Modelling Tips & Ideas – Page 4 – ARCANE Scenery and Models

All Square!

This weeks post is a guest post by the very talented Chris Kirk. Chris has recently ‘converted’ to Napoleonics and is in the process of building his army. Like most of us, he has agonised over how many men should be painted to form a Battalion and then how best to base them. There is of course no correct answers to these questions. It largely depends on what rules set you have decided to use and even then, there is usually some flexibility. After much thought, Chris had decided that he would like his battalions to be made up of 32 figures and that to make life easier on the Wargames table, he would put his figures into a movement tray, complete with Battalion name plate and space for casualty and disorder markers. We had these trays custom made for him by those clever people at Sarissa Precision and they were based on the smaller 12 man trays that I use for club night games.

As he was building British battalions, they would spend much of their time in Line formation so the need to take them out of the tray would be mainly limited to when they were forced into square when using Black Powder rules. In the course of discussing this, Chris decided that rather than take the figures out of the movement tray, he would make some ‘generic’ square markers that could be used to replace the line if forced into square during a game.

If this seems like a lot of extra work, it is, in the short term! However, Chris really enjoys his modelling and painting and the option of making some mini dioramas was too tempting for him. Rather than paint another 32 figures for each square, Chris decided on using a 120mm x 120mm movement tray to represent the area would then build & paint just enough figures and scenery to give the impression of a square. In doing so, he needed plenty of casualties and the following sequence of pictures shows how he achieved this. I hope that you find it as instructive and useful as I did. I have now added another project to my list!

The start point for a casualty – a Victrix standing figure.

Remove the base, leaving as much of the boots as you can!

Cut V’s into the backs of the knees. this will allow bent legs at the knees. Remove feet at the ankles to reposition as if gravity is taking over the limp body.

Re assemble legs and flatten the back so that the figure lies flush with the ground.

Add a suitable head – this one is actually from a Warlord Ancient Briton set!

Add the arms – once again, gravity is king! Whilst there will still be some finishing touches, once the polystyrene cement is dry the figure will be roughly correct and ready for filling.

A selection of casualties made using the same procedure. All waiting overnight for the glue to really set hard before more filing down to ensure that they are flat and any cleaning up to be done.

Trimmed of flashes. Green stuff applied to gaps. Heels of boots created where needed. Arm sling and head bandage added.

The Square takes shape!

I hope that this has been useful. As you can see, it is a work in progress and once Chris gets the rest of the figures to complete the square and of course, paints them we will return with the finished article. I think it shows how useful Plastic figures can be when it comes to making your own units. I know that some wargamers have very fixed views when it comes to plastics versus metals. I like both and when it comes to converting, I think that this article shows how plastic figures can be adapted and remodelled far easier than metals.

If you would like to try your hand at conversions, we have a massive selection of fillers and tools to browse through here:

FILLERS AND TOOLS

You can get Victrix plastics here:

VICTRIX MODELS

and Glues and Adhesives here:

GLUES AND ADHESIVES

Scenery for Samurai

It’s funny how once you get into a groove, it’s difficult to get out of it, particularly if you are having fun! I had finished all of the original Test of Honour figures as detailed in last weeks blog and my intention was to go back to painting my beloved Napoleonics. I did mention that I fancied painting some buildings but they were going to have to wait. However, having had a couple of really fun games of TOH at the club, I decided to get on with making some scenery.

I had some plastic aquarium plants that my brother had sent me, kicking around the back of my work bench and I had long admired the Sarissa Temple Shrine so I thought that I would make both bits of scenery. It may seem like a strange combination but sometimes two slightly different projects are as fast to do as one. Whilst one piece is drying or setting, you can get on with the other. Having just two projects is about right for me as I don’t loose my concentration!

‘Bamboo grove’ assembled.

The ‘bamboo patch’ was the first on the work bench. I already had an idea how I would make it and stole an idea from John Grant at the club, who uses old DVD or CD’s as his bases for scatter scenery. I’ve got plenty of these kicking around as they were giving out DVD’s with some newspapers in the past. Quite why I thought I would need a documentary on Pilates escapes me now but at last it was going to be used for something useful. So using the label side as the base I partially covered it with milliput, pressed three pebbles that I had grabbed from the garden (I didn’t even bother to wash them!) and just stuck the tall aquarium plants straight into the milliput as shown above. I used some cut down pieces at the edges to taper the height but otherwise, assembly was as straight forward as it looks.

Building the Sarissa Precision Japanese Temple.

Whilst the milliput was setting, I turned my attention to the Sarissa Temple. These laser cut buildings are just superb in my opinion and actually look fantastic whether painted or not. I like to ‘pimp’ them up a bit and in this case I had decided to paint the building and add some tile effect to the roof. Before assembly, I lightly sprayed the back of the interior pieces with black primer. This was just to keep the inside of the building black as I didn’t want the MDF showing through the windows. It’s not a necessary stage but does improve the finished model. If you plan to paint the interior, now would be a good time to do it.

Before I assembled the roof, I used the panels as a cutting guide for the textured plastic sheeting that I was going to use. It is actually ‘O’ Scale or 1/48th scale Spanish Tile textured plastic card from JTT products. It’s thin enough to easily cut with a sharp scalpel and the only thing to bear in mind is to make sure that the tiles are running the right way on the roof, ie. downwards! I then used super glue to attach the sheet to the MDF roof pieces, although a contact adhesive would have been a better option – my tube of Bostick had dried up though, so super glue did the job. I then assembled the roof as per the kit instructions.

Tile sheets glued to the roof.

Once the roof was assembled, I used 1/8th evergreen tube pack 224 to fill the corners. The picture above shows my progress, with the tube blu-tacked into place to test fit before gluing to the tile sheet. I then covered the tube with a strip of single tiles cut from the tile sheeting. At this stage, I used standard polystyrene glue as you can see from the picture. I assembled the rest of the building but did not glue the centre to the platform so that it was easier to varnish. I used the red mahaogany woodstain shown in the picture straight from the can and applied it to the MDF without any preparation. It took around four coats to give me the gloss effect that I was looking for.

Applying the varnish

In the meantime, I got on with painting the building itself. I used a Vallejo yellow ochre although the last coat was a mix of 50:50 Yellow Ochre 70913 with Beige 70917 to lighten the effect as it looked too yellow to me. I painted the door and window with the woodstain and then the timber with Vallejo Mahogany Brown 70846.

yellow ochre applied

In between coats drying I went back to my Bamboo scenery piece and once the milliput had dried, coated the base with Vallejo dark earth Textured paste. It was easy enough to apply using a small spatula and a brush to get in between the plants. Once this was dry, I painted it Vallejo Chocolate Brown 70872 and I was ready to start dry brushing!

