AWI: The Last American Units

 

With the last British units done, here are the last units painted in the push to finish this Black Powder collection. This time its the last two standard American infantry units, some artillerymen, and a light infantry unit to finish across the line. 

8th Virginia Regiment

This is another unit from the HaT Set, 8342, AWI American Infantry, released earlier this year. It's nice to get the option of hats cocked to one side, rather than the more common Tricorn, and enough make up a standard BP infantry unit. 

The uniform is of the shorter cut that appeared as the war progressed and various campaigns wore on, and the coloring is from the Baccus uniform guide on their website - blue coat, facings and cuffs. I also seem to have produced a Schrodinger's drummer, as their coat is perpetually in the superstate of being both reversed and not reversed at the same time 😲

5th Carolina

This is the last unit I'll be painting from the  HaT Set, 8342, AWI American Infantry, and the last standard BP unit for the collection!

Another small irony added in at the end after painting so many different coat colours, was a unit with blue coats, and cuffs and facings of a slightly different blue 😏

4th New York - Light Infantry

One final light infantry unit for the Americans, the 4th New York LI in late war pattern gear, taken from Strelets, Set M071, British Light Infantry in Egypt. I think, now I'm at the end of painting, this is my least favourite set I've used for this collection. They don't stand up to close scrutiny but will at least work for 'arms length' wargames figures on the table.

Artillerymen

Finally to finish the absolute last units off, the remainder of American artillery crews to man the guns painted previously.

These are from IMEX's, Set 555, British Artillery and were some of my favourite figures to paint - well proportioned and detailed.

But with all the units done, its time to finish of some BP command stands and call the whole collection done!

AWI: Last British Units

 

After 13 years, I have finally finished painting all the units I had planned for Black Powder AWI, including these Brits.

Light Infantry

A couple of 'light bob' units were left to do including making a small unit up from the A Call To Arms, Set 65, British Infantry 1775 above. And also another small unit from the Strelets, Set M071, British Light Infantry in Egypt below.

17th Light Horse

The second unit of the 17th Light Horse, to round out the cavalry for the Brits. Like the first unit done, there is a dismounted option from B and B Miniatures range, which I can't find on the internet any longer.

The guidon, I think, is of first squadron and the previous unit is 2nd squadron, taken from a general Google search and resized.

Tavington's Horse from 'The Patriot'

The last unit of British light horse from the Revell Set, 02573, Austrian Dragoons, from their Seven Years War range. 

Having searched for a decent color scheme for some loyalist horse - that's wasn't Tarleton's legion horse - I've settled on the only completely unhistorical unit for the entire collection.

Based on Colonel William Tavington's horse from the movie 'The Patriot', I've gone for red coats and green facings. But that's it, no more British unit updates as this part of the collection is complete. What an effort 😀

15mm Sci Fi: Killer Space Vegetables & Solo Battle Report

 

Some more 'bad guys' painted up for the growing 15mm Si Fi collection, this time it's a whole lot of deadly flora, 'Day of the Triffids' style.

Bought about ten years ago, I got these out to alleviate painting the endless white straps of my AWI collection and then promptly gave to my wife to do... she offered, honest!

Alternate Armies

These are mostly 'Triffic' (not Triffids) from Alternate Armies.

Above and below are from the SHMP25 Triffic Killer Plants pack.

Below are some Death Spores from AA's HOF46 Creegan Doom Spores pack.

Khurasan Miniatures

A score of Triffids more on the 'human' analogy - these kinda have arms and are holding 'weapons', with a great colour job. All from their Alien Civilizations Listing.

A couple of packs of Botanoid plantman heavy weapons specialists.

Some Botanoid plantman commanders and high commander.

And finally a swarm (several packs) of Botanoid plantman battleteam.

Battle Report

Nearly as far back as I bought these guys, we've been developing a home-grown set of rules we're calling Universal. I think it's finally reached its zenith in terms of development and I used them and a supplementary pack to run some of Khurasan's Defence Force troopers through a jungle romp.

The board is set up with random placement of the KSVs with an objective down one end of the board - in this case an APC. This was done by dividing the board up into a 10cm x 10cm grid and rolling 2 x 1d10s for general placement - then scatter dice and a 1d10 for final placement - this took a while. 

The random placement added a few KSVs right next to the objective. But with the board set, I headed the platoon down an edge of the board, trying to avoid certain death.

But once the good guys have moved, the plants move by themselves using a scatter dice and a 1d10.

My strategy worked all the way up the board until it didn't and a plant randomly moved into contact with the squaddies. 

