Tuesday, May 2, 2017

BMC revisited.

My painted inventory before march.
About 6 years ago, I (re)discovered my BMC American War of Independence (Yorktown) figures my daughter had bought for me a long long time before.  This was through reading a blog by 'Uncle Thor' and finding out about his 'toy soldier art' and 'OMOG - One Man One Gun' rules for non-war gamers' war games that I could at last see how I could get some fun out of them.



Shortly after that their numbers were increased by a friend unloading his small inventory of BMC figures. Not knowing much about the figures, I painted the 'mitre-hat' guys as British Grenadiers, forgetting that at that time they rather favoured the fur cap, for some reason.  All the same, I made no attempt at reproducing the elaborate designs, or even just the 'GR' cypher on the fronts of this headgear.  The tricorn guys became US Continentals.

Back in about March, a friend ('Jacko' - he of the Painting Little Soldiers blog spot) was visiting Colorado (USA) on business.  There being a store near where he was staying he bought a couple of packs.  The larger of the two - a very generous gesture - was for me.  

In it were a cannon and mortar (now I have two of each), a whole bunch of guys with the metal front mite cap and ... eleven chaps with fur caps!  How was I going to 'fit' these into my existing forces?  I wanted the forces to remain more or less equal, but I am fairly sure the Americans didn't go for the mitre caps all that much.  Nor did I want 'all British' on one side; and a split force on the other. 

That left this solution:

Grenadiers of the Saintonge Regiment



The fur cap guys became French grenadiers of the Saintonge Regiment.  The choice of unit was based on the flags available. as much as anything.  The flag bearer was made from one of the 'hatted' guys with a pistol (the castings of the pistols was pretty poor, but that can be dealt with).

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There being just 12 of these fellows - one of them stopping a fast moving object - they got the mounted officer.



A splendid little 13-figure company.






The dozen or so other troops became, to develop the theme, what they were supposed to be: German mercenaries.  I painted them up as Brunswickers of the Prinz Friedrichs Regiment.


Fusiliers of the Infantry Regiment Prinz Friedrichs
 I rather regret using the flash when I took these pictures, as it rather tends to bring out the worst in the figures.  But, otherwise,  I very much like the way these guys turned out.

Their numbers have been eked out to 15 figures by the 'Lafayette' (hatless) and 'Cornwallis' figures, and, of course, the obligatory flag bearer.  

Along with the cannon and mortar in the pack came some artilleryman, one of whom is carrying a powder barrel. Much appreciated: I didn't have one of him already.  I painted these guys up that they could be used for any army, even the British - the gunners' uniforms being so similar among the belligerents. For the ordnance, rather than paint the whole piece, I just painted the gun barrel brass, and the tyres and mortar my special gloss-black-and-silver mix for burnished metal.  The same formula was used upon the musket barrels and swords of the figures. 


Having painted these new guys up I held a grand review of all the figures, as if arrayed for battle.

Grand review...
There are enough gunners to provide all pieces of ordnance with a crew of 3.  But I've kept them and their crews, but for 3 red-coated gunners, sufficiently anonymous to represent artillery for either side. With roughly 45 figures a side overall, I reckon there is more than enough for der kleine kriege...
These forces are not designed for big battles, but for something more in the line of 'affairs of outposts'.  I dare say light troops and irregulars would be better suited, but I'm more than happy to see grenadiers, lini infantry and fusiliers take up these duties...




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14 comments:

  1. Great work.

    I undercoated mine but they still languish on the paint table untouched in a month or so. I suspect they shall be Hessian simply as I Blue, Red and White need a good dose of green to complete them.

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    1. I painted these up from undercoat to their present condition in around about a week, maybe a little more. I'll have to give them something of a workout shortly - have a couple of scenarios in mind... Many thanks for these. I thought the least I could do to show my appreciation was to get them painted up in a reasonably quick time.

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  2. Fantastic work Ion! Impressive as always!

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    1. Cheers, Brian. I was especially pleased at how the Brunswickers turned out. The French were going to have white gaiters, but they just didn't look right, so I gave them black instead.

      Now, I have been eyeing a small contingent of metal Napoleonic horse that came through the mail a while ago. I'm wondering whether to paint up the lights as the Red Lancers of the Guard...

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  3. I like the look those. Different somehow....

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    1. Kind of 'Army Men' style rather than the traditional collectors' 'toy soldiers' or the wargamers' model soldiers or figures. The figures are pretty crude, and I don't like some of the poses, yet they have a certain character of their own. Painted up, they don't look so unhandsome after all!

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  4. I feel the same way about these figures--a bit fugly, but still nice in a very toy-soldierish way. I have used them to re-play the Blasthof Bridge scenario from Charge; the only real problem was the lack of cavalry.

    I solved this by using the AWI Cavalry figures by AIP. They also have a toy-soldier look, and match the BMC style pretty well. For AWI purposes they are really not correct, however, as they all, unfortunately, wear tricorns. This could have been remedied by replacing the tricorn head with a fusilier head. Given their toy soldier look, I decided the game was not worth the candle, and just used them as-is.

    I have to decide now whether it's worth making limbers out of BMC Civil War limbers, basically by removing the ammo chests. We'll see!

    Best regards,

    Chris Johnson

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  5. Hi, Chris -
    I agree that the lack of cavalry is a little unfortunate, but I'm not so very concerned, as my small forces are to be used for very small 'everyday' actions around patrols, reconnaissance, raids, foraging expeditions and what not. Your seem to be designed for rather larger scale actions!

    I have an idea you have a blog of your own, but can't locate it.
    Cheers,
    Ion.

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  6. I got a lot of mileage out of BBC in my 54mm days. The ACW figures and terrain saw a lot of action as did the Mexicans from the Alamo (mostly painted as early War of 1812 US).The Texans were strange anatomically but contributed body parts and a Few figures.

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    1. One of the things about the BMC figures - one can take some really dramatic pictures of them! I have a little scenario in mind that I hope will give me something of the sort...

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  7. No, I don't have a blog. I'm retired and thus have the time, but I don't know enough about how to go about it vis-a-vis links, photos, etc. to try it.

    I've been advised there are a couple of "Chris Johnson"s in the hobby in the UK; one of them may have a blog, although I haven't run across it yet.

    Best regards,

    Chris

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    1. Seems I was mistaken after all! Setting up a blog spot is (or was) pretty simple, though I'm not sure now where one might get good advice.

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  8. These BMC figures are splendid and paint up very nicely - especially yours!

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    1. Thanks for your comment, Tim. I was particularly pleased with the look of the Brunswickers. High time I knocked together a small OMOG action...

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