In which we paint some kilts, get some books, and get rifling.
There Can Only Be Eight
After last post’s British infantry, I’ve kept the Napoleonics train rolling, with some more British models but this time from north of the English border!
I really enjoyed painting these, there’s quite a few finicky details such as the kilts of course, but also the headbands which forced me to take my time on the paintjob and they look the better for it. The models are Victrix plastics that I bought as a few sprues from a shop on ebay back when I first looked at painting Napoleonics. I used a few models from these sprues when I did my Silver Bayonet British, but had plenty leftover for this unit of 8.
They’re painted as Grenadiers from the 42nd Highlanders (i.e. the Black Watch), hence the blue facings and the government sett on the kilts.
I’m really happy with how these turned out. Much respect to anyone that paints a full regiment for proper sized Napoleonic-era games!
Muskets and Tomahawks
I mentioned last post that I’d ordered the Muskets and Tomahawks rulebook as well as the Napoleonic-era supplement Shakos and Bayonets. These arrived earlier this week, with the pleasant surprise of also including the decks for the Shakos and Bayonets and the French and Indian War supplements. I didn’t order these so I assume the shop are clearing out their stock of the game and sent them along, so thanks to them (Gap Games)!
I’ve started reading the rules and am liking what I’m seeing so far. My plan is to assemble two 300-point forces for the game (the smallest recommended size) and play some small games to get started. The Highlanders you saw above are the second unit for the British side. All I have left for the British is two small 4-man Riflemen units and a mounted officer.
On the Hobby Table
Onto the third plastics manufacturer for this project; Wargames Atlantic! This is their riflemen kit, from which I’d once again purchased some sprues for my earlier project and pilfered a few models for Silver Bayonet. The pattern continues!
These are nice models and I’m keen to get to grips with them with a paintbrush in hand.
In which we take a look at the Blogomorph, dive deeper into chaos, and emerge back in time!
Maintenance Update
I’ve been doing these Blogomorph posts for a little bit now, and one of my questions when starting was how often I should do them. I started at a roughly weekly schedule, but realised in the last few weeks that that’s a rhythm that isn’t really sustainable with the amount of time I have on my hands these days. So I’ll aim for every two weeks, very roughly. It’s important to me I don’t feel pressured to post, but rather am excited to post because I have stuff to show.
This fortnight was a good example, last weekend I took part in the fundraising bike ride I mentioned a few posts ago. It was great fun (and tiring! I did 240kms over two days), but clearly did not get much painting done that weekend. I did get some painting done over the course of the last fortnight, hence this post.
If you remember in the first Blogomorph post, my intent is to also have “topic” posts from time to time, which are not updates on progress, but rather a deep dive into a project or topic, for example showing a completed army. I’m still keen to do these, I just need to finish something to show off! This might be a while off given my, let’s say, scattered approach to painting at the moment where I paint what I feel like.
Banner?
First hobby update this post is the continuation of my new Chaos Warrior unit (i.e. I painted a second one!).
This chap is the standard bearer for the unit, with a “banner” severely lacking in textile elements, but more than making up for it in heavy brass elements and some slightly grisly accessories.
I realised after panting this one that I need to start paying attention to how these models rank up. They’re so huge that even on 30mm bases they overhang quite significantly, so I’m going to have to pay attention to that as I build the rest of the models. I got very lucky that this one ranks up next to the champion I painted last time on one side!
Black in Black(powder)
I fell down a rabbit-hole of blackpowder skirmish games this week, driven in part by wanting to paint some historical models again after quite a foray into fantasy/sci-fi models over the past year. I ended up ordering the Muskets and Tomahawks rules as well as the Shakos and Bayonets supplement (lists for the Napoleonic era) as the game looked interesting, and I like the idea of black powder era skirmish games. Back in 2022 I picked up skirmish sized forces for French and English, and painted up this small unit of Old Guard. Since then these models haven’t done much (except give me lots of parts for my Silver Bayonet unit). Hopefully this is the impetus to get the rest painted!
