Ye King and thee Royal Standard for ECW in 28mm

There's just time to squeeze a few more command figs into 2012 for my ECW force...

In this instance its Charles I, by the Grace of God King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. The King is accompanied by his most loyal servant Sir Edmund Verney, carrying the Royal Standard. I put a good effort into my bases these days and Curt was kind enough to reward me with an extra 10 points in his 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I've got another 8 command figures (all foot) on the painting table nearly complete.
They will comprise the 4 command stands for my pike and shotte regiments.

Cheers,
Millsy

The Earl of Northampton's Regiment of Foote

This is the Earl of Northampton's Regiment of Foote, clad in green coats. These are mostly Renegade with a smattering of what I *think* are Old Glory bough on fleaBay. I'll play these in WECW as 16 x unarmoured steady pike with 2 x sleeves of 12 shotte. The shotte were completed for the 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

That brings me to a total of 160 pike and shotte painted over the last 6 months or so. I've got four x two man command stands on the painting desk at the moment. I'm also bidding on some more command so I can field some of the shotte seperate from their parent units as folorn hopes if required.

Finally, King Charles I and Sir Edmund Verney are all finished and based. Once they have appeared on the painting challenge they'll be on display here too. Stay tuned...

Cheers,
Millsy

Goodbye 2012, hello 2013...

So that's another year of gaming almost under the bridge. Another rather productive one to be precise, both in terms of painting output, games played and blogging activities.

On the blogging front the number of posts (57 for the year including this one) and the number of followers (now 60 and almost double last Christmas) have grown at a pleasing and steady rate. My good mate Evan and I also started up a new blog entitled Die Kriege des Zobelshuts to chart our progress on a new Age of Reason imagi-nations project. We also joined Emperor vs. Elector and had some terrific blogging fun over there too.

Painting has gone mostly to the plan I established last Christmas, although not without some quite significant diversions. I had four main projects for the year so how did I do in 2012?

Warhammer Dogs of War
Solid progress to say the least. A good number of units painted and a couple of games played to boot. See below for what got completed.

Gruntz 15mm
Whoops. Some progress made, mostly finishing up my New Israelis and the vehicles for my second force. On the plus side I made great strides in 15mm sci-fi terrain so not all bad.

Colonial Sudan
Really good progress here with plenty of Empire and Mahdist units painted plus a couple of cracking games played to boot. Cap it off with both a village and a fort in cork all complete and it was a great year for colonials.

1938 A Very British Civil War
A bit of a bust on the VBCW front. Next to nothing painted apart from a single unit of White Russians. A couple of games played here too but we're not 100% happy with the rules we're using so we're going to try again soon with Disposable Heroes.

All things aside though, I made massive strides elsewhere when there were previously no plans to do so (hapy days!). In addition to the above I managed to complete the following:

• The best part of 180 x 28mm English Civil War pike and shotte miniatures, plus rebasing all my cavalry
• A very large chunk of a 2,000 point Flames of War MW German Grenadier force for the Ostfront
• A monstrous amount of desert defences for Flames of War, used to great effect in our Alamein game
• Two regiments of 15mm French Napoleonic Chasseurs, plus a good few games with Nug
• Rebasing of approximately 80 x 28mm SYW figures, painting of another 20 and a bunch of other reorganisation

Phew! Quite a list if I say so myself... Not that I expect you to believe me without proof so here's some documentary evidence of the year gone. ;-)

 

So what's on the books for 2013? Plenty of games I hope, plus the following painting:

• Some more ECW, mostly command stands plus a unit of dragoons
• A division of Saxons in 15mm for my Napoleonic force
• The remaining grenadier platoons for my Flames of War MW German Grenadiers
• About 30 or so 28mm Napoleonics for Cory and I for skirmish games
  and finally...
• A very large number (200+) 28mm imagi-nation troops for both Evan and myself

Right, that's all that needs to be said to close off 2012. Thanks for popping by during the year and for all the positive comments and feedback. Thanks also to all the other bloggers who share their work and enthusiasm. It's a great motivator and a huge pick-me-up when tired or lacking drive.

