It's my honour to present to you, an actual proper unit.

 Well, it's been almost a year, (two weeks away actually) since last I did a proper full size 28mm unit, that was my British SYW grenadiers. Since then I've done some odds and ends, and these small scale skirmish things for Vietnam and WW2, and the Epic scale stuff, but they are so small they don't count.

But here I can now finally present you with a proper-sized 28mm unit. 

Drumroll, please...

A full-sized Spanish pike and shot formation, 39 figures, 15 pikemen and command, 24 arquebusiers, and musketeers. All 39 figures are unique, not a single duplicate. I started these like 18 months ago I think, did the pike center, and 1 base of arquebusiers, but then the arquebusiers fell on the floor and 4 figures fell off, weapons bent, and paint flaked off. I lost complete interest in continuing on them. But I decided to take them out and finish them, those that fell to the ground needed literally 15 minutes of work to fix. Yet it had held me back from finishing them. I then did the remaining 18 shot figures. 
The 1898 figures are lovely, my only complaint is the swords, they are kinda hard to make look good, as they are attached to some stuff from the molding process. and they don't sit very well on the belts when glued on. But the figures themself are excellent, good character without them becoming some grotesque parody of mid-17th-century soldiers. 

I still have enough pikes and command do to another pike base, but no more shot, I'll go take a look at how many avanpost musketeers I have, I might be able to use those, even tho I break half of them before they are finished painting. 

I kept to mostly brown vests/jacks, with mostly white shirts, some times I had a little colour, some of them look like they could be in cloth jacket, so I painted them with more colour, some arms are clearly jackets with cut arms, so there I again added colour with white shirt seen in the slashes. Trousers are anything from brown and beige to more colorful stuff. buff coats on the pikemen and some buff vests on the shot.

I still haven't found any clear concise info on just how a Spanish Tercio looked in the 1630s-1650s Most likely they were not these huge 2500-3000 man behemoths. But just how they deployed I do not know, if they still tried to use 4 sleaves on a pike block or if they more or less looked like the dutch system at this point. Just because it's called a tercio doesn't mean it actually looks like the original ones.
They were still called Tercios when they were 5 deep lines of just musketeers during the Spanish succession.

Anyway, I don't know what will show up on the blog next, maybe some more TYW, maybe some WW2. I really wanna get back to my SYW, but I don't know if I'll find the inspiration for it.

TYW Cavalry

Well, I managed to get a unit done within a month of last blog post, I know the blog is slow, but I'm still struggling with the output. I have worked on other stuff, so I have more half done units.

Anyway, the unit I made was a Thirty Years War cavalry unit, a mix of Cuirassiers and Harqebusers.
They will be split into their own units when Avanpost makes a standard bearer.

The figures are as you guessed Avanpost, beautiful figures, but, quite delicate, and kinda stiff and little character, my main problem is the mono poses, you can add a little variation by how you glue on the horsetails and the vizors.  So I decided to add a lot of variations, both to the horses and riders.
The only theme is read, they all got red saddlecloth, and some got a little more red here and there. 

I've also used 3 different types of buff leather, a quite yellow one, a mid yellow and a more tan/beige.
There are also dark brown leather, black leather and red leather for the various leather equipment, and horse tackle. 

The officer is fantastic! And there is so much detail on the figures, I can't do them proper justice.

These will most likely be Bavarian once I get the flags.

Looking back and looking forwards

So this is the obligatory what I did and what I plan on doing.

In my personal life,  I got my first car(cargo van)  still don't have a license to drive. I  got married and I lost my grandmother. She died just a few weeks after the wedding,  Looks like she held on until I  got married.  It was not a sad death, She was 96 years old and she died in her home of 60 years. She had a massive heart attack a couple of years back,  at her age she could not get any surgery. But she lived another two years,  eating what she wanted and drinking her delay cream.  She died in her home happy with her gossip magazines and tv. I near had any other nanny than her, she lived 5 minutes from where I grew up. So not a sad death, a natural death after a long good life. But it's strange not having her around and missing her.


