Tactica Review (1) - The Battle of Aboukir

Once again this blog fell silent for a couple of weeks. Again my apologies for but my reason was just since I had to concentrate all my hobby time on finishing my share of our game for Tactica wargaming show namely one unit of redcoats, a rowing boat with 38 figures and a British gunboat. From time to time I didn't believe that I'd make it but delayed holiday, sleep deficiency and negligence of household duties do miracles sometimes. In this context I cannot praise Mrs Monty's patience enough!

Anyway somehow everything was done and finished by Thursday evening and so I set sail to Hamburg on Friday morning with a bag full of miniatures. As I mentioned a couple of times we prepared a game to recreate the Battle of Aboukir which took place on 8th March 1801. From the morning fog there were British landing crafts emerging that told of the advancing landing force under command of Sir Ralph Abercrombie. He brought 17,000 troops to breeze out the French but those are ready to fight their last stand as hard as possible. Once again after Nelson's famous naval victory and after a failed Ottoman landing operation in 1799 the fate of the Orient is decided at Aboukir.

The initial setup with the French on the beach and the British advancing by sea.

AWI Command Base

Last week I was a bit restricted. A conjunctivitis ("pink eye") afflicted me and so time with full vision was precious. Besides painting miniatures I was busy with preparing my new laptop so there wasn't too much time to do other eye stressing things like reading or commenting blogs. Please excuse me for missing you last weeks efforts. At least I'll try to read the things I missed.

Anyway I finished the first command base I ever produced. It shall represent the brigade command for my highlanders:

My first command base... ever.

Actually it's a combination of an officer, a drummer and an ensign in the uniform of the Black Watch with the regiment's King's Colour which shall serve as kind of pars pro toto for the brigade command. The figures are from the excellent Perry twins and the flag is from GMB Designs. Unfortunately the contact between the officer's sabre and his hand was very week and it broke of while I varnished the figure. So I had to repair it and used flattened piano wire which I hammered and grinded into shape. I had to remodel a part of the hand as well but I think it doesn't stand out too much.

Close-up of the ensign...

... and the drummer...

... and the commanding officer himself.

My next task is to finish a group of British officers interrogation an American POW. Besides that I've got some Gripping Beast plastic Vikings on my workbench and my efforts for "Bloggers for Charity" seem to become concrete. Loki announced to send me a unit of FIW redcoats soon and I'm planning to paint them around christmas.

By the way I recognized that 50.000 hits are coming nearer and I'm thinking about continuing the tradition to organize a raffle now and then. In case I'll find some useful prizes I will...

AWI-Scotsmen: 74th Regiment of Foot finished

Finally they're done!

After I presented the first finished miniatures last week (here) I was very anxious to get the whole unit finished until today. Mainly because we'll have an AWI-game this evening and I would like to field those Highland boys for the first time.

The whole unit (klick to enlarge).

When we started to play AWI we decided that a unit of standard size has ten models. To be honest I don't remember the precise reason but it was associated with our small AWI collections and the smaller (real) forces compared to Napoleonic times. However I used two sets of Perry AWI Scots (here and here) and painted them in an proper scheme to represent the 74th (Highland) Regiment of Foot. I chose this unit because the took part in the small campaing to found Fort George and defended it during the American Penobscot Expedition and we are planning to play some small scenarios related to these events.

As usual I used Vallejo paints and tried to illustrate all important uniform details within the limits of reasonable effort. Unfortunately the unit has to wait for its colours a bit. Iain from Flags of War told me that the fitting flag is nearly prepared and will be available soon. Probably I'll field the regimental colour with the unit and the King's colour on the command stand for the brigade. Two flags in a ten model unit would look a bit excessive I presume...

Weekly News: Sign of Live and WIP AWI Scotsman

The last week was anything but calm. Instead of swinging the paintbrush annual tax declaration was on the shedule. A hard test for my patience and our marriage. However we passed it and only some minor details of the costs for childcare are to add.

Anyway I was able to make some minor progress on my AWI Scotsmen. Although I wanted to paint them as Black Watch originally I changed to 74th Regiment of Foot. I changed my mind because we're planning to present an AWI game at Crisis in November which is losely leaned on the penobscot expedition in 1779 and the events described in Cornwell's "The Fort" and during this campaign the 74th was present at Majabigwaduce.

However here are two pictures of the first nearly finished soldier. I'm surprised how the plaid turned out. While I was painting the dark green check I feared that the tucking would look unnatural... Anyhow there are some details to finalise. E. g. highlighting of the skin, the musket, slip knot in the hair and the the metal parts.

Anyway I hope you like it.

Scotti's front. I'll have to rectify the socks.

And his back. I'll have to paint the black lines on the folds.

Unfortunately I haven't found a European dealer for flags of the 74th and 82nd Regiments of Foot. Probably I'll turn to Flagdude. Does anyone know, whether his flags have the same size as GMB?