They fired and cleared out a whole bunch, taking a couple of casualties... 

... and triggered reactive responses by the plants who (within a certain range) headed directly towards the troops.

Things were looking grim as the plants surrounded the troops so they went quiet again and tried sneaking the rest of the way...

... only to have their way to the transport blocked.

More firing ensued, drawing in further nearby plants, with only two death spores left to get past.

With this being the first real wargame I've played in nearly five years, its nice to know that I can still make dumb decisions, even when playing on my own. I was so fixated on getting to the transport that instead of shooting up the plants some more, I ran at the spores, triggering their attack and firing back at them.

The result is that the troops were worn down to 50% and failed their leadership test. They should have gone fleeing off into the jungle to meet their death, or until rallied, but I prefer the above result where they all reached the safety of their transport...

It was great to play a solo game with these figures  - given I live in the middle of nowheresville and  especially with the excellent paint job from my wife. 

My step son even came up with a game of his own using the same figures and rules, and a 60 x 60 gridded play area we made for DnD.

Nice job Khurasan Miniatures and Alternate Armies!

Warhammer 40,000: Hive Fleet Behemoth

 

Something a bit different, a post that showcases my wife's amazing work completing the Tyranids from the Leviathan box, bought over two years ago now.

Winged Tyranid Prime

I think the first thing I should mention is that my wife has only been painting miniatures for about as long as its taken to complete these Tyranids.

Screamer-Killer Carnifex

While I might have guided her on colours and techniques, I think its fair to say its her own talent that's produced this amazing finish.

Neurotyrant, Neuroloids  and Von Ryan's Leapers

Obviously, having chosen Macragge as the landscape for my marines and the Ultramarines as the chapter, the Hive Fleet Behemoth colour-scheme was a no brainer.

Psychophage

I think she's used all Citadel Paints, contrasts for base painting, washes to add depth, and colours for highlighting - with maybe Vallejo for basics light white, etc.

Barbgaunts

Basing was the traditional black rimmed base with liberal use of Games Workshop's 'box'o'skulls' and various manufacturers' tuffs.

Termagants

This was to represent the mountainous, rocky north, where the Ultramarines had their last stand, and we tied in some base colouring with the marines I'd already finished.

Hormagaunts

I think there's a box of Hormagaunts in here from the Tyranid range as well, an addition which my wife graciously accepted into her painting queue - because they didn't come in the Leviathan box and I *really neeeeeded* them 😝

Neurogaunts

I really do think she's done an amazing job with these Tyranids and I'm stoked that I have a completed army of them.

Ripper Swarms

I guess its up to me now to finish the Ultramarines from the Leviathan box, which is in the queue after I've completed my AWI collection.

Multi-Scale: Sci Fi Industrial/Post Apocalyptic Scenery

 

Yep, old plastic containers, bits off of bottles, a massive raid through a giant bits box, and the use of a scenery kit purchased nearly 20 years ago. Nothing was held back over the last year as we feverously built up a table's worth of Sci Fi terrain.

Having been inspired by the motto of the 131st Pi Orionis Mechanised Hover Infantry, I thought a table's worth of run down, weather beaten terrain from one of the mining planets in the Pi system would be perfect.

But having a large collection of 15, 28, and even 25mm sci fi figures and vehicles, I really wanted to make the scenery usable with all these scales.

Its definitely worked with the 40k stuff and the terrain scales well with both the Tyranids and Ultramarines. 

In fact I don't think I'd do anything more to this stuff before being happy having a game with it at 28mm.

The 15mm stuff on the other hand, while it works reasonably well, I think it will need some additional scale pieces done in the same style before it sits well.

But there's now plenty of terrain to set up a full table top for a game.

Some bunkers for firebases are a must for any game.

A lot of the pipe and installation greeblies are from a Chemical Plant Construction Box I bought many years ago - a couple of places like ebay and Pegasus Hobbies are still advertising them for sale.

Other parts are from plastic supplement bottles and even chocolate boxes. These were heavily sanded first, to take the printing off or to dull the shine of the plastic.

Earlier this year my brother moved into a smaller house and donated a giant box of spare parts collected over the last 40 years of modeling.

Suffice to say that greebly time is now made a lot easier and the box was used extensively with this terrain. I think there's some EVA foam on some of the pieces as well.

These ash/tailings piles were made by first bending cardboard into cones, gluing them on the base, then covering them in ground cover.

But this was done old style without printing a single part - although there's a couple of printed bits on the piles. And a further thanks to my wife who decided she wanted to finish off at least half of the pieces and patiently matched the style I'd started off with.