MERICÁNACH

AWI WIP: British Legion trooper

2011-09-28T14:05:00.002-04:00

I haven't abandoned the AWI by any stretch of the imagination, but I have certainly had trouble getting time and finding the motivation to get at my stock of figures with a paintbrush. This is a work-in-progress shot of one of Perry Miniatures' British Legion troopers, the Loyalist troops commanded by Banastre Tarleton. The colour scheme is heavily inspired by Don Troiani's paintings of a Legion dragoon as featured in his excellent Soldiers of the American Revolution. I still need to satisfy myself as to some of the uniform and tack details, but this is - broadly speaking - the direction I will be taking with this unit. Of course, the dragoon's mount is also unfinished and there are a number of details such as the animal's hooves and leg markings which need to be finished. I've also noticed something on the forage sack which needs some attention before further highlighting and varnishing.

The figure's base is by Renedra. It's one of their 45mm x 20mm plastic bases which is consistent with the recommended frontage for 28mm cavalry models in the excellent British Grenadier! ruleset. I plan to base all the British Legion cavalry individually on similar bases, and to add magnetic material beneath the plastic base to allow the figures to be used for both tactical and skirmish games.

Unfortunately, the figure has some light bouncing off of his shoulder, and the overall picture quality is not what I would call entirely satisfactory. Photography flaws aside, hopefully the picture shows where I'm going with this unit.

The British Auxiliary Legion In The First Carlist War, 1835-8: A Forgotten Army

2010-12-21T23:27:00.000-05:00

I managed to pick up a copy of Edward M. Brett's "The British Auxiliary Legion In The First Carlist War, 1835-8: A Forgotten Army " recently. I had read Conrad Cairns' "A Savage and Romantic War" articles on the First Carlist War in Spain (published in Wargames Illustrated), and have - of course - been admiring the Perry Miniatures' range of miniatures for the period as they are released. Browsing online one evening, I came across a copy of Brett's book which was simply too good a deal to pass up. I'm very pleased to say that the gamble was worth every penny. With this book, Brett has certainly brought something unique to the field of British and Irish military history. He shines a light onto what has been until relatively recently "a forgotten army" in every sense.

Beginning with a brief summary of the political crisis gripping Spain in the early 1830s, Brett moves swiftly to a detailed - but unoppressive - treatment of the recruitment of the English, Irish and Scottish battalions that made up the British Auxiliary Legion. The style and narrative are crisp, perhaps even brisk in places, but remain informative and cohesive at all times. The chaos of recruitment and embarkation for Spain are well-illustrated by reference to the newspaper coverage of the day, with the use of several Irish journals being particularly illuminating. Brett writes firmly and unapologetically from the point of view of the Legion - this is, after all, their story.

From the Legion's arrival in Spain, Brett begins to blend historical facts and human stories seamlessly. The Legion's first winter in Spain saw the deaths of a significant number of men from disease and the cold, and Brett makes great use of personal accounts to illustrate the logistical shambles that would be the hallmark of the First Carlist War. A medical man himself, Brett pays particular attention to the personal accounts of the surgeons of the Legion - a group of men who seem to have suffered a higher attrition rate than those in the combat arms.

The Legion's re-organization after the terrible winter of 1835-36 and subsequent combat history in Spain are also well covered. While the battle narratives are quite descriptive, they do not necessarily contain the minutiae beloved of many wargamers - there are no tables of strength returns, or exhaustive orders of battle. That said, there is plenty of detail here from which to gain a good sense of the Legion's movements and actions during various engagements. There is also a short but detailed note in the Appendices which covers the uniforms and weapons of the Legion, which will certainly be of use to the wargamer.

Overall, this is a very important book. Brett has managed to balance the military, political and personal histories of the Legion and its personnel in a very informative, readable and enjoyable manner. He has managed to provide an excellent chronicle of the trials and adventures of this curious, poorly trained yet effective expedition, and to record their very shabby treatment by both British and Spanish governments on their return from service. This book is not an introduction to the First Carlist War, nor a history of that conflict (nor indeed does it ever claim to be), but it is an excellent, thorough and insightful chronicle of one of Britain and Ireland's truly forgotten armies - the British Auxiliary Legion.

Hoskins House

2010-12-05T04:42:00.004-05:00

I was reading a workbench article on Guilford Courthouse over on TMP, and noticed that somebody had linked to the blog during the discussion in the comments section. As there was some mention of the Hoskins farmstead, I thought I'd post up the JR Miniatures buildings that I'd worked on a while back. I think Tony Harwood's work on the 40mm courthouse is lovely, and the article certainly has given me food for thought in advance of any attempt I might eventually make on the JR Miniatures version of the building.