Ready to dry brush!

I had sprayed the roof tiles black as I wasn’t keen on the terracotta effect. With hindsight a dark grey would have been a better choice. So it was a case of dry brushing the roof with a mixture of greys and the bamboo base with a chocolate Brown/Iraqi Sand mix.

Dry Brushing complete – well not quite – more grey needed!

The picture above shows the shrine assembled with the posts painted a bright red 70947 to match the Tori Gate that I have previously completed. Once I had taken this photo I decided that I needed to go heavier with the grey as too much black was showing through the roof. I had also painted the base of the house in Chocolate brown ready for some scatter. The bamboo looked OK – some additional grass scatter & texture was needed.

Temple & Bamboo finished

The Picture above shows the two pieces completed. I have added some brown ballast to the temple base and my usual mix of scatter & tufts to the Bamboo scenery. I perhaps will add another highlight to the roof tiles but I think that the lighting in the picture doesn’t show it at it’s best. So, now that these two pieces are complete, I really must get on with my Napoleonic Cavalry brigade. However, the Geisha would look nice as part of the shrine….

I think I have my next TOH project lined up….

The commercial bit.

Most of what I have used is available post free at the time of writing to most worldwide locations from my shop. Some items may go in and out of stock – we only list what we have in stock ready to dispatch- the links take you to the correct sections in my shop but if you are having trouble finding anything drop me a message.

For the range of Sarissa Japanese Buildings and other Samurai items, including the Test of Honour sets click here:

ARCANE SCENERY SAMURAI RANGE

For Glues and Adhesives;

ARCANE SCENERY ADHESIVES RANGE

For milliput

ARCANE SCENERY MILLIPUT

For Texture Paste

VALLEJO TEXTURES

For Vallejo paint

VALLEJO PAINT RANGE

For textured Plasticard

PLASTICARD, PLAIN AND TEXTURED

The woodstain came from Boyes hardware shop and the pebbles from my garden! I’m still trying to source bamboo!

The Last Samurai

No, it’s not a reference to the Tom Cruise film, although I do quite enjoy watching it, but an indication that I have now finished all of the models that came with the original Test of Honour boxed set. Yes, all 35 are complete as well as the limited edition unarmoured figure, that was the first model that I painted. I have to say that given the set was just £35.00, I think that I have already had more than value for money both in terms of modeling and painting time and fun had whilst playing the game. If there are awards for Wargames product of the year, then Test of Honour will get my vote. Now I do have a slightly vested interest, being a retailer of said product but given the number of products that I see, I dont think that it is an unreasonable claim. It certainly takes something special to prise me away from painting and playing Napoleonics! Anyway, enough of the frothing and on to the modelling.

Completed Ashigaru Bowmen -Bow strings attached!

I had completed the 20 Ashigaru figures that came with the set and had been using the metal Samurai that I had painted, the afore mentioned unarmoured samurai and a free figure that came with the ‘Painting War’ Fuedal Japaness issue. I had assembled and painted one of the plastic samurai but I wasn’t happy with the result and had put the final four figures to one side.

My usual Samurai Team. A Limited Edition Samurai from Painting war and one from the set.

That changed when I was browsing through the Test of Honour Facebook site and a couple of posts had given me fresh inspiration. I then happened upon some really nice pictures on Pinterest and the combination of ideas gave me the push to build the last samurai figures in the set. That energy coincided with a bit of free time at the weekend and in record time (for me) I completed the figures.

As there were four Samurai left, I decided to make them into two pairs of similar models. It would make painting easier but I could also either use them in a game as a pair or mix them up. Here’s the models assembled.

Assembled Samurai ready for Priming

I stole the idea of one Samurai holding a severed head. It’s pretty gruesome but will make a ‘talking point’ for the army! I also liked the Samurai with the straight arm draw – again, a pose that I had seen elsewhere. I used a Black colour scheme for the two samurai with the conical helmets and red for the other two so primed them accordingly.

Primed and ready to paint

I used slightly different techniques for each pair of models. For the guys in red, I went straight to the paint and blocked out the main colours. I was using my trusty method of block paint & quickshade to bring out the detail. I wont detail all the colours other than to say I had decided that the background colour scheme would be brown, so there is about five different shades of Vallejo brown used. Once the block painting was done, I painted the models with Dark Tone quick shade to bring out the details in the armour. I’ve also tried to add detail to the plates by dotting them with gold. Close up, this looks a bit messy but from table distance I think it’s OK! While I was in the mood for painting dots, I also added some to the tunic arms as they looked a bit bland.

Red Samurai gold dots on the armour and quick shaded.

For the Black Samurai, I went back to using a dry brush technique to bring out the detail on the armour. I used quite a light grey Vallejo 70990 and tried not to be too heavy with the drying brush. I then used 70901 pastel blue to represent the stitching. Again viewed up close, it looks a bit rough but with my eyes, it was good enough!

Black Samuraio dry brushed & light blue stitching added.

As you can see, I only added the stitch to one of the samurai – the other has a cloak and I thought that this would be enough colour without making it look too ‘busy’.

I used Dark Prussian blue for the tunics and highlighted these with Prussian blue. I had considered using a nice dark purple but I didn’t have this to hand and so went with what I had on the paint rack. I also decided to paint the face masks in Brass just to make these Samurai different from the others that I had done. Once the main colours were done, the figures began to look ready for the table.

Nearly complete

So it was just a case of touching up some of the detail and correcting any obvious errors and then adding some tufts and flowers to the base and the Last Samurai are ready to take to the table.

Samurai charge!

Black Samurai close up

You may have noticed that I don’t usually paint eyes – the exception in this case is the poor guy who has had his head chopped off – it just seemed to emphasise his fate – glaring at his mates who failed to save him!

Red Samurai close up

As well as the figures in the set, I also used some of the spare parts to make some objective markers – I have previously posted these on facebook but it’s worth showing them again.

Objective Markers

So the full Warband looks like this.

Full Samurai War Band!

My next project will be to build a bit more in the way of scenery. However, I’m going to take my time. I have a Tori gate, so the next piece will be the Temple shrine. As for figures, I think that some mounted Samurai will be next followed perhaps by the Peasant bowmen. I really enjoyed building and painting the bowmen in the TOH set so a few more wont hurt and I might just go to town converting them into more dynamic poses now that I am familiar with the kits. That all said, I have seen the next batch of figures that will be released in the TOH collection…..they are simply awesome! So the collection will continue to grow!

