54mm AWI riders

After months of avoiding them, I finished the last three mounted AWI figures I had. These are plastic figures from (I think) Armies in Plastic. I lopped off the tricorns and put some smaller helmets nicked from a HaT SYW Prussian infantry set.

These aren't meant to be any particular unit. The green coats are generic enough to be used on either side. Just trying to finish off some extra figures that were laying about.

Not my best paint job ever. I always forget how much surface area there is on a 54mm figure!

Up next: Maybe some board gaming figures for a friend.

54mm AWI Loyalists

I've been grinding away on some reinforcements for my 54mm AWI Brits and I finally finished these 12 guys. Big figures take forever! There is both a lot to paint and any mistake shows very clearly.

These are plastic HaT Prussians. I have a box of these sprues that I'm slowly grinding through. They have three different hats you can choose among. There is a sprue of troops plus there is a command sprue (not shown).

I painted these are quasi-Loyalists (no particularly historical unit in mind) with green jacks and red cuffs and turn backs. I keep them simple (limited braiding and other fiddly stuff).

Overall, they are okay and offer some extra troop options. I hope to get a game of AWI going over the holidays, COVID willing.

Up next: Some 28mm Gotham coppers and maybe more Trek?

Trek, Hessians and Terrain

A bit of a post-vacation grab-bag this week.

First up are some STTOS 54mm metals. Above is Captain Pike and Lt. Sulu. Below is another Sulu (?) and Scotty.

I also painted and based three tombstones (I think these are Cthulhu markers I got fro Chen).

And, finally, the last of the 54mm Hessians.

Up next: There are quite a number of 25/28mm Star Wars figures on my painting table right now.

54mm Hessians

A long-delayed painting project is some Hessian regulars in 54mm to supplement my Tricorne forces.

These are some HaT SYW plastics I picked up a few years ago.

For plastics, they are very nice figures at a much lower cost than metals. The hats are interchangeable so you can make regulars, fusiliers, and grenadiers from the same figures.

They are designed to replace the Hessians I painted a few years ago (below left) from an old set of children's toys.

I have one more four-man unit drying (got out of sync with basing).

Battle of Long Island

I had Richard, Terry and Scott over this past weekend for some 54mm AWI action. I chose Grant's attack at Long Island (the pinning action) as the scenario.

The British can gain a victory point by occupying the town and two points for the exit road hex and for the hill at the bottom right. The Americans can earn a single victory point for the two or the bottom hill.

The American forces were mostly provincials leavened with two regulars and one group of militia. The militia (which are objectively garbage) fought irritatingly well in both games.

The British started with flank advances in game 1. This meant coming under the Rebel guns.

The British left foundered with no cards and a stout defence by the imperial guard militia on red ale hill.

By mid-game, the British had taken a few causalities but had made little progress.

Eventually the highlanders charged the American gun and were repelled. The gun, however, was eventually broken,

The British then worked their way around the right flank and started a push in the middle.

The Americans just couldn't hold off the weight of all of the regulars and, as the center collapsed, the British won 8-4.

We switched sides to refight. The British again advance on the flanks and the rebels sniped at the British centre.

The highlanders would eventually rush the hill in the middle of the board, clean it out, and drop down into the rebel reserves! A lucky advance to the rear saved the unit and gave the British time to bring up the centre.

A series of lucky British cards pushed the Americans back in the centre. A valiant attack on the American left took two units (!) but the British just pushed ahead in the middle.

All of the command flags obscure the action but the British pushed the Americans out of the town and then started to clean up units for am 8-3 win.

Overall, a good run through; I was happy we got to play both sides and to bring out Tricorne.

54mm AWI and 33mm Star Wars

So a bit of an odds-and-sods post today. I finished off a 54mm AWI Prussian General. This figure is from an old kids play set so the detail is a touch thin. And basing it (no integral base? on a kids play set? really? ) was a real hassle. That is probably why he sat on the painting table half finished for two years.

I'm moving into a small commission. A fellow I did some Imperial Assault figures for in 2015 asked me to paint some expansions to match. I started on the Heart of the Empire expansion and first up are three heroes.

