Spencer Smith Miniatures - test paint

The last blog entry was entirely sans pictures so here is just a peek at what I am thinking of doing. The miniatures I found are by Spencer Smith Miniatures and are a bit of an acquired taste. When I first got hold of these a couple of years ago I was horrified by their crude casting and no amount of three layer shading would make them look like Front Rank or Minden. They mouldered in their box for a while as I gathered intelligence on them from SSM fans (of which there are quite a few by all accounts), I was painting them all wrong! Once I realised that a "toy-soldier" approach was needed I fell in love with these strange lumps again with their block colours, minimal lining and rosy cheeks. To be really old school I should have stuck to Humbrol enamels but I have enough problems coughing without thinner fumes at the moment.

So here is my test paint for my as yet unnamed C18th ImagiNation, a Spencer Smith AS4 Grenadier in mitre cap marching (from C18th, War of the Austrian Succession range).

AS4 Grenadier raw and painted - front

Rear view of same

I got those coughing up a lung loss of mojo blues...

Pneumonia set in a few days after Christmas, I blame enforced jollity and having to be sociable. That was bad enough, stopping me from painting, reading a book or watching the history channels on the telly but the final straw was the dreaded loss of mojo which struck again. It is the affliction that every wargamer dreads, that utter despair at taking up a paintbrush. Just like the common cold there is no cure but there are a few things that can help to alleviate the symptoms slightly. Lion Rampant has gone on the back burner for a while as I have been playing it quite a lot, a short break from it will help and allow me to get some enthusiasm for my Vikings again. I have also returned to an old interest to ease me back into the swing of things, inspired by the splendid games put on by the guys from the Loose Association of Wargamers - I have yet to attend one but they taunt me with fantastic photos on an annual basis.

So I am trying to recover my enthusiasm for wargaming with  a foray into Eighteenth Century Imaginary Nations wargaming, more often known as C18th ImagiNations. Usually set around the period from the end of the Great Northern War (1700-1721) to the Seven Years War (1754-1763, historians can't count), this is the era of tricornes and firing lines between minor states and obscure principalities. In the general political confusion of the time it is easy to fit in a few fictional nations, usually of a Germanic, Balkan or eastern European nature, taking the inspiration from a time pre-dating the unification of Germany and Austria-Hungary, or at a pinch, Italy.

Why bother you might ask. Well, the idea has a certain "old school" appeal, many of the great and good of the early years of wargaming had semi-fictional Seven Years War (SYW) style armies to illustrate their books. There is also the personalization that you can apply to your own nation, uniforms, army composition, commanders and tactics can all be experimental without anyone shouting "historical shenanigans!", its all intended to be historical shenanigans!

So that is the plan to get me back to the table, armed with a copy of Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames - an excellent book stuffed with quick play rules, ripe for filling out into more complex games - and a few Spencer Smith miniatures I had knocking about. All I need to do now is to pick up the damn paintbrush...