Below are some WIP shots of one of the figures from the "State's Rights" vignette. That's something I really need to get back to.

Busy Week

2010-04-17T22:16:00.018-04:00

It was a week of early starts and late finishes at work, so very little of note was achieved in the way of painting this week. Work on the Hoskins farmstead is progressing, albeit slowly. (Sorry, Giles - nothing worth taking a picture of yet!)

Last weekend, Herself and myself decided to head down to the nearby battlefield at Manassas. The weather was absolutely perfect for a tramp around, and it made a nice change from the day job and yardwork. While maple is beautiful timber, I've certainly had my fill of it for the time being, having cut up and chopped enough of it these past few evenings. I managed to get a few shots of the Robinson House which will certainly be useful as a future painting reference.

I also had an excellent trip up to Martinsburg, West Virginia to visit a friend. I must say that the Shenandoah Valley really is spectacularly beautiful at this time of year and the drive was an absolute pleasure. I'd have taken photos, but that's a bit difficult when you're barrelling along Route 7!

Anyway, the visit (aside from being very convival) saw me return home with Mark Fenlon Miniature's excellent "States ' Rights" vignette, based on the iconic Civil War photograph of a trio of Confederate prisoners. I'm looking forward to making a start on these at some point.

I also picked up two packs of Old Glory Second Edition Confederate infantry and sergeants. More on these in a future post, but I will say that these are some of the nicest Civil War figures I've ever come across.

In fairness, a gamer can't really move to Virginia and not paint up some Civil War figures!

Finally, returning to the AWI, here's a shot of my first near-complete base of Perry Miniatures' British light infantry. The indoor lighting makes them look absolutely horrible, I'm afraid, but I didn't get a chance to photograph them under natural light this week. They're mounted on a 30mm x 40mm steel base from Wargames Accessories.

Absent Friends

2010-04-08T01:45:00.001-04:00

Three years ago, I was walking to work when I got a telephone call from my father letting me know that a former neighbour of ours and great friend of mine had died suddenly at 41.

He was the nearest thing I had to an older brother. We lived about ten minutes walk from each other. We used to go running together, play football and hurling, talk about toy soldiers and generally have a great time until he left the locality to start his new job. That was over twenty years ago.

U.S. Marines come from the most unlikely places. Some of them come from small rural areas in north County Cork.

Semper fi, Walter. Beart de réir ár mbriathar.

The Hoskins Farmhouse continued.

2010-04-07T23:57:00.009-04:00

Before I start on the washes, let's take a look at a picture of the "real thing". This is a photo of the summer kitchen building from the Tannenbaum Historic Park. As you can see, the wall timbers are quite dark (even allowing for the shade in the left of the shot), and the chinking and daubing is quite bright.

The stonework on the foundation is also a more uniform colour than the shades I used on the model, but then I wanted to liven mine up just a little bit. The woodwork on my finished model will be a bit lighter than the timbers depicted here as the Hoskins farm was only a couple of years old at the time of the battle.

“We found the rebel army,” Cornwallis recounted in his official report a few days after the battle, “posted on rising grounds about a mile and a half from the court house.” He then proceeded to describe the mosaic of forest and fields that characterized the landscape west of the county seat:

Immediately between the head of the [British] column and the enemy’s line was a considerable plantation, one large field of which was on our left of the road [Salisbury Road], and two others, with a wood of about two hundred yards broad, between them, on our right of it; beyond these fields the wood continued for several miles to our right. The wood beyond the plantation in our front, in the skirt of which the enemy’s first line was formed[,] was about a [half-]mile in depth, the road then leading into an extensive space of cleared ground about Guilford court house.

The “considerable plantation” that Cornwallis mentioned, undoubtedly the farmstead of Joseph Hoskins, is depicted in the bottom half of the 1781 “Battle of Guildford” map. Hoskins and his family had emigrated from Chester County, Pennsylvania, acquiring, in 1778, a 150-acre tract of land situated west of the courthouse and “on both sides of the Main [Salisbury] Road”. Given a relatively narrow window for construction , it seems logical that the timbers on the model ought to be somewhat less aged and weathered in appearance than those on a building more than two hundred years old.

So - what would the timbers on a two or three-year old log structure look like? What would a couple of Carolina summers have done to the walls and shingles? I was fortunate enough to find an artist's impression of the Hoskins Farm by the artist Dale Gallon, and this provided exactly the image I wanted. Coincidentally, many of the figures in the Perry Miniatures pack of British casualties for the AWI are in poses similar those in Gallon's painting, particularly the soldier carrying a wounded comrade.

