More Cowboys... and Girls

I Just finished painting and basing 27 new old west figs last night... most all from Knuckle Duster miniatures, Gunfighters Ball line.  I've enjoyed painting the old west figs, and this group is extra special as one of the factions I've done up is the James Gang with Jesse, Frank, Cole and Jim Younger, Charlie Pitts and Clell Miller.

Why is that special, it's because I live here in the Midwest in Liberty, MO where there is so much history from the old west.  I live about 10 miles south of the James Farm where Jesse and Frank James grew up and where Jesse and his family are buried (Kearney, MO), and right near where Jesse committed the first daylight bank robbery in the U.S in Liberty.  Frank James is buried in Hill Park in Independence, MO just south of about 10 miles.  We are also about 20 miles north of Lee's Summit, MO which is where Cole Younger settled after his bandit days and serving some time in prison, and became an arguably upstanding citizen and was eventually buried, along with his brother Jim.

Wyatt Earp and several of his nemesis 'Cowboys' even passed through or lived in Missouri briefly.  John Peters Ringgold (Johnny Ringo) and his family moved to Liberty in 1856 when he was about six years old, and later moved to Gallatin, MO in 1858.  He was a loosely related cousin to the Younger brothers through an aunt.  Ike Clanton was born in Callaway County, MO.

There's a great little shop named 'James Country Mercantile' (http://www.jamescountry.com) on the North West side of the Liberty square.  They produce and sell an assortment of period clothing and civil war reenactor uniforms and hats (for both sides and genders), as well as other old west goods like cups, plates, pots, etc., replica black powder guns, ammunition, and reloading supplies, research material, pen and ink quill sets, etc.

I've got four more packs of six waiting to be prepped and painted.  Hopefully one day I'll get to use them in a game.  Definitely a cool line of figs and really great detail on most.  Wish I had better light for the pics, but here are the results... Funny or sad how they look better at arms length or on the table than close up shots, lol.

The James Gang, Jesse and Frank James, Cole and Jim Younger, Clell Miller and Charlie Pitts

Pinkertons

Tom Mclaury, Ike Clanton, and Billy Clanton

California Kate, Maria Louisa La Pistola, and Belle Starr

The Duke Brothers

Sharpshooters Batt Ridgely and Long Shot

Town Doctor and Mysterious Dave

Turkey Creek Johnson and Texas Jack Vermillion

Odd Figure Bill

British Colonials

This will be a bit quicker post as it's getting later and I want to get this on here.  SO...

At the Kansas City 'Recruits' gaming convention that is held every year in Lee's Summit, MO, they have a silent auction.  It's a great place for gamers and hobbyist to sell some of the excess stuff, projects they've given up on, or just things they are no longer using and want to make room or make a little money to put towards the next project.  Also perfect to grab some choice stuff to add to your own collection, usually at a pretty good price.

At one of the silent auctions I bought  small box full of stuff and in it was some slightly primed British Colonial soldiers for circa 1870's to 1880's.  They were wearing puttees, so figuring they are perfect for East Asia and the 2nd Anglo-Afghan war period (1878-1880)... or even for Gaslight SciFi games.

I got them primed up right and started painting.  Many would exclaim that that era should be in Khaki uniform, but as I read up on it, there were still units like the 51st Regiment of Foot and 59th (2nd Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot wearing scarlet frock jackets with their blue trousers and puttees.

51st Foot after the battle of Ali Masjid (Nov 21st ,1878) in red tunics and blue trousers, with puttees.

Print of the battle of Omdurman (Sep. 2, 1898)

Some units weren't quite ready to transition to the Khakis, however, which would be a lesson learned as red is whole lot more visible in the barren landscape than Khaki.  For my purposes, red really looked nice and iconic and although in putties, I can use them for some games in other areas of the world.  Anyway I'm taking artistic license.  Same with the collar and cuff colors.  I went with green, which was for Irish regiments (although they apparently did include Welsh and Scots troops)

So here are a few pics then of my newly finished troop of 25.

Drums were interesting to paint but turned out good.

15mm American Civil War Reb Cavalry

Here's something I've been wanting to get worked on for a while.  Some American Civil War (ACW) 15mm figs... specifically Confederate (Reb) Cavalry.  We've talked in our gaming group about a larger sized cavalry engagement sometime, which would be fun to do, but think all the guys are gonna have to contribute some figs to get that done if we want to have enough on the table.

I've got a whole lot of packs of Old Glory 15mm figs, so could probably paint for a couple years to get them all done... come on retirement!!  And I also don't do as much during the warm spring and summer months as I'm usually outside working around the house or enjoying some libations on the back deck while watching our dogs and the neighbors cows.

For Cav units the horses and riders come separate, so you can either mount the figs then paint or do them separate.  I like the latter and prefer to paint separate.  To do this I mounted horses to tongue depressors, four or five in a row and that worked pretty well for painting.  I just alternated some color variations of red-brown, dark brown, gray/white etc, and then added some white blaze the the chest, head, or forelegs. I thing painting the tack and harness took a bit more time.

 For the soldiers, I needed a way to pick them up and handle them, and rotate them to paint.  I got a piece of 2x6 wood, drilled out a bunch of holes to fit dowel rods into, cut the dowels to about 4 inches or so, and wallah, a nice holding block that I could pick out a figure, pick up the dowel, paint on the figure, then put it back the dowel back in the block and move to the next figure.  I did the painting all more or less assembly line doing like items as I went along, ie. all skin, all hats, all shirts, all pants, all swords etc.

