The House On Horseshoe Bend - Completed

I finished the house. It is based, assembled and painted. the way I had it printed, it took quite a bit of assembly. In hindsight, I would have made the windows as part of the base model. But I still think I have something usable. I will put the parts up on my PayHip store later today (https://payhip.com/b/Cd5sf) as a pay what you want. The main item that will be needed for the model is some roof tiles. These can either be purchased from Warbases or made from card or thin wood. I also used brick paper for the chimneys. This could be painted on by a more ambitous painter than I am. The model is 1/100th scale and based off of the actual house. I am missing a window on the front of the house on the second floor. I forgot to check the source before glueing the windows on.

Above is the front of the house. And below is the back of the house.

I am pretty happy with how this came out.

Backside of the House

The build is moving ahead slowly. The posts of the back porch are now bricked. The porch is painted.The roof of the porch needs to still be tiled. Once this is done, I will need more superglue to start assembly. With Eastern being this weekend, I don't see getting much done. I did manage to paint all of the windows for both the sides of the house and the back of the house.

I am very disapointed in myself as I just realized that I failed to put enough windows on the second floor. There were supposed to be five across the top and I only had four across on the front of the house. I will make the back match the front. Mildly annoying but it still is coming along well.

I am pondering doing the covered well that stands near the house in the current images of the building. It was just off the back corner of the house. I'm not sure I would be able to get around to it anytime soon.

With the weekend over, I was able to get a small amount of work done. The back porch is glued in place. The rear doors and lower windows are in place. The Back porch is shingled and glued in place. But before I could do the upper windows, I started with basing. I spread a mixture of acrylic caulk, PVA glue, sand and paint over the base. I got it as far under the building as I could. If I could do it again, I would have primed the base black first before gluing the building to it. I had to leave that to dry overnight.

I still have the second floor windows, the side windows and more work to do on the base left. It is getting there.

Shingles, Porches and Windows

This is probably the worst part of the build. Getting these last pieces on this side of the house is painful. The gap between the porch roof and the building roof is a narrow fit but workable. Over the weekend, I managed to finish the front of the house.

I am attempting to figure out how the roof will be painted. Since this picture, I did complete the rest of the roof. On the front, I ran out of superglue. I used PVA to glue the upstairs windows in place. For the back of the house, I still have to brick one more support on the base of the porch. I also need to paint the supports for the porch roof. These will need to be glued in place along with doors and windows. After that, the only remaining item is the side windows. I will have to paint the remaining windows and glue the tiles on the porch roof for the back. Once this is all done, I think I will be ready to work on the base. The completion is getting closer.

Windows and a door

I managed a bit more work on the house last night. I got the front first floor windows applied. I applied a touch of brass paint to the door knob after this. In addition, I finished the second chimney. I had a harder time with the brick paper this time for some reason. I just started to tile the roof as well. I got one whole strip applied before I had to stop for the night. I didn't get a picture of the roof tiles. Maybe tonight. In the picture, you can see the porch laying upside down to the right. After the rooftiles go on, I will put on the porch. That will let me determine how much room I have for the upper floor windows. In all honesty, I think the building should be taller. Possibly by another 10mm or so. It will be tight between the porch and roof to get them in there. But it is starting to come together.

This Old House

The front and back steps came in yesterday from my printer. Also I received my package from Warbases with the roofing tiles. These made it downstairs to the hobby table. I am now trying to figure out how to paint and assemble the building. I have the blockw with brick paper on them ready for the house. I think I will have to glue these to the bottom of the building before gluing that to the base.

The initial pass was to prime the pieces black and then drybrush the base building white. I am adding Brick paper to the chimneys and the base bricks.

Over the weekend, I managed to finish one chimney and start on the second. I also started to paint the windows and doors.

I also managed to finish bricking the supports of one of the porches and painted the porch and front steps.

This week, I am hoping to finish the doors and windows and start to glue them to the building. The roofing needs to be done. I started to cut out my Warbases tiles. I am rather concerned with getting these to line up correctly.

I also did some work on the TRE Games snake rail fencing that I purchased. They are nice kits but look a little large to me for 15mm miniatures. I made one section of fencing.

