Tools of the Trade 3 - Brushes, Tufts and Paints (plus some other stuff)

Over the last few days my initial orders from Mighty Ape arrived:

- 4 x Italeri 00 sables
- 4 x Italeri 1 sables
- A bunch of Warlord FIW blister packs (Armed Settlers, Frontiersmen, British personalities, Last of the Mohicans, and the 4 Indian leader pack)
- 10 x Army Painter Tufts packs ( 2 each of Woodland, Swamp, Highland, Mountain, and Lowland Shrubs - all 2016 editions)
- Army Painter Tweezers



I have to admit I was swayed by the price and the handle shape - I'm not at the skill stage where I can justify spending oodles of $$$ on Winsor & Newton Series 7  but to be able to have separate brushes for metallics, reds and white at an affordable cost is huge for my peace of mind.

I picked up the Army Painter tufts that were on special (the 2016 ones that are not as consistent as the more recent editions) as I preferred the look of them to the newer ones. Thankfully I have enough tufts now to base all 450 miniatures and bases that this project will entail as I'll be mixing them up as much as possible - I already have several packs in storage that will get mixed in as well.

Yes, 450 figures. Originally I'd estimated around 360 figures for three forces. That went south as soon as I bought some Warlord FIW and also decided that I would be adding a few more civilian/settler types to expand the scenario types I wanted to model. Project creep is real.

I popped into a local games store just for a nosy and was very pleased to see they were now stocking the entire Vallejo Model Colour and Game Colour ranges - so I grabbed some core paints that I don't have including that most vital of Vallejo products - Surface Primer Grey. An absolute must when painting lighter coloured civilian figures as I will be doing over the next 2 months. I made sure I also grabbed a few different reds so I could experiment with the shade of the British red coats. I'll almost certainly favour the darker, deeper reds over the palette that moves towards the Napoleonic red.

And because Mighty Ape only had one set left and I wanted to try painting a formal unit anyway, I picked up a box of metal Colonial Provincial Regiment - which I'll end up having to buy a second box anyway to have multiples of 6 for Sharp Practice.

Still a couple of things awaiting arrival, notably leader bases, 25mm round bases and shock dice/frames and the storage options I'm taking a punt on just to see if they are worth a long term plan.


Pete

Project FIW 2 - Choosing Miniatures

I've always been a little bit contrarian in nature, so the idea of choosing a lesser known miniatures range has always held a certain amount of appeal. Given that I'm starting from scratch, I didn't want to spend too much time obsessing about constructing the perfect force. I also had to bear in mind that I needed to plan the acquisition of miniatures reasonably  carefully as this is going to be a long-term project lasting at least 12-18 months just for the miniatures alone.

A quick google search and a disciplined return to PMT turned up some interesting choices. AW miniatures seemed to really suit my initial thoughts on how I was going to approach this. In terms of inter-range compatibility, well let's just say I put that aside as an unhelpful distraction. I can pretty much get everything I need from the one range, and if I do find some particular minis I like from another manufacturer, I'm quite happy to mix rangesd within a force, if not within a unit should the disparity be significant.

AW really helped themselves by selling their miniatures in Sharp Practice bundles, the prices are acceptable including postage and handling. I did like the the simpler nature of the castings, not too fussy or overly-detailed which suits my projected painting needs and style. They are on the larger end of the 28mm genre which I don't mind at all.

I did look at the Conquest/Warlord Games range which have the advantage of being available from Mighty Ape, but the availability of the entire range can be sporadic and I dislike having to order a range from two suppliers, particularly as Warlord have some figures available direct only.

In terms of numbers of miniatures, I'm trying to limit myself to around 100 figures max per belligerent so around 300-350 minis in total including civilians. This should give me some flexibility as well as being an achievable and affordable amount over the next 12-18 months.

So AW miniatures will form the basis of my FIW collection at this stage of the project.

Pete