War of 1812: still to come

I've been thinking about what I want when I finish my 1812 collection. My idea is that it's roughly based on the orbat of Lundy's Lane. My infantry battalions are 12 men strong, cavalry 6, and artillery 1 gun with crew.

For the British Brigades (note these are not purley historical)

2nd (Light) Brigade

• Glengarry Light Infantry
• Canadian militia (good quality)
  
• Light Dragoons
• Artillery
  

1st (and 2nd) Militia Brigade

• Canadian militia (poor quality)
• Canadian militia (poor quality)
  

3rd (Morrison's) Brigade

• 1st/8th/48th foot
• 89th foot
• Artillery (Congreve Rockets)
  

1st (Scott's) Brigade

• 8th/104th
• 103rd foot
• Artillery

Now a few explinations; this is only based on the British force at Lundy's Lane, it is not the actualy orbat, it is designed as a gaming force bassed on historica ratios.
This force give 2 regular British brigades, a Light infantry brigade, and a militia brigade, fairly repersentive of Lieutenant General Dummonds army. The two historical militia brigades have been combide into one as both where only about 300 strong. Units in red are ones which I haven't yet got.

Wargames Factor shock Troops

Well I finally got some of Wargames Factory's Shock Troops/Greatcoat Troopers. They don't seem to have decided on one name, so both appear on the box. Anyway they are good little toy soldiers, nice and future fascist looking. Individually there not the best models in the world but in groups they certainly give the right impression. I painted up 11 the other weekend, as a bit of a test run. The uniform/coat colour is based on the Great War British colours. I would have gone for grey, but my GW Cadians have grey uniforms and I wanted to clearly distinguish them. They have black armour as it looks quite sinister, with the red eyes (and is quick to paint). I gave them brown boots and gloves, to offset the colours a bit, and the white stripes on the shoulders are rank markings. White both sides for troopers, half red on the right shoulder is something like specialist/PFC/Lance-Corporal. Whole red stripe on the right shoulder and white on the left are sergeants, and red both sides shows a soldier is an officer.

My only annoyance with the shock troops is the lack of weapon options available, it is comparable to the basic Cadian/Catachan infantry box, with a flamer and grenade launcher, but obviously the shock troops don't have a whole range behind them like the GW troops do.
Anyway I gave one the grenade launcher, but the flamer is well, really pathetic. I dont see any point in the other rifle options, so I gave all mine the standard issue one.
To fill out the options a bit I did a few conversions, the first simple arm/weapon swaps, one trooper got a Cadian flamer, one a Heavy bolter from the GW scout squad, and one a cadian radio back pack.

Then I made an officer by cutting a space marine scout sword arm off just bellow the shoulder pad and gluing it on the a shock trooper shoulder pad, and then cut off the water-pistol of his other arm and glued a bolt pistol on instead, simple but pretty cool.

I've got one and a half boxes left to build and paint, but I think I need to get a few more cadian weapon arms, to give the shock troops some more special/heavy weapons. Till next time...

Empire Battle Wizard

Here are a couple of pics of my Empire wizard, this one uses the law of death on account that it's a quite shooty magic law. I can't deal with all those silly 'extra movement' spells or '-1 amour save' rubbish, I like a nice magic missile, and hence my other wizard uses the law of fire (but I haven't got any photos of him).

My Empire army is a long running... ...er... ...'project', I've got almost 1000pts at the moment. I tend do buy a new unit, maybe, once a year or so. The pair of wizards I got when they first came out in plastic ages ago. Around the same time I painted up 10 spear men.
However things are moving forward, though the post came a knightly order box and a general/battle standard bearer box, which will take the army over the 1000pts hump. But that'll be all in 2010 for Imperial reinforcements.

Plans....

I was just thinking about starting a new era, and well, this is my thoughts about which one I might choose.

Firstly, the period would need to be something that would not need too many minis, mainly for costs, but also for the amount of time it would take me to get to playable armies. Also, I would have to be interested in the history of the era. Another point would be that the era was quite different from my current ones, (people might shoot me at this point), but the American civil war is quite similar to naps. I mean in both there is a lot of forming lines and fireing volleys of muskets at each other. My top list at the moment is:

A) English Civil War.


I love it! I'm really interested in it historically and there are warlords plastics as well. But, it is still a bit muskety. And, all those pike don't translate well into skirmish games. So, no.

B) American Civil War.


Like above, cheap plastic models available, I'm interested in the history, there's Nate Starbuck. But again still basically muskets.

C) Zulu War.