The upper rail is head height with a 15mm figure. Here it is compared to my existing snake rail fances.

I may skip the 'x' supports and upper rail. I also need to sort out how I will base these.

House on Horseshoe Bend

I have received the model back from the printer. It is looking pretty good. I made the windows and doors of the house separate from the frame. The porch and porch roof & railins are separate items as well. I also had the chimneys printed separately and the foundation columns. Once he brought them to me today, I realized that I was lacking steps up to the porch. I spent a few minutes working on that and sent him a new file. the plan is to attempt to assemble the building on a base. I have sent a set of steps to a friend to print as well.

The roof will be scratch built. I have ordered several sheets of shingles from Warbases. Somewhere I have a a sheet of their 15mm shingles that I will need to find. The new building will be taller and wider than the exising building that I have. Since I have no pictures so far of what is printed, I took a screen shot from Thingiverse of a partially assembled structure.

I am working on the base blocks currently. I am attaching brick paper to them and then will glue them to the base. This is slow going.

In the mean time, an order from TRE Games just game in. I received three packs of Snake Rail Fencing and a windmill. All useable for What a Cowboy and the fences for AWI Sharp Practice. Honestly, these seem to be a complicated model. They are very small pieces of wood and the instructions are the same as if I were to attempt to build these at actual size. The windmill looks relatively easier. What I like is that TRE Games put some painters tape on the back of each sprue to prevent the pieces from falling out in transit. For such small pieces, this is great.

The next best part is the smell of the cut wood that comes with opening each pack. I really like that. I do think I will need additional sections of fencing. TRE Games was very good with communicating and sent updates from ordering on Sunday to delivery today. I am looking forward to trying some more of their products.

Mountain Lard Prep

While working on completing preparations for Mountain Lard, I have finished with fitting the miniatures to their sabot bases. I have decided to lay out the table and run a practice game with what I have. I still want to replace the plantation house with a larger one. Hopefully, I will pick up the replacement building this week.

Here is the table layout so far.

I think I will add a few more trees to the overall layout. In addition, I was not happy with the snalke rail fencing that I have. I have several sets. The first is from Terry Haney that are rather nicely based. These are great but only have enough to barely surround the farm itself. The fecing that is extending past the end of the house is some that I had made. It does not fit in with the other fencing that I have. I just placed an order from Tre miniatures for some of the fencing that they have for salw. I like the look of it in the pictures on the site but will see what I end up with.

I had purchased some additional milita figures on eBay and they arrived this week. I am not sure what I will do with these. They look far more uniform than the others that I have. I may use them for long service militia. Or just a regular unit. Will have to see.

House on Horseshoe Bend

As I close in on finishing the miniatures for the Battle at the House on Horsehoe bend, I am dissatisfied with the plantation house that I have. It is an old model from Old Glory Miniatures from their Americana line that is now discontinued. It is a great model. Well built and very robust. But, it is too small to represent one of the grandest houses of the North Carolina back country. As such, I am looking at how to build one. The house itself should be simple as it is basically a large rectangle. There are two chimneys, one on either side centered on the house. On the front and back there is a porch that extends the entire width of the property. There are five smaller windows on the front and back of the upstairs. The front of the house has four windows and a central door. The back has two windows and two doors. One door is centered with a semi-circular window above the door and another door to its right that blends in with the rest of the wall. The two windows are to the left. The house is raised on some brick supports and there are steps up to the front and back porch. There is a low railing across the front and back porch.

My thought is to make a model of this in tinkercad. I am going to divide this into multiple parts. The first one will be the main building. Then the brick supports that the building rests on. Next will be the chimneys followed by the porch roof, porch base and railing. Or so is my thought. The base building and the planking is done. I have made the front door and attached it. The windows are next. There will be 3 different designs. The first level all have the same look. The second floor also has the same design. On the two ends, there is an even narrower window that is for the attic. All are similar in design so that once I get the first floor windows done, I should be able to knock out the others based off of it.

I will shingle the roof once it is printed. The reason being that I am unable to figure out how to model shingles in tinkercad. And I am likely too lazy to learn.

This is what I have so far.

I have decided to separate out the base building from the doors and windows. I have also eliminated the roof as this will be added later.

