Searching for Rufus Dawes

Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin charges towards the railroad cut, every foot of ground costs another casualty!

After watching a  documentary on Gettysburg, I was rather taken with the exploits of the 6th Wisconsin and their brave commander, Rufus Dawes. 

I painted up a few good candidates but decided on a figure created from a Redoubt miniatures body and a Steve Barber head. The pose reminds me of the sequence where the regiment charges the railroad cut.

The Iron Brigade starts to bulk out with figures from multiple manufacturers.

 

Dark Tone on Union Blue

As I was working my way through these Iron Brigade figures, leaving a lot of colours for a black wash. I thought what if I could kill two birds with one stone and just used Dark Tone dip instead. So I got my old tin down off the shelf and blew  the dust off it. The Dark tone wasn’t as dark as I thought it would be, even after a good stir. However, the shading looks good on the trousers and that was the main thing I was worried about. 

Everything from gun, leather equipment, frock coat and Hardee hat needed a black wash, it just seemed like a no brainier to use the Dark tone. Hopefully being an older tin it might actually dry in 24hrs rather than 84...

 

This tin is another one of my ten year old collection. It  wasn’t used as much back in my ‘Celtic warband’ days, so is in better condition today.
 

The Long Awaited Iron Brigade

Well I’ve finally done it after twenty years of messing around, I’ve started the Iron Brigade! I’ve just dived straight in and with a large brush and wet brushed all the leather work with a black leather paint. I have collected many figures for this over the years, far too many in fact. I imagine some will end up as Confederates.

These large figures charging with their out stretched bayonets are so long, I’ve had to order some deeper bases for them. An extra 10mm on the front so they can be placed in March column without stabbing each other to death.

So far there are a mix of Steve Barber, Redoubt and 1st Corps miniatures with a Foundry casualty figure thrown in for old times sake. My old Foundry Iron Brigade figures aren’t quite historically accurate so this lot will replace them. No shiny scale epaulettes on these new guys. 

The Steve Barber heads are a good match in size for the actual IB heads of 1st Corps, the two should merge together well in the regiments. I’m not sure how many I will get done before I go off onto another project, but I have easily enough figures for five regiments, basically the whole Brigade.

 This looks quite bright at the moment but black washes will tone it all down.

Raising the Standards

The other night while reaching for a pot of paint, my great mutton fingers caught and snapped off the fighting fish standard of Bard. He wasn’t very happy let me tell you. Anyway, I glued it back with plastic glue but it was never the same. It held okay but I just knew it was a matter of time before it went again. Knowing my luck it would be in the middle of a game.

So I thought I would just try a little model surgery and drill out the pole. I have tried this sort of thing before and always made a pig’s ear out of it. This time I took a smaller drill and made a pilot hole first. This worked a treat and the larger drill bit didn’t eat through the outer plastic. So job done and everyone’s happy again, including Bard. Plastic kits have been a real game changer but they do have their weaknesses.

 Back up and running! Stronger than before, the fighting fish banner flies again!

The Thick Blue Line

This blog has become a bit of an Army Painter diary... The remaining figures in the Steve Barber regiment pack have been finished. 

These Union regiments are very fun to do as there is minimal uniform reference to look up. Once you know the basic colours it’s just a case of blocking them out. This is a new tin of Army Painter and the drying time is well over 48 hrs, in fact I’d say double that. However, if you’re patient the results are good enough.

These are more generic troops to feed into the Brigade making machine that will cover the board with a yanky blue. I have been gearing myself up to start my Iron Brigade lately and I must strike while the iron is hot ( forgive pun), otherwise that too could be moth balled for six years. The ACW is a firm favourite of mine and I will always keep popping back and saying hello.

A few Renegade miniatures have been added to the ranks for variety. Being very large figures you can’t normally mix them into units. However, these figures from Steve Barber are quite large and the old Renegades fit right in. I did some research on line and it appears the the Renegade company has ceased to be.

An officer turns to see the result of a withering volley. 

 

Shield Wall

The large shields of Esgaroth make for a very good shield wall. These detailed shields were bought off eBay, they were listed under ‘Viking shields’, well worth looking up. A bit of dry brushing saves you a lot of work with painting decals.

 The new supplement for Oathmark supplies rules for skirmishers and more importantly, shield walls. This should be very handy for this army and of course my Dwarves of the Iron Hills.

I was inspired by the cover art to add some arrows to the shields. Hopefully this will give a much better shield wall vibe.

These are made from plastic brush bristles with a blob of Gel super glue on them. When dry they will be painted black for Goblin arrows.

The last few figures go to finish off the army

The last batch of Lake Town are blocked in quickly and given a wash of Army painter strong tone.

There’s  just a few more and then the three blocks of infantry should be done. Being Lake Town I feel there should be another archer unit, but that can wait for another day. I feel it’s time for a change and might go back to the American Civil war for a bit. 

This Esgaroth army has been really rewarding to convert and build but I’m feeling a bit burnt out by it now. It was interesting to try the Army Painter stain on them and blast through the ranks, just seeing the numbers stack up was rewarding enough. The stain has a nice effect, I’ve even been thinking maybe I should try the Dark tone on a batch of orcs...maybe those pesky Warg riders.

 Well, maybe a couple of test figures are in order first.

 

The Army of Lake Town WIP

So here we are on the next step to finishing this lot. I had to wait a few days for some new UHU glue to arrive. The stuff I was using before was quick drying super strength stuff and it was a nightmare to base with. As you know basing an army like this takes endless swoping and moving figures around to create the best bases. This quick drying glue set them all in place in a few seconds with no moving possible, so i decided to wait. 

I hadn’t really worked out how many figures I had or would need and so just started grabbing some and sticking them down. I decided to give each base seven figures as this just looked better, with no gaps in the unit. On this principle it turns out I need two and half more bases to finish the army. This will lead to an army of three units of four bases and a two base unit of archers. This is lucky because I still have some Gripping Beast Jomsvikings to paint so this should finish the army nicely.

These have been blocked out quickly, dipped in Army Painter strong tone, matt varnished with Vallejo varnish. 

I coated the armour and bladed weapons with Kleer floor varnish to give them a bit of shine. A nice quick army to paint with the dip method and once all on the table together, they should do the job.

Bard in place at the head of his army.