All Done. Teepees and Dead Horses

OK so this is the end of the Little Bighorn project (for now)... some set dressing for the game. Above we have some teepees for the village. The pattern is a free download from firstpalette. They are big though, but I discovered that printing them two to a page (on 8 1/2" x 11" letter paper) makes a perfect size teepee for 28mm gaming. The "poles" are coffee stirsticks cut in half, then in half lengthwise, and taped to the inside of the teepee walls. A good project for an evening. They didn't need to be super-detailed since they will be placed on the very edge of the battlefield anyway.

The other thing the battle had a lot of was dead horses, survivors of the Reno fight talk about piling up dead horses as breastworks and the people who saw the Custer battlefield afterwards mention dead horses (and later, piles of horse bones) everywhere. So I thought I would get some horses 3D printed (thanks Byron!) and paint them, just as some cover for the troopers.

Here's what I imagine they'll look like on the battlefield, more or less.

So that's about it for painting before we have the Big Game. Don't get me wrong - I still have lots of unpainted models for this project, likely more than I will ever get painted. But this will be enough to do the battle I've planned for my birthday, and to commemorate the 150th anniversary of one of history's most famous "last stands". 

Next up - battle report. Hoka hey!

Nearly there! More Plains Warriors and Crow Scouts

Last night I finished off nine more Plains warriors and three Crow scouts for the other team. The warriors are from Foundry and the scouts are the very nice Brigade Games models sculpted by friend of the Conscripts Paul Hicks.

 

Here is Crazy Horse his own self, flanked by two warriors, Fish Arrow and Holds Fire. I have a mounted Crazy Horse too.

Lean Wolf, Bear Licks With Tongue, Lazy Boy.

Little Crow, Running Rabbit, One Shirt.

Crow scouts with trapdoor Springfields. Really nice models, these.

Here are all the models I've painted for the game so far, approximately fifty foot and mounted on each side, which is about what I'd set as a goal. This should make a pretty good game of Legends of the Old West even if not all of the 7th Cavalry get put on the table - there are several specific "characters" including Reno, Benteen and deRudio who I've painted, but who won't appear in the Last Stand game. The model painting is almost done now, I just have to paint some dead horses (depressing, I know, but they were everywhere on the battlefield and will be useful cover for dismounted troopers). I also will be making a few teepees for the village on the nearside of the river, at the edge of the table.

Hoka hey!

Nearing the End! Mounted Seventh Cavalry Troopers and More Plains Warriors

OK! So we're about a month away from The Big Birthday Game and the models are progressing nicely. The latest I've gotten done are eight mounted Seventh Cavalry troopers and eight more Plains warriors. First the cavalry - they are Wargames Foundry models (naturally) and are pretty great in every way. The horses are noticeably larger than the Plains ponies ridden by the warriors, which necessitated slightly bigger bases, but that's the way they were in real life and it's fine by me.

   

Custer organized the Seventh in a particular way - each company was mounted on the same colour horses, except for one company, and the buglers who were on greys. Company A had coal black mounts, Company E had greys, Companies B, D, F, I and L had bays, H had blood bays, G and K had sorrels, and C had light sorrels. Company M had mixed colour horses. These were all identified with brands. The excellent Foundry horses have a "US" incised brand on the front upper leg and I put company brands on the rear left "thighs". The pattern was company letter over "7 C" for the Seventh Cavalry. I did these with a black technical pen.

  

The castings are good - horse is one piece and the trooper, saddle and gear cast together as a separate piece. This makes for easy painting although there is a lot of gear. You can see the light blue overcoat rolled in front of the trooper here. There's also a nosebag, feed sack, saddlebag, pistol holster, lariat, and canteen.

I've painted the greys as E Company of course, the bays (reddish brown with black points - mane, tail and socks) as C Company, and the sorrels (reddish brown with light coloured points) as C Company.

Bugler here on a grey.

Trooper of Company C in his red fireman's shirt.

With the mounted troopers out of the way I also got some more dismounted Plains warriors done. These are the Foundry Dog Soldiers.

Goes Through the Camp, Touch the Sky (he is a big fella), Voice Like Thunder.

Yellow Thunder, Walking Rain.

Three Fingers, Pawnee Killer, Plenty Coups. All painted in the traditional style, although I did punch up the blue with another highlight of Hoeth Blue and the red with some Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Here are the forces as of this update. I have nine more Plains warriors to go and maybe three more Crow scouts if there's time. I also want to make some teepees for background colour on the battlefield. 

So till then... hoka hey!

Moar! Seventh Cavalry Dismounted Troopers and Personalities

The last tranche of dismounted Seventh Cavalry troopers is now finished and the Little Bighorn project continues to steam along. I'm happy with the progress!

Having painted "Autie" earlier I tackled the rest of the models in the Foundry "Personalities" pack. Here we see the General's younger brother Captain Tom Custer (winner of TWO Medals of Honor in the Civil War!), the hapless Major Marcus Reno, and Captain Frederick Benteen. Reno of course was a pretty useless tit in the battle and while Benteen showed moderately more initiative, neither were what you would call "combat effective."

