Repainted SYW Austrian Artillery

It's not often that I repaint something from scratch. I'm not saying that I'm now (or ever will be) a painting "top gun", but I get by and most of my old stuff I can stand to look at. Except these artillery pieces.

What I was thinking I don't know but I do remember being quite pleased with them at the time (2006). Most likely it was the heady rush of having finished something the night before needed and heading off for a big bash with the lads.

Regardless, now that I've rebased all my other SYW stuff I simply had to do something with these, so I stripped the guns and retouched the artillerists, plus based them all to the current standard. I think they look a damn sight better but tell me what you think...

2006...

And 2013 (with pretty poor lighting unfortunately)...

With the exception of four lonely spare cuirassiers lurking at the back of the box I'm now down to (a LOT of) bare metal for our imagi-nations project. Tomorrow we try a small blue-on-blue game of Maurice - our very first. Can't wait...

PS. Enough distractions! Get back to the painting challenge Millsy, you lazy dog. ;-)

Cheers,
Millsy

ECW Royalist command stands

These are the last of my ECW for a while. These are Bicorne and Renegade 28mm miniatures and represent colonel’s colour parties from the regiments of Talbot, Northampton, Apsley and Rupert. Talbot’s colour is actually the first captain’s colour
(the colonel’s colour is pretty plain by comparison).

I'm currently working on some 28mm Napoleonics so stay tuned for those.

Before I forget, on behalf of all the lads here at Canister & Grape we wish you all a safe and prosperous new year and plenty of additions to your respective lead mountains!

Cheers,
Millsy

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