Battle of Centerville 4: First company of Confederate Infantry complete

It was nice and bright today, so having got up very early to finish my Mexican briefing for a minister, I took an hour at lunchtime to finish my first company of Confederate infantry for the battle of Centerville.  The Order of Battle requires three regiments of three companies of nine, so this is a ninth of the Confederate infantry force.  These are going to represent a Georgia regiment.

Now, it is much more complex to identufy a suitable uniform for an ACW confederate force than for, say, a Napolenic unit because not only were regiments formed from different companies often dressed in very different uniforms but those uniforms changed over the course of the war as clothing became more oe less available.  It seems, however, that Georgia was pretty good at ensuring its troops had uniforms so I have painted mine in a reasonably regular way. I have included a number of typically Georgian elements on some of the figures, like the square gate belt buckle and black collars.

Centerville is a fictitious battle but I am imagining it to be in the mid-war period when Georgia issued its troops with shell jackets (they had worn frock coats earlier).

It is quite depressing to see how poor my painting has become but I hope that they will look OK as a bigger group!

Battle of Centerville 3: Union cavalry completed and Confederate infantry under way

I finished the Union cavalry some weeks ago and was quite pleased with the way they turned out, despite finding them something of a struggle.  Fortunately, I only have one more unit of cavalry to do, for the Confederates, and I am contemplating doing them in regulation dress with yellow kepis, as that is how I painted my Airfix ones.  They won't be done until I have finished the first regiments of Confederate and Union infantry, however. Then it will be two more units of infantry,  Then an artillery battery, followed by more infantry and then the other artillery battery.   I have now completed one out of ten units.  I also realised that the cavalry is the first box of plastic historicals I have completed.  I have done Lord of the Rings figures but never finished a box of historical figures before, despite starting many.

Having finished the Union cavalry I took a break from the ACW to do some Zulus and some figures for the 2nd Afghan War.  I was sort of putting off getting on with the Confederate infantry as I found the cavalry figures rather hard work, mainly because the Perry ACW figures are smaller than the other figures I have been painting.  Having finished some Sikhs I was contemplating doing some Afghans next but I picked up the first nine confederate infantry (which I had the base colours down on) and decided to see how much I could do today,  I moved them along quite well from that rather depressing 'just started' state to a 'well under way' state. Partly this is because we had good light today which, I realise, was the main problem in trying to paint the cavalry.  Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed painting them, so will focus on these for the next week or so.

Left: Old Perry plastics Right: new Confederate infantry

I already had a box of the Perry plastic confederates and also a box of their generic ACW troops ,which started the whole plastic 28mm craze back in 2008.  There is no doubt that the new ACW infantry are superior to the old ones (especially in things like detail on the muskets) but I was pleased to see that the old one piece (at least no separate arms to fiddle about with) figures go quite well with the newer figures, size-wise, and I have happily put them together in the same unit.  The newer figures do have more fragile bayonets, though, although they are not as bad as the Perry plastic Prussians, where I have managed to bend almost every bayonet so that they look like soft plastic figures.

Speaking of which, I went for the marching poses on this first unit as it reminds me of these old Airfix ones, which are, therefore, appropriately Terence Wise.  I have to make three regiments of 27 figures but am not sure if I will have them all in a marching position (which is very old school) or not.

I had originally thought that this unit would be Texans (the scenario requires a unit each of Texans, Virginians and Georgians) but then I came across this picture of Texans.  I really like their frock coats and black trim so I am going to do them in metal as Perry have Confederates in frock coats.  It does, admittedly, detract from the plasticness of it but there you are.  I will see if I can find them at Salute. 

Battle of Centreville 2: Union cavalry - first horses completed.

We actually had a bit of light this morning so I managed to finish the first half dozen horses for the Union cavalry.  Fortunately I only need 12 for Centreville and I have already tarted the others. I even painted the faces and hands of the cavalrymen but next will be the saddles and saddlecloths.  I am consciously trying not to paint to my best ability here but just make them "good wargames standard".

I hope to get a bit more done tomorrow morning.

In the evenings I am starting to assemble and base my first units of Confederate infantry and have done 15 so far.  Once I have finished the Union cavalry I will start painting the Confederate infantry and then base and assemble the first Union infantry. 

The biggest discovery today was that I can still see to paint if the light is good enough.  Probably November was not the right month to re-start painting again after six months off, though!

Battle of Centerville 1: Union cavalry under way

The Battle of Centerville from An Introduction to Battle Gaming

Not that I need any more projects but I have always wanted to do something around the American Civil War and have even painted a few figures for the Battle of First Bull Run.  I started my proper wargaming with Airfix ACW (supplemented, of course with the US Cavalry) back in the early seventies. A recent article in one of the wargames magazines re-fought a fictional battle from Terence Wise's An Introduction to Battlegaming using Perry plastics. Rather than worrying about orders of battle and huge forces for a historical battle I reaslised I could do the same, recreating a 'historic' battle from my early wargaming past.

Now, I already had a box of Perry plastic cavalry so last weekend while watching TV I assembled these and cur bases for them. It took me two nights but by the end of the X-Factor (which the Old Bat watched and I only glimpse at if the X-Factor dancers appear) I had them all done.  Things took longer than they should have as I had lost my plastic sprue clippers somewhere.  I think the bat has pinched them for her flower arranging!  She denies it, of course!  The horses come in two parts and the riders consist of main figure with separate right arm, hat and carbine

Anyway, this morning I lined them up to start working on their bases.  I use Humbrol plastic model filler for this and also filled some of the gaps around the necks where the two halves of the horse fit together as some of them weren't as tight as they might be.  

By lunchtime I had got the filler on the horses and bases and added a few bits of ting grave, and sand with PVA so they were ready for undercoating after I had lunch and went to Waitrose.

I didn't get back until about three but I just managed to get them undercoated outside before it got too cold and damp.  I used up the very last of my Games Workshop spray undercoat.  I was so pleased with my progress that I put down the base colours of the horses a bit later too.

After a bit of research I found that Union cavalry horses were procured centrally, unlike the Confederate cavalry where individuals had to  provide their own mounts.  The government favoured chestnuts, bays and black horses.  I will save the more exotic horses for the Confederates.  There was no tradition of greys for buglers in North America, either.

The next stage will be to shade the horses, then do hooves and eyes and the socks and nose blazes etc.  I really like painting horses and these have limited harnesses, thank goodness.