Colonel Shuffle's Mississippi Boys in 28mm

Colonel Shuffle leads his Mississippi Boys forward.

 

A while ago a purchased what was then the latest of the Osprey 'Blue Book' rulesets: Rebels and Patriots. Trouble was I didn't have an appropriate collection to game with it, so when I chanced upon the Perry's Battle in a Box set featuring the ACW, I ordered it. This, in spite of the fact that I already have full 6mm and 10mm ACW armies! But I thought that the new Perry's would fit perfectly into the R&P concept.

Rebels and Patriots encourages you to come up with 'company' sized commands under a specific leader (not that we gamers pay too much attention to what is often a core concept of some rules). So, I've come up with an initial company, "Colonel Shuffle's Mississippi Boys"  Why not?

The odd thing about these sculpts is the while the Union figs have what might be called a 'fine, upstanding' posture to them, the Confederates look like they are shambling along with an ape-like lope. A message somewhere there from Perry's?

The ape-like lope.

I've painted up about 30% of the box, with more to come.

"Be there anyone man enough to tangle with Colonel Shuffle? Well? Be there?"

Freikorps vs. Spartacists, 1919

A vintage image of Freikorps FK Bund Oberland, Munich 1919.

I'm always on the lookout for projects that will reduce my Mountain of Lead. I have three criteria for these:

• A new project has to reduce the Mountain,
• It can't involve buying any new figures (or at least, purchases have to be kept to minimum),
• I can't be too fussy about mixing figure styles, etc. The idea is to get stuff out of storage and onto the table.

I was recently reading one or two books on the German Revolution/Civil War of 1918-1922, and it struck me that this would be a likely fringe project to develop. Unlike the Russian Civil War the internal conflict in Germany was of 'low intensity', even if it was very widespread. No masses of tanks or heavy artillery!

The Münchner Spartakus-Arbeiterkollektiv 'Rosa Luxemburg' rally to the cause.

The items I already had on hand (all 15mm) were:

• About 80 or so old (very old!) late WWI Germans,
• An equal number of late WWI British,
• A pack of c. 40 newer late war Germans,
• A pack of c. 40 newer late war British,
• A pack of c. 50 newer 1940 French Tirailleurs,
• A few odd armoured cars, artillery pieces, etc.

Freikorps on parade. Front-to-back: FK Heybebreck 'Werwolf', FK Sturmabteilung Rossbach, FK Bayerischen Schutzenkorps (FK von Epp).

I had already painted up the old British, with the idea that I could pair them off against the Germans for 1916-1918 actions -- but the thought of making all those trench features, etc. put me off. The German Civil War wouldn't require that.

The rules I plan to use are a modified version of Xenos Rampant (Osprey).

A couple of captured British armoured cars lead the Lancer squadron of FK Lichtschlag. 

I converted the Spartacists from the 1940 French. I studied the cut of their uniforms, and apart from the puttees (it seems just about everyone wore those) the uniforms appear very similar to civilian wear. I kept one-third of them in their Adrian helmets (army surplus), cut down another third to resemble Homburg hats, and used green stuff to put the last third in worker's caps.

The workers surge foward ...

led by their banner-waving Shop Stewards ('Shops Steward'?)

The FK armoured cars will be 'put to good use' against them.

Unfortunely I'm short of Spartacists, so I'll have to fill out their ranks with the British -- justifying that by saying they're using hoards of captured uniforms and equipment. Or have the front shifted to the Baltic and let the Brits represent Latvians, etc? I don't want to get too precious about this!

Japanese Hand Cart

Fellow gamer Craig M. was kind enough to remember his gaming friends during a recent visit to Japan, and gifted me a 28mm model hand cart for my samurai collection!

This lazy stiff is about to receive comeuppance from his old 'Ball & Chain'.

The 28mm figures are from Essex. I find that even a couple of packs of civilians go a long way in the period.

WWII Naval : Additions to Pacific Fleets

Below are some additions to my 1:2400 Pacific War fleets -- Japanese and USA. 

Existing assets can be seen here.

BBs & CA are by GHQ, CVs are by Panzerschiffs. I'm holding off painting the CVs for now, to allow for subbing. I don't tend to paint the Panzerschiffs, in any case.

