Core Confederates...

I am painting an army, not soldiers… I am painting an army, not soldiers… I am painting an army, not soldiers…

Here's the beginning of the Confederate force for my 10mm ACW. These, too, are Cracker Line/Plank Road figures. Same quality castings and great service as I received with my first order of Union troops.

I learned a few things from painting the Union troops. Consequently, I spaced the Confederate figures out a bit more for painting. I only glued 6 infantry figures rather than 10 on each craft stick for painting and only 4 cavalry rather than 6. That made it a little easier to avoid slopping paint all over a neighboring figure with my clumsy brushwork. I also attached the figures with Elmer's white glue instead of Aileene's Tacky Glue. Now, I'm a big fan of Aileene's—I've been known to use it as a primer as well as a varnish on large scale figures—but it was just too difficult to remove these tiny figures from the painting sticks. Good 'ole Elmer's doesn't have quite the hold that Aileene's does. And, Elmer's tends to be more 'brittle' when dry so it was no struggle at all to remove this later batch of figures.

I also did the bases a bit differently. I used a finer grained sand (actually left over grout) to texture the bases and washed and dry-brushed it before applying flock and short static grass. It was more work and I'm not sure it was worth it. Personally, I just can't see much difference though it took me almost twice as long to complete.

The base for the Confederate artillery limber was done before gluing on the figures. I was going against common sense when I did this but I wanted to see if it made much difference in the final project. It's so much easier to do the terrain basing without having to work around the figures. It looks like crap, though, with the bases of the horses standing proud of the surrounding textures. I won't try that again.

Honestly, I was horrified when I saw the pictures. All the painting imperfections jump right at me. (I am painting an army… I am painting an army… I am painting an army….)

I've ordered more figures but in the meantime it's time to work on some terrain and starting learning the rules. I want to design a introductory scenario around the eastern Kentucky battle of Middle Creek (January, 1862)--future President James A. Garfield's first combat. I've got enough figures painted to experiment with a small one brigade vs. one brigade scenario using Die Fighting II. While Die Fighting is not really designed for such a small game, the author has recently made some changes which (he says) should make the rules a bit more friendly for it. Since I have no experience with the rules at this point I figured it would make a good learning game.

Photos of the new Confederates:

Confederate infantry, sans flag. How does one drill out the hands of a 10mm tall figure?

Dismounted cavalry.

And now they have mounted.

The limber.

What the limber tows.

The infantry, again.

Confederate horse holders who know where they should be positioned.

A second view of the limber.