AWI: British Artillerymen

Was able to finish these guys off in between work. Finally some British cannoneers for the artillery painted months ago.


They're from the IMEX 554 American Artillery set and painted up well, to the standard for the time: blue coats, red facings and white lining/turnbacks. Several of the figures are sculpted in their waistcoats, which makes for some good variety.


There's good detail on these IMEX figures which made them enjoyable and easy to paint, including the correct metal water bottle - which still makes the IMEX American Artillery set better used for the Brits - see the previous American artillerymen post for 'box swap' details - but that really is splitting hairs at this scale.


Lancer Miniatures guns from 7YW range go well with these figures.

Some construction needed for the figure damping the barrel, whose arms and damper come separately. It was a bit fiddly and the shaft was a bit fragile, but after a couple of tries, the slots on the forearms seated in the armholes on the body, with the exercise bordering on the polite side of the use of expletives scale.


More Lancer Miniatures guns from 7YW range.

So with the American brigades finished a few weeks back, that's one more thing off the list. Only the 17th light dragoons to go and a couple of command bases - already prepped and ready - and the armies will be ready for a game of Black Powder: Rebellion!.

AWI: TRAIN!

After a short break while prospecting for contracts and while prepping the next units of Continentals, I spied a small plain box on top of some other boxes and remembered the artillery I'd purchased years ago: it almost screamed 'next project' to me and I caved.

Having read the PSR reviews of IMEX's American and British AWI artillery sets, I decided that I wouldn't use the guns because of their small size and likely inaccuracy - historical that is. I went looking for 20mm AWI or SYW guns on the Interweb and lo and behold, found Lancer Miniatures SYW 20mm range.

British Train: Lancer Miniatures 12pdrs, 6pdrs, and battalion guns (3pdrs).

Mindful of the BP: Rebellion! supplement commentary, regarding the need for only small numbers of artillery necessary for the period, I soundly ignored it and bought twelve British guns of varying size - to be used by the Brits and the Americans.


A veritable tiny artillery park began forming on my coffee table.

Mindful also of the raft of metals that have gone before, I sat down in front of the TV thinking I'd have hours of filing and prepping to do. But Lancer Miniatures, you provided me with some of the best cast and cleaned metal figures I have ever received - including Games Workshop. All's the preparation took was superglue and whisky. Big thumbs up to Lancer.

Really like the detail on these guns and went for a mid-battle/dirty look to them.

Then as I looked at the boxes of plastic artillery I decided to have a peek and see how they compared to Lancer's stuff. Half an hour later I'd prepped the three 3 pounders from Revell Set 02579 Austrian Artillery and the four 'battalion' sized guns from the IMEX Set 554 American Artillery for use in the American camp. Comparing them to the accurate metals, they look more like 4-6 pounders and 3 pounders respectively.

Then I got stuck having bitten off too much to chew and while trying to find another contract, and the minis just sat on the table for a few weeks, the undertaking getting larger and larger in my head until I decided to concentrate on writing some sci fi rules as a mode of further procrastination.

The veritable tiny artillery park got bogged down in procrastination - why did I undercoat them all Olive Drab?

For the paint schemes there was nothing overly clever about them. I stuck to British light grey and American (barn) red, iron for fastenings and brass for barrels. A mix of dry brushing for the wood and washes around the iron and brass work.

American Train: Plastic fantastics from Revell and IMEX, plus Lancer 12pdrs nicked from the British lines.

At a push each side can be fielded with four battalion guns, three or four 6 pdrs, and two 12 pdrs - far too many for a balanced game of BP that doesn't involve an artillery park or fort in the scenario.

Still going for the mid-battle/dirty look, this paint scheme was harder than it looked.

Now I've just got to paint up some crews.