Here are Lt. William W. Cooke, Lt. Charles (Carlo) DeRudio, and "Lonesome" Charley Reynolds. Cooke was Custer's adjutant and buddy. Born in Hamilton, Ontario he served with the Union army in the Civil War under Major-General Ambrose Burnside and fittingly, cultivated immense sideburns. He was the author of the infamous last note sent by Custer back to Benteen urging the latter to "be quick, bring packs." He died with Custer and was scalped twice... the second time losing one of his enormous dundrearies. DeRudio was an Italian serving with Custer and the only man in the Seventh Cavalry to carry a saber in the battle. Charley Reynolds was the chief scout with the Seventh Cavalry who had a bad feeling about this.

Here's a trooper carrying Custer's personal "standard", a bugler (there were many present at the battle) and another trooper.

With these troopers and characters I'm finished painting the dismounted Seventh Cavalry contingent for the battle. I used the standard colours - uniform coats Kantor Blue highlighted Ultramarines Blue, trousers Sky Blue highlighted Wolf Grey, and everything black highlighted Dark Rubber. The initial drybrush of DR helps a lot!

So on to some more Plains warriors now - hoka hey! 

Seventh Cavalry Dismounted Troopers and Scouts

After the slog of painting almost a dozen mounted Plains warriors it's a relief to get back to some quick work. And by that I mean models that are wearing at least some semblance of a uniform. 

I made quick work of the dismounted troopers. The whole model gets a drybrush of Dark Rubber, this takes care of the highlights on the black hats, crossbelt, cartridge belt, holster, and boots. Then uniform coats and pants are painted Kantor Blue, uniform coat is highlighted Ultramarines Blue, pants are overpainted AK Sky Blue and highlighted Vallejo Wolf Grey. Buckskins are AK Khaki washed with Agrax Earthshade. It was hot in Montana Territory in June so some of the troopers are in shirtsleeves. While the issued shirt was grey, many wore privately purchased shirts and these could have been any colour at all.

The Scouts took a bit more thinking as their apparel is a mix of uniform and Indigenous attire. Oftentimes they were given worn-out or obsolete uniform coats so that's what these three got. I painted their trousers as buckskins or brown cloth, and the "breechclouts" were done in a nice red-black tartan with Khorne Red, Mephiston Red, and Evil Sunz Red, and "Hudson's Bay Blanket" pattern on the other model.

So with these done I feel like I'm making progress towards completion. I've got about 25 Seventh Cavalry troopers and helpers now, and a dozen mounted and about the same number of dismounted Plains warriors. Ultimately I want to have 40 (or 50?) models a side so I reckon I'm about halfway there. I just primed more troopers and after that, will get to the mounted troopers and 20 or 30 more warriors on foot. I'm going to use the same skin technique I used on my ancient Germans and that should speed the process up a bit.

Hoka hey!  

Little Bighorn Project

 

Better late than never I guess, but here is the first sizeable tranche of my 2026 project, the Little Bighorn in 28mm. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the battle and as I've said before here, I have some stuff planned, so I have to get off my kiester and get painting.

The models here are a mix of Foundry packs - some from the Young Bloods, and some from the Dog Soldiers packs. Above L to R we have Bear Licks With Tongue, Three Fingers, and Wolf Looks Back.

Here are Running Rabbit, Goes Walking, and Little Crow. As you can see from the photos these models are all characters and don't really lend themselves to "assembly line" painting like the Seventh Cavalry models do. But I did the skintones the same on all of them - GW Doombull Brown highlighted with Ratskin Flesh. I hate the name of that paint but I think it gives a good Indigenous fleshtone.

                                     

 Lastly we've got Pawnee Killer, Touch the Sky, and Plenty Coups. I did put warpaint on a few of the models but I may go back and do a few more as I like the look. 

The apex of the Indigenous resistance against white settlement and colonization was of course the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where a coalition of Indigenous warriors wiped out - to a man - five companies of the US Seventh Cavalry led by Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer (often referred to - incorrectly - as "General Custer" owing to his holding the rank of brevet brigadier-general in the Civil War).

                                 

Well there's the first bunch of Plains Warriors done. Only about 40 or 50 more to go...? Shouldn't be a problem this summer as long as I can stay away from Khornate distractions. We'll see.

                                        

As for the Seventh Cavalry, here's the first bunch. I've painted some troopers here (Foundry) as well as an officer, guidon bearer and trumpeter (not sure who made those!)

This first bunch are mostly Foundry models, I have a lot of them to paint. The command group above are from an unknown manufacturer, I'm sure someone out there knows who. The guidon is of the type used by the Seventh at Little Bighorn and was handpainted by me on paper.

The last eight models in the post are Foundry's "Old Sweats" pack, sculpted by Mark Copplestone.

They're super-nice models as you'd expect from the Foundry. Paint formula is Kantor Blue highlighted with ancient Ultramarines Blue for the jackets. The pants have been troubling for me. The blue should be light blue but not TOO light... these ones were too light and I toned them down with a blue wash, but still not happy with them. Will do some more experimenting with the next group. Black hats, leather equipment and boots were highlighted Dark Rubber. The yellow is Averland Yellow with an Agrax Earthshade wash, then re-highlighted. Rifle stocks are Dark Brown highlighted New Wood.

Anyway here's one interesting thing about the models... when I was at the Little Bighorn battlefield in 2008 I filled a jar with dirt from Last Stand Hill (as you do) and a little bit was sprinkled into the groundwork on each of these models, just to connect the models directly to the place where it all happened. Having the actual dirt also helped me do the colour for the groundwork - it's AK Khaki washed Agrax, then re-highlighted.

I'll keep posting as the project continues!

Dallas