Recently made a new home purchase and got a really spacious basement for wargaming.
Still in the process of getting things set up but here a few pics of the work in progress . . .
Terrain storage cases along back wall. Also needs more lighting.
Not pictured is the room for miniature storage. That needs shelves and cabinets to be presentable.
I am fortunate to have this amount of space and can't wait to get the gaming area "lit up" so we can start gaming!
Another unit of Russian Militia. These fellows were painted with a blue-grey palette while the earlier batch used a brown palette. I figure colors would vary a lot with the militia as they were outfitted at different times and by different sponsors and I'm guessing 'cheap' was the guiding quality principle.
And these are again 15mm Battle Honors figures.
A Russian Militia battalion is ready to enter the field. These are Battle Honors 15mm figures.
Currently producing a bunch of hasty breastworks for use with 28mm ACW figures. Each piece is 10cm wide (infantry bases are 40mm wide). Base is expanded PVC sheet, air dry clay piled on and shaped, Logs and posts pressed and glued into place. Ballast added for ground cover; I went with the red ballast so I get the "red Georgia clay" look. I plan on fighting a lot of the Chickamauga battles. Brown and Sepia over all, some grey on the logs followed by light grey highlight on logs and sand highlight on ballast. A little flocking and some other foliage details. Varnish and viola. Should have about seven feet of breastworks when I finish up in a few days.
From Wikipedia, "The 66th Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment originally known as Birge's Western Sharpshooters and later as the "Western Sharpshooters-14th Missouri Volunteers", was a specialized regiment of infantry sharpshooters that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was intended, raised, and mustered into Federal service as the Western Theater counterpart to Army of the Potomac's 1st and 2nd United States Volunteer Sharpshooters ("Berdan's Sharpshooters").
The Western Sharpshooters were armed with a variety of weapons, most notably Henry Repeaters later in the war.
These are Perry Miniatures.
A couple of rebel units without jackets. These minis are Perry rather than my usual Sash and Saber.
The figures are Sash and Saber VMI Cadets but as I am building western ACW units, there were no VMI Cadets. So this a bit of a fictitious unit I'll say is a militia unit mustered into CSA service. Provides some variation from the normally ragtag rebels.
Some troops for Wilder's Mounted Infantry Command.
In their mobile form
And deployed for battle
Some more Russian Hussars to add to the order of battle. Pleased with how these guys turned out. Need to brush some grass off the front rank though. AB figures are fine indeed and I like it when the paint job is good enough to show off some of the quality of the sculpt.
Finished up three units of British and Scottish light troops. 43rd Light (white), 52nd Light (buff), and 71st Highland (buff plus the hat band) Light Infantry. This took a bit! Add my 95th Rifles and Cazadore to the 43rd and 52nd and I have the Light Division. I have some light dragoons and KGL Hussars around somewhere. Looks like I forgot to darken base edges . . .
Grenadier Battalion to be slotted in for the Kiev Grenadiers of the 2nd Grenadier Division. I need to get a proper flag for the battalion.
Finished another unit of Russian Cuirassier. This is a couple of squadrons from the Gluknov Regiment.
Added some Napoleonic and ACW units to the collections.
Saxon Infantry Battalion. 18mm Eureka Minis.
French Infantry Battalion. 18mm Eureka Minis.
Dismounted Confederate Cavalry. 28mm Sash and Saber Minis.
So I cranked out 12 feet of snake rail fences in the style shown on the Tactical Painter blog. They worked out well I thought, good enough for me anyhow.
In between other projects I wanted to make some terrain tiles for 15mm table top. Below is one sample. the base is clear plastic, 6" square, with a coat of gesso. Then spackle compound, PVA glue, and fine ballast. the buildings were onces I already had.
The fences were the new creation. I created the fences by using a dremel cutting disc to cut into the tops of the fences and to score a line down the basswood stick. Painted it a light brown and then a dark walnut stain to show off the score marks that delineate the "planks" in the fence. Then dry brushed on some highlights and glued it to the template.
Not the best terrain tile but also fairly simple to make and I'll crank out a few more.
This is a shot of the the models after clean up. The red arrow points to a support surface I missed and removed later. Often the support surfaces to be removed can look an intended surface so you have to look twice before calling clean up complete.
And below are the painted vehicles. The basic Lorraine 38L will go with my French 1940 collection and the "signals" version will go with the 21st Panzer Division "oddballs" collection
Another Confederate regiment takes the field. This group used a more brown & grey palette
All are Sash and Saber 25mm figures.
A new "regiment" of rebels for the ACW collection. Sash and Saber figures. When painting a bunch of CSA troops I usually pick either a blue-grey palette (as these fellas use) or grey-brown palette (as the next batch will have). That way I get some semblance of a uniform within a "regiment" but still get variety across the battlefield.
A picture of the primed troops under the LED lighting.
A pics of the ready to roll rebels
Another batch of US ACW figs for the growing collection.
First photo is the sky blue pants and exile blue tunics.
And last photos are completed minis. These are the first photo I've used with subjects under the new GameCraft Minis LED lamp. The lamp can be used for painting also. Main feature is "daylight" temperature of the light and the "arc" of light that reduce shadows. $44 bucks. I may get another one so I don't have to move it between painting station and photo station.
Painted up some fantasy figs. Not sure of mfr for the snake ladies but the driders are from from Raging Heroes. The driders were a real bitch to assemble with no assembly instruction so I just fixed the legs randomly. In theory their were round and square pegs to aid assembly but the pegs were beneath the 3d print resolution so square and round look the same. with enough super glue and RTV you can make anything stick! body and legs of the driders were all airbrush and the serpent ladies were all ink and washes.
