More Spanish Terrain Pieces

Spanish Farm House for DBN

I decided it was high time I gave the 95th rifles a Spanish farm to defend. This is several hovels pieces put together to make a BUA/Fortress for DBN.

Here you can see the courtyard with ample space for an element of infantry to defend the town. The tree is made with a German railroad modelling product call sea moss. I simply sprayed it woth adhesive and sprinkled on some turf flock and voila, instant tree. The final product is flexible so I don't know how much handling it can take, though hopefully having it as part of a larger terrain feature will help protect it from breaking.

The exposed brickwork was painted by using a thin white wash which collected in the textured brick and gave the appearance of mortar. I had to be careful not to get the black wash I used for the stucco in the brick work, but I thought the end result was quite good, and more importantly was quite simple.

Looks like a nice place to live, bigger than my house at any rate.

ACW and AWI Distractions

I decided to get my desk cleared off and so have been taking care of some older projects before continuing with the Renaissance Venetians. First up are some Perry 25mm plastic Union Infantry. I was a bit disappointed at first with these, as they are a bit chunkier than I have come to expect from the Perrys, and the detail is not as crisp as I would like. With that said however, I thought they painted up quite well and more importantly, the final product has made me excited to try some more. Now I just need to find a good set of skirmish rules....

To facilitate a more uniform look for the federal troops I only chose figures with the sack coat (at least I think that is what these are called). This was my first foray into the ACW period so I was on a steep learning curve to try and get the uniforms correct. I did some custom cutting as well to maximize the number of troops I could get from the box in a firing line position, converting marching pose to holding a rifle horizontally like the figure above. The officer in the back is holding a pistol from the cavalry set.

A birds eye view of my first Federal company. I have another on the way with shouldered arms, but they will have to wait for the completion of the Venetians - unless I get impatient!

The firing line from Johnny Rebs point of view.

Next up the American War of Independence in 54mm.

I got sucked into the 54mm scale by a demo game at Nashcon by All the King's Men. Though I would like to have purchased their artillery, I ran out of funds, but found this Imex plastic set on sale at my local hobby shop for $8. They were marketed as Americans, but as the uniform was the same for both countries, I simply painted them as British. Above you can see a gunner stripped to his waist coat in the heat of working the guns. I replaced the plastic rammer with a metal rod which I inserted into the sponge and rammer of the plastic original.

Fortunately the Imex set came with the same proportion of 6 crew to one gun that is used in the All the King's Men rule set.

I thought the sculpts of the plastic figures was actually superior to the metal ones, though mold lines in this Imex set were not well placed, hence many a crewman with a mold line down the middle of his face. I have found plastic mold lines very difficult to shave or file well.

The commander. I did some work on the gun with green stuff to make it look more like a Brown Bess musket. It was originally sculpted with a long barrel without a supporting stock, which looked more like a long cavalry carbine. Maybe the sculptor knew AWI weapons better than I, but I could find nothing for the period that looked like it, so I changed it.

Here he is in all of his distinguished commanderly glory. The scabard of his sword was replaced with flattened floral wire which ended up working quite well.

Venetian Culverin

Just finished basing the artillery element for a DBA - RRR or DBA - Hx Venetian army. The Culverin and accessories are by TAG, the crew are customized Ral Partha, and the Gabions were provided by Barry Scarlett of Murray Terrain.

This element is an odd assortment of scales, but they all seem to work with each other. The Ral Partha figures are true 25mm figures. The barrel of the canon is 50mm long which scales to about 11-12 feet in length, making it a large culverin, but by no means the largest that were used in the Renaissance period. The gun is designed for use with 28mm figures, but as artillery in this period was so variable it works quite well. The gabions are really meant for 15 - 20mm figures, but in comparison to the Ral Partha figures they end up scaling out to about 3 feet high, which though not as large as some, seems a reasonable height for gabions on top of a sloping earthwork.

Thanks To The Assault Group!

The Assault Group was nice enough to let me have this marvelous Ottoman Renaissance canon in exchange for a painted sample. This is a truly marvelous piece and I can't wait to show you all the final element. The crew are almost done and I will be mounting it behind some gabions and earthworks, so it should make for an eye catching element.

Thanks again to Pete and the folks at TAG!

More 25mm Ral Partha Condotierri

Above are two elements of pikemen in 3/4 plate. These were simple to paint and a nice break from the more complex slashed sleeves of the crossbow and blade elements. The DBA-Hx rules allow for two pike elements, but the DBR lists only allow pikes for a very brief period, the Venetians relying more on Spanish mercenary sword and buckler men it appears.

A view from the front showing the manly beards of the pikemen.

Probably one of the few home grown units from Venice; the mounted arqubusiers.

Venice was famed for importing stradiots, most notably from Albania. I have seen some nice illustrations of severed heads decorating their saddles, so I suspect they had a fierce reputation. They are listed as light horse, but they functioned in close combat as well, not being afraid to use their long lances.

Venice can have two elements of stradiots. These were some of the few castings my friend Terry did not have in his collection, so I had to order these online. Fortunately the 25mm renaissance line is still being manufactured by Great Endeavors, though they are not advertised as available unless you look really hard! Here's a link:

http://www.greatendeavours.co.uk/colonials/order.php

Crazy for Artillery

Shown above are some Ral Partha conversions. Unfortunately Tom Meier never got around to sculpting artillery for this line of figures so I have been forced to improvise. The artillery piece below is an absolutely magnificent piece from the Ottoman section of The Assault Group's renaissance line. I agreed to paint this for them in return for the casting so a very generous offer from TAG indeed. I have put on a base coat and will work on making the barrel a nice metallic brass soon. The carriage will be unpainted wood, with the possibility of painted red wheels.

The TAG artillery comes with a great selection of accouterments as well. The powder barrel is particularly nice and corresponds very closely with descriptions I have read. The gun barrel itself is 50mm long, so a very large gun. In the true 25mm size of the figures, that translates into an 11-12 foot long barrel. This is actually well within the size range of renaissance pieces and makes it appropriate for a large culverin.

I am also working on some artillery for my 54mm British AWI. This is a very nice plastic set from Imex, which includes a well designed howitzer. I have replaced some of the fiddly bendy parts with metal and added some green stuff to make the muskets more accurate for British infantry (This was actually marketed as a colonial set, but the uniforms are the same).