The Mountain Lard Scramble

With a goal in mind, I managed a few hours of work to get miniatures rebased for Mountain Lard. The rebasing efort went fairly well. The bases and sabots were flocked.

Once that was all dry and set, I began to work on the bases to get them to fit back in the Sabot bases. This required a good bit of trimming. In some cases, i had to cut away part of the base itself to make them fit back into the sabot. The process was rather time consuming.

Once fitted back to the sabot, most of the figures held in rather well. I am just over half way through with the rebasing effort. I am pleased with the look. The new basing has recuced the width of my troops considerably from the original penny basing. I would say the frontage is about half of the original. I have round leader sabots for the leaders giving a number on the back to identify which leader is which. Given this, here is Colonel Philip Alston's Regiment of Militia.

Actually this is larger than force as he only have a three groups of militia. I have a three more groups to finish off. Then I have to figure out basing for a "skirmish" group. I am not sure how I will handle that yet. I also am looking at what figure to use for Colonel David Fanning. I think I will just pick on of the Provincial officers that I have so he will be in a suitable red coat. And just because one can never have too many militia, I just bought another group of 12 militia off of eBay. These probably won't be ready for the game. But I am getting closer to being ready for April.

Mountain Lard - Sharp Practice Game

Coming up in April, there is an event in North Carolina called Mountain Lard. I am going to be able to go. I would like to play some games while I am there but I thought I might run a game of Sharp Practice. I am looking at running the Battle of Horseshoe Bend that also happened in that state in 1781. The battle is a rather small one that occured on a house on a small hill amidst some fields. Over the weekend, I have been working on my Militia troops to rebase them. I have them all rebased now with texture on the small bases and they just need some flock. The movement trays is the tricky part. The figures still need to fit in the movement trays. I primed the trays black and then painted the tops. I need to add some sand and flock to the tops of the movement trays still. I figure just a couple of hours of work is left to get these ready for the game. After that, I need some kind of markerson the bases to signify which troop types are which to help the players. That and review what other things I need. (Unloaded, Shock and the like. I really don't have enough casualty figures. I have a few but never enough.

Once all of the figures are sorted out, I am going to cull through my terrain collection to attempt to sort out if I have what I need. I think I do. Most of the battle is over open fields. The house in the center of the table is the focal point of the battle where the defenders are hiding.

I am thinking about making some filler spots for when losses are raking on the movement trays. I had printed a bunch of tricorn hats from the Henry Turner miniatures that I bought. Gluing these to a stand and dropping it in the empty spots when a casualty is taken. This is the lowest priority on my list at the moment. This should be a fun event.

What A Cowboy - Project Wargaming Buildings & Warbases

I had a couple of buildings printed for me that I bought from Project Wargaming. One is the two story Saloon. It has a fully detailed interior with both floors playable. It is really nicely built with an external staircase on the outside. The supports were not as difficult to remove as I thought they would be. The front overhand and boardwalk also printed well and I was able to get the supports off without too much trouble.

The second building is the corner store. That has an angled overhang and boardwalk that the supports have been driving me crazy. The building comes with a printed base that the overhand and boardwalk are part of. It also includes options where these are separate. I am still removing the supports from within it. Hopefully, I can complete that job later this week.

I have also bought some small store buildings. These are really nice as they are basically one building with three different false fronts and multiple roof and awning options. I have printed one in the past. I would like to print a few more. Once I figure out how to keep flat items from curling up on my printer.

I also dropped an order for a few Warbases buildings that I am waiting to show up. I picked up items with two purposes in mind. To have a trading post type of settlement and then more buildings for the main town. These buildings will have a different look from the 3d printed ones that I have. I am not sure yet about using them together. Will have to see after they come in. I am looking at what I can do to base these buildings. I think the 3d printed ones would definitely need it as they will be much more fragile than the Warbases buildings.

I still have a cantina from Sarissa Precision that I need to complete as well. The Sarissa buildings seem finer with their details than Warbases. Having the variety is a good thing though. I am also thinking about some Game Craft Minis buildings and some Tre Games buildings.

Much still to do.

