1/32-scale frontier militia

I couldn't make the club this week but I did manage to finish some painting. These are the second half of an Armies in Plastic 1/32-scale box of FIW troops. 

I painted these guys up as frontier militia for the rebels. My thought was that this took advantage of the figures' otherwise antiquated FIW gear. They can also fill in the ranks of larger militia units or act as scouts.

Overall, these are nice enough figures. They have an interesting variety of gear and poses and there was only one annoying bent rifle barrel.

The sculpting on plastics can sometimes be a bit muddy in order to deal with the undercut issue of metal moulds. These guys turned out okay, I think. Washing really helps add some depth to the figures and the paint tones.

Up next: I'm turning my mind to the British with eight foot figures underway and then six mounted.

1/32-scale Rebel Dragoons

A couple of weeks back, I posted some 1/32-scale FIW troops that I painted up as AWI rebel dragoons.  These were plastics from Armies in Plastic.  My plan was to add in a few mounted (since most dragoons would fight dismounted) to flesh out some units for the upcoming Tricorne set of rules.

I finally have the mounted figures done. Man, 1/32-scale horse are big figures! These fellows are also from Armies in Plastic. I nipped the sides of the tricornes off to get a soft cap that seems more in keeping with the illustrations of American dragoons.

The horses were a mixed bag, in terms of painting. They look better in person than in the pictures. Overall, I'm happy there are so few cavalry in the AWI!

I have spray primed another six horse for the British dragoon units and these are next on my painting list. I also have a few generic foot left over that I may paint up to stretch out the British dragoons if needed. I keep hoping for a unit list for Tricorne so I can focus my painting.

Up next: I can't make the club this week but I will finish another eight-man unit of frontier militia for the Rebel side. This is another paint job conversion of the FIW set I bought.

1/32-scale AWI Americans and Cthulhu Pandemic

We had seven guys out to our first club night of October. Terry brought out Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu which was a fun adaptation of Pandemic. We managed to beat the Old Ones one time out of two.

Dave also hosted Dennis, Chris, Jonathan and Chen in a game of Kings of War. This was still going on when I left. We heard the sad news that Larry Jeselon had passed away.

I've been painting again. I picked up a box of 1/32-scale Armies in Plastic "Any Regiment of the AWI troops. There were 20 figures in the box. I used 13 to make rebel unit, with the uniform loosely based on the 5th Pennsylvania.

The only changes I made were to nip off a bayonets. The rest of the figures I reserved for a possible British unit. Like most plastic boxes, there were a variety of poses (meh) so I broke them into a back line (above) and a shooting line (below).

The figures were nice enough. Not as much detail as metals (hence the simpler uniform I chose). I primed white, painted, sealed, washed, sealed again and based. There is more contrast in the whites (showing off what detailed there was) than shows up in these pictures.

Below you can see a comparison with an All The King's Men metal figure (left) and an AiP FIW figure (right). 

Up next: I have three horsemen on the go to flesh out the rebel dragoons I painted last time.  I have cut down their tricornes to softcaps. I also have more of the AiP FIW wars fellows that I'm painting up as western frontier rebel militia.