Sunday 23 October 2011

A (very) Miniature Civil War – (Off Topic #20)

Over twenty years ago my brother and I decided to sell off our 15mm ACW armies and replace them with Ros & Heroics 1/300th figures. The thinking behind this was that with the limited playing space we had it would be the only way to play big Corps level games and at the same time do away with unrealistic ‘table edge’ flanks.

So Grant and Lee went micro, collected and painted around 2,000 figures, based 100 or so trees, produced a small City’s worth of buildings and painted several miles of snake fencing. The end result was very pleasing both visually and in the way the games played out with our house rules “Brother Against Brother” (named long before the commercial set of the same name!).

After a break of twelve or so years we played a game with these figures last week and true to form the Yanks (that’s me) lost. The battle was a hypothetical one based loosely on 2nd Manassas and the course of events was recorded in pictures (click here) by a Harper's Weekly artist. Remember when you look at the pictures that the infantry figures stand just 6mm tall and the battle flags are only 5mm square – each one painted without the aid of glasses - sadly now we can’t even see the figures without artificial aids let alone paint them!

7 comments:

Paulalba said...

These are really stunning Ian, I have 10mm ACW and I thought they were small but these are tiny. Nice work guys.
Cheers
Paul

Stryker said...

Thanks Paul - yes they are tiny, looking a them again after several years I can't believe I painted them. I even found I have a scratch built log signal tower constructed with pins, loads of wagons, a pontoon and a complete encampment using Monopoly house as tents...

Ian

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Agreed! Very nice. Have always meant to have a stab at 5-6mm with the Franco-Prussian War, but I'm not sure the old eyes are up to it any longer. Still, your ACW troops, flags, and terrain stir the imagination. Any chance of some more photos?

Best Regards,

Stokes

Stryker said...

Hi Stokes

There are more pics here http://wargameswithmybrother.blogspot.com/

Ian

DeanM said...

Holy cow! That's small, yet they look great! Best, Dean

Rafael Pardo said...

Not my era but they look great (no pun intended!)
Regards
Rafa

Lee said...

Hi Ian,

Great set up and a great game. I loved those old Heroics and Ros 6mm figures, they were (and still are) fine little individual sculpts. Some of my most memorable games were played using the H&R ACW range, wish I still had them today. Thanks for sharing this with us, I'll be watching the blog too.

Lee.