The Wedding was perfect,  we were told by a fellow student of Anita that June 4th was going
to have wonderful weather,  as her husband's birthday is on June 4th and he always had nice weather on his birthday. And she was right. It was probably one of just 4 good summer days this summer.

Wedding on the terrace of the inlaws summer home.

Anitas best friend is her maid of honour  and my dad is my best man.

The day  was perfect with good food and good people, After the wedding dad in law drove us with  his  boat to a resort  where we stayed in  the honeymoon suite 

So we also had a new litter, Freke and Naisha went on  a date. And we got a litter, We kept one we named Huldra.

Huldra!

Hobby  wise, I    have been quite productive. I managed   to paint some 230 figurs for my GNW/WSS project, I still have quite a  few unpainted  laying around, but loost steam. I have also painted some 105 SYW figures, again  a  few laying  around waiting to be painted. Add some Russian and Prussian Napoleionics and a few 30YW I'm not far from painting  450  figures this year.

After an intensive first 8  months the steam started to go empty. The last few months I've painted sevral things not having finished  them, I have painted  12 French Legere, that was supposed to become a 30 figure unit,  I painted 6  troopers and 9 horses for some Chasseur a Chaval,  also not finished.

So I don't have much to show, But I have this.

Had some random  British light infantry I painted up and ordered a movement base from warbases.

I did however, have a late year project. The theme of this year's Christmas gifts was homemade.
Antia made some wonderful embroidery with the names of our nephew on and we put them in some frames. It took a long time to make, She also embroidered some Christmas oven mitts for her and mine parents.

So  I decided to make Anita's gift too.

And  Here it  is:

I made a little diorama of Anita and all of our ten dogs. The miniatures are Copplestone, with some wood glue and white flock, some random ebay  trees, A picture found online and glued  to a background. I tried to paint the dogs as the look, with their markings.  Some of our dogs are quite similar, painting it so that Denali, Beriniga and Fjellbris  look different is quite hard, Beringia at least got white spot on her neck. Some of the models got a slightly curly tail,  So I  gave those tails to our dogs I know got a little curl on them. Orca while black has that curly tail and his shoulder is very  white, so it's easy differentiate him from the other black dogs, luckily our dogs are color coded. So I simply gave  their harness  their color. From bak to front. Orca and Stjerne, Gaia and Såga, Huldra and Naisha,  Freke and  Denali and finaly  up  front Fjellbris and  Berninga.


So that's what I've done 2016, now looking forward.


I  do plan on continuing my WSS/GNW project, as well  as my  SYW.
While I'm  tempted  to do more Napoleoincs  I think   I'll only have the attention span to do  a few figures at a  time. I also want to   try yet again to do ACW,  but we'll  see.

I'm also concidering doing more Ancients and Italian wars.

But first up is a new project(new year new project)

This will be early 100 years war. This is something I've wanted to do  for some time. Mostly because of  the figures from Claymore. The style is just so  cool, a mix of leather, gambison, mail and plate. I do find the full plate kinda boring...

Now there are sevral complications. First Claymore so  far only have only have a  few packs.
They have french foot knights, crowbowmen and pavisers. Naturaly not enough  to do a proper force. So  I much go hunting. I have orderd some Front  Rank mounted MAA,  they seem  to  be about the same period. I also orderd some  Kingmaker knights. Now the kingmakers are probably a little to late for the first 20  years of the war. so my  early 100 year war project will be slightly generic stretching  from 1337  to about  1390. So some units will be post 1360(like kingmaker)  While FR and Claymore will be more very  early part. But I'm mostly staying away  from  the later Perry ranges ect.

Another problem is the style. Claymore is very animated  and very detailed. Not that many  other figures mix well.  Black tree desgins make figures that look quite good and they are for the right period of the war, but they look stiffer, less  natural  in poses. And from  the picutres they look slighter in style.