Best wishes all and here's to a great 2013 for all of us!

Cheers,
Millsy

Millsy vs 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

So I got my first entry in at last for the 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge over on Curt's wonderful blog. I'm rather chuffed as I have finally completed my fourth pike and shotte unit of my Royalist ECW army - Northampton's Regiment of Foote in green coats.

I think I may have set my personal painting par for the challenge far too low at 500 points. The 24 ECW figs were worth 120 points on their own and I've just completed two command figures overnight, thanks to insomnia as much as anything. Both those and Northampton's foot will appear here in due course but they have a day of "grace" on Curt's blog before being published on my own.

If you're interested you can keep track of my efforts here.

Next up on the blog is the annual yearly wrap up and  a few "plans" for 2013.

Cheers,
Millsy

Rebasing for Imagi-nations complete!

Thank goodness I've finished the rebasing project I've had going on. Fully reorganised and freshly based, I now have two regiments of dragoons, one of grenzers and four of line infantry.

Head on over to Die Kriege des Zobelshuts to see more pics and read the background.

Merry Christmas from everyone at C&G!

Just like rotten old Ebenezer Scrooge and Cromwell's nasty mates from the parliamentary party, the Ogre of Europe wasn't known for his appreciation of the Yuletide. That isn't going to stop us wishing all our friends and followers a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday season though!

 

 

Take care, stay safe and we'll see you in the new year!

He painted a tiger, but it turned out a dog...

Hopefully not, but as Japanese proverbs go it seems appropriate given that I've decided to take part in this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I won't actually be painting a tiger but I will be painting plenty of other stuff hopefully.

Plans include outstanding Perry Miniatures fuzzy wuzzies for me (40 of 120 total), 28mm skirmish Napoleonics for Cory, lots of 28mm imagi-nations for Ev and myself and finally quite a few 15mm Napoleonic Saxons for me as well. Quite a pile when I type it all out...

I've no idea how much I'll get through, or how I'll fare against the other 46 participants. I'm up against some darn stiff competition and some top bloggers to boot but you never know till you try, right?

Cheers,
Millsy

Argh! Rebasing SYW for Imagi-nations...

*Sigh!*

I hate rebasing but there are times when I just knuckle down and do it. In this case at least I'm more than a little motivated by the fun Evan and I are having with our new imagi-nations project over at Die Kriege des Zobelshuts. We've been accepted into the amazing fratenity of Emeperor vs. Elector and we're loving the diplomactic side and the friendliness of it all.

The figs below are my old Front Rank 28mm SYW Austrians, now pressed into service as the loyal men of the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Coburn und Buchholz. Originally they were in units of 16 so I've had to mix them together, paint odd new figs and over paint the occasional facing to get them into an arrangement that works for Maurice. I was tempted to stick with 16s but needing 50mm square bases for cavalry meant the infantry looked a bit lost. 24s seems a lot more convincing from a mass effect point of view. These are coming along very nicely though and by the end of the week I should have four units of line infantry and one unit of grenzers all done.

I've gone with a slightly odd arrangement of figs on bases, partly because I didn't want to split the flags across multiple bases, but also just for the sheer hell of it as it's imaginary stuff all the way so nothing is "wrong" as there's mo "right". My own DIY flags here and here will really set them off too.

Ironically, I very nearly sold these off twice but my mate who sells my stuff on never got back to me so he's missed out. I'm rather flipping happy that happened as I'm not starting from scratch with my army in this case. I'm lucky that the techniques I used to paint first time round can be brought up to my current standard with a minimum of work. I can also replicate the style easily and merge new with old without issues.

On the workbench I've got a fourth unit with the grenadier company already painted (requiring only a retouch and facing change) plus the remainder of the fusilier companies. There's also some artillery crew that are finished but won't be based until the guns are ready - these are still very Austrian-looking and I'll probably just have them in as mercenaries for now.

In the background are the last of the ECW figs I've been painting recently. This will give me four units of 40 figs, a nice tidy force for decent sized games.

That's about all for now.

Cheers,
Millsy