4th Texas - straight from the Osprey

Plate A2, if you must.

 I couldn't pass these up and got me a passel o' Union boys all kitted out in Cadet Gray.

Next will be some union cavalry. The horses are all painted and based. Hopefully they'll be ready in a week.

The New Boys

 One freshly-finished regiment and ancilliary staff officers.

 The Officer in the foreground is a cheat - he'll be used in the next Union regiment that I do. Note the officer next to the standard bearer. He's actually a Zouave - part of a batch of bits Clive kindly sent me - but he looks so good converted with paint that I had to have him in this regiment.

 

The Divisional command. The two figures left and right foreground are Hinchcliffe one piece castings of a Union and a Confederate colonel - guess which is which. These will be my Brigadier Generals. The officer in the background is also Hinchcliffe, but I can't remember which Officer he's meant to represent. He looks a bit like General Meade - he'll be my Major-General. I might pop him on a larger base with a foot officer to further distinguish him. 

Anyway, they were a pleasure to paint. The horses, which I usually find a bit of a pain to paint were especially easy. I would like to get more.

What you see here represents two weeks' painting for me. If I was to get all scientific on you, that would be 34 Olley points for the period. Hm. I paint a little faster than I thought.

And a late update: the Union Division. I'm very pleased to be putting out these photos (of variable quality!) showing the Division of two brigades of two regiments. A horse-drawn vehicle supports each brigade and a 2-gun battery the division.

Back on the Wagon

Returning now as I am from  lengthy break I set up my little ACW armies yesterday and took a good look at what needs doing.

I have at present (to refresh everyones memories) three regiments each of Union and Confederate infantry and a battery of guns per side. The Union also boasts a dismounted cavalry regiment. The bluebellies are also halfway or more through recruiting a mounted regiment.

Last night I cleaned up and undercoated another 30 infantry castings and this morning I started painting their trousers. Very prosaic, no?

These will form the basis of two regiments, one for each side, which will take both infantry forces to divisional size per the Grant organisation. I am aiming to get one-and-a-bit regiments painted in this following fortnight. once both are complete, I will finish off the cavalry.

I will endeavour to have a game soonest. I am badly in need of ACW buildings tho' but have found an old Ian Weekley article on some he built and will emulate that.

Anyone had a chance to read or play the rules? Any feedback would be very welcome.

UPDATE: Knapsacks and blanket rolls now painted. Yee-ha!
UPDATE UPDATE: 32 little faces and 64 littler hands, all done!
UPDATE THE UPDATE: 32 little Kepis.
UPDATE THE UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: 14 lovely BLUE coats painted.
Blah-blah-blah: All coats and waterbottles painted and highlighted. All haversacks painted. Now to start on the belts. Then the muskets and the metallics. Two days work, I think?  Don't forget the standard, either. Then photos, I promise.

Reporting in

Well, now.

I've been a bit quieter than I'd expected to be over the past little while.

We've been re-stumpung the front of the house this past week. Well, when I say "we" I really mean some extremely-well remunerated tradespeople. More power to them, says I - it's a filthy job.  This is being followed up by another gentleman taking up the weekend polishing our floorboards.

The sum of this activity is that very little painting of toy army men has been done, although I have received sufficient inspiration from watching "The Horse Soldiers" this week that I have managed to paint a dozen dismounted cavalry.

They are very nice figures that are not overburdened with detail and were really very quick to paint.

Photos to follow.

On painting, I took a while to adapt to painting these figures. As a true 25mm figurine, the Staddens (I think of them as 'baby Staddens') are more like painting 1:72nd plastic in terms of the fineness of the detail. Because they are quite small and also because I intended to take a lot of photos of them, I have chosen to take a quite "high contrast" approach to painting them to make the colours pop out. The induvidual figures don't really have elaborate paint-jobs, although I do elaborate what's done to the key figures as they are the ones most likely to be picked up and examined by casual passers by. I did do the trick recently though of amalgamating all my union and rebel troops into two super-regiments and they do look pretty spectacular if I do say so myself.

Photoshoot Today...

Confederate officers confer outside an old sawmill.

Brigadier General E. Northman seeing the wagon train to safety.

Brigadier General William T. Compton getting upset with a staff officer.

5th Alabama marching to a uncertain fate.

Confederate 12-pounders assaulted by three Union Regiments.

Union troops march past the unfinished(!) sawmill.

The Union forever!

We've reached a Milestone

The second of this project, indeed.
The first was the production of the rules. This, the second is that I get to say - at last - that I have completed my order of battle for "Sawmill Village".
I now have forces comprising three Union and three Confederate regiments, a battry each of field artillery and a pair of Brigadiers.
My Confederate Regiments are the 5th Alabama, 6th Virginia and the 13th North Carolina. The Union regiments are rather more generic, but will be no less hard-fighting, I am sure.
Today was a bumper delivery in the mail; I also have two more foor regiments to paint along with a two-regiment brigade of cavalry. I also have the two-dozen skirmishing figures I'll need to dismount my cavalry should the need arise.
Once painted this will give me a Union and a Confederate division of infantry plus a Union Cavalry brigade - my next milestone.
In addition to the toy soldiers, I've also gotten two doors which will be my new games table. It ought to be about 6'8" by 5'10", extensible to 6'8" by 7'9" if I get another door. I've spent the afternoon giving them a Phil Olley-inspired coat of gloss green paint.
I will be playing "Sawmill Village" next weekend.

Herewith a few pics...

...as a supplement the rather dry progress report of my previous post.

The Confederate 3" battery piles it on as the infantry advance.

The Union boys prepare to respond with canister as the Rebs close the range.

Forgive the spanner on the window sill in the background. Perhaps this is Mechanicsville?

The 6th Georgia and the 5th Alabama go in under the eye of Gen'l Lee.

I've begun my third Union infantry regiment and am now pondering my next order. If you had about a hundred and twenty pounds to spend (courtesty of eBay) at Spencer Smith, how would you spend it? The only constraint is that it must be on 25mm Union or Confederate Staddens.