Of course, the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed by now that the model doesn't have the wooden steps at the front of the summer kitchen as seen in the first photo, but instead has a large flagstone just outside the door. The model of the main house is also lacking the small window to the left of the chimney (near the British soldier with his hand on the wall) on the wall.

But then, of course, there's something of a possibility that the house didn't look like this at all.

While trawling the internet in search of photographs of the Hoskins farmstead, I came across this fascinating article "The Historical Dendroarchaeology of the Hoskins House, Tannenbaum Historic Park, Greensboro, North Carolina". In brief, the building at the site is perhaps forty years younger than it ought to be, according to a recently commissioned dendroarchaeological examination.

I also came across and enjoyed Bruce D. Bomberger's "The Preservation and Repair of Historic Log Buildings", which provided an excellent overview of the construction techniques of similar log buildings, as well as some nice pictures of the chinking and daubing which is such a distinctive feature of these log pen structures.

So, with the above in mind, and an idea of the final look I wanted to achieve, I gave the entire building - shingles, timbers and stonework - a hefty coat of Devlan Mud, one of the Games Workshop range of washes. I did this before heading off to work this morning, so the wash had completely dried by the time I took the picture. Unfortunately, I guess this evening's lighting conditions weren't as nice as yesterday, as the wash doesn't show up very well in the picture. I know it's not that easy to see in the photograph, but the building has darkened significantly with the application of the wash. The recesses between the planks, shingles and stones have caught the wash nicely.

Anyway, that's the second stage done. More updates as they occur.

I'm now off to do a bit of reading, as Mrs. Gallowglass and I will be taking a walk around a nearby battlefield on Saturday. I'm sure you've probably heard of it.

WIP - The John Hoskins Farmhouse

2010-04-06T13:58:00.066-04:00

First of all, make sure the building's had a good undercoat. I'm not going to post any pictures of the undercoating stage as photographs of a resin model house sprayed matte black aren't particularly interesting. I'm also not going to go on about washing the thing in soapy water before you apply the undercoat. Just make sure it's good and dry before you attack it with the undercoat, or there'll be tears before bedtime. I used a flat black spray from Testors (TES 1149) as a primer, mainly because I had a can of it lying around the place. That's the outfit that produce Dullcote, which is, as I have learned since moving over here, A Great Thing Altogether.

I did try brush undercoating the summer kitchen model, but the resin seemed to repel the paint. The spray primer worked very well, so I decided to stick with what had already worked when starting this project. After the primer was completely dry (I believe I left mine for over 24 hours), I glued the model to some steel bases. I prefer to hold the base while I'm painting as it lessens the likelihood of me getting thumbprints all over my newly applied paintwork.

The colours that I chose for the basecoat came from the Vallejo Model Colour range - Leather Brown for the walls, windows and doors, and German Grey for the roof shingles and stonework. I applied same to the relevant areas with a Citadel Tank Brush, diluting the paint very little. In fact, it pretty much went on straight from the palette. After the initial basecoat had dried a bit, I took a smaller brush and touched up any areas that I'd missed and tidied up any colour overlap. I then hauled it out to the deck and took a few shots to document the evening's progress before the light went.

I'm happy enough so far. Time and weather permitting, I'll attack the first of the washes tomorrow.

Hoskins House Summer Kitchen - WIP

2010-04-05T15:04:00.003-04:00

This is a WIP picture of the JR Miniatures Hoskins House model, one of their two buildings for the John Hoskins farm at Guilford Courthouse. I've included a Perry Miniatures American six-pounder gun and crew (pack AW 102) to give an idea of how the building works with current ranges of 28mm miniatures. The gun and crew are on a 60mm x 80mm steel base from Wargame Accessories, a US company.

The summer kitchen casting was generally clean, with just a few bubbles and holes. Cleanup was pretty easy. On the whole, I thought it was well worth the asking price. I bought it at a local gaming store last year.

I'm pleased with the building so far. Obviously, I still need to do some work on the chinking and daubing (the lighter areas in between the wall timbers). Paints were various colours from Reaper, Vallejo and Games Workshop.

I also have the main Hoskins farmhouse produced by the same company, but that's currently just at the undercoat stage. I decided to use the summer kitchen as a trial piece to work out colours etc.

More pictures as things progress.

Captain Anthony Singleton's section, Continental Artillery - Guilford Courthouse

2010-04-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

Currently on the bench is a Perry Miniatures six-pounder. The picture quality is a bit blurry, but hopefully you get the idea.

