The 54mm madness of King George

[nathan]

I really like the idea of a "very achievable target."  My current plan is to finish the artillery and infantry for the British and then do the same 1 kit of each cavalry, artillery and infantry for the French and then bounce back and forth between them.  I'll probably be starting off with some skirmish gaming like Songs of Drums & Shakos. 

For non-skirmish games I'm going to start off with 4 figure infantry units and 2 figure cavalry units, which means I'll be doing things very much in a DBA style until I bulk things out in the future.  I'll have 7 "units" with my 3 kits per side starter approach and then build from there.

I have sort of a "maybe some time in the future" goal of bulking out the units to double or triple the size, but to start, i think 4 individually based miniatures will work fine for the infantry.  If I'm not doing grand tactical and the 4 figures represent a battalion you can do line, column and square formations just fine with four single figure "stands."  Some time I'll have to get some officers and colour parties done, but not at the individual unit level until I bulk them up as 4 guys with a flag won't look nearly as good as 12.

I think it's more important to get gaming as early as possible rather than continually putting things off until I have properly large units and armies.

[black hat miniatures]

Finally finished another unit of 8 Call to Arms French Dragoons.  Nice figures to paint and I'm really happy with how they came out.

Shaded the faces but everything else straight painting with a deep gloss finish.

Mike

[nathan]

Those turned out great.  I love the yellow.  I've been trying to figure out which Régiment de Dragons to paint mine up as.

The gloss finish is really growing on me.  I think after I have enough for a simple Napoleonics game, I'm going to do a more old school late 19th century game with gloss, flat green bases and as few poses as possible among the miniatures.    Probably 42mm from Irregular and Spencer Smith's Shiny Toy Soldier line.

Your lawn game is going to look fantastic.

[black hat miniatures]

I've already got a 19th century shiny toy soldier collection using my own Little Wars Revisited figures....







Mike

[von Lucky]

Nice work, even though I just don't get the look (it hasn't grown on me yet - but I'm still young ).

[nathan]

I've already got a 19th century shiny toy soldier collection using my own Little Wars Revisited figures....

Those are just excellent.  And in 54mm too.  Thank you so much for posting those pictures.  I'm definitely going to have to give this some more thought.  I'm going to finish off my two 54mm Napeonic forces and get some games in them before I start a traditional toy soldier collection, but I love what I'm seeing.

[black hat miniatures]

Test paint of an Airfix 1/32 Old Guard figure from a batch bought on ebay.

These were the very first box of figures I bought when I started wargaming in 1974....

[nathan]

I think he turned out great.  The Airfix stuff definitely holds up better in 1/32 than their 1/72 figures.

That's cool you were able to get your first figures again.  Mine would be a couple warriors from RAFM and Ral Partha for D&D in the mid 80s.