The American Civil War - An Odyssey In 6mm - Part 5

There has been a bit of a gap between parts 4 and 5 of my 6mm American Civil War project, and it was caused primarily by basing.  It must be noted that I had hit a rich seam of enthusiasm just after part 4; born from a sense of success having completed the first elements of the army, and watching ‘Gettysburg’ a couple of times.  The finished troops even having the good fortune to be fielded in battle, where they were ably assisted by some of Andy’s troops to make up  the numbers and subsequently lost.  Twice.  But no matter, rich seam it was.  I began the task of painting more of the tiny little Yankees, focusing on infantry skirmishers, dismounted cavalry, more cannon and some command bases.  When I had finished the painting section after a short while (weeks, not days) the list had grown to include the following:

9 bases of infantry skirmishers (enough to cover  2 regiments)

8 bases of dismounted cavalry (enough for 2 regiments)

3 command bases (2 lower and 1 larger CO)

4 artillery bases of various cannon

3 infantry bases (another infantry regiment)

And 3 cavalry bases (another cavalry regiment).

30 bases later and they were all stuck to little bits of MDF masquerading as bits of a far off battlefield, and had had the required amount of sand PVA’ed to them.  Then came the problem.  To complete the basing I had to paint the sand-covered MDF brown, and as I applied paint brush to sand it started to come off in chunks.  I watered down the paint and went again.  And again.  And again.  And having failed miserably threw the brush down, and the models went into onto the back burner in a cupboard out of sight. 

All work on, and thought of, ACW ceased.

But then one day in the last week my eye was caught by the front of an old Wargames Illustrated which happened to have ACW and Gettsburg upon it, and suddenly the memory came flooding back.  They came at a fortunate moment as well.  I had painted some 28mm Napoleonic, and 19 models later was finding it a little demanding.  A few 28mm Germans had been done as well, but they were only few, and I hadn’t the enthusasism to paint any Flames of War, apart from a couple of Panzer IV’s to test my airbrush.  So it was I thought I’d just start on the30 bases, and see where it ended up.  For some reason, be it the brush, the thickness of the paint, and simply the level of patience I managed, the bases were much easier.  And now I am just a layer of matt varnish away from completion of those troops (smug mode fully engaged), and I’ve even started on another battalion of infantry; the zouvres and their skirmishers. 

Varnishing will have to wait until it gets warmer; I’m not risking my work on a white-out, but for now I’m happy, and contemplating buying more troops.  I’ve my eye currently on another 5 infantry regiments, along with some more skirmishers, and some limbers for my guns, and possibly some more zouvres because I like the colour scheme and the variation is refreshing.  I do still have enough horsemen spare for another regiment, and enough guns and crew spare for another 7 guns(!), but I’ve no need of them just yet.

Painted Army size:

6 infantry regiments

3 mounted cavalry regiments

3 dismounted cavalry regiments

6 artillery

3 command bases

The 30 bases just after having the dark brown applied (in some cases I did a second thicker coat to make sure it was all covered), and then the lighter brown drybrush.

Contrast - the two sides are the darker brown alone, with the middle having the lighter drybrush.  Sometimes seems quite pointless where I'm covering 90% of the bases in flock anyway, but never mind.

Infantry regiment and skirmishers.

Dismounted cavalry.

Biggest command base.