What A Cowboy - A School House

I have had absolutely no time to paint over this past weekend. No progress was made on the existing miniatures either. But, I did have a late night at work monitoring things and had time on my hands. I began to work on a School House for my town. I managed to make a mock up of the school house based on the one from some pictures that I found and the excelent paper model from Eric Hotz's Whitewash City. Here is what the model looks like in TinkerCad. It is just small enough in 1/100th to fit on my build plate!

I have the files sliced and ready to go. I am not sure about the roof. I was trying to figure out what to do with it. I did not put in a stove pipe into the roof. I probably should go back and do that. The roof on the Whitewash City model was a planked roof. Many of the buildings that I saw pictures of had a shingle roof. I have some left over shingle sheets from either Sarissa or Warbases that I may use for this. That could provide a nice look to the building. I made the planking effects go deeper this time into the building to try and have them show up in the scale. So far I am happy with what io have done.

One shange is that I did not include a boardwalk section in front of the building. The one I did for the small office did not work out that well. It lifted up during curing and was so thin that it broke in half while pulling it up off of the curing plate. I will need to create something for that but it will be so thin, I am looking more towards scratch building the boardwalk rather than printing one.

Anyway, it has been fun to work on. I will throw it up for free on the PayHip site once I have a chance to print it myself or get someone to.

Weekend Update

Sharp Practice - AWI

Saturday was rather productive. I made some progress on my AWI miniatures. The British Legion had some bases finished off for their first group. I went as simple as possible given the small size of the bases and trays.

I have the other group to do as well.but still it is good to have at least one completed. The infantry has one group that is at about 60% painted. Another that is 10% painted and an additional four big men and a standard bearer that are just primed.

I was able to get a few minutes to work on the bases of my provincials. One group is rebased but needs finishing. I still have plenty more to rebase and even more to paint.

The British Legion Cavalry didn't get touched. I have 8 cavalry that are six cavalrymen, a bugler and an officer. Then I have more command figures. At some point, some will have to be used as troopers. To save myself some painting, I will likely only paint 1 bugler. I also have horse holders and horses to account for a dismounted group.

Lastly for the AWI, I have all seven of my Militia groups on the new basing. I have a single group of militia skirmishers remaining. I am happy with how these are looking in formation.

What A Cowboy

For WAC, I painted up the Peter Pig Sheriff figure. I really enjoyed painting this. I am not a great painter, but it was fun painting him up. I still need to base these miniatures.

I also managed to get most of a store done for the Mexican town. I think I will change the windows. But it is close to done. I should have enough terrain now for a game on the Mexican village. I have number of buildings still in my want list at My Miniature Factory still but I have enough to start.

I also started work on a train station. I had no idea what I was going to do with the building. I decided to start with painting the brick and stonework on the building. THen I will drybrush over this. I want to wood to be painted and have the building look well maintained. I just don't know what to do with it yet. I need to google some pictures.

Painting Update

Over the weekend, I managed to get two sets of Peter Pig Character packs primed. I started to paint them on Monday night. The hats, pants and duster are done with one of them. They are fun to paint up. I should be able to finish up at least one pack this week.

I have been eyeing some terrain to purchase for WAC. At the moment, I am sold on some Warbases 15mm Cactus Creek buildings. In working our the area surrounding the town, I am trying to figure out buildings that can be part of the town and in the outskirts as well to get the most bang for my buck. But I just found a new to me company - Tre Games. They are US based which is helpful for me as postage will be less. There are a number of buildings that are of interest. Some will be of use for ACW or AWI as well. I am particularly interested in the windmill and the mill building. The mill would be fantastic for AWI games.

Using the Knuckleduster book Cowtown Creator as a guide, I am looking at making a "trading Post" and a "Hog Ranch" for the outskirts area. A Trading post would be a single business structure with some outbuildings that would offer trade opportunity for outlaws, homesteaders, Indians and others living outside of civilization. The Hog Ranch is an illicit pleasure district that would spring up outside of a town. There would be saloons and several small cabins with some outbuildings. I focused on these buildings for my pending Warbases order. Turner Miniatures just released a new set of miniatures for British Legion Cavalry. That has gone into my cart at MyMiniFactory. I need to get back to painting up my British Legion. Maybe I will do so this week. There are just two groups of Infantry that need wrapping up. Also I have cavalry that are next on the list. I paint so slowly but hopefully I can find some time to get a bunch done. I need to get a game on the table.

