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:

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:

Weekly News 21st October 2012: Foot Artillery based

Time goes by so fast and another week is over.
Unfortunately I didn't win neither Fran's nor Ray's lottery for some Rejects' dice. Congratulations to all lucky winners here and there!

On the workbench there has been some progress. Finally I managed to finish the basing of my first three batteries of Royal Foot Artillery:

The three bases from obove. In the middle there one space left to put another crewman or officer in.

These are the three 9pdr guns which I made from the Victrix plastic set (look here or here). The miniatures are nicely modeled and cleanly cast. As all Victrix plastics they have to be assembled from five to seven parts. The guns can be build as 6pdr guns, 9pdr guns or 5.5" howitzers. I decided to build late Napoleonic 9-pounders and add a howitzer later (I already got the one from the Perrys...).

Here are the three:

If you remember some of the crewmen then you are completely right. I finished some of them in June for the great Kolberg game and presented some bad cellphone-photos then. But I hope you like those pictures better.

Next week will be quiet on Monty's Caravan because I'll go on vacation with my wife and our daughter. Although we plan to visit the German Navy Museum in Wilhelmshaven (look here) I'll probably not be able to present a review before I'm back home.

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.