Ashigaru Bowmen unit

The commercial bit:

Test of Honour and the current expansion sets are all available from Arcane scenery, along with Cherry trees, Sarissa Scenery and other useful accessories. We also stock vast ranges of paint, glue, basing and scenic materials. At the time of writing it is available (aerosols excepted) post free to most worldwide locations. Click below to go to the Samurai section:

ARCANE SCENERY SAMURAI SECTION

To have a look at my Samurai Pinterest board click here:

SAMURAI PINTEREST BOARD

To keep up to date with new releases, my modelling blog and other projects, like the arcane scenery facebook page here:

ARCANE SCENERY FACEBOOK

To see the rest of my blog entries regarding Samurai and Test of Honour, click here:

SAMURAI BLOG

All of the links should open a new window, so you wont lose this page. Have fun!

The joys of sprue stretching

I’ve been gradually finishing off my Test of Honour war band and adding bits and pieces to them to get them to a ‘finished ‘state. This is the first time that I’ve played a game with unpainted figures. Usually, when trying a game, I either borrow a friends figures or wait until I have at least a painted unit of my own. Test of Honour was slightly different. It burst onto the gaming scene so quickly that most of my gaming buddies were in the same boat and as the game involved Samurai, nobody seemed to have any older figures in their collection that they could dust off and bring out to play. The upshot was that I was keen to get figures painted and on the table with out spending too much time planning the overall look of the army. I had quickly settled on a colour scheme for the figures but hadn’t really thought about basing other than to sprinkle some scatter over the painted bases. To make matters worse, I just picked up the nearest tub of scatter that I found, which with hindsight is a tad brighter than I would normally use.

Samurai band with Mons added

So in between gaming and other painting projects , I’ve gradually been adding detail to my warband. The first task was to add some decals to the flags and hats to show the clan mon. After a false start, I found a nice straight forward clan mon that I could use – the Takeda mon. Even better, the supplier, Veni, Vidi, Vici printed the decals in white. The first batch that I ordered from another supplier required me to repaint the background on the figures to get a white clan motif, a faff too far for me. The mon on the flags are actually 15mm scale but fit quite nicely. I used Vallejo Decal Medium and Decal fix to ensure that they confirmed to the uneven surface. It’s a straight forward job. Just paint the decal medium over the flag, soak the decal in water for a few seconds, carefully apply the decal using a fine brush to help and use a paper towel to carefully soak up any excess water. I then gave the decal another coat of decal medium. When relatively dry, I then applied the decal fix. If it sounds complicated, it isn’t when you get into the swing of it. To get the smaller clan mon for the hats, I used a scalpel to cut original decal into four diamonds. I then applied the diamond to the hat using the same process with the decal medium & fix. Once dry, I then painted two lines to divide the diamond into the four sections. Again, it sounds tricky but didn’t actually take too long.

Vallejo Decal Fix and Decal Medium

The picture below shows some of the figures with the decals added to the hats before I had painted the dividing lines and should help you to understand how straight forward, if some what fiddly the process is.

Decal fixing in progress!

The next job that needed doing was to improve the basing. I did consider scraping the scatter off and starting again. I hadn’t used my favorite method of basing, using Vallejo paste, as the figures are attached directly to the plastic base and I was concerned that I would cover the feet of the men in mud. I decide to work with what I had and the obvious solution was to apply some Gamers Grass light green tufts and some Noch white flowers. I also decided to transport and store my archers and spearmen in movement trays, so I also added some scatter to these.

Movement tray and bases with detail added

The figures are starting to look more as I had imagined them to be when I first started the project. As far as basing goes, I’m nearly there but I think that looking at the pictures, I will add a few patches of static grass just to give another layer of texture. I had also intended to add bowstrings to the bows. To do this I decided to use stretched sprue. When I mentioned this at the club, I was met with a few blank looks. It seems that this dark art has been lost in recent years – it was a technique that I used when rigging my Airfix World War One biplanes many years ago. It is a simple as this.

First you need a tea light or small candle and a piece of scrap plastic sprue. A piece of the frame that your Samurai came on is fine. Hold the sprue just above the candle, rotating it to gently warm it until it starts to melt. If it catches fire you are too close…so be careful!

Gently warm your sprue!

Once you see that the sprue is beginning to soften, take it away from the heat and pull it gently apart. The sprue will naturally stretch and as it goes cold, hardening off into a thread.

sprue stretched ready for use

As with everything, practice makes perfect but the sprue is free, so it doesn’t matter if you get it wrong a couple of times. Just be careful with the hot sprue, if you touch it when it is still melting it will stick to you and burn – I can show you my scars. You can then cut the stretched sprue to the desired length and attach it to the bow. With hindsight, I should have done this before I had painted my troops as I had to use superglue, rather than polystyrene glue. So I actually managed to glue the bowman to my fingers a couple of times. Fortunately as I was on my own in the garage, nobody heard the tirade of bad language….

Bow strings attached

I am gradually getting to where I would like to be with my Samurai warband. I now have enough figures to play a reasonably sized game and I have most of the characters that I need.

Takeda Clan Bannerman

I think that I will be revisiting the warband over the next couple of weeks but basing aside, I’m just about there with this batch of figures. The next part of the project is to complete four more samurai and paint the beautiful Geisha spy figure. Not forgetting the objective markers and some more scenery…it’s going to be a busy summer!

The warband takes shape

Most of the products that I use are available post free at the time of writing, in the Arcane Scenery shop. A good place to start is the Samurai section here:

SAMURAI

You can find plenty of basing products here:

Scatter, Static grass and bases

Vallejo Decal Medium

Vallejo Decal Fix

We don’t sell the decals but you can get them here – service was excellent.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Vikings land in Newark!

Small ‘coastal’ Viking ship

The bank holiday weekend was pretty much booked up with Family stuff but I did manage to sneak away on the Saturday and wander down to Newark Castle whilst Mrs Wood was having her hair done. To be fair, I had also been to the Barbers to get a smart new haircut, but 5 minutes is about as much time as even the most careful of barbers can spend on my diminishing patch, so I had time to kill. I digress, having some free time I noticed that there was a Viking reactment taking place at Newark castle and as entrance was free it seemed a shame not to pop in.

Viking Combat! Shield wall!

I think that reenactors share a similar strand of DNA to us wargamers but have perhaps taken it one step further. I must say that it does hold a slight appeal to me but only the bit where you sit around in the sunshine, having a beer and chomp on a lump of charred beef whilst chatting to your mates. I cant be doing with running around hitting people, or even worse being hit by some one younger and faster than me, it’s too much like hard work. I do, however, admire the work that these enthusiasts put into their hobby and they are a great source of information. Not only is their equipment and clothing extremely well researched but they know a thing or two about the tactics, weaponry and are there to ‘bring history alive’.