Work in Progress....sort of

2008-02-03T17:33:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd post up a progress picture of one of Foundry's French Maquis fighters that I've been fiddling about with. Miniatures photography isn't exactly my strong point, as you can tell, but I'm sure you get the idea. I have quite a few of these guys, as well as some of the excellent figs produced by Bolt Action, Westwind Productions and Battle Honours. I look forward to getting in some games with these guys in a few months.

I've tried to do a "five o'clock shadow" on this chap, but I'm wondering if I've overdone it.... still, I sort of like the "irregular" look it gives him, so I think I'll leave him alone. I'll glue him to a washer soon - I only stick figures onto the Games Workshop round bases while I'm painting.

The Real "Hell's Acre" - Antietam

2008-01-28T20:30:00.003-05:00

I've always been fascinated by the American Civil War. I couldn't really tell you why, exactly, but I 'm pretty sure it's my grandfather's fault. He was a great fan of westerns, and I have a vivid recollection of watching "The Horse Soldiers" with him when I was about seven or eightyears old. Then came the epic U.S. T.V. series, "North and South and I became an addict. As I grew older, I started to devour every book on the War that I could conveniently lay my hands on. This took me from large format glossy picture books to authors like Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton. When films like "Glory" and "Gettysburg" arrived on the scene and I discovered Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels", I knew I had arrived at my first historical wargaming interest. I wanted to see how these battles were fought, and to walk the same ground as the men in blue, butternut and grey. Last April, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to stop briefly at the battlefield that has seen the single bloodiest day in American history. Antietam Creek, Maryland. The picture above gives the dispositions of the three Confederate regiments and attached artillery which had been placed on a small but steep ridge overlooking a small bridge.

The next picture is a view of the bridge which is now known as "Burnside's Bridge". I took it from one of the the Confederate rifle pits. The gentleman just to the left of the large tree in the centre foreground gives a useful indication of the short distance from the rifle pits to the bridge, and the narrowness of the brigde itself. In fact, having stood on the bridge itself, I sincerely doubt that more than three men abreast could have moved across it at the same time. Bearing in mind that this was taken late on an April afternoon, you can also see that there was almost no cover available to the Union regiments as they tried to force their way across to move on the high ground.

The final picture was taken from the mouth of the bridge. You can clearly see the Confederate rifle pits under the ridgeline. I'd imagine that this was a view the men of the Union regiments might have momentarily glimpsed through gaps in a roiling cloud of powder smoke, interspersed with the rolling sheets of flame from Confederate musketry.

As I stood there, I tried to imagine standing in line and dressing ranks, the air alive with the stuttering, shuddering crash of artillery and rifles from the heights, the demonic buzzing wheeat of Minee balls as they lashed overhead while all around men fell and sergeants roared "Close up, close it up". It must have been hell on earth.

This is something that it's not always easy to get from books on the Civil War. It's one thing to read about marches, charges and retreats. It's another thing entirely to walk the ground, to see the natural and man-made obstacles and try to put yourself in the position of a brigade or regimental commander trying to move men in close order and fight them effectively, especially when facing a formidable defensive position held by a determined enemy.

What I hope to do with this blog is give the reader a snapshot of the battlefield from the soldier's viewpoint where possible. This has been my first attempt at recording my impressions of an acre of the hell that the ordinary Union or Confederate soldier endured. I hope you find it useful, and maybe even a little insightful.

Operation "Old Dominion"

2008-01-26T10:37:00.000-05:00

Right.

I'm Irish (as in born and raised there) and due to pack up and move to Virginia shortly.

There are a few reasons why I thought it might be interesting to create this blog. Once I've got myself and herself (see the other blog from my profile) situated, I obviously want to post game after action reports, some pictures and maybe a review or two, all to reflect my own take on this great and unusual hobby of mine. I also think it might be interesting to keep track of my adventures in Virginia, and to allow the gaming crowd on the Eastern side of the Atlantic to see how a new arrival to the North American gaming scene gets on.

So, what do I play? Well, I generally game with 28mm miniatures. For rules, I like (and in some cases, love) Warhammer Ancient Battles (and variants thereof), General de Brigade, Guns at Gettysburg, Rapid Fire!, A Corner of Hell, Disposable Heroes, Arc of Fire, hurling, with the occasional foray into RPGs via Castles & Crusades.

And, pretty much as I type, all of my miniatures, paints, rules and other gaming bits and pieces are being boxed up for future shipping across the pond.

Some day, someone is going to do a very interesting anthropological or psychological thesis on "The Hoarding Impulse in the Male Wargamer".

Why in the name of God do we collect so much stuff "because it might be useful" at some unspecified point in the future??

I never knew I had so much junk.....