Reviewing Black Watch

First of all thanks for the kind comments and good wishes. Although breathing is still a bit difficult, my cough seems to get better. Hopefully the antibiotics do their work well.

However I used this afternoon for the last finishing touches on my Black Watch Highlanders. After the poor snapshot which I used last week to prove that painting was finished in 2012, here is a much better one. I hope, you enjoy it:

My interpretation of the I / 42nd (Highland) Reginent of Foot (Black Watch) during the Napoleonic Wars.

Here's a short review:

Tutorial: Black Watch Tartan in 28mm

When I started my British Napoleonic project this spring I decided to muster some English as well as some Scots units. The thing I feared to by most difficult was the kilt. It turned out to be easier than I thought, but before I started to paint, I searched the world wide web for some help. There are only a few tutorials about tartan painting on 28mm miniatures, but John O'Brien's article from 2001 (read it here) was very useful for me.

To make things a bit easier for those who are as much beginner as I am on this domain, I want to present my way of painting the Black Watch tartan step-by-step. Please ignore the other parts of the miniatures since they are highly WIP. I'll post some pictures of the finished ones around Christmas I hope.

1.) Basecoat:

Basecoat of VMC 050 "Dark Pruss. Blue"

The basecoat of the Black Watch Tartan, the so called Gouvernment Set, is a dark blue. After some experiments I decided to use Vallejo Model Colour 050 "Dark Prussian Blue" on white undercoat.

Eight Highlanders finished and a journey to undertake

Finally the next eight Highlanders for my Waterloo Black Watch are finished:

The eight Highlanders on poles because they need to be varnished still.

Each and every of those men has its specific blemishes but to me they seem suitable as rank and file troops. Next week I'll start with the last eight soldiers including an officer, sergeant, drummer, an ensign and the piper. With a little luck I'll be able to finish them before Advent season.

In addition to this good news the coming weekend casts it's own shadow ahead. This year I'll visit the Crisis-Comnvention at Antwerp (Link). I'll have the great pleasure to visit the show with my fellow gamers from the "Team for historical Simulations"(Website here) from Erkrath (small town near Düsseldorf within the German Rhine Area) and support them at their presentation game. It will be "Prelude to the Battle of the Five Armies" (a little foretaste here) a kind of rencounter before the actual battle. The scenario and terrain was developed by our mate Robert for 15mm / 18mm miniatures and we'll use the "Triumph and Tragedy" ruleset (website here) with some adjustments and additions (therefore called "Triumph, Tragedy and Trolls").
But alongside I expect an awesome trip with the boys and a nice day at Crisis. I#m looking forward to meeting some guys in person which I've been knowing from the world wide web for some time.
However I'll post a report next week.

Here's the official poster:

42nd Rgt. of Foot "Black Watch" (2): Eight men finished !

Finally I was able to get something finished! After some kind of lean time I managed to spend some time with my highlanders this weekend. Two weeks after I posted a picture of the first brave Scotsman a third of the unit is finished:

The Officer, one of the Ensigns and six Privates finished.

Although each and every of the miniatures has its small faults, I think they turned out well. Therefore I'll proceed with the same technique for the other members of the unit.

Close-ups of three kilted soldiers.

The next eight are already on the workbench and I painted the basic tartan today. I hope to be able to advance steadily this week.

But tomorrow will be under the sign of D. I. Y. My wife and I bought two new glass cabinets for the wargaming stuff. Tomorrow we'll put them together and rearrange our flat a bit. I'll present some pictures when it's done...

42nd Rgt. of Foot "Black Watch" (1): Test-Highlander painted

After the long posts of last week, there's only a short update today.

Lastly I prepared my next unit: The 42nd Rgt. of Foot "Black Watch".
Because of the good price I bought some Victrix plastic miniatures. To me they look really great. The details are nice and crisp and I like them better than the Royal Foot Artillery by Victrix I recently painted.

Although there are some promising decals by Warflags on the market but I decided to try my luck with painting them myself. On the World Wide Web I found a nice tutorial by John O'Brien (Link). He explains a kind of simplified tartan for toy soldiers and I used the following colours:

• Vallejo Model Colour 050 "Dark Prussian Blue" as base colour
• Citadel "Dark Angels Green" for the check
• Vallejo Model Colour 072 "Deep Green" for the brighter center checks
• Vallejo Black for the thin lines between green and blue

For the rest of the uniform I used the same colours as for the 44th. On the picture below you see one shot of a highlander with the painted kilt only and on the left a nearly finished model with Armypainter Quickshade applied already. Although there are some finishing touches (buttons, highlights) to do I'm really pleased with the result. The kilt turned out better than I expected and you can guess which tartan it shall represent. Nevertheless I'm afraid of the grenadiers and the drummer with an additional thin red check above the usual government tartan...

I hope to ale to proceed with the next highlanders quickly and maybe I'll be ale to post some new pics next weekend.