The American Civil War - An Odyssey In 6mm - Part 4

Let there be many tiny men with little brightly coloured flags above their heads; and there was!  There will be a bit of flannel below (you know the sort) but the upshot is that I have managed to finish – paint, base, flock, flags, varnish – a whole bunch of my 6mm Union troops, to a total of 5 regiments of infantry, 2 of cavalry, and 2 batteries of cannon.  And I’m pleased with myself.

The whole 'danged lot before the additon of flags.

Infantry.

Artillery.

Closeup of the first fully completed regiment - a Wisconsin one, the others are a second wisconsin, 2 from New York, and finally one from pennsylvania.

Cavalry.

In truth the 1^st regiment of foot was finished last month, and it provided a blueprint for me to complete the rest.  Having spent part of a holiday to Cornwall painting an infantry regiment I decided that I had enough to start the basing process.  This went through the following steps:

1. I stuck the models to the MDF bases using Army Painter super glue (very strong stuff – a good purchase).
2. Then I added a layer of PVA glue onto the exposed MDF before covering with fine sand.  My choice of brand in this case was Baccus’ own product.
3. With the sand very dry I painted it, and any bits of the soldiers metal bases that needed it, Hull Red (Vallejo) paint – a dark brown.  This I had problems with because the sand began clumping and it was very hard work.  Advice was sought from Andy, and I started significantly watering down the paint and dabbing it on, letting it “flow from the brush onto the sand” were his words, and it mostly worked.
4. With the brown dry I then used Kharki Grey (Vallejo), a lighter brown, to give it a bit of depth with a dry brush, and painted the edges of the bases Olive Green (Vallejo).
5. Baccus were then the source of my flock; bright green and applied directly after a coat of watered down PVA glue.  I tend to put a lot of flock on to cover most of the base after seeing Michael’s English Civil War troops and the effect he’d managed there.
6. Flag time, and the Baccus flags (seeing a theme here) were applied, with a national flag and a state flag for each of the command bases.  These were stuck together, and to the flag pole using PVA glue, another Andy tip which worked better than my efforts with pritstick!
7. Finally an Army Painted Matt Varnish over the whole ensemble to dampen down the shine from the ink wash, and give the models some protection.

With this many models finished I think it may be time to take to the table soon.  5 regiments of infantry isn’t much of a match for Andy’s current Rebel horde, but if his zouvres and a few commanding officers (I haven’t managed to do any yet) swap sides it begins to look a lot more even.  The next ACW bits on the list to be made/painted are some command bases, skirmishers for the infantry, and dismounted cavalry, all of which I had put off due to not having a sufficiently sharp knife to start separating them from their tabs!  The blades are now bought, so maybe they’ll have their chance.