Camp life.

Like all enthusiasts, reenactor’s are generally a friendly bunch and only too happy to share their knowledge – you just have to ask. As I was wandering around a few things caught my eye (no, I wasn’t doing a Harold impersonation…). First of all the tents that made up the encampment all generally followed a similar pattern. It was interesting to see how an encampment might of looked. Renedra make a Saxon tent set and it was good to see that the style looked about right.

Renedra tents in full scale!

It was also interesting watching some of the craftsmen at work.

Craftsman at work

I was intrigued by the ladies who were making and dyeing cloth for the costumes. They were in the process of dyeing some cloth with a ‘stew’ of Madder root and so I had quite a chat about the colours used. I had already noticed that in ‘real life’ the clothing tended to be in more pastel shades than I painted my figures. Also there was a preponderance of orange/red clothing. The ladies were happy to show me a sampler of the sort of natural dyes that they were able to produce and that they thought were fairly likely to be accurate samples of what would have been used on tunics at the time.

Dye Samples

As they explained, the dyes weren’t as colourfast as today and would certainly fade so although my tendency to chose bright colours for my wargames figures look OK on the wargames table, I think that my next Saga Warband might just have a more muted look. And Orange will definitely be on the colour pallet!

I should point out that the reenactors were both Saxon and Viking, so if in my blog I have got them a bit confused, I apologise. Here is a few more pictures of the Warriors going through their battle drill.

Stand ready…

steady..

Close!

Shield design

A final thought, I had always thought that the shield rims were beaten metal – these looked more like leather.

To sum up, a diverting and educational couple of hours. The tower to Newark castle battlements was also open and once again, entry was free, so for the first time I was able to climb to the top:

King of the Castle!

Next weekend I am off to Warwick Castle for a War of the Roses weekend. I will get back to my painting and modelling but I thought that I might as well enjoy the good weather whilst it’s here!

Jonas Jones Rides again!

The last time Jonas Jones wrote for the blog was back in 2011! But he’s back again, armed with his Jewellers saw, pin vice and super glue showing you how to make the best of the United Irish Command pack from the Trent Miniatures range. Now, without revealing Jonas ‘s true identity, it is fair to say that he is an enthusiast of the Trent Range and loves nothing more than to carry out simple conversions on the figures, if nothing else than to prove that you can do as much with metals as you can with plastics.

So in his own style and words, here is his ‘take’ on the United Irish (rebel) Command pack from the Trent Miniatures range:

‘ Ir98/03, the United Irish (Rebel) Command pack contains four figures from five basic poses, supplied at random. Instead of one of the four poses shown in the main photo, you might get a standard bearer (That’s him leading a couple of Gunsmen in the next photo. You will need a pin vice to drill a hole through his hands, which takes just a few seconds, time that you will get back with interest by never having to stick the flag back in ‘cos it’s come out for the umpteenth time!)

IR98/03 Irish Command

Don’t panic if you don’t get a standard bearer , because of course almost any pikeman can be ‘converted’ to a standard bearer simply by giving him a standard instead of a pike! Incidentally, the standard shown is supplied by Flag Dude, one of several designs that he does for the Great Irish Rebellion.

Two of the figures shown – the officer pointing and the bagpiper – come with separate heads, which are easily fixed on using superglue, and give more scope for variety. Also the guy firing his pistol has three different head variants. also supplied at random. (There’s the other two in the photo of the unpainted castings.)

Officer Variants

Now, re that bagpiper. We’re pretty sure that knowledgeable chaps and chapesses like our readers will know that Irish bagpipes have two drones, whilst Scottish bagpipes have three. Given the large Scottish immigration into Northern Ireland (Ulster) we feel fairly sure that both types would have been kicking around in the Emerald Isle. So we’ve opted to give our castings three drones on the grounds that it’s much easier to snip off one drone to “Irish – ise” ( remember when they are smiling) your bagpipes than it would be to add a third drone to a two -droned casting. The photo showing the two side by side should help you to differentiate your ‘Och aye the noo’ from your ‘Begoora’….

Bagpiper variants

Finally, here is a picture of Father Michael Murphy carrying the very flag (Flag Dude again!) that he was carrying when cut down by canister shot at the Battle of Arklow. Trent miniatures don’t actually make a Father Michael Figure. This is a conversion of one of the pike men from pack Ir98/15. He’s had his arm removed with a fine saw. It only takes four or five seconds but if you are pushed for time, you could simply snip it off with some Flush Cut cutters in two seconds! The arm has been replaced by the sword arm from the mounted Officer (Ir98/19) who comes with a selection of four separate right arms, giving you three spares for your bits box and scope for lots of simple but exciting conversions. All you need is the aforementioned saw/cutter and pin vice & drill. Oh! and a dash of imagination and patience!’

Father Michael Murphy

I hope that this short article from Jonas will inspire you to look at again at the Trent Range and perhaps other metals. The next time you are about to ask ‘does anybody out there make this figure or that figure?’ perhaps the simple answer is to pick up your saw and pin vice and make it yourself. It’s surprising just what you can achieve!

If you would like to see the Trent Miniatures Range, Click here:

TRENT MINIATURES RANGE

You can read more from Jonas and see his other conversions here:

OFF WITH HIS HEAD PART ONE

OFF WITH HIS HEAD PART TWO

For all the tools that you will need, click here:

EXPO TOOLS

And finally for Super glue and fillers:

GLUES AND FILLERS

Painting the Warband

An early May Bank holiday is usually an opportunity to get some painting done as the weather is generally pretty poor. This was not to be the case though. What with gardening, ‘Granddading’, and DIY, I barely managed to get to the painting desk. I have made some progress, though, and my warband is gradually taking shape. I’ve mentioned previously that I have not done any real research into Japanese Samurai other than to look at lots of pictures of other peoples models, casually flicking through my one Samurai book and putting together a Pinterest board of various Samurai images. You can see my board here:

SAMURAI PINTEREST BOARD

There was one colour scheme that caught my eye, the blue and red Ashigaru looked pretty good and so I based my colour scheme on this with a few tweaks.

My warband inspiration!

The picture also helped to clarify how the various armour plates and bits of clothing were supposed to look. There are slight differences between the bowman and the musketman but I now had the general idea as to how they should look. As usual, I would take a few liberties, or as I prefer to think, ‘artistic licence’ when it came to painting the figures – usually to simplify the painting process. I also like my models to look a bit on the ‘bright side’ for the gaming table.

