Build It, And They Will Come...

That's my theory at least. For many many years, I've toyed with the idea of getting into table-top war-gaming. I loved painting miniatures (mostly for AD&D and BattleTech) when I was in high school, and I've never quite gotten rid of the bug. My painting spells are few a far between, as in, YEARS in between. There's something about this time of year that brings out the fever in me. Once again, I've picked up my miniatures and paint brush to give it another go.

Way back in March of 2015, I picked up a set of Perry Miniatures American War of Independence BritishInfantry 1775-1783 (AW 200). My thought, at the time, was to paint them up for display, with the possibility of someday finding an opponent and putting together a small game. Some time after that, my thought process went from “Display” to “Play”. I convinced myself that if I put together a couple of armies on my own, players would follow. Build it and they will come.

Perry Miniatures AWI British Infantry Box

Fast forward to September of 2017. Yep, over a year. The infantry still sat in their box, waiting for something to happen. Once again I convinced myself that I could put together a game, I just had to start. So, day by day, I cut, glued, scraped, etc., until I finally had the infantry assembled. The British, however, had morphed. I decided to model them as my Continental reenacting unit, Seth Warner's Extra-ContinentalRegiment, also known as The Green Mountain Boys. I figured if I couldn't game with them, I could use them as a way to practice and display the formations our unit uses during battle reenactments. The sculpted uniform on the miniatures isn't quite the same as what we use, but I wasn't concerned with detail. I modified a few of the caps to match our jockey caps, and got enough assembled for form 3 platoons. I gave them a quick spray of primer, then life took over.

Assembling Warner's Regiment

Fast forward again to July of this year. The Regiment has been sitting on my build table for almost another year. A couple of weeks ago, the bug hit again, and I dug out the paint. Here's where they stand today, not very far along, but closer to painted than boxed. With luck, I'll keep the momentum going, get these painted up, then start working on some opposition for them. I have a couple of folks who may be interested in a game, and I've found a decent set of skirmish level AWI rules that will work with small units, so I don't necessarily have to wait to assemble two full armies to start playing. We'll see how it goes next...

Base Coating has Begun