I started painting the bases to my British Legion last night and finished up the painting on one of the Peter Pig Character figures. It needs a little help with the basing but it is mostly there in mounted, foot and deceased form. The room was dark and I ended up using the flash. The picture is better but still bad.

I also started work on the base of one of the Turner Miniature horse casualties for the British Legion. I need to pick up the pace with the British Legion. I pushed it to the side too much lately and need to wrap this up. I have at least one more group of cavalry to do. I have five mounted troopers and three mounted officer figures. I will use at least one of the officers as another trooper. I also have a pair of standard bearers and something like 3 buglers.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to delete all of the files on the thumb drive I was using to 3D print with. Not sure what happened there. I also had some trouble with my vehicle. The radiator cracked and it was overheating. Too much money later and I have a working vehicle again. Ugh. I need more miniature time to recover from that.

Weekend Work - Mostly What A Cowboy

With the storm rolling in and all of the conflicting events that I had canceled, I did manage to get quite a bit of painting time in. I was able to glue and prime some Peter Pig Character figures for What a Cowboy. I really like the character packs. They come with a mounted, foot and dead version of the characters. The aim is to field at least four gangs of up to five figures each with a mounted, foot and dead version. I would eventually like to get some plains indians as well to complete my Battle of Adobe Walls scenario.

The first thing I finished was a World of Pratheron small adobe house. I painted the roof and the base building separately and apparently forgot how I was painting them. I may have to redo the roof as it does not match the base of the house. I really don't want to redo the roof. Will see if I get around to this.

Then I was able to work on the bank building from the same vendor. It is a really nice building that was designed for 28mm figures. I shrunk it down to 1/100th scale and had it printed. It came out great. Some of the details are a little less distinct in the print. Painting the walls, doors and floors under the overhangs was painful. I was wanting the building to come our closer to the bottom portion of the small house above but instead more of the base color came through than I thought would. I think I am happy with it as it is and will not tinker with it too much further. The interior of the buildings are just painted black. All 3 levels can be opened and they fit together with small pins glued to the bottom portion.

To the right of the bank building are two of my design. I don't know how to apply textures to 3d Prints yet so the canvas tops of the two buildings are a bit plain. I attempted to give them a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone but that beaded up and looked very strange. I ended up repainting it once that dried. The false front tent is going to get some signage for a Cafe or a Diner. Something along those lines. The print came out well. The wooden planks on the front and the lower wooden portion are visible but not as distinct as they were in Tinkercad. I may just use a fine point sharpie and draw in some lines holding down the tarps. I haven't decided yet how to finish these.

In the background you can see the Bear, Bison and wolf that I had painted earlier. I messed with the bases some. Still not overly thrilled with them but they are done enough for the time being. These are also visible in the picture of the campsite along with the single Longhorn that I have painted. The woodpile and tents are nice. For somereason, the one bedroll that is not fur is shiny. I didn't use any gloss paint on it so I don't know what happened. Hopefully I can get a can of matt varnish soon and fix it. I need it to protect the buildings I have painted anyway. The tents came out OK. The models had plenty of texture for the soft tone wash. I have a campfire to paint but didn't feel like painting it. I have several camp fires for my Sharp Practice armies but the basing is better suited for the AWI than the desert. I will have to get around to it at some point.

One interesting piece so scatter terrain that I had printed up was a hand water pump and bucket. This is a neat little item. It printed well in 1/100th even though the print was designed for 28mm models. This will be great for any yard in a town or farmstead.

Lastly, I have a house under construction. I actually have 3 different ones that I have had printed out for me. I like the model but I don't like how the first one came out. I also have three piles of cut lumber that I can place as scatter nearby. I painted it in Army Painter Pale Sand and then washed it with Soft Tone. It just doesn't look right. I have looked but I have not found anyone with a painting guide for fresh cut lumber. Any suggestions? You can see where the soft tone just beaded up on the model. I guess that the texture on the model is not workable with it.