So, having assembled the figures I gave them a priming coat of Army painter black spray. I then used a size 6 brush to drybrush the figures all over. The main purpose of this was to bring out the detail on the figures so that I could see what needed painting and where. The secondary purpose was that the armour was then highlighted and the detail brought to life.

Painting the warband

This was the first batch that I did – you can see that I have also painted the flesh and trousers. I used Vallejo 70992 neutral grey to dry brush these guys.

The bowmen, dry brushed and ready for painting.

The bowmen have been given the same drybrush treatment but this time, I used a lighter grey 70870 medium sea grey to up the contrast. I think that a light blue would also work well and I might try this on the next batch! I painted the flesh with 70927 Dark Flesh, the shirts with 70840 Light Turquoise and the trousers and weapons (spears & bows) with 70957 flat red.

Ashigaru Bowmen with detail added

I then painted the ‘socks’, face scarf, ties on the legs, detail on the bows and arrow feathers in off white 70820 and the arrow shafts in 310 old wood. At this stage most of the block painting is done. However, to give a bit of definition to some areas, I have given the faces a coat of skin wash 72093 and used both army painter strong tone and Dark tone ink . The initial effect is to make things look worse.

Ink washes applied

The ink does help to define the shadows and the next job will be to carefully repaint the same colours but to leave the ink shadows in the recesses. It might sound like a bit of a faff but it does work. That is as far as I have got with the bowmen and obviously I need to finish these off but here are the Spearmen that I have completed.

You can see that by carefully repainting the raised areas on the faces, you get a bit more character with the figures. I have also painted the sandals using 70822 black brown and added some detail to the weapons using Steel 70864 and brass 70801. I’ve also painted the hats 70862 black grey for no other reason than I wanted them to look slightly different to the armour. I’ve used 70817 scarlet and 70961 sky blue to add some highlights to the tunic and trousers. The basing is very rough at the moment. I will be adding some grass tufts and probably some flowers to make them a bit more interesting!

So that is how my warband is shaping up so far. There is still some way to go to have them completed. It doesn’t help that I tend to fuss and go back over models that I thought that I had finished as I learn how to paint the models and review the pictures that I have taken. It is also a different process to the one that I use to paint my Napoleonics. With these small skirmish warbands I like to try and have a go at painting using inks & highlights rather than resorting to quickshade. I think that it is worth the effort though, I hope that they will be well used in battle over the coming months!

If you would like to purchase the Vallejo & Army Painter colours that I have used, you can find them in my shop here:

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At the time of writing, with the exception of aerosols, all items are available post free to most worldwide locations.

Tori Gate

No, it’s not a headline from the Sun Newspaper regarding a scandal in the Conservative party but the first piece of scenery that I have made for Test of Honour. A very straight forward and easy piece to finish, it is the simple Tori Temple Gate from the Sarissa Precision range.

Made from Laser cut MDF, assembly is very simple using PVA glue. Painting is just as straight forward. There seem to be a lot of questions as to how easy is it to paint MDF. The answer is very easy. I just use the same paints (Vallejo) that I use on my miniatures, unless I am painting a large area. In which case, match pots of emulsion from B&Q (other DIY superstores are available) also work very well.

Completed Tori Temple Gate

So, once I had assembled the gate, I sanded down any obvious mis matches on the pieces to get a smooth surface. I left the main gate separate from the base and just sprayed it with Army Painter red. The first coat will bring out any imperfections and it is easy to remove these with another sand over with fine wet & dry paper. Once this was done I just resprayed it a couple more times to build the colour and that was that. I’m not sure if it’s the right shade of red but it will do for me!

As for the base, this was just as easy. I took a fairly large brush and simply dry brushed it, with out priming, in a Dark Grey. I think that I gave it a couple of coats to cover the wood. This technique ensures that the laser etched detail is not covered. I then repeated the dry brushing with a Medium grey and then again with a lighter grey until I was happy with the effect. I picked out the etched cement between the flag stones using a small brush and a watered down pale grey to get the effect shown above. It was a simple but laborious job to follow the pattern.

Tori gate & warriors

So with my first piece of scenery made the next job was to sort out a playing surface. Of course I could use one of my other mats but I have a cunning plan for Test Of Honour. I think that it is an ideal club night game and my intention is to put together a ‘Pick up Set’ where by I can just grab a couple of boxes of Scenery and figures and head off to the club knowing that everything is there, ready to play. The solution to a playing surface can be found at Aldi at the moment if you are quick! For just £6.99 you can get a 1 metre by 2 Metre green Awning mat. Cut it in half and you have two ideal sized mats for Test of Honour, so if you ‘go halves’ with a mate, you pay just £3.50! Here’s mine:

Aldi Mat

OK, it’s not as glamourous as a Cigar Box mat but then at the price…If you look on the Test of Honour Face book page , I’ll post some pictures of how it looks with scenery and figures on it later. If you follow this link, you can see details of the mat online:

ALDI GRASS CARPET

You will also notice from the pictures I have some trees in Blossom. The story behind these is that I picked up a job lot of trees that were being discontinued by a supplier two years ago to sell on the stand at Salute – just £1.99 for a pack of two. Nobody wanted trees in Blossom and these were left over after the show. I decided that they would look nice on my table and here we are two years later and I cant get Blossom trees at such a price to sell for love or money…. They still look nice on my table though!

So if my playing surface and scenery box is taking shape, how am I doing with the figures. As usual for me, painting is slow but I am getting there. I now have six spearmen done.

My war band takes shape.

The basing isn’t really finished – I need to add some grass tufts or even better flowers but I haven’t quite decided on the final scheme. I am also waiting on some decals to add onto the back banners. They are ready for tonight’s game though. Next up, the archers and I will give a bit more information on how I went about painting my war band.

Close up of Spearmen – I’m not sure why they look so happy.

In the meantime, you can see the range of Samurai items that we have in stock, including the superb Sarissa Japanese buildings range, here:

SAMURAI RANGE

Sarissa also make a really nice range of Far East buildings that are also very suitable for more rural settings:

FAR EAST RANGE

If it is paints that you are after:

VALLEJO PAINTS

Basing the 28th North Gloucestershires

Ready to base!

If you have been following the series of blog posts, you will know that from the outset, the aim has been to produce a unit for the Black Powder rules set. So deciding how to base the figures is now a straight forward task. I prefer to base my figures on Renedra plastic 40mm by 40mm bases, four figures to a base. This gives each figure a 20mm ‘frontage’. Other basing configurations can be used – the Perry’s use six figures on a 45mm by 40mm base, each figure having a 15mm frontage. To be fair, this looks more realistic, with your troops standing shoulder to shoulder. However, it would involve painting more figures per battalion and by now, you will know that I prefer to take the easier option.