My first unit  will  be a big unit  of knights and infantry. I'll  have 2 ranks of knights in front so 24 knights and to ranks of infantry. So a big unit of 48 figures. So I'll repurpose the pavisers, by giving  them none paviser shields and giving them a few other weapons then spears, they'll become infantry.

So  that is the plan.

I hope to  have something more intresting to show soon.

Belated Marry Christmas and a  Happy New Year.

Swedih TYW Gun

Well a mix, gun is empress ECW, figures are 1st corps, the gabisons, mortar table and chest are warfare miniatures.

The gun deck is balsawood. The earth in front of the gabisons are fine wood filler, same as I now use on my bases, with a watered PVA glue and real dirt from the garden, the drit is also sprinkled on the gun deck it self. A small mortar is on the back of the deck, it's in for repares as it's wheels are on the table.

 I'm quite happy with the gabisons, took quite a few layers of diffrent browns to get them ok. 

 I painted the mortar red simply to get some color.

"Swedish" "cuirassiers"

 So long ago   I orderd some empress miniature ECW figures, mostly because of the figures looked great, As I excepted they did not get painted. As I have ZERO intrest in that period. Sadly they have been spread to the winds. Me being totaly unstructured plus the move. Ment that all my Empress ECW figures got devided into half a dozen boxes with no contol of where.

But I did find 10 of the ECW armored cav. They have have comanderd them tobecome late war cuirassiers in swedish service!

The figures are fantastic, The reigns are actualy seperate not "melted" into one that they so often are under the head of the horse. The brindle and other leather things are also much thinnner and more realistic! The horses them self are fantastic too!

To bad they are so expencvie, but I'm  still thinking  my late war cuirassiers and some of the swedish horse will be these figures. Sadly infantry is not usefull at alle for TYW. My infantry will probebly by 1st corps. I do have some, I'm test painting now. to see if I can get them well enough for me to be willing to use them. They are quite diffrent from the style and detail I'm used to. Which means I general can't paint them well enough. Also verious other makers will be used like TAG and warlord(for fully armored cuirassiers)

 I painted them in the classic swedish blue. 

 They will not be a historic unit as the figures are not 100% right for TYW, 

I also reviced my birthday gift from my Fiance, The Great Northern War Compendium, 

I'll post a propper review of it (which seems to be all the rage for us doing GNW) 

But I'll give a very brief first impression:

I've not even opened the 2nd vol. The first day I only tok a tiny lookie(I couldn't get to inspired as I still have 2 cuirassiers to paint)

I have red alteast half of the articals of vol. 1 now. So far very very good. I do have some nit picking to do. But I'll save that for full review.
What I can say if you want info on GNW this is the stuff for you. I've tried hard to find info on this war for many months and honestly the info you get in this book can not be found on line not even close! So if you want this info you'll have to sell your soul/first born/car becasue this thing is expencive!

Also info on the uniforms are great. Not only general uniforms, all the info you would want on the armies, recruiting, organisation ect. How ever, The uniform plates are generic for the whole of the war in general. If you want more spesific(especaly when units used karpus or not(for the swedes) You still need to look at tacticus.nu The owner of tacticus has contribiuted to the compendium.

I want to write more, Because I allready have alot to say about it and I'm very excited about this! But it would not befair untill I have atleast read quite abit of vol. 2. I will not wait for the review untill I've read every single artical tho!

I will say one last thing about the compendium, I was reading the rather hefty artical about the swedish army. And I read that in the provincial regiments(Those with place names in their name, So like Jönkøping ect) Spread their grenadiers out among the companies. Which came just in time, I'm about to start on some old Musketeer/footsore swedes and paint them as Björneborg. And I had planed to put my grenadiers at the right most place in the battalion(which was standard practice then and well into the 19th century) So that helped me alot! So Björneborg will get grenadiers everywhere!

More Green Swedes

 So the pike part is done, the figures are very nice to paint.

 So I did the pikes in light wood instead(actualy horse tone bay) As they stand out more, easier to see, there by making the pike in pike and shot more notisable.

 So another 8 musketeers and 4 command and this is done.

Green Swedes

 No they don't have gangrene, they just got green uniforms.
So this is the start of the swedish green regiment.
This will be the last full regiment for the swedes this time around, I'm sure I'll add other regiments later, but I do need 3 full regiments to make a battalia, Black powder lets make sevral diffrent "brigades
You can make a tercio, used in the early part of the period by the catholics. you can make a dutch brigade, which is just 3 regiments supporting eachother, and the swedish brigade system,which is rather complicated.

 These figures are 1st corps, they are very nice, but I do not like the bases, they are all crocked and od, so it's hard to get them glued to the base.

 I must say it was a joy to paint these, while the warlord plastics are perfectly fine, not having to glue the arms and hats on, and not having to glue the musket rests.

 The also take up less room on the base, the warlord figures are kinda space hungry, while these are slim, so on the same sized bases, these 1st corps actualy look more spaced, there is more space.

 I also like that 1st corps comes 8 in each blister, since my units are 8 strong, so I buy 2 packs of musketeers, 1 pack of pike men and 1 pack of command, and I have exactly one regiment, no left over.

Damn you Swedes

 The Swedes are back, and they brought a cannon with them, that's not very sporty of them, but then they are Swedes, and are geneticaly prone to cheat, steal and fight unfair.

 I did the gun in yellow just for the fun of it, Yellow is always a cool color, you don't always see a lot of.
And since I read that Swedish gunners used dark, drab clothes, I thought a little color, would do good.

 The figures are 1st Corps, they are nice, but definatly on the small side of 28mm, almost true 25mm, I put one side by side one of my Aventine figures, now aventine are big 28mm, so the size diffrence was huge, a head and half taller then 1st corps. But luckily Warlords plastic figures are closer to true 28mm, so the size diffrence is less.

 It's rather odd, because I'm used to the bigger 28mm, these seem rather cut of, when I first saw the blisters, I saw a drummer and thought, oh cool, a small drummer boy, but then it turned out all of them were the same size.

Swedes to the left of them, swedes to the right of them.

 Finnaly finished my second swedish regiment, it has taken months, I did get through 8 musketeers and 8 pike, but then  I got bored and the 4 command have been laying on my desk for like 2 months half painted. So I finnaly finished them and another 8 musketeers to finish the unit.

 Only after taking the pictures, I notised I forgot to paint the buckle on the far left command figure.

 So this is the blue regiment.

 So I have now 1 more regiment to paint for the swedes, and a unit of hakebusers, and 2-3 musketeer units, and 2 guns.

Purple Swedes

 So more swedes, this time in purple, yet another, unit that probebly never excited. I'm still missing one horse and rider to finish this unit, as all my cav units are gonna be 6 strong.

 So the goal is for each side to have one brigade, the swedes will have the swedish brigade, and the imperials the dutch brigade, on top of that, the swedes will get two light guns, the imperials one medium gun,, each side will get 3-4 cav units, and a few small all musket units. in all about 256 figures, which is a very small project for me. but I get so bored painting these figures, I need to keep it small in the start

 The unit looks ok, I'm not that taken away with these plastic warlords, the horses are actualy very nice, the face is a little let down, but the rest of the horse is very nice, lots of details ect. But the riders just are slightly od and plane, I feel they are missing some detail, riders are always the hardest figures to paint, and I asume to sculpt. One of the figures here were metal, the swedish cav box comes with 2 metal figures, and the metal figs are just better then their plastic commrads, they have more folds in the clothes, sharper details, ect. I think it's the same sculpter, so I don't know why these metals are better then the plastics

And were we have some metal cuirassiers, again they are much better then plastic cav.

 So after I paint the last figure in this unit, I'm gonna finish one of my pike and shot formations, it still needs 8 more musketeers and 4 command.

Atleast they are colorfull.