It's Time To Base My Figures - Ick!

 

Pettigrew's North Carolina brigade (recently based)

Click on the pictures to enlarge the view

It happens to all of us, we accumulate our painted figures but we do not get around to putting them on bases and adding all of the terrain, static grass and tufts, etc. The unhappy consequence is that we finally reach the point where the dreaded basing of figures task can no longer be ignored so we just have to pitch in and do it. This happens to me frequently.

So this time I had accumulated 49 stands of figures that needed to be based and I knew that I couldn't put the task off any longer. It helped that I have another play test of my Pickett's Charge game coming up, so I wanted the newest units off of the assembly line to get their terrained bases.

I had finished painting 6 Confederate regiments of 30 figures each (5 stands per regiment), 2 Union regiments, 7 skirmisher stands of U.S Sharpshooters, and 2 brigadier general command stands. The amount of figures painted was done over the past month or so, although I had painted two Union regiments and the sharpshooters this past week in anticipation of the play test game. The play test game was originally scheduled for last Friday (yesterday in blog time), but the weather forecast was for six inches of snow at Keith's home town so we thought it prudent to reschedule the game for this coming Monday.

A week's worth of figure basing.

The US Sharpshooters:

US Sharpshooters have been attached to bases, the bases have been terrained,
but still require static grass and tufts to finish them. These figures are made
by Armies In Plastic.

I received another batch of seven Cigar Box Battle Mats a couple of weeks ago and I am keen to lay these out on top of Keith's three 6ft by 32ft tables (although we are "only" using 24ft of table length on the three tables) and get a better idea of what the terrain will look like for my convention games this year. Here is a link to the web store of Cigar Box Battle Mats. Highly recommended!

Cigar Box Battles

Here is a picture of a Confederate brigade (3 regiments) treading across a game mat by Cigar Box Battle Mats. I like the way that the mat and the figure bases blend in together.

A North Carolina regiment in Pettygrew's Brigade

So let's see what Old Fritz based this past week. First the two new Union regiments:

The 14th Brooklyn Regiment of the First Corps

A Union regiment. I forget which one, but they all look the same. It's probably 
a unit from the First Corps, which was shattered during the battle of Day One
on July 1, 1863. Some elements of the First Corps were deployed on
Cemetery Ridge at the time of Pickett's Charge on Day Three.

Buster Kilrain figure. You just know that some company would make a figure of the fictional character in the movie "Gettysburg". Buster reminds me of the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in that in each scene of the movie, Buster gets wounded in a different part of his body and then he doesn't have the good sense to hurry up and die so that we don't have to hear him called Colonel Chamberlain "Colonel Darlin' " one more time.

Oh no, it's Buster Kilrain!

Buster Kilrain, as played by Kevin Conway in the movie "Gettysburg" which 
was based on the book "The Killer Angles".

Now before I get skewered with criticism, yes, I do know that the 14th Brooklyn regiment was not on Cemetery Ridge during Pickett's Charge on Day Three of the battle of Gettysburg. However, it is such a colorful looking unit that I just had to paint the regiment and add it to my Union forces. No company makes such a figure in 1/32 scale (54mm) as far as I know so I simply took some ordinary Union figures and painted them with red trousers and red kepis. I'm assuming that my version of the 14th Brooklyn is not wearing its gaiters. 

And now for some of the Confederates:

I really like the animation of these plastic toy soldiers from Classic Toy Soldier Company,
or "CTS" figures. That running/right shoulder shift pose is simply Fab.

Pettygrew's North Carolina brigade. They did not carry the state flag, but I 
wanted a little bit of variety in my Confederate regiments and I didn't 
want to have all of them carrying ANV Confederate battle flags.

Project Update

I believe that I am nearly finished with the painting of regiments for my Pickett's Charge war game. I have six Confederate brigades of three regiments each; and six Union brigades of three regiments each. That works out to 1,080 painted figures. This doesn't include the various mounted officer figures and extra artillery crewmen that I have painted thus far.

Upcoming Little Wars Convention

The lads will get their first "official" workout at this year's Little Wars convention April 18 - 21. 2024 at the Weston Lombard Hotel in Lombard, Illinois. See link below:

Little Wars Convention Information

Figures that I have commissioned from Speira

I have commissioned Speira Miniatures in Sweden to make these three Confederate prisoners in the iconic photograph after the battle of Gettysburg. I don't think that they will be ready in time to appear at Little Wars, but they should be ready and painted and on my game table at Historicon in July 2024. Presumably, the figures will be made available to the public on the company's web store in the near future. You can order Speira figures printed in almost any scale or size, including 15mm, 28mm, Perry scale, 1/32 scale and more.

Play testing the scenario

We have been play testing the Pickett's Charge scenario and purpose-made rules at the expansive man cave of Keith L. A lot of progress has been made on the rules that I will use at the conventions. The rules will be on one sheet (both sides) of a standard letter size paper and are designed to be easy to learn and fast to play in a convention setting. I don't like to have complicated rules for convention games because I want the players to be able to understand them quickly and get on to the task of moving figures and rolling dice. This way the players can focus on their tactics rather than trying to figure out the rules.

Our next play test on March 25th will have all 18 of my Cigar Box Battle Mats laid out on the tables so that I can get a better feel of what the game will look like at the conventions. I will post pictures of the game probably several days after the play test game.