The final British battalion for this first phase of my WSS project has now been refurbished and is ready for the Duty Boxes. This has been a rather more challenging refurb job - the figures were from various sources - some were excellently painted, but in a style different from my own, and rather a long time ago; some were fairly roughly painted, and some were unpainted castings drafted in to fill gaps in command and provide grenadiers. Quite a bit of thought went into how to aim for a compromise style which would not clash with the rest of the armies!
Job done, anyway. These gentlemen are Webb's Regt of Foot, also known (for historic reasons) as the Queen's Regt.
A couple of units of Horse are being worked on as I write, and I have to do something about General Officers, and then that's it for now for the Brits. A group photo will be forthcoming, but not for a few weeks, I think.
Lovely work Foy!
ReplyDeleteThank you WM. They were fiddly, for a variety of reasons, so I took my time over them. I reckon there are close to 2 complete packs of Digestive biscuits in this latest effort.
DeleteNice paint job on very crisp looking figures. I am not really a fan of the "old school" look of the basing but obviously that's what you were aiming for, a bit like Aly Morrison and all his "shinyness"! I realise a lot of people DO like this nostalgic look to their armies
ReplyDeleteThank you. Each to his own, I guess. This WSS project for me is deliberately "Toy Soldiers", so the shiny varnish is all part of that.
DeleteBasing: I've been doing bases like that since the 1970s - I have reached a time in life when a number of things which I still regard as current and normal are seen as nostalgia by others! I can see that my plain green MDF bases would be inappropriate for the Western Front or Vietnam, but I've always done Horse & Musket stuff, which is pretty stylised anyway. Fashions come and go - in the context in which I game, I've never been convinced that having each unit drag around a little carpet of scenic flock would make things more satisfying - it makes rebasing a complete nightmare, and would not make the spectacle of units of 2 dozen infantry standing on a flat field marked out with hexagons look at all realistic. I've always been very comfortable with the fact that I play a game with toys - I probably even celebrate that fact. I get a lot of abuse on TMP about the horrible bases, but I wouldn't expect anything else!
Ah, managed to squeeze a little more mileage out of the old Webb's Foot tickler I see! They look nice, very good indeed.
ReplyDeleteHi Lee - yes, I'm working on the principle that if I keep on plugging it then it may become funny! Thanks for appreciative note - by my normal refurb standards, this unit took a lot more concentration (and biscuits).
DeleteAnd very nice they look too!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ray - they are hard to hide - you can see why they started putting skirmishers in green and brown, later in the Century!
DeleteA quacking job on these Tony… they really fit the bill…
ReplyDeleteYes I know you don’t need any encouragement… but I couldn’t help myself 😁
All the best. Aly
Hi Aly - yes, the old school canard about gloss varnish and plain bases is in evidence again…
DeleteThey look superb Tony, can't beat a red tunic, especially with yellow facings. Bob
ReplyDeleteThanks Bob - they came up pretty well, I have to say!
DeleteCommenting on blogs is almost as dodgy as your jokes!
ReplyDeleteIf the Brits are all but finished, who's next?
Hi Rob - in another century, my Latin teacher once reported that I was "easily amused", to which I guess I have to plead guilty as charged!
DeleteAs you say, my Brits are just about done. I have a lot of painted figures for the French army, most of them good enough to restore, and I have a decent supply of unpainted castings, so Louis XIV would be disappointed if they were not next in the queue.
In fact they were supposed to be ahead of the Brits in the sequence, but after I'd painted and refurbed a mass of grey Austrians I wasn't sure about forging ahead with grey French, so I did an experimental British unit, just for variety, as a result of which the whole British contingent jumped the queue!
It's definitely time to crack on with the French now - intention is to aim for 12-14 battalions and 8 (or so) cavalry units for Phase 1. I'm basing all this on 1703-04 period, so the OOBs for Schellenberg and 2nd Höchstädt are well thumbed. I haven't picked the mounted units yet, but for the infantry my initial list is pencilled in as Dauphin, Champagne, Poitou, Navarre, Béarn (all of which have 2 bns) and Nettancourt, Saintonge, Toulouse and Languedoc (to each of which I shall allocate 1 bn). A mix of facing colours is at least as important as historical gospel in my shiny army...
For the French, I hope to use some the excellent flags from "Not By Appointment" - I even have a plan to get them laser-printed to scale.
Beyond that I'd like to have a few Dutch units and a selection of interesting Imperial principalities. All I need is good eyesight and plenty of time!
They look tops Tony, I'd have never guessed that they had varied 'heritage' as they look so even; canard-ly see any signs of refurbishment. No wonder you are pleased with them.
ReplyDeleteRegards, James
Very good - nice job sustaining the sub-theme of "Waders of the Lost Ark"!
DeleteSome of them (mostly in the second row) have had their bases cut down in the past, to pack them closer on the stands. These boxes of old figures are a source of study in their own right, just for the archeological aspects.