Thursday, 28 March 2024

Two More AWI British Battalions Completed

It is now official; I am starting to appreciate and enjoy painting Perry plastic figures. There is a certain sharpness of detail which is more apparent with these figures and only a small amount of cleanup required, although having to glue on arms and hats still annoys me. 

That said, I am finding the AWI British uniforms very fiddly. Consequently the stellar start to what I thought might be a record year has now slowed to a snail's pace. Complaining aside, I have managed to complete two more AWI British battalions over the last couple of weeks:











First up, the second battalion of the 24th Foot Warwickshire Regiment:











These are all in the advancing pose which can be quite difficult to pick up when based, and the to-scale bayonets can bend. Consequently I thought I'd mix in an 'at trail' figure to see whether I like them posed that way:











Not my favourite pose, but at least it will make moving the troops around the table much easier. 

The command stand for this battalion is topped by the usual GMB flag:











Next up, 9th Norfolk:



















Yellow is my bete noire, and I must have gone over the facings of these figures at least four times. I am however reasonably happy with the result:











I also managed to complete two casualty markers, to accompany their respective regiments:











That's it for the latest couple of AWI regiments:











I have also recently tried my hand at some North American AWI fencing:





















I was going for the weathered look, and hopefully got somewhere close to that.

Anyway, that's it for now. Happy Easter to all who have managed to read this far.

Monday, 4 March 2024

AWI British 4th Foot

Having just recently finished the last of a batch of 216 English Civil War horses I needed a break before I start work on their riders. The next project I have in mind after completing the three ECW aremies is the American War of Independence which will encompass thirty or so British and Hessian units, and around half that number on the Continental side. I have purchased and actually read a copy of British Grenadier which seems like a decent enough ruleset for larger battles, but my immediate aim is to get enough figures and units done for a few games of Sharp Practice. 

The first unit I have tried my hand at is the 4th Foot, Kings Own Royal Regiment:











The figures are all Perry plastics. I have managed to avoid plastics up until this point but as the 'core' AWI troops in the Perry range are plastic I decided to take the plunge. I much prefer the weight of metal figures plus have an aversion to having to glue bits together, but after trying and discarding two types of plastic glues finally settled on Citadel thanks to a tip from Mark of 1866 and All That. This did the trick beautifully and, although it was still fiddly gluing the arms and muskets in the correct position, I found it to be less of a chore than I was expecting:





















The flags are from GMB which are a bit too large for the flagpole as supplied. Unfortunately the pole is cast on to the arm of the flagbearers, but it was a relatively simple task to cut and drill out their hands and replace it with a longer one:


 



















The basing is in fours to suit British Grenadier, apart from two singles and a double to accommodate casualty removal in Sharp Practice:











I also purchased a few dials from Warbases on to which I will place casualties, which should come in handy for keeping track of disorder or morale status:





















That's it for the first unit at least:











I'll probably try to knock out another two or three British units and a couple of American over the next month or so before returning to my ECW project for the final push there.