Dismounted Cavalry American Civil War

Here I am presenting two small units of Civil War Dismounted cavalry. The Yankees were mostly painted before the Winter Challenge but not completed.

Since the goal here is to finish hobby tasks I figure the fact that these have been hanging fire for some time matters not at all. I have enough figures now to dismount most (if not all) of my Union Cavalry now.

The Rebels are the left overs all using pistol which is the one thing I don't like about Bluemoon's ACW range. Far too many of the dismounted cavalry have pistols not some sort of carbine, rifle or shot gun as their active weapon. These guys will probably get split up among other units so they can have a more appropriate weapons mix.

Isolation Update 2:Going on Bear Hunt!

Its no secret to anyone with kids that keeping them entertained has been a major challenge.

Our Local community Ayer Massachusetts arranged a little activity this Past Saturday A Bear hunt. Above you can see Evelyn posing with our bears.  Visible are Pink (Evelyn's) Bumby (Ariana's).  My own bear Ted is next to Bumby with pink on his lap and is not visible.  Pink came with us on the Hunt.

What's a bear hunt you ask? well people put teddy bears our in windows, or out in their yards. 

We spent two hours walking around the neighborhood spotting bears and having a good time.

We did talk several other hunters telling them where we had spotted some good bear and getting some tips from them. This was all done following social distancing rules.

Spok Bear was my personal favorite 

There Care bears were Ariana's favorite.  Evelyn's favorite bear is her bear Pink who you can see peeking out of her jacket of the same color. It was probably the most fun I've had since this whole situation started.

Isolation Update 1

Well I've been working as a fulltime remote employee since March 16th the last time I went out socially was March 13th. Evelyn's last day of school was March 20th Ariana's job (administrator with a Emerson Hospital’s physical therapy department) is in a weird place that isn’t exactly a lay-off but can’t really be called a reduced schedule (she worked 4 hours this week). I’ll be working until April 3rd then in a temporary layoff for 62 days (fingers crossed).

Having wrapped up the Analog Hobbies Winter challenge I’m joining the Analog Hobbies Quarantine Challenge. I believe there are still openings if you are interested.

I'm told that if you work long enough all the new highers look like this.

Evelyn is doing OK. She keeps asking to go to her favorite places (library, playground and discovery museum) and see her favorite people but so far, she is ok when we tell her she cannot. She has had a few times where she starts to cry and tells us she’s scared. Last night she said: “I’m scared, and I don’t know why”. Its hard to say how much she understands. Once when we told her we couldn’t visit Grampy she said “because everyone is sick” which is close to the situation we are trying to avoid if not the situation we are actual in. That said she is happy to have mon and dad around all day.

I had Evelyn help me with cooking the other night it went pretty well and it gave Mom a break.

We also got our fist decent snowfall on day where we could make us of it and built a snowman

We are getting out for "adventures" every day the weather allows making the best of a bad situation. So far we are OK and our family and friends are all OK. I'll try to post at least one update a week.

Take care of yourself.

Adamc: Looking back on Challenge X (1,107 points)

Well it was another Highly successful challenge. I mentioned going in that I hadn’t felt motivation to paint well the Challenge took care of that as I racked up 1,107 points 147% of my target goal of 750. I decided to group my shots rather than do one single shot of everything. 

First up some terrain desert two buttes, a tell/berried ruin and a ruined house all should be most useful pieces. 

My for Joshua contribution which was not available for the final group shot as its already in the UK. 

Here we gave the rest of the figures I painted. Twenty-Five 25mm figures and thirty-two 15mm figures. I've got a lot of Jacobites to paint up as well as some ACW figures but those will be for isolation painting I guess. 

This was the year of Black Seas for me. This project was the one I was most passionate about and the one that people seemed most engaged in. I have quite the little fleet now. Five Frigates, 8 Brigs, a Corvette, a Sloop of war, a Schooner, a Cutter, a costal ship, 3-gun boats, and two scratch builds the Turtle and a Brigantine. I also build two forts and decided my five victory ships belonged in this ship. 

I forgot to photo graph the camels but they should really go here too.

Obligatory Selfie with the fleet to bad there was no Navy duel this year I would have done well. This was great fun please take care of yourselves I hope to see you all again in December of 2020.

Challenge X Entry #24 Rousell's Sandhill Border Reivers (145 Points)

Here is what will probably be my last entry of the challenge a unit of Boarder Revers for the Huzzah Convention's featured game. Each year the hosting club ask clubs and individuals to paint figures and bring them to the convention for the big game. Sometimes you command your figures or they might go to someone else. The rules they planned to use are Donnybrook (hope the game happens).