British Legion Project

I worked on rebasing some of my militia again. I have four groups on the new basing scheme and another 8 figures on the new bases of 10. I still have a number of militia to rebase still. I will also be rebasing my Provincials. I need to figure out how to complete out these bases. I am thinking of just painting the base and then adding some sand and glue. This will need to be done on the trays as well. The trick will be to not allow it to overlap. That is the part I haven't wrapped my head around. I will just have to give it a try. I may prime the movement trays black. That way I will only have to deal with the top and outside edges.

I spent some more time and now have five and a half groups of militia rebased.

3d Printing

I got some more printing done. I think that the water soluable resin may be an issue. The definition seems softer and there is a tendency to warp. I am not sure what to do about this. I printed an adobe jail building. The base structure seemed OK but the roof is bent. The details are OK but not great on both parts. I am printing some henchman bases for What a Cowboy. Will have to see if I have the same issues.

I received the roofs for the store and the train station that a friend printed for me. His prints are much crisper in both filament prints and with resin. I have to conclude that the issue is with me.

Singling

I am pleased to note that my Singling Supplemnt for Chain of Command and What a Tanker has reached Copper status on WargameVault. Thank you all for helping with this.

What a Cowboy Items

I am very happy with the initial prints of the two buildings I made in tinkercad. The first is a large tent and the other is a test that has a false front for a store or the like.

I need to trim a bit of support from the chimney on the store tent. The one disapointment was with how poorly the wooden slats show up when scaled down to 1/100th scale. I will need to be careful when priming to not loose the detail that is present.

I have an old book from Knuckleduster called Cowtown Creator. It is a great reference for how to build out an Old West town. I am using this to build out the towns I am working on for my What a Cowboy games. It divides towns into multiple types based on the way they were created and provides a good guide for what buildings would be present.

I also managed to paint up some animals that printed out a while back. I picked up a couple of colors of Speed Paint and went to work. I am not sure how well they came out. I am thinking that the bison may need to be darker. But I am just not sure.

I have also done some small camp items as well. I printed out some small camping tents, some bed rolls and a wood pile with an axe. All of which are in process. The bedrolls came in two types - one with fur and one without. I printed several of each. The details was really good even thought the model was for a larger scale.

I started to paint an adobe house. I am not sure I like how it is progressing. Hopefully a few more drybrush coats will fix it. At the moment it looks terrible. I started to print an adobe jail last night. I need to check on the print later today to see how it turned out. I also think I have sorted out henchmen basing for my What a Cowboy games. I have henchmen based on small 13mm wide washers. I found someone who had made a base for henchmen that I was able to adjust to fit my existing models. After I print the roof of the jail, that will be the next print job.

Lastly, I found an old site that had an old west campaign that was set up for another rule set. The map is laid out so it shows settlements, ranches, small soddies (dirt houses/farms), mines and other things that could come into play. My thought was that each "faction" in the game would have their own motivation to go places and do things. Where they go, they will run into people who may oppose them that are not necessarily from an opposing faction. So I threw together a quick table to roll up to figure out what the area would be defended by. Anyway, it will give me an excuse to get some figures on the table for a few games.

Buildings for - What a Cowboy

I pulled together the buildings I just had printed. I have also started the job for another print session for my tent building today. I managed to give each of these a spray undercoat. For the "new suburbs" area of my main town, I have three buildings under construction. These are models from Project Wargaming. I also have the models for their three shop models. These are nice as they are basically a mix and match set of models that allow you to construct more than the three models that they are designed as. Other than them having the same footprint, they give you some great flexibility. They have a few other buildings that I am interested in but I don't have a large enough print bed on my 3d printer to make them.

On MyMiniFactory, I found the World of Pratheron. From them I have bought a number of models. I had a train station printed. I am still waiting on the building roof as it was not cured when my friend brought the print to work.

From the same vendor, I also bought their Small House 2 model, a Large House, a Bank and a Jail. I have not had the Jail printed yet. But the others are printed. There is also a store that I had printed that I believe I purchased from Wargaming3d. Not sure who the author was.

These multi level buildings have pins that you can add that help align the models. I have started to put those in place but they will need some more glue.

I started on a Sarrissa Cantina building a while ago. It is mostly assembled but needs work before I can finish it off.