The other point that I would make concerning basing is that by using a consistent 20mm per figure approach, you can get around the need for multiple basing by using movement trays. In the early days of my change to Napoleonics from Scifi gaming, I based figures individually on 20mm square bases to use them in Sharpe Practice skirmish games. It was easy enough to then change these into battalions by putting them into movement trays when I started to play Black powder.

Ready for basing Sir!

I now base in fours and you can see from the picture above the start of the process. I take the Renedra 40mmm square base and cover it in Vallejo 26218 Darth Earth paste.

Splot! put figure on the base!

Then just push the figure into the paste. I don’t even glue the figures, there’s enough adhesion in the paste to hold them solidly in place when the paste dries. It even is good for metal figures. In the unlikely event that I decided to rebase my collection, it would be a simple task to gently pull the figures from the bases.

Four on a base

As each figure is placed on the base, I use a sculpting tool ( it could be a cocktail stick!) to bring the paste up over the figures base to blend them into the groundwork. You could at this stage, add some other detail to the bases – small rocks, logs etc – on this occasion I’ve kept it simple.

Whilst the bases were drying, I went back to the Grenadier company. I should confess – My OCD had got the better of me and I decided to change the badges on the back of the shakos. They are still slightly oversize but by using a smaller strip of evergreen, I managed to cut some slightly smaller diamonds. It was then a case of using a scalpel to slice off the larger ones and to replace & repaint the badges & any damage to the shakos. I also have decided that I would paint 28 figures for the Battalion. I thought that a full base of four grenadiers (the guys with all white plumes) would look better than just two on their own as they would have the French backpacks. I then would have four figures in the Light company (all green plumes) that I would base seperately to be used as skirmishers. All of this will be clear when you see the finished unit.

French back packs

To make the french back packs it was a simple task to cut the water bottle & cartridge case from a British pack pack and then glue them to the cleaned up French style packs as shown above. I then painted the packs in leather brown with off white patches – everything else was painted as standard. These were then super glued to the Grenadiers and they were finished as per the rest of the unit using the quickshade & rehighlight method described in last weeks blog.

Light company will skirmish!

The picture above shows the four figures from the light company on their seperate bases. The Vallejo paste has dried and I have painted it first with Vallejo chocolate Brown and then highlighted this with a quick dry brush of the chocolate brown with some Iraqi sand added to lighten the top colour.

Green scatter added to the bases

The next stage is to add some green scatter, in this case I have used Woodlands Scenics Green blended turf. I use watered down PVA and apply with a small brush. Then just dunk the base into the scatter, tapping off the excess.

Grenadier Company based

The picture above shows the Grenadier company based but there is one final touch. I like to add some grass tufts to give another layer of detail on the base. I’ve used Gamers grass Dry green tufts and attached them with a dot of super glue.

Rear of Grenadier Company – tufts added

The Command Stands

You will have noticed that the Officers & ensigns have also been painted and added to the unit. The procedure that I use is exactly the same as for the troops but I paint the Drummer & Sapper separately, rather than as part of a batch. The ensigns are carrying flags supplied by GMB, my favourite flag supplier. With the flags and tufts added, the Battalion is now ready to take to the table.

Full battalion in line ready for action!

The Light Company will skirmish!

So another unit is completed and it’s on to the next project. I tend to have a break between Napoleonics so I’ll be painting something a bit different. However, next week, I’ll just explain how I use movement trays and how to split the battalion into two to facilitate a black powder game on a smaller table.

If you would like to have a go at painting your own unit, as I write, we have an offer in the shop. Buy the black powder rules set and get a box of Warlord figures for free. This also includes free postage. For more details Click here:

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You can purchase the other products mentioned using the links below:

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Block paint and Quickshade – Batch Painting the 28th

On with the next colour

Having painted the shakos black, it is a straight forward job to paint the plumes in white – I use Vallejo off white 70820. The shako plates are painted with 70801 Brass. Notice that I will have to use these colours again, but the point about the batch paint process is that small progress is better than no progress. It is easy for me to find 10 or 20 minutes to paint the plumes and shako plates rather than block out a whole evening or part of my weekend trying to complete a whole figure or batch of figures. This is why the process works so well for me. Any spare time that I have, I use to paint a couple or more figures in one colour and the Battalion gradually takes shape. I do admire those painters that can sit and gallop through 24 figures in one sitting. However, first of all my back would seize up after a couple of hours, then my eyes will get tired, until finally, I start to make mistakes. So short sharp bursts work for me! It’s not so daunting to work through a battalion in this way, over the course of a week, you will find that the unit moves to completion.

Back to the painting. The next colour is Red 70957 for the jackets and the bottom of the shako plumes. There is a fair degree of discourse that takes place on forums as to what colour or shade British redcoats really were. Without repeating the general thread of this conversation, my view is simply to take a pragmatic approach, they were red. To be fair, the quick shade will darken and dirty this colour to a less garish red, so the effect is about right for my eyes. The other colour the I have used is Iraqi Sand 70819 for the food haversacks. These were usually made from canvass or a strong linen and although they started out as perhaps a paler shade than this, they would have been discoloured from use. If you prefer, you can use off white for these as well.

White lace and yellow facings added

The picture above shows the next stage. When it comes to painting yellow, I always find it very difficult to get a decent coverage and colour. To help overcome this, I first painted the collars and cuffs ( facings) in sand yellow 70916 and then when dry, over painted this with flat yellow 70953, although the vallejo 70915 deep yellow may have been more effective. Next up, the laborious job of painting the belts, lace, collar edging and rifle strap in off white 70820. I prefer the off white as it is a softer white, but if you prefer, you can use 70951 white or the Foundation white 70919 for a brighter finish. The next colour is Natural steel 70864 for the buttons, musket barrel and bayonet. I’ve also added some detail to the muskets and at the same time painted the main buckle plate using Brass. Finally, I’ve painted the water bottle strap in Leather brown 70871. The figures are nearly complete.

Rear view & Flank Company

The picture above shows the rear view of the figures with the brass painted onto Musket sling, bayonet scabbard and rear shako plate. (which keeps looking bigger…see last blog entry!) Note also that the Light Company figures have green plumes and the Grenadiers, which are not pictured, will have all white plumes. If at this stage you think that the painting is a bit messy, bear in mind that the quick shade will cover some of the errors, I will tidy anything too obvious and of course, the pictures tend to magnify errors. On to the backpacks!