Additions to Pacific fleets

    L to R & Top to Bottom:

    CV Akagi

    CV Kaga

    CV Hiryu

    CV Soryu

    BB Yamato

    BB Nagato

    CA Atago

    CV Lexington

    CV Hornet

    CV Enterprise

1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada - Part I B: Royal Montreal Artillery

The Royal Montreal Artillery, c. 1837

Fellow gamer Doug H. encouraged me to paint up some proper British artillery for the campaign rather than 'sub in' the poor Prussians.

The Royal Montreal Artillery is a pretty obscure volunteer unit, and I can only find one or two references to it -- but that just means that one can take as many liberties with it as one likes. 

The below are based on the comtemporary Madras artillery. Thanks Doug!

This gun crew looks on askance as their battery commander
steps forth to damn the Rebels, good and proper.

1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada - Part II: Les Patriotes

This section covers my newly completed Patriotes army; or the 'Rebels', or 'Les Habitants', or whatever you prefer. For those who are not familiar with the 1837 Canadian Rebellions, I guess they can best be summarized in wargaming terms as 'the Alamo meets Les Miserables'.  

One of the goals behind putting this mini-collection together was to help reduce my mountain of lead, but as is often the case I actually had to buy some new figures, since I had nothing suitable on hand for Les Patriotes. In the event I ordered Blue Moon Texians from Old Glory, waited three months for them so show up, and set about converting them.

Fellow gamer Doug H. provided some helpful advice here for making the proper touque headgear. "Cut the top half off the heads of most of them, plop on a blob of Green Stuff, pull it up in a point, and flop it over to one side. Piece of cake."

So I went about doing just that, along with applying a primer coat to get going and ... they looked exactly like a gang of Garden Gnomes! Like, The First Regiment of Gnomish Foot (Noddy's Own), complete with 'Big Ears' as Colonel-in-Chief! 

Normally things like this can be corrected as you start painting, but as I added coats, trousers, headgear, etc., it just kept on getting worse and worse. Night after night I sat at the painting table crying 'Make it stop! Just make it stop!'  When I got to the muskets things got a bit better. Now they looked like really serious garden gnomes. 

After doing some additional research I discovered that I wasn't really that far off; the touques of the day could be quite voluminous articles, and flowed all over the place. A final staining toned done the colours some and drew the figures together, and so I ended up not altogether unhappy with 'Noddy's Own'.

1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada - Part I: British Army

British Army on Parade - Lower Canada, 1837

This 15mm 'mini' collection has an interesting back-story.

I had first thought of digging into the mountain of unpainted 15mm Napoleonics that I've managed to accumulate in order to create a 1st Afghan War collection. I went so far as to paint-up the poor HM 44th Foot, and to get the Osprey campaign book. But when I realized how much I would be taking on, to say nothing of the terrain and the hordes of camp-followers that would be needed, I lost heart.

Somewhat later, after reading a book on the 1837 Rebellions, it occured to me that what I had would suit this campaign just fine, plus give me chance to try creating a 'winter' collection. I was also partially motivated on seeing the army list for this campaign in Osprey's Rebels & Patriots.

Assembling this collection will consist of three parts, the first of which is completed and you see pictured here:

• British Army (two command elements; four battalions of foot; regiment of horse; two sections of guns)
• Rebel Army (five 'battalions' of Patriotes; two sections of guns)
• Appropriate Terrain.

1st Royal Dragoon Guards

These Dragoons are obviously not in their winter campaign kit, but what the heck ...

Four Battalions of Foot

Gen. Sir John Colborne

General Sir John Colborne -- our Gallant Conquering Hero.

Lt-Col Wetherall

Second-in-Command Lt-Col Wetherall.

1st Foot

1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots).

34th & 66th Foot

The 34th & 66th Regiments of Foot.

71st Highlanders

The 71st Highland Light Infantry. All right, they're kitted out as Highland Foot, not Light Infantry. And they're not wearing winter uniforms appropriate for North America! But I was going with what I had on hand and didn't want to get too precious about the thing.

Artillery

Two sections of guns limbered up. I'm substituting Prussians, because that's what I've got.

Next up will be the Patriotes, which should be fun to paint. I also need to create some additional bases for groups of figs. Rules will be 'Rampanty'; based on either Rebels & Patriots or The Men Who Would be Kings.

It could be said that this bit of Canadiana doesn't offer up much of a fair fight. But it seems to me that the Patriotes in Lower Canada gave a better account of themselves than the Metis, and at least as good as the Fenians!

Cheers!