The plan is to plaster the cantina. I will look at Rich's recent videos on how he plastered a few MDF buildings.

I have a few older painted buildings for my Mexican village. These are mostly old JR Miniatures models. I am nto sure what else is there.

Painting and Printing

I was able to start printing some more this week. I wanted some more terrain for a mining camp or prospector's camp. Between previous purchases at Wargaming3d and MyMiniFactory plus some finds on Thingiverse, I had a few things I could use. I printed a set of tents for prospector housing. Of the three that i tried, two printed perfectly. The third failed. I also printed a set of bedrolls as well, some cut wood with an axe and a few other bits of dressing for the camp. It looks good. These are drying now. I also started my large tent building. The print failed and I need to figure out what settings that I have that are wrong for it.

I also started to paint. I wanted to make progress on my British Legion troops. To that end, I managed to paint some dark green on the jackets of the third group. I painted the saddle blankets on five horses as well as three dead horses. This didn't hold my attention and I drifted over to where my What a Cowboy figures are. I managed to paint up three different casualty figures. These were very simple and are just to suggest the standing miniature to use in their place. I need to give them a wash and some basing but they are coming along nicely. Two are for the law faction that I have, and one was for one of the outlaw gangs.

My next priority is to buy another can of primer. I used up the last of my primer on the dead British Legion figures. I will likely get another can of white primer as I like the effect with the speed paints I have been messing with.

Saturday saw some more painting. The fourth dead cowboy was finished. I also worked on wrapping up the horses for the British Legion Cavalry from Old Glory. I need to use some Army Painter soft tone on them and figure out the basing. I also worked on the third group of British Legion Infantry. Their coats, boots and helmets are painted. I did the webbing but still have their cartridge box, canteen and bag to finish off. The last thing I managed was to rebase another group of milita making the total to four that have been rebased. I have to figure out what I will do for basing the skirmishers still. I have one that I want to print as a test.

I also started to rebase a unit of Provincials. I am seeing some chipping on some of the miniatures. I may need to give them another matt varnish.

Today (1/15), I picked up the prints of the buildings that I had done. Most of these are for my Mexican village for What a Cowboy. I have a large home, a small house, a jail and a bank. All perfect for What a Cowboy. I also had a train station printed. With the new primer, I should be able to get started on these soon.

What a Cowboy Tents Revisited

I am pleased with the first tent structure that I made. I still need to print it but got caught up in working with Tinkercad. So I put together a second building. This one is a false front store on a tent structure. Again, I used a Whitewash City building as the inspiration for this.

I have run both buildings through my slicer and want to print them this weekend. I have also purchased a few buildings from MyMiniFactory and will give printing those a try.

Rebasing Militia

I did something British Legion adjacent as I worked on rebasing my militia. I have rebased two groups of 10 militia. I started another. I have five groups left to work on plus a group of 6 militia skirmishers. The Big Men will remain based on US Pennies. The infantry bases are 3d printed and are a unified size between militia and regulars.

I am really liking the look of the new basing. I have my two finished groups of British Legion so based. But I have six more groups of Provincial Infantry to rebase. Some are on small washers. I still have some on my original basing which was three to a plastic square. I have not figured out what I will do for a cavalry base yet. I only have one completed unit of British Legion Cavalry. My thought was to make a sabot that will fit the bases that these are already mounted on.Who knows if that will stick.

I have six figures of a regular Continental unit painted up that will need rebasing. I want to complete these out to a group of 8. I will see if I can get my STLs from Henry Turner to match. Will have to see. I also have two groups that have yet to be primed of Georgia Continentals. Those are lower on the to do list.

If, I can get my British Legion troops finished and all of my existing troops rebased, my next priority is to print some Continental Dragoons. I want to have some as Pulaski's Legion and William Washington's Dragoons. I have a single group of 8 Militia Cavalry. I have Henry Turner's Militia Cavalry STLs to print out to add some more. I have Horse Holders for the British Legion from Peter Pig. I will need some for the others as well. Anyway. it was almost progress on a project.

