AWI and epic progress.

 I was quite surprised that it’s been a couple of weeks since I updated my blog! Where does the time go.

Anyway following on from my last post and my comment re the desire to do some of the early actions I’m America then my progress on the 1768 uniformed figures has gone quite well ( considering I’m painting other things as well). So far I’ve managed to paint three units, based them and ordered the flags from Maverick. One unit just had its bases inked today.

I’ve found a style of painting that I’m comfortable with and which is pretty quick. I always gloss varnish the figures before applying a Matt varnish but I usually do that in batches so these little chaps are awaiting that process.

In addition as you can see I’ve been making a lot of fences, again they’ve had the sand applied and inked today so I can get them dry brushed etc over the next couple of days. The fences are from Blotz and I think they work pretty well. A lot of the pieces I pushed out between the rails I’m keeping for when I start making the flèches for the Bunker Hill game. 

Speaking of Bunker Hill Mark Nichipor ( My Brave Fusiliers blog) contacted me and provided me with a lot of information on the layout of the redoubt on Breeds Hill, it’s size etc and the units that were deployed there. A great help so thanks very much to Mark. From my days of doing demo games it came as no surprise that the size of the redoubt compared to groundscale would require some fudging so internally the redoubt will end up being about 10cm by 4cm which is around twice as large as it should be, but because of the size of the battle I can accommodate that without it distorting the rest of the field. So busy drawing up a scale plan at present.

I am really hoping I can find time to run a test game of Little Wars Tv Live free or die rules. They’re based upon Andy Callan’s Loose Files and American scramble and after having read both sets there are a couple of things the Little Wars team dropped that I may reintroduce, we shall see.

Finally I’ve been pressing on with the Epic Quatre Bras project, initially I was focussed on using DBN, which I still intend to do, but also decided to build forces to use Keith Flint’s  Shadow of Eagles. Keith uses a standard 4 bases to a unit and I intend to use 1 epic bases to two of his. So notionally a base is around 300 infantry or 200 cavalry. It does mean a couple of units (British Guards, Nassau)will be three bases and I will most probably allow them to ignore the first hit received to reflect their size and not t overpower them so much within the framework of the rules.

So I managed to finish the extra bases for the Guards Brigades and started on the 1st Hanoverian Brigade, 4 battalions are complete and the 5th is almost done 😁.

For one of the units I used MSC miniatures stl files. Available from Wargaming 3D. There are a lot of files now available for epic scale and I got a chap at the club to print me the British in shako’s to use as Hanoverians. They are on slightly thicker bases so to keep the height difference to a minimum I’ve based them on thin plasticard and left them on a 5 figure frontage. I think they will work fine and I have already had printed Brunswick troops and Dutch line and militia. We shall see,

I’m busy working on standards for these chaps. 

So all in all a fairly productive time and that’s not mentioning the 28mm WOTR! 

More next week.