ByronM - By Fire and Sword 15mm - Bridge and Cavalry Unit

Last weekend I went to play a pile of games with my good friend Curt out in Regina, and was planning to take out "By Fire and Sword" to show him.  The only issue was, while packing up the night before, I realized I didn't have a terrain piece for the scenario I wanted to run! DAMN!!!

So, I quickly searched through all my STL files for a bridge, and bingo the Hagglethorne Hollow kickstarter I backed a few months ago had the perfect thing.  So, I scaled it down to work with 15mm and the scenario requirements and printed it.  Once done, I quickly primed and painted it, and it was still drying as it got packed up for the road trip!

Also for the game, I had painted up another unit of cavalry during the week leading up to the trip for the Holy Roman Empire, so I am showing them crossing the bridge.

15mm 30 years war Holy Roman Empire (Byron)

One of the goals I set for myself for this years challenge was to try and reduce the pile-o-shame (models that have not yet been painted) that has accumulated over the years at my place.  So I created a large list of projects that have started over the years, but never finished.  Once such project was last years foray into the 30 years war in 15mm.  While I finished quite a few bases of figures during last years challenge, I barely touched the stock pile of them that I bought, and have yet to play a game with them due to not having enough completed.  Therefore I thought it would be a good thing to get cracking on them over the Christmas holiday.

Here is the batch that I got done over the last week: 18 cavalry, 18 musketeers, and 14 pikemen.

All of these were painted using a very quick and messy method.  Essentially, all I did was apply base coats of the basic colours, then washed everything with the one GW paint I use (Agrax Earthshade), and then highlighted them with the base colours again, and in some cases 1 shade higher to get some highlights.

While this basic method produces tabletop ready miniatures quickly, they are nothing special.  Which means I get frustrated painting them quickly as well, as it feels like cheating to not put your best effort into something you are painting, BUT with something like 500+ more models to do to complete them all, I simply can not put much more effort into each model than this or I will never finish them!

Overall though, at tabletop level they look ok, and that's all that counts for these.  My plan is to use the "By Fire and Sword" rule set with them for small skirmish games (a great rule set that's super detailed and in depth) and then to use "By Pike & Shot" for bigger games (another great rule set, essentially GW's old Warmaster rules).  I look forward to getting them on Curt's table for a game with the Regina crew sometime this year.