My force includes five long bowmen probably English mercenary as the Boarder Revers included both English and Scots

They look like they probably got their gear form one location I tried to make socks and shirts look a little.

The commander of the unit an old warriors with fine armor and weapons.

I felt he had an old face, so I made him gray haired with just a bit of yellow brown from the wash. I like the effect.

Clearly another man of means I went with green for his quilted armor as such a dye would have been expensive.

It makes him stand out almost as much as his bosses' armor.

The idea was to have a mounted figure for each footman the Maine War Gamers Association did their best but they are not a perfect match

I tried to match the figures up as best I could.

There are 11 figures on foot and 6 mounted figures they are 25mm (I believe they are Old Glory’s but I am not sure) so they should be worth 115 Points.

I hope that Scottish bonnets count as floppy hats adding another 30.

It’s been a great challenge I have netted more than 1000 points and hit 15 of their Island locations including 4 trips on Sarah Balloon.

---Marvellous. This is a great force you have assembled. 1000 points is a superb effort and what a journey you have been on

Martin

Challenge X Entry #23: Hammer Sisters calling Sarah's balloon (10 points)

Hammer Sisters calling Sarah's balloon (10 points)

Next up are two Bones Miniatures both are Female Dwarves I've dubbed them the Hammer Sisters for obvious reasons. 

I'm thinking I will use these as a Wizard and apprentice for Frostgrave they should do well for this. They would naturally be enchanters with a band of dwarven warriors and constructs to smash bad guys and grab treasure. 

Fully armored and dule wielding hammers this is a lady the kicks buts and takes names on top of that she has an anvil in back pack and some strange aperatus that must be used for magic of some kind. 

This lady looks a bit like a cross between a black smith and a lady who want a night on the town. She'll make a great apprentice Enchanter. Points 5 points each for the 25mm figures so 10 in total. 

Lady Sarah I have some Boarder Revers I need to drop off at Russell’s Sandhill. 

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Nice figures there Adam. Up, up and away to Rousell's Sandhill!

TamsinP

(yes, I'm stepping in again as Martin is busy at work with pandemic planning)

Challenge X Entry #22 Sanders Sand Dunes Irish Piquettes (72 points)

Just in time (or perhaps a little late) for Saint Patrick’s Day the Irish Piquet’s arrive at Sanders’ Sand Dune. In 1745 the French king send a force of troops from the Irish brigade to aid the Bonnie Prince Charles. Rather than risk any full regiment on this endeavor a selection of volunteers from each regiment to form a single force (each regiment sending the equivalent of a company). These volunteers were known as Piquets and was typical French approach to providing troops for risky operations. All of the Irish Regiments provided volunteers but only three made it to Scotland in the initial wave.

Regiment Dillon

Regiment Lally

Regiment Rooth.

The extra flags help indicate it’s a mix of units it’s a little bigger then works but will in most cases probably operate as three small units.

Points should be 36 for the figures at 2 points per 15mm man the three units come to 18 figures. There might possibly be some additional points for the hand painted flags Sanders Sand Dunes adds another 30 Points for 66 points.

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Loving the flags Adam, worth a bonus I think

Martin

Challenge X Entry #21: Princess reluctant to take a balloon ride. (23 points)

The HMS Unicorn ran around on a sand bar, Captain Pullings assures me he’ll be able to get her floated on the next spring tide but for now I need a ride to Sander's Sand Dunes.

This “figure” is from an Old Glory set of Medieval peasants a princess being carried off (against her will it seems) by some plunderer. I did the plunderer in no descript colors so he can be from several back grounds.

The Lady is done up in a reddish purple that makes a great color for royalty and her clothing is set off by gold bands at the edge of the material.

Now once we can get the young lady off the ship and on to the balloon, we can load the troops for Sanders Sand Dunes…

Then it will be time for St Patricks day Beer (for latter its before noon right now). 

Ok off to the Sand Dunes. Points I am not sure if this figure should be counted as one or two 25 mm figures so I am going to say 9 point. This is my 3rd balloon ride so that’s 10 more points plus another 5? for the picture of the bubbly beverage that comes to 23 points but adjust as apropatre.

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As DaveD is up to his neck with CV19 planning at work, this is a free-fire minioning day, so I'll be looking after things for a few posts.

Those figures (that figure?) will certainly make for some nice mobile scenery in games. As for scoring, I think what you've suggested is quite fair and I'll even allow for a Paddy's Day beer to be counted as "bubbly".

TamsinP

Senior Flight Attendant