Painted up two British Generals today for my Sharpe's Practice collection. Tomorrow I will tackle the Queen's Ranger's foot troops I have, and then I will only have two units of British regulars to paint. Then I will have to buy some more dudes to flush out what I think I need.
For the ruleset Sharpe's Pratice, skirmishers are grouped by six's, so here is my next unit. I based these off of the 63rd Regiment that fought down in the southern campaign, and while I know they had green facings, I have no idea what headgear they actually wore. Based on a painting I went with this particular head gear. I had a choice of three different head styles. These Perry miniature light troops come with that option.
A friend of mine has a passion for the AWI and for quite a while now has talked about it but not moved forward with it. So about a month ago I gave him a gentle push off the cliff of indecision and told him I would help and paint one side. He chose the Patriots, which was fine with me because I think I'll have an easier time painting the British (or so I thought).
So after a discussion about what scale and what ruleset we'd like to start with we landed on 28mm and the ruleset to start with in Sharpe's Practice. I wanted nothing to do with plastic, I just wanted metals so I could get straight on with painting them. We decided Perry Miniatures had the best line and choice for the period.
Last week our order arrived and I got stuck in right away. Bayonet charge style! We are going to start with the Southern campaign as this provides us with lots and lots of small skirmish type battles that are suited for Sharpe's Practice.
I've painted up this week 16 Cavalry of the Queen's Rangers Hussars and Dragons. Here are a few photos.
... the Hussars
Using the excellent book from The League of Augsburg "For Ireland and King James!" I picked a regiment out that caught my eye. Viscount Kenmare's Regiment also known as The Caps. As per the book they may have been Fuzileers and supposedly all the men wore Grenadier caps. As to what they actually wore who knows, but it was a nice change of pace from painting floppy hats and added a bit of color to my growing force of little tin men.
Unfortunately Warfare Miniatures only make models with the whole fancy grenadier kit, but that's okay I made it work. The book illustrations are superb and hopefully my attempt at painting the models will bring them some justice. I also lament not having a steady enough hand to paint the fancy lettering on the caps, so it was just plain yellow.
In the end though I was happy with them.
Cannons aren't exciting to paint, but everyone needs one! Added a couple to my growing floppy hat war collection.
I finished up three BE2c's for my growing British WWI aircraft collection. The BE2c's were used for reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and bombing, and initially gave good service. It's inexorable decline began when the Fokker monoplanes grew in numbers and their pilots found the BE2c an easy victim. Newer designs slow to get to the front required these to stay in service longer than they should have been allowed at the expense of it's service men.
The last unit for my commission done. Mounted Crossbowmen for the Saga Condottieri Army. Hopefully they'll bring their new owner glory on the battlefield.