Back packs primed in black

As you can see, I have primed the back packs with army painter black spray to save some time. I have also painted the water bottles with Vallejo 70901 Pastel blue, which I think is about right. If it looks too light here, it will darken down with the quickshade.

Back packs completed

To finish the back packs, I used Neutral Grey 70992 for the blankets ( I also used this to tidy any overruns onto the troops trousers), off white for the straps, leather brown for the water bottle straps and miscellaneous pouches and steel for the pan. I suspect that the mess pan is far too clean for being on campaign and should be a smoky black, but it looks nice! You will notice the tidying up that I have done around the white strapping. Once again the quick shade will cover this up.

Ready for action – well quick shading…

I’ve now attached the back packs to the troops using super glue. As we are gluing two painted surfaces together, super glue will be more effective than polystyrene cement. The main painting is now complete. The next stage is to use the army painter quick shade to add depth and definition to the models. Now you could use, either an Army painter ink or another brand – I’ve used the Windsor & Newton Ink in the past to good effect. However, I do like the finish that you get with the Army painter quick shade. I do not ‘dip’ the models as army painter advise, simply paint the model with the quick shade. I prefer the Dark tone, which is a black shade, rather than the dark brown strong tone, although some prefer to use strong tone over red. I know that there are reservations about using this stuff and to be fair I agree with many. The quick shade is too expensive, more because I have yet to completely finish a tin before it starts to ‘skin’ over. This isn’t to do with the seal on the lid but the air that gets trapped as the level in the tin goes down. The tins are simply too big. I have passed my concerns on to Army painter but I cant see them designing a new tin just for me! Having got my gripe out of the way, I have to say that otherwise the product is excellent and does do what it says on the (oversized) tin!

Three stages of quick shade

The picture above shows the effect of quick shade. The first figure is just block painted, the second has been painted with quick shade and the third has had a coat of army painter matt varnish or as they call it anti shine. You can see that the shaded figures look as though there is more depth to them. The Quickshade does ‘dirty down’ the colours and close up this looks messy but in ‘real life’ the effect is quite acceptable.

So to recap, once the figures have been coated with quick shade, leave them to dry for at least 24 hours to harden off properly. Then spray with a good matt varnish. Matt varnish can be very temperamental and I could write a blog just on this subject – just carefully follow the instructions.

Ready to base!

The final part of the painting process is to retouch some of the lighter colours. You can ignore this stage but you will find that if you carefully retouch the most prominent parts of the figure, the effect is well worth the extra effort. For these figures, I have repainted the white cross belts, tip of the shako plume, shoulder tufts and lacing on the cuffs. I have also retouched the yellow facings and finally, painted the bayonets in silver 70997, to make them shine!

The figures are now ready to be based. I will cover this in detail in my next blog. I’ll also show you the Grenadiers with their French backpacks and the completed Battalion.

If you are new to Napoleonics and would like to give it a try, at the time of writing, we have an offer running in the shop. If you buy the set of Black Powder rules, we will add in a free box of figures. we also send post free to most worldwide locatios. Click here for details:

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Down to business – Batch Painting the 28th – Assembly

With the last two blogs explaining the rules choice and the research that I had done, it was time to start work on the unit itself. The figures that I had ready to paint were Warlord Games British Peninsular Infantry. As you can see, they have the stove pipe shakos that the 28th continued to wear at Waterloo. The only slight problem being that the shako plate on the front is incorrect for the 28th. I had two choices, either sand the incorrect plate off and replace it with the correct style plate or ignore the minor difference. I chose the latter. Even as I type this, my OCD reflex is twitching, but to replace all the shako plates was too much work for this project. I would either have to paint on the correct style three piece plate, model it with, say, green stuff, or track down a decal set of some sort. There may even be replacement heads available out there. On this occasion, the simple, albeit incorrect solution won the argument.

When it came to the additional rear shako plate, it was a fairly straight forward job to make these diamond shaped plates by cutting an evergreen strip of 10/000 plasticard into diamonds by simply cutting the strip into small pieces at an angle. With hindsight, I have made these too large and should have used a thinner strip. Once again, my OCD reflex is twitching and I am considering cutting these off and replacing them, even though I have nearly finished painting them! At the moment, I have decided to leave them as they are but it wasn’t until I checked the photos that I realised how big they were. Now, I wanted to be able to see the badges when the figures were on the table and making them oversize would help to show the difference in regiments but maybe I have gone too far….

I could have simply painted the plates on but modelling them gave a crisper edge to the plates than I could have achieved by painting.

28th Assembled and primed

The picture above shows the unit assembled and primed ready for painting. At this stage, I had also modelled the ensigns with Peninsular style Bicorn. However, after some thought, I did revisit the figures and I have now changed these to Stovepipe heads to match the Mont St Jean reference picture. The officer kept his Bicorn – a bit more artistic licence but officers did tend to make their own choices when it came to uniforms. As far as numbers go, I have made the unit 24 figures strong, the standard number for a Black Powder unit. The unit that I am making is a representation of the 28th, not an accurate ‘scaled down’ man to man depiction. As far as the research goes, there were 557 men in the 28th at Waterloo, a somewhat reduced battalion due to the casualties lost fighting at Quatre Bras on the 16th June. Compare this to the 862 men present in the 1/40th and you can see why it becomes impractical in wargaming to start fussing about the numbers. The battalions fought as units, regardless of numbers.

I will use two figures only for the light company on one flank and another two for the Grenadiers in the other flank company. I occasionally use 28 figures for a battalion. 24 for the main body of troops, upgrading the Grenadier company to 3 or 4 figures and a further 4 ‘detached’ figures from the light company are then used as skirmishers out in front of the battalion. So, although 24 figures are currently on the workbench, don’t be surprised if a further 4 appear in the course of these blog articles!

The figures were all assembled using polystyrene glue for the plastics. Polystyrene glue gives a much better bond when gluing plastic to plastic. I only use super glue on the metal officers and command figures – usually the thick expo super glue which has a bit of ‘fill’ to it and again, will give a better bond. I left the back packs off to make painting easier. It also means that I can prime the figures in grey and the back packs in black to save a bit of time when painting. With a grey primer, I wont bother to paint the trousers, just retouch any overruns. I also find it easier to paint over grey than, say, black.

First batch primed and first colours applied

After a quick clean up to remove any obvious flash missed during assembly, I fix the figures to temporary MDF painting bases using blutack and start applying the paint. I use Vallejo paint almost exclusively to paint my models. Vallejo have a huge range of colours, the quality is generally excellent and value for money is about the best you can get. When it comes to the sequence of painting I tend to work from the ‘inside’ of the figure to the ‘outside’. This means that you can save a bit of time – as you paint the figure, you can tidy up any overruns as you go.

