Birthday Brits

It's been my birthday recently, and for it I got a shiny box of Victrix centre-company British. It was a toss-up whether I asked for flank or centre companies- on one side, the roles of the flank companies could fit more easily with the skirmishing I plan to do; on the other side, I think the shoulder wings look a bit silly and if I ever do go into full battles I'll need fewer flank company figures than centre.

They're a little easier than the French to paint, I think, partially because the French have more piping and buttons. The straps are done fairly easily, with a dark brown wash over the white undercoat, and then picking them out with a fine brush, and the lace is just a once-over with the wash. I haven't made a distinction on these two between the white straps, the strap for the water canteen (brown) and the strap for the haversack (greyish-natural). Now I'm used to the miniatures I might start, although if it looks to messy I'll go back. I'm not particularly fussed in dropping accuracy for aesthetics.


This is the first I painted. I'm quite happy with him, especially how well (entirely by fluke) I've managed to keep his collar white-piped. Less good is his canteen, but that's an area of improvement.



So far, I've painted one with green facings and the other with blue. One of the suggestions on a TMP discussion that I may implement is to create my own regiment, as the protagonists (or antagonists) in my skirmish campaigns. That way, I can freely have caddish cads, vile villains and heroic heroes without insulting any real-life figures. Of course, this is probably a bit wooly for some people but I like to have stories and conflict in wargames, which is perhaps why I like various forms of RP.

One of the big decisions then is what colour to paint the facings, which I haven't yet decided. As much as I would like bright purple facings I'd quite like to keep them historical, but beyond that I only have two conditions. The first is that they can't be buff, because it's boring, and the second is that they can't be yellow, because that is far too Sharpe and his South Essex.