David Bickley's Wargames Blog

The occasional ramblings of an average gamer, journeyman painter, indifferent modeller, games designer, sometime writer for Wargames Illustrated and host of games in GHQ.



Sunday 18 November 2018

Further AWI additions and related ponderings...

Phil has recently finished painting up the last of the AWI gun sets I bought in the summer on a visit to Foundry in East Stoke ~
Of course, the set was sculpted by one of the Perry twins while they were working for Foundry and before they set up their own rival figure business. As I’ve said before, I really do prefer painting their Foundry sculpts over their own Perry Miniatures figures, but I recognise that’s a matter purely of personal preference as well as the rather larger range the latter offer now.
As it happens, as I didn’t make Warfare due to illness, I have just ordered some figures from Perry Miniatures for the AWI expansion project: Volunteers of Ireland; American Firing Line in a mix of uniforms and Hunting shirts; and lastly, Mounted Officers in cut down coats. None of these were in their earlier range, so I bit the bullet and steeled myself for the painful business of cleaning up hundreds of vent runs and irritating bits of flash, not to mention the awful packing material they use, which sticks to all those offending bits!
At present though I’m painting up Foundry AWI figures to make a rather informal Loyalist Militia unit. I have in my mind a generic unit, so I’m using a mixture of uniformed Militia and Minute Men with Continental Command figures, as I wanted a more local cut to the dress to delineate the unit from the other units. To help with this I ordered my first AWI flags from Flags of War, from their ‘Make Your Own’ range. I chose a nice red field emblazoned with the words ‘God Save the King’. Very hard choice for a long time republican!
I notice from the Foundry website that they have a decent sale in progress until January 7th 2019. I may take advantage of this to further expand the AWI and the SYW projects, we shall have to see. I’d still like to plan a new project though beyond that and am attracted to their Casting Room Miniatures War of the Spanish Succession range, but don’t want to buy any without seeing them firsthand. If I go down this route then the SYW expansion will be curtailed, so we shall see where we go...

16 comments:

  1. Great figures and great painting!

    I hadn't checked the Foundry site for awhile, I'll have to take a look at their sale.

    I did pick up a large number of British infantry from them this summer and they are on the painting table.

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  2. Lovely gun and team! Yes I noticed the Foundry sale,a bit of light temptation!
    Best Iain

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  3. David, like you I find the Perry work for Foundry is superior to their own ranges. Perhaps they were keener then. The kapok they package their figures in drives me mad, but is handy for smoke on the table.As for a new period, check out Ebor Miniatures for their WSS ranges. If I was looking to return to the period I would use these figures. Oh and by the way did you see that Warlord are in the process of producing a new SYW Blackpowder supplement which will be released next year. Truly a great time to be a wargamer.

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    1. Phil has a few Ebor so I’ve seen them. I think though the CRM look chunkier and would suit my aging eyes better?

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  4. A lovely little piece...
    I think young Phil is getting the hang of this painting malarkey;-)

    All the best. Aly

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    1. He certainly has made a great job of these for me!

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  5. Lovely artillery, Phil has done a great job. I am putting AWI officially on the list of projects but for the future.🤔

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    1. That’s two armies by January then?😉

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