Day Two I will have to wait and see how things have gone on Day One, but I'm hoping the French plans works well...
Good to see the new collection all laid out like that Steve - I have to admit, I am still a bit obsessed with getting in as much detail as my faltering eyesight and shaky brush will allow - but maybe if I was using 10 or 12mm, I would not be so bad!
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith! Luckily 10mm is very forgiving for aged hands and eyes, but if you want, some of the detail has to be seen to be believed and can be painted if you have steady hands.
DeleteNice formation when deployed. Look forward to seeing the finished article.
ReplyDeleteThanks Richard:). It's nice to see them in the flash so to speak, rather than sketched out on paper. I've painted the first unit and hope to get a quick photo of it in the next day or two.
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