The harder part was that the pack of figures I used had about half regular uniformed Cav soldiers with pistol and carbine, and the other half of riders irregulars with flop-hats, civilian jackets, pistols and shotguns.  The uniformed guys were obviously a bit easier as all the uniforms were pretty much the same.  The irregular Cav needed some imagination for color combinations to vary the jackets, pants, hats, and chaps, so not quite so quick.  Afterward I added yellow piping for the uniformed Cav's leg stripes, cuffs, collars, and hats, and even managed some arm stripes to give a bit of rank to a couple of the boys.  Gotta keep some Sergeants to keep the discipline when the butter-bar lieutenants loose it.

I finished with basing everything up, and all in all I like the way they turned out.  Whenever you do something for the first time there's that learning curve to figure out what you like and the best way to do it.  I'm looking forward to getting some line units done, but still have several packs like this of Cav units.  I might have gone a bit overboard when I first was buying them. Hmmmm... Nope... Maybe?

WWII Landing Craft

I bought some slightly oversized landing craft, three LCVP's (Landing Craft Vehicle/Personnel) and three Amtrac LVT's (Landing Vehicle Tracked) a couple years ago to do some WWII Pacific beach assaults or landing scenarios.  They were made by BMC and are supposed to be 1:32 (vs 1:54 for 28mm), and would be used with the wonderful little green Marx plastic army men of our childhood.

The LCVP's are actually pretty close to being normal and look good, as I think they actually held about 28 troops, and the alleged scale ones by Warlord only hold maybe 10 or so with bases.  The LVTs definitely look a bit on the large side.

I finally got around to painting mine up.  Still have one LCVP to do.  Decided a fairly plain color scheme, and applied Vallejo Extra Dark Green with an airbrush over black primer for the base coat.  I then went back and dry-brushed Vallejo Green Grey to tone it down and weather it.  Simple black treads on the LVT's, and some Vallejo Gunmetal Grey on the guns.  Nothing fancy.  I may add a few extra details like the ropes, inboard life preserver rings, and rope on the back deck.  I really liked the effect and will likely go with that combination for my allied jungle uniforms in the future.

I did buy a blister pack of Warlord LCVP Machine Gun crew (4 figs) which is perfect for two LCVP's, so guess one will go without or go just one gun crewman on two of them.  I'll get those painted, drill out the stub-ups on the back end where those should go, and get them mounted in the near future.  A quick couple evenings of painting.  Need a few decals though to put some numbers on all the vehicles.

Here they be:

Amtrac LVT's

LCVP's

 

INTO THE OLD WEST!

Been wanting to expand my figs to allow me to game some 'Old West' action.  Our gaming group uses the Baron's rules set 'Fist Full of Lead' (FFOL), and several of his follow-on expansion sets to FFOL, which are quick and fun, and good sets for skirmish gaming.  I personally enjoy the original FFOL for the Old West scenarios as it's totally straight forward without adding a lot of extra dynamics, conditions, special abilities, and other stuff.  In five minutes you can be starting a game and easy enough for all to easily absorb and get into.

During one of the local KC gaming conventions, RECRUITS, I bought around 12 Figs and some game pieces the Baron was selling at his vendors table along with his rules sets.  Most of the figs were from Knuckleduster Miniatures (Knuckleduster.com) Gunfighters Ball line.  It has a really nice line of Old West figs that are nicely made with clean lines and really good detail, and look good.  You'll see some figs and poses in their line that might look a bit familiar, as if they were modeled straight from characters from some of your favorite silver screen movies.  I love this.  The price is really nice too, and even cheaper if bought in the 'Faction Packs', consisting of around six figs for about $18.  I'm definitely going to be getting more of this line.

I got Wyatt, Morgan an Virgil Earp, Doc Holiday, Bat Masterson, Curley Bill Brocius, Frank McLaury, Johnny Ringo, Calamity Jane, The Dame With No Name, Sally Sureshot (not from Knuckelduster), and the Peg-leg Jailer.  Been spending some weeks (months?) intermittently painting on these, as well as another project (1870s-1880s British Colonial... which I'll post on when their done).  Hardest part it seems is coming up with a paint scheme on how I want these to look.  The old west wasn't exactly known for a lot of style.  Lots of earth tones, denim, dust, buckskin, muted colors, etc.

The Earp's are always depicted in all Black, but I wanted to have them stand out a bit, so went with a dark Blue with black washes which gives it the dark look with blue highlights.  I'm happy with them.  The Bad guys got a bit more of the cowboy look, denim, reds, leathery dirty chaps, but each with a dash of bright color, like red sashes or bandanas.  Bat Masterson and Doc were a bit more well dressed, suits in gray and splash of color for Doc.  Peg-Leg I figured was older guy, conservative, subdued.  The gals all seemed to have their share of buckskin, especially Calamity.  Sally needed a shot of feminine pink... don't get lulled into thinking she's cute and innocent, she's Deadly with her scoped rifle... Bam!  You'll be DRT (Dead Right There)!  And lastly the Dame... a sexy feel, but what do about that serape she's wearing?  Solid color, easy to paint?  Nope, figured a bit of time in Mexico might give her a southwestern multi-colored flare.  Just have to finish basing them now.

I also had several figs, my confederate vets and southern sympathizers, I'd painted before.  These boys don't like no northern authority, or actually any authority at all.  They'll follow the Captain to hell and back.

Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil Earp

Bat Masterson, Peg-Leg Jailer, and Doc Holiday

Curley Bill Brocius, Johnny Ringo, and Frank McLaury

Sally Sureshot, The Dame with No Name, and Calamity Jane

The Captain and his boys

Southern Sympathizers