Good news is, it’s been the impetus to get this bunch of British line infantry done at the very least. These are Perry Miniatures models and were really nice to assemble and paint. A lot of the base coating was done with Contrast paints on these, helping speed me along. The black elements for example were hit with Black Templars contrast and that was pretty much it aside from the overall Agrax Earthshade wash I popped over the whole model. Most of the other areas are highlighted with regular acrylics which gives a nice painted look I find. I’m generally not very fond of “as-is” contrast paints with the exception of blacks and browns, but I think they do a great job of replacing base coats and mid-tones for a lot of colours, and clean up really nicely with simple highlights.
I find Napoleonics models always look so daunting at the onset, with all these straps everywhere, but once you get stuck in it’s not too bad. Washes do a lot of work for said straps. I started with a light grey undercoat, and the straps were left untouched until I started highlighting them post wash. Overall I painted these in two sittings, basecoats and wash Saturday morning, and highlights in the evening.
My longer term goal with Muskets and Tomahawks is to get to playing some games in the French and Indian wars. Ever since I visited Montreal in 2024 and discovered a bit of the history there in the very cool museum they have in town I’ve wanted to do something in the period. North Star miniatures have a very cool range for the game and era that I’m looking forward to getting my hands on them at some stage. For now I’ve sagely decided I need to paint up my Napoleonic skirmish forces before I open that can of worms!
I’ve been a fan of Bernard Cornwell books for a long time, and I believe I’ve read every one of his book series apart from his most famous: Sharpe. It’s been on the to read list for a while, but I always held off as I was well aware of the consequences of starting the series. I would get interested in the period, and therefore in wargaming the period, and therefore adding to my ever growing backlog!
As you might have guessed, I finally got around to starting the series and here I am, painting some Napoleonic miniatures. I’m four books in at this stage and tremendously enjoying myself. They’re great adventure novels with a decent amount of historical detail, keeping my attention and prompting me to read more about the elements that stand out to me.
As soon as I realised my fears were realised and there was no turning back from painting musket wielding miniatures I turned to finding a system and scale to play the era in. My first thought was Warlord Games’ Epic Waterloo system, with its large scale battles and mass ranks of 13.5mm scale miniatures. After eyeing off the starter sets for a while I decided to aim for something a bit smaller in scale (miniature count wise) and larger in scale (miniature size wise!). I have enough large model count projects underway for now!
I started looking for skirmish systems set in the era and rapidly settled on two: Sharp Practice by Too Fat Lardies and Chosen Men by Mark Latham and Osprey. Sharp Practice turned out to be a bit hard to get a hold of locally, and seemed quite a bit more complex in rules so I decided to go with Chosen Men (which has rules for bouncing cannonballs! I couldn’t pass that up). I like to have a game system as a framework for my painting as even though I have no plans to play games in the short term, this lets me decide how to build my models and how many to paint.
I wrote two small forces for the game, one French and one English, and the unit you see above is the first for the French side: Napoleon’s fiercest, Old Guard Grenadiers. These models are from Victrix, and quite nice plastics. The set comes with most of the models marching with their muskets upright, but has some firing and reloading poses, and I concentrated on these for this unit as I felt they were more sensible in a skirmish scale. To give you an idea of the size of the game, the French force is 21 models strong and the British 31 models strong, so really that’s half of the French painted!
Painting-wise there’s not too much to write about, the main feature of these models are their blue coats and trousers, which were painted all sorts of shades of blue in paintings and reference materials. I settled on a darkish blue, lighter than a navy blue and slightly desaturated. This was done using a base coat of Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue and a highlight of 50/50 Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue and Vallejo Prussian Blue. The rest of the models were painted much as I paint materials of the same colour. As these are effectively a one-off I wasn’t too careful about writing my steps down.
Anyway these were good fun to paint, and I’ve just received the eclectic mix of models I want to build the British side out of which I’ll assemble and paint the next time the urge hits. Given my so far unbroken Sharpe novel streak this might be sooner rather than later!