Plastics, check. Interesting, check. Nice uniforms, check. Small armies, check, good for skirmishes. And of course the British can be used in other colonial settings. (or in fack I will use my 1812 British, as I'm not that fussed about exact uniforms, A red coat is a read coat.) Not only that, it good for a bit of soloing like with the zombies. But, I just can't face painting loads of Zulus, if ever get over this fear, I think this is way I will go.

But alas, I'm holding back the flood gates, or rather the debit card for now. I might start something new in the future. However, I have lots still to do on my existing projects. First, for the war of 1812, I want some cavalry and Indians for both sides I reckon about £50 should cover this. For 40k I need various bits and bobs for my Imperial Guard and some chimeras, so that's probably at least £50 if not more. Then for the space marines I need at least one rhino, plus other tanks and a couple of squads need filling out. But, top on my list now is WHFB, I want to bulk out my empire with 10 more spearmen, a 30 man unit of swordsmen, as well as a regiment of knights. God know how much that will cost, hundreds of pounds!?! Then I want some mantic dwarfs, to build my dwarf army into at least 1000pts.


But before any of that buying, I have three cannons, and about 36 men from 1812 to paint. It looks like those Zulus are at the bottom of a long, long list....

Upper Canada Militia

This is my just finished unit of the above in 1813 regulation uniform, according to my osprey book, they had green coats and red facings like so. The Canadian militia was (as far as I gather), uniformed where possible exactly as British regulars, although this was quite often not possible, as red coats could not always be found, particularly towards the start of the war. So many were issued green coats, but others just turned up in their civilian clothing.

I wanted a unit of generic unit of Canadians, and decided on green coats as opposed to red, to make them stand out as Canadian militia and not just another British unit, also it adds a different colour to the gaming table. Depending on the battle, I will use these as poor or average quality troops, whatever really. You will also probly notice they are dressed as light company with wings and green truft on their shakos. This emables them to be used as light infantry when I want. But also as just line militia as quite often militia units where uniformed and even equipt as light infantry, but with no training or expierience using light infantry tactics, they could act like nothing of the sort. So all in all a very useful wargames unit.

The officer you notice has got a red coat, I figure that he, providing his own uniform, would be able to buy red cloth for his own jacket at least.

Next time, I should have my victrix British Colonel painted up. After that I have a box of the victrix artillery waiting for me to glue it together, but that's still some time in the future yet...

Space Marine Scouts

This here is my space marine scout squad, the newest addition to the army. I've tooled them up for close quarters; half with shotguns and half with bolt pistols and knives. As the rest of my space marine armies is quite shooty. Also I have converted the sergeant, to have a power weapon, for a bit more killy-ness. Tactically the general idea would be to infiltrate and maybe assault some weaker unit, or act as a speed bump.
They are painted in the colours of my (as yet un-named) chapter, with silver amour and red shoulder pads, The cloth then has an urban style camo pattern, of codex grey base with shadow grey 'Y' shapes, and white spots in pairs.

My space marine army grows rather slowly as I only get excited about 40k when I have a game, (not that often) and then I buy a unit. This lot I bought at easter, but didn't finish paiting them till just the other week. Next for my marines will probs be a tank of some sort, although which one I have no idea (heck, I dont even have the codex). But before that I'm currently working on a 12 man unit of Canadian militia for 1812...

Tangents...

I'm sure most wargames have this problem; with so many cool mini's and historical periods as well as sci-fi and fantasy, which again have many alternates games and themes etc. It can be hard to resist buying as many as possible. Thus ending up with lots of half finished armies and projects for which you lose interest.
Well this is me all over, I now try to focus on my main interests; The war of 1812, Warhammer and 40K. True to this I haven't bough anything for anything other than these 3, since at least Christmas (8 months!). These 3 fulfill my need to kill evil orcs and undead etc, kill evil aliens and to have a proper historical setting in which to do hard core research into, refight historical battles and play skirmish games.
Saying that, my warhammer collecting breaks down into The Empire (my main army), orcs and goblins and dwarfs, For 40k I'm collecting imperial guard, space marines as well as small side armies of Tau and orks. Thank sigmar, 1812 only has two sides!
Anyway, The Tangent:

STAR TREK!

This here is a prime example, I got these off a man called matakishi, anyway he has a nice website, but I saw these thought ahhh cool, and bought them. They then sat in a box for about a year, till I painted them just the other week, but even now they are painted I don't have a use for them. Still, they look nice on the shelf, and I do enjoy a spot of painting.
They where however a bastard to glue together...