Hessian Jagers

These figures, along with Rall's Grenadiers, were started a long time ago, but have been sitting idle for some time. Making a concentrated effort to clear stuff from my painting desk I finished these Jagers today. Borrowing the basic palettes from those done on Tarleton's Quarter, I gave these a basic paint job. After such a long lay off I hope to improve quickly as I have many more AWI figures to complete along with a number of figures from other periods in which I'm dabbling.

As seen with these figures, I'm basing my skirmishers on individual 25mm x 25mm bases by Litko. Starting with .8mm plywood bases I then back them with the same size heavy duty magnetic pieces, also by Litko. I think the resulting thickness is sufficient without being obnoxious. Basing my skirmish infantry individually gives me the flexibility to play a number of skirmish games yet easily conform to the basing standards of British Grenadier. The magnetic bottoms are nice for storage and transport.

14 Perry Miniatures, Barn by Architects of War

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The Saxon Grant

When my wife and I play SAGA, we tend to make it a light hearted affair. We rarely put together WAAC forces without warning and tend to place poor dicing squarely on the shoulders of the Warlord on the table at any given time. The Saxons, as my wife's SAGA faction of choice, have gone through many leadership changes. Somewhat reminiscent of the Army of the Potomac's leadership during the early years of the ACW. Thankfully, I'm unable to visualize my wife as Lincoln... That being said, my desire was to paint her McClellan equivalent first so as to perhaps entice that figure on the table more often and thereby upping my win total. This was not to be and I found myself painting first her Grant. The interesting twist, this is my first SAGA figure completed, not to mention the first after some time away from the brush, and it is wanting in style and refinement...her McClellan will hopefully be much better dressed. It'll be interesting to see who wins my wife's favor, the impending better dressed Warlords or the victory laden Grant.

      
The figure is from the Gripping Beast Saxon Thegns box set. Decal by LBMS. The basing is minimal as I have yet to decide just how busy I want my SAGA bases to be.  
Photos are a bit off as my camera is down and I'm using the IPad to take pictures.

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Base-ix Rack

Most of the time when Nicole approaches my painting area she mentions what she recognizes as a disheveled environment, to use her kindest parlance.  My usual defence of organized chaos and other weak objections have begun to hold less water as the time spent searching for particular paints has increased.  In the past, when I had looked at paint rack and organizers it was difficult to know the good from the not so good; for every positive comment there seemed to be a matching negative.  Not to mention my attempts at DIY usually end badly.  At the end of the day, I figured the money I'd spend on organizing could be better spent on miniatures, terrain, etc.

To my surprise, one of my father's day gifts this year was the "Rack Pack" with my choice of a couple extras from Back 2 Base-ix.  My wife had noticed this as one of the solutions I'd been eyeballing and with my procrastination swept aside the deed was done and the item ordered.

When considering organizers in the past I had concerns ranging from price and construction to assembly and function.  As long as I was given one, I figured I'd write up my impressions of how the "Rack Pack" fits the role and give a completely unscientific and personal rating from 1 to 10..

Price: 8/10
At first glance I thought $175 from Australia was a little steep, but considering that they offer free shipping to many countries the sticker shock went down.  Important to note is that you can add in a few extras at their normal cost and still get them shipped free.  Each section that goes into the system can be customized for paint size and some have other options such as a front tray.  Despite it being reasonable at $290 with a couple extras, I'm happy it was a gift as I probably would have bought more figures.

Shipping: 10/10
This experience ranks easily in the top ten for international orders I've placed.  Free shipping with tracking from DHL was great.  It was only 6 days from Australia to Minneapolis and an additional day to find me down here in the sticks.


Packaging: 10/10
Well protected and packaged all around with each component individually wrapped and protected in bubble wrap.  Being that I ordered the system in acrylic rather than MDF, each sheet of acrylic is also protected by an easy peel adhesive covering to further protect it from being scratched.


Assembly: 8/10
The first thing I noticed was the absence of printed instructions, but the instructional videos were available online.  This may be a problem for some, but I found it a nice format.  The videos were simple and void of any annoying voiceovers. 


