AWI Continental Artillery

The completion of six Continental artillery pieces over the weekend means I now only have two regiments of light dragoons, ten or so staff figures and a few sundry civilians ahead of me. The artillery is comprised of four 6 pounders and two 3 pounder pieces:

The 6 pounders have two different crews, one firing:

And the other aiming:

The 3 pounder or 'butterfly' guns also had an option for crew dressed in hunting shirts, which makes a nice variation alongside the regular uniforms:

I also completed some dragrope men on individual bases, to accommodate the rather strange requirement in the Sharp Practice rules to have five figures per gun rather than the more usual four:

For a slight change of pace I also started work on the Najewitz Modellbau 15mm Peninsular village. This is a large piece comprised of eight buildings and a scenic base. I have purchased quite a lot of Jens Najewitz's pieces over the years, but rather than invest in a 3D printer I bought them from a licensee in Western Australia who closed down several years ago. 

It is only now that I have finally got around to painting the first of them I realised there are a few missing pieces, including the onion dome from a 28mm Borodino church which, aside from painting an actual onion and sticking it on top, knew I was never going to be able to replicate. 

I contacted Jens directly who emailed me the STL files for the parts which I have sent on to a friend from my Saturday group to print. Anyway, here are the first couple of houses and the church from the Peninsular set:

I gave the houses quite a heavy drybrush of antique white although they look a little more yellow here than they do to the naked eye, probably due to the light. The roofs and floors are secured in place by sturdy pegs, to allow figures to be placed inside:

I am a big fan of Jens's designs, and they represent an absolute bargain for anyone with a 3D printer. Next up, the Continental cavalry.

Last of the AWI Continental Foot

The weekend past saw me finish the last three Continental foot units in the form of two more militia regiments, complementing the three militia regiments already completed, and a unit of skirmish figures:

First up is a twenty-eight figure militia unit which I have styled as Hobart's Regiment:

The figures are exactly the same as the other four militia regiments, with six command and six firing line poses which I have again painted in predominantly greys and browns:

The command stand is carrying a white GMB militia flag:

The last militia regiment is the Albany County militia comprised of 22 figures, the smallest of the five:

carrying a red militia flag:

The last Continental foot contingent is a unit of thirty-two skirmishers which can be separated and deployed as needed. These are primarily made up from the two Perry skirmishing riflemen packs but I also threw in a few spare line figures for good measure:

Including a few spare command figures which gave me an excuse to use one of the leftover GMB flags:

The rifle-armed figures are mainly attired in hunting shirts and were comprised of an interesting mix of skirmish poses:

Including a figure with a beard, which makes two bearded figures in total across all three AWI contingents:

There are also two prone poses, one firing and the other reloading, which makes for an interesting variation:

That is another eight-eight figures completed in this batch:

I now only have the artillery, two units of cavalry, some staff figures and a dozen or so sundry civilians to complete. The end of the project is now definitely in sight.

AWI Continental Militia

The first three of five Continental militia units were completed last weekend, to join the already completed eleven Line regiments. These were a lot more fiddly to paint than the Line however and I used around forty different shades across each unit to try to give them a less regular appearance:

I styled one of the units after Stark's New Hampshire militia, mainly because that was one of the specific militia flag packs available from GMB:

There are essentially only twelve different poses, six in the command pack and six in the firing line, but it was possible to mix these up a bit to provide some variety:

There was also a Chester County Militia flag available, so the choice for the second regiment was easy:

While I used a generic militia flag for the third unit, the Massachusetts 1st Regiment of militia:

These are quite large units with two at thirty figures and one with twenty-eight, large enough to cover most British Grenadier and Sharp Practice scenarios, so represent another eighty-eight figures completed in total:

Two more militia units to go, along with some rifle-armed skirmishers, six artillery pieces and some mounted staff. The end of the project is definitely now in sight.

Last of the Continental Line Regiments

I decided to do the three remaining Continental line regiments in the 'regulation' blue coats with red facings as I have enough variety in the eight already completed. They are all in the same firing line pose as well, so a few pictures should suffice to tell the whole story here:

The larger regiment of the three is Smallwood's 1st Maryland regiment which distinguished itself in several engagements including the Battle of Brooklyn, Guilford Courthouse and Cowpens:

I interspersed a number of figures in hunting shirts to fit in with contemporary descriptions of their appearance:

I also gave them both the GMB flags that came with the set, as befits a regiment of their stature:

Next up is the 2nd Maryland:

No hunting shirts here, but I did throw in a few different coloured coats:

The 2nd Maryland flag is quite eye-catching:

For the last of the line regiments I opted to do 1st Pennsylvania. These wore brown coats early in the war but were issued the red-faced blue coats under the General Order of October 1779, although there is no guarantee they actually received them:

They do however have a nice green flag, for something a little different:

I also managed to complete the last of the casualty/disorder markers:

That is eleven Continental Line regiments now completed:

I am now lining up five militia regiments. 

With Easter imminent I was ready to launch into these, but in preparation for a DBMM game on Saturday this morning I started to put together the required troops.

My Samurai army is spread across three A3 sized storage boxes with flexible steel to ensure the figures remain in place, similar to the one below.

To my horror, when I opened the last of these the box nearly collapsed and all four hundred figures or so were waist deep in a fuzzy mould, looking like they were wading through mist. The PVA glue attaching them to their bases had also weakened, and three came off when I wobbled them slightly. 

It looked like Brigadoon in there, and I wish now I had taken a photo but at the time I was too annoyed to want to record anything for posterity. 

During the recent cyclone I had filled a bath and kept water in there for a couple of days before emptying it, just in case the water supply was cut off. It is one of those antique-style clawfoot baths with exposed pipes, but when I went downstairs to my painting room I noticed that water had dripped through. This had never happened before, probably because the dripping was only very slight and on the rare occasions when anyone has used the bath they are only in there for a relatively short time rather than days (although my water bill tells a different story). 

The strange thing is that this particular box was stored in an enclosed book cabinet along with twenty or so others, but was the only one that suffered. I was immediately grateful for that.

Fearing that I would have to spend the whole of Easter rebasing four hundred Japanese peasants, I took the figures upstairs and drenched them twice in mould killer, with a four hour gap between applications, while leaving them in the sun all day.

Thankfully this seems to have done the trick. While my Japanese peasants now smell of mould killer the PVA has reset, and I hope all I am now looking is refreshing bleached static grass over which I will dab some PVA and sprinkle some fresh Army Painter static grass. 

I'll also have to repaint the base edges as these now appear a little mottled. The thing I dislike the most about this hobby is having to go back over old projects to either rebase or repair damage, but hopefully I have found a way out of this one which should only cost me another three or four hours.

Stay tuned for more First-World problem resolutions, and hopefully some AWI Continental militia.