15mm ACW Trial Painting

A short while ago I received my copy of the "On to Richmond" rules which Mark Severin of Scale Creep Miniatures and Flagship Games released.  After reading through it several times, it reinvigorated my long held desire to have ACW troops.  I originally had blue and gray armies using the old Airfix plastic figures but I sold them to a father who wanted to game ACW with his son.  My good wargaming buddy, Jay, already had a huge 25mm regimental-size army.  And my wargaming buddy Larry had a large 15mm regimental-size army.  So my option if I used OTR was to go with its recommended basing and organization using 15mm figures.  I requested some samples from Old Glory 15s to see if my old eyes could still paint 15mm figures.  OG15s sent eight foot figures, one mounted figure, and one gun.  And I found that I could still paint 15mm, or paint them at least well enough to look good in massed units.

I decided I wanted to see how a brigade "command" stand would look with a mounted officer on it as well as a flag bearer and some troops.  Now before you purists start having apoplexy, yes, there are both Union and Confederate figures on both bases, but remember, I was trying out my painting of 15mms not trying to build an army.  Anyway, I think substituting a mounted figure for two of the infantrymen and adding a flag will make the command base stand out.  The flag by the way is a hand-painted Van Dorn style flag used by some of the Confederate units in the Western Theater.  The gun will also look good with a full 4-figure crew, which is how OG15s bags them - 6 guns and 24 gunners.  By the way, the bases are just matte board cut to 2"x2" for the artillery and 2"x1" for the infantry.  The actual bases will probably be Litko pre-cut ones.

So all-in-all I'm satisfied with the figures, both from an ease of painting perspective and from a basing perspective.  Now all I've got to do is come up with the cash to raise the two armies - Thomas' XIV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland and Hardee's Corps (modified) of the Army of Tennessee - for starters.  This way I get 'Pap' Thomas and a brigade of regulars (by God!) on one side and Hardee, Cleburne, and the Orphan Brigade on the other, as well as modifying Hardee's Corps to add Hebert's Brigade which included my great-grandpappy's regiment, the 36th Mississippi Volunteers.

More later as this project (oh no, not another one!) progresses.