One of the things to note about assembly was that the bolts are small, so having a small screwdriver and agile hands are a plus.  Another observation is about the magnets.  Make sure you watch the video concerning them so you can avoid any headaches later.  In the end, assembling the Rack Pack was fairly smooth.  The only problems came from my own error, often from watching Netflix while putting it together.

Overall I could easily rate this product a 9 on a scale of 10.  I already plan to order their Wall Climber product for use over by the airbrush. 

The Rack Pack will easily unclutter and help my painting desk, however with all things, its up to the user.  If I don't use it properly and get lazy, leaving paints about, then it was obviously a waste...and I don't want to know what colorful comment my wife might have when next she sees the "organized chaos"..

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MirBach Regiment

It has been awhile since I've been able to post the completion of another regiment, but life has been keeping me busy. As a direct result of this, my painting has probably suffered a bit as I again try and find my style.

I used all my previous palettes except I changed the flesh by using more panzer aces flesh tones in the mix. 

I have Rall's regiment about halfway done and on the way as well as a number of skirmish infantry.

 

24 Perry Figures

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For sale, some AB Napoleonics

I'm selling off some 15mm AB Napoleonics. To spare me from retyping the list via a kindle, here is a link to the listing. Listing is here

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1812 in Wisconsin

My wife and I don't spend too many weekends at home while the ground is still free of snow. Our lastest kid-friendly weekend away had us visiting Prarie du Chien about 3hrs away and then across the river from Marquette. There were plenty of attractions for the kids at the long standing Ft. Crawford, fur trade museum and the native effigy mounds back over on the Iowa side.
There had long been European and native contact here as part of the fur trade and I believe this is dated back to the late 1600's. In 1805 Zebulon Pike was sent to explore the Mississippi River Valley. The picture above is from "Pike's Peak" (one of two peaks bearing his name in the U.S.). It is here that he recommended the building of a fort. The government however opted for a site down in the valley along the river. It is there that this area saw its only battle during the war of 1812.

The wargamer in me was hoping for, at least, some small scale action to be recreated in a skirmish game. As I understand it, 650 British approached and engaged Ft. Shelby with 60 Americans inside. After initial surrender terms were turned down, the British managed to run off the gunboat supporting the fort with some accurate cannon fire. After a day or so they were close enough to toss heated shells at the wooden walls. This was enough for the Americans, as surrender terms were then accepted. A fairly unspectacular affair without any loss of life. The British renamed it Ft. McKay before destroying it upon their departure.

Later on, Ft. Crawford was built to replace it and today the second military hospital still stands. This weekend the fort hosted a smalll group of reenactors (mostly from the civil war era)which the kids enjoyed immensely, especially the cannon and musket firing and the interaction enthusiastically offered by the reenactors.

As my daughter's history class continues to study Iowa history, we'll probably head here next.
Below are a few photos taken around rhe area.

On the miniature painting front Mirbach's regiment is 99 percent done with Rall's at about 30 percent .

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Wilhelm von Knyphausen

As my work on other units continues I decided to slip in the completion of the Knyphausen figure by Perry. Its obviously not my best work, but will do just fine on the games' table.

As the base size for Knyphausen, per the Brandywine scenario, was going to be much larger than the ones I had used previously for commanders, I needed a simple idea to fill some space. I'm not ready talent-wise to do a fancy little vignette, but I wanted to do something that was perhaps new for me and that I could use later. Looking around the scrap pile I found a Hessian officer I wasn't going to use and glancing over at the terrain area I noticed some supplies for creating water effects...why not. The final idea was to create a small often-wet/muddy/marsh area which may be encountered almost anywhere. Utilizing some greenstuff I created the edges of the water area and painted the inside using some dark greenish-brown paint before proceeding to use my normal basing up technique using wood glue etc. The final step, of course, was adding the water mixture. Although needing some further refinement I think it turned out acceptable and will no doubt come into use again somewhere else.

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