I should also declare at this stage that I will be using Army Painter quick shade to finish the figures. So all that I need to do, is to carefully block paint the correct colours. I know that this is not to everyone’s taste and I will cover the use of ‘Quick shade’ and it’s merits in next weeks entry. So the figures above were first painted with Vallejo 70815 flat flesh for the face and hands. Next up, 70950 flat Black, for the shakos, boots and bayonet scabbards and finally, 70872 Chocolate brown for the muskets and Hair. If you are feeling so inclined, you can of course vary the hair colour! However, I tend to paint the lower ranks all the same and just vary the hair colour when it comes to the Officers, Ensigns & drummers for a bit of a change. Until I get a sponsorship deal from L’Oréal, I don’t think that I will worry too much about it….

On with the next colours…those rear plates do look big…

The final picture shows the next step in the batch paint process but I’ll pause there and come back next week to explain what colours I have used and the sequence. I’ll also give my thoughts on why the batch painting process works for me – it might help newcomers to Napoleonics start to climb that painting mountain!

If you would like to purchase any of the products used in this article, they are available from my shop and the links are as follows:

Warlord Games Peninsular Infantry

Vallejo Paint

Glues and Adhesives

MDF BASES

Sable Paint Brushes

Evergreen Plastic Strip

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Researching the Research – Batch painting the 28th Regt.

I mentioned in last weeks blog that as well as deciding on a rules set to work to, it helps to have a theme running through your figure collection. In my case the theme is the British Army at Waterloo. I do not intend to paint every Battalion that was present but I am working towards a decent representation of the units that took part. This means that I have some discipline when it comes to buying and painting units and ensures that I do not go off at a tangent. Well not much…

One of the interesting body of troops that were present at the Battle is the 8th British Brigade of Infantry led by Sir James Kempt. It was part of Pictons 5th Infantry Division and was not only in the thick of the fighting at Waterloo but was heavily engaged at Quatre Bras, two days earlier.

Lady Butlers painting of the 28th at Quatre Bras.

The Brigade is interesting to me because of the mix and variety of troops. It consisted of:

The 28th North Gloucestershire’s; a standard infantry battalion but equipped with stovepipe shakos and with yellow facings.

The 32nd Cornwall Regiment; a standard infantry battalion, Belgic shakos and white facings.

The 79th Cameron Highlanders; a Scottish regiment, green facings and of course, tartan kilts.

Six company’s of the 95th Rifles, the famous Light infantry regiment.

They were supported by the Divisional artillery, including Major Roberts Foot artillery battery of six guns.

I don’t think that you could do much better when choosing a ‘starter’ force for a Black powder army. I have already painted the 32nd Cornwalls – you can read how in these blog entries:

The 32nd ( Cornwall) Regiment of Foot

Soap Opera Painting

The 32nd Foot ready for action

So the next task was to batch paint the 28th North Gloucestershires. As usual, I consulted my favourite research sources, The Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkin, British Napoleonic Uniforms by C.E. Franklin, Ospreys Wellingtons Infantry by Brian Fosten and the most useful Mont St Jeans Website.

The Pictures on the Mont St Jean site are simply excellent to use as a painting guide:

28th North Gloucestershire Regiment Centre Companys

Now the sharp eyed amongst you will have already spotted a discrepancy. Lady Butler has the 28th in Belgiac Shakos, whereas Mont St Jean shows them in Stovepipes – they both couldn’t be correct, could they? My first thought was that perhaps they were light infantry but I was further puzzled by the red and white standard plumes ( I thought that ‘lights’ had all had green plumes) and Shako plates – no bugle to indicate that they were light infantry. That said, the Shako plates were different to most regiments standard one piece large plate. The plot thickened….

It was time to consult the internet once again and to risk diving into the murky world of forums and social media. Those dangerous habitats of armchair painters and armchair generals, button counters and lace pendants, crusty old buggers of immoveable opinions – you get the picture. In fact even as I typed this blog, I thought that I could hear the sound of caps locks on keyboards clicking on like a chorus of safety catches on AK47s….

They were wearing STOVEPIPES!!!!!

Of course I jest… just a bit. I am actually in awe of the expertise found on the forums and generally this expertise is passed on with good grace and even better, with links back to the primary references. My usual port of call is the TMP, The Miniatures page, and the search facility can reveal some fascinating information from some very knowledgeable people. So what did I find out? Well, it seems as though the 28th had a number of differences from the ‘standard’ infantry battalion. The Shako plate was indeed as shown above and not a one piece item. In addition, there was a small plate on the rear of the Shako, awarded after the battle of Alexandria in Egypt 1801, when the front and rear ranks of the 28th were simultaneously engaged, whereby the soldiers received the order “Front rank stay as you are, rear rank about turn”. The conduct of the regiment won for it the distinction of wearing badges both at the front and at the back of their head-dress.

Bottom picture shows rear cap badge and French style Knapsack

And so to the head dress. It seems that the 28th were still in possession of their Stovepipe shakos at Waterloo, although this is by no means a sure thing. Lady Butler seems to think that they wore belgiac shakos and there is at least one contemporary account that confirms this. However, there are other accounts and sketches that indicate that they definitely had stovepipes and that these were also worn by the Officers. Who knows what is really correct? I tend to go with the idea that the shakos were stovepipes based on what I have read but I am acutely aware that what I am reading is someone else’s edited research. After all said and done though, I am painting a unit to be used on the wargames table not an exhibit in a museum, so I am happy to go with the more interesting option.

28th with Trotter Knapsack….

The other piece of information that I turned up was that the 28th used French Knapsacks rather than the standard British Trotter knapsack. Once again, I have read conflicting evidence. One account claimed that all men in the Battalion had the French version. Another, claimed that it was just the Grenadier company. Both stories seem to come from an account stemming yet again from the Egyptian Campaign. It is said that the 28th ‘liberated’ a French supply depot containing the superior French Knapsacks which they then adopted as their own. It strikes me that the chances of these knapsacks lasting for nearly 15 years in service, with men coming and going, are remote but I have no knowledge of how long a knapsack would last… Finally, just to add to the controversy, I have read that the whole ‘knapsack story’ was made up by a Victorian writer.

What is for sure is that the Battalion is an interesting subject with some good opportunities for some artistic licence in both modelling and painting. I’m happy to incorporate some of these idiosyncrasies into my battalion and I’ll show you my interpretation in my next blog.

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