What a Cowboy - Terrain

After placing an order for seven packs of Peter Pig Cowboys for What a Cowboy, I started to review my terrain. I am close to satisfied with the small Mexican village I have been building. I have assembled but not plastered or painted the Sarissa Cantina that I have. My town terrain is currently all paper terrain from Eric Hotz. While I have a large number of Whitewash City buildings built, I am not quite sold on the look. The paper terrain does provide some inspiration to make my own terrain.

In looking at the sample map from the WAC rulebook for the campaign, there are 10 areas on the map. Over a year ago, I bought some houses under construction from Project Wargaming. These were right at the edge of what my printer could manage. I have a friend printing these for me with his larger printer. These would be useful for the New Suburb area, the town and even the lumber mill. I do have some models for other buildings as well that I may attempt to print sometime soon. I have a Battlefront Rail station that would be pressed into service as well as rail tracks. I am lacking a train. I printed a mine head and have some small outbuildings for the mine area. But one thing I wanted was a large tent building that would be used for either a headquarters or an important temporary building.

I looked at what was there with Whitewash city. i found a suitable structure and wondered if I could build it in Tinkercad. I spent some time on it and managed to get something suitable.

I am pleased with it and it will fit on my printer's build plate. I found some good other smaller tents on Thingiverse and have downloaded those. They will need to be shrunk as they area all for a larger scale. If I get these printed and based, it will make a great start for the Miner camp or for the timbermill. I have some camp items for Sharp Practice for my AWI games. These should be usable as well.

This leaves a school house. I do not have one of those. I may buy a church either from Sarissa or possibly Game Craft Miniatures and add a graveyard to it. The suburb and town are still needing some attention. The rules suggest a 4' x 4' play area. That is actually great as that means I can still use half of my table as a painting area. Lets see if I will be able to get this moving.

I am looking to have a multi faction game going. I will dice for townies that are looking to defend what they have in addition to other factions looking to interdict the others. This could be fun.

Cold War is Hot Again!

Flank March Miniatures has published a set of Cold War modifications for Chain of Command. These looks really promising. They rely heavily on Chain of Command 2 as the base with slight modifications to make them fit the period better. I am keen to try these out. It has a nice array of Soviet, British and US troops available. I have reached out and run some ideas about how to change these to represent Cubans and Sandinistas as well.

I was comparing the force lists to FM 7-7 for the US Mechanized Platoon. I have both the 1977 and the 1985 editions of these documents. That provided 3 distinct formations in them all based around the M113 troop carrier. I have a base platoon for both sides ready to go for the game. I have been eyeing the files from Flank March for their Soviet Engineers and went ahead and ordered them. I think these will offer some great fun this year.

Check out the rule for yourself: https://www.flankmarch.com/downloads

Weekend Progress

Well, not much happened over the weekend. I managed to paint tyhe bridle and saddles of some of my British Legion Cavalry. I am struggling to figure out what to paint the saddle Blankets. One showed white blankets and another showed the dark green of the uniform jackets. I did get some primer on the casualties and a few of the other odds and ends. I just didn't have the patience to get any more painting done. Hopefully, I can get more done soon.

I have been thinking about two other rule sets - What a Cowboy and Algernon Pulls It Off. I have some cowboys done and painted up from Peter Pig. I am very happy with the ones that I have but wanted a few more. So I went on the Brookhurst Hobbies Website and got a few character models. I really like the character models as they have a standing a mounted and a casualty figure for the same guy. This fits in with how I view the game. The low figure count needed lends itself to having multiple figures for a given character.

For Algernon, I had settled on 1/144 scale miniatures a while back. I found miniatures for many of the Austro-Hungarian and Italian aircraft that I want. But my ground cloth was pretty bad. It was a blue felt cloth with some home drawn hexes. I wanted something better and decided to order from BattleMat Bazaar. I asked for recommendations from the Algernon Facebook group and the unanimous choice seemed to be Deep Cut Studios. They are based in the UK and the postage would have been more than I wanted to pay. The BMB one is about 4' by 5' and has 2" hexes. Now I just need to finish painting the miniatures that I have.

So far, I just has a single Nieuport 11 and a pair of Fokker Eindecker A.IIIs ready to go. I have more to finish. So all and all, not much progress and more work to do.