88th New York (2nd Irish Brigade)

And to follow up on my earlier ramblings from today (does it show I have time off from work?) my very first completed, hard plastic, historical regiment: the 88th New York, the second regiment of the infamous Irish Brigade

Come join the Irish Brigade m`boys, come join the Irish Brigade.
You`ve seen those Southerners tremble, when they met with the Irish Brigade.

First, I must admit when i started the road to hard plastic historicals, i was very sceptical, and that was mainly for the following three reasons:

1. Ieuw, plastic models, that never can look as varied as metals
2. Individual bases all the way
3. Paper banners? I paint my banner myself thank you...

1. Ieuw, plastic models, that never can look as varied as metals



Well, seeing is believing the saying goes. Now one must bear with me, I`m from the Games Workshop generation where you either have the very old plastics which, well, look dull in their single cast, single pose line up. Great for bulking, but to many in a unit and the unit looks bareuh. Then came the GW `model kits` which trainloads of little stuff and hours of assembly and cleaning required. One had to have a degree in architecture to be able to build them (Rhino track treads anyone?) and a world championship title in dominoes for getting them to line up nicely (reform in battle? I`ll pass thank you very much).
When I opened the box (in this case, Perry Miniatures ACW Infantry) I saw that there was not much puzzling to do, yet the models still had a variety of poses.
Point one of my reservations... withdrawn

2. Individual bases all the way



Once more, the GW background, where you sometimes loose a single model or such, rarely half a regiment in one single volley or melee round (not talking break tests or multiple unit melee, actual dead guys in a 1vs1 unit battle). So I would have no need for those green bases that come with about each and every range of plastics out there, I was planning on basing each and every model on a 2by2 cm base. Then I started playing along in some historical battles and read some rulebooks... and models tend to die easilier and with more together then in your average fantasy game.
Out came those green things then, which cater for, staying with my 2x2 base frontage intention, anywhere between 1 and 5 models. I mixed and matched the bases along (not using the 5 wide though) so I can either form into march column or like on the picture, a firing line.
Reservation two went down the gutter that way...

3. Paper banners? I paint my banner myself thank you...



As could be seen in the past halfyear with my Wood Elves, I draw my banner designs on paper in a fine pencil, then colour it in with paint. