Magnificent Little Armies: 10mm Wargaming

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Here's the first Bavarian cuirassier unit. I thought I'd finish these over the weekend, but I was kept busy with other things so these weren't finished until Tuesday.

I thought these would paint up a bit more quickly because of the black horses but I think they took as much time if not more than the dragoon unit I did some days ago. The black horses aren't just straight black paint; I gave most of them a thin wash highlight of Prussian blue to add a little more richness and "sheen". The effect is pretty subtle and it's difficult to pick out in these photos. (I probably could have skipped that step, but I wanted to see how it worked in this smaller scale as I've used the same technique on 25/28mm horses.)

I used the same technique for painting the cavalry standard as I did with the Bavarian infantry. The lozenge pattern is way oversized, but it'll do. This unit is ostensibly the Weickel regiment, and I do have an example of one of their squadron standards, but it's a pretty complicated design so once again I settled on the generic blue and white lozenges (a piece of cake in comparison.)

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed in the rear view pic that I tried to give the impression of horseshoes. I know I didn't need to do this, but it wasn't all that much work and I was having a good time painting.

After this unit, I'm going to take a break from the WSS figures and build up a few more ACW units. As a matter of fact, I'm already painting some Confederate infantry; I decided to try painting three more units all at once instead of doing US and CS units in tandem. This means I've got 150 figures going instead of 100, but once they're done, I'll have a 4-unit Confederate brigade and I'll try the same thing with 3 units of Federal infantry. The way things are going, I'm thinking that doing 150 figures at a time is the upper limit to my patience; I may be better off doing no more than two units at a time (100 figures), but I'll have to see how I feel about this after I've done the big push to get two brigades ready. I must say, though, that overall I'm finding these figures very enjoyable to paint, perhaps even more than most of the 15mm figures I've painted over the years.

BTW, a DVD of Gettysburg arrived from Amazon earlier this afternoon and I had to pop it into the computer and watch the first half (research, don't ya know.) I also got a copy of Gods and Generals even though I've heard from a number of people that it's not all that good in spots. Regardless, I paid less than $9.00 for each DVD so if G&G is a real stinkeroo, I can console myself by saying it's still cheaper than going to the cinema. (There's something about the "financing available" sign at the concession stand that's more than a little off-putting.)

Until next time...