I'm a bit out of the loop on Star Wars but this lady wookie had cool goggles and a lot of demolition charges.

Then there is Star Wars Wolverine with some kind of impractical hand weapon. Clearly no match for a blaster.

And finally Big Headed lady who actually seems toknow what she is doing. All are painted to match the cards that came with the expansion.

Up next are a selection of imperial troops.

54mm AWI British Guards

One of the things I forgot to paint up from the original orbat of Tricorne were two units of British guards. I eventually settled on painting three four-man units.

These are HaT SYW Prussians but close enough. Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out.

They have a nice amount of detail. I added some cuff and lapel lace to these fellows.

Up next: A grab bag of smaller paint jobs.

Three 54mm cannons

I found myself short a few cannons before Xmas. I didn't want to pick up two more boxes of Armies in Plastic cannons so, instead, I bought three metal pencil sharpener off eBay.

These scale pretty well with 1/32 minis (I think the cannon on the left below is AiP).

You can often find unusual but helpful gaming stuff in the pencil sharpener section of eBay (e.g., most of my 28mm wild west wagons were pencil sharpeners).

Above you can see the sharpener that is built into the base. The only change required is gluing a bit of card in place below the barrel to cover the opening. These sharpeners also shoot matchsticks (or did--I doubt they operate now!).

Once set among figures, they look the part. I paid about $20 for three, which was a deal.

Up next: I have two groups of 54mm British AWI guards underway plus some 28mm furniture and some HO-scale garbage dumpsters.

All I want for Xmas are some 54mm French cavalry

Merry Christmas to everyone! I recently finished up some 54mm French cavalry for Tricorne. These are Armies in Plastic AWI cavalry that I slightly modified the hats on.  

It isn't perfectly clear what kind of cavalry were involved in the various battles in Tricorne (dragoon or hussars) so I based the paint scheme on the Mollo plate of the hussars. I couldn't find any putty locally to deal with the hats so I left them a vague "light infantry" shape.

Overall, these will do. The blue jackets shifted a bit towards grey after I washed on some shadows so they might serve as generic dragoons in a pinch. I also found myself short on some cannon so, after some sussing out of options, three more of those are underway.

Monmouth Courthouse

I hauled my 54mm AWI troops out to the club this week to put on a game of Tricorne. I selected the Monmouth Courthouse scenario as I don't think I have ever gamed that one before.

Scott and Bruce were for king and Richard and Chen were for congress. Red Claw was packed when we got there so I much appreciate Leanne saving us a 6x4 table to game on.

Monmouth has 22 units per side and requires nine victory banners to win, so it took us two hours to get through the scenario. The British can gain two banners per American hill-hex that they occupy.

The British spent a lot of time maintaining a solid line to allow them to play the many, many line cards that they got. They focussed first on ejecting the Americans from the forward line of hedges and trying to firm up the British left flank (which was enfiladed by cannon).

These poor Prussian grenadiers earned their pay that day and were forced to advance to the rear after a few turns. Bruce also immediately lost the unit of highlanders I spent weeks (WEEKS!) painting to a bad rout die roll over on the British right.

The shot above pretty much sums up the first hour. The British carefully advanced under fire while the Americans fell back.

I trotted out both some new cannons (made from pencil sharpeners) and some cavalry that had not seen battle before. This was about 50% of my 54mm collection.

Having taken the hedge line, there was a lengthy bit of bombardment (there are seven cannons in the game) which started to pile up the American casualties. There were also a pair (?) of American leader losses which was unfortunate for the rebels.

At this point, the British finally got some right-side cards and started to advance on that side (in the background of the photo below) while the Americans tried to put some pressure on in the foreground.

Grabbing a hill hex (background of photo below) gave the British the two extra banners they needed and brought the game to a close (I think it was 9-4 but am not sure).

Overall, relatively fun. The British got a lot of line cards and worked hard to maximize their effectiveness. The Americans suffered for this. And also had a couple of nasty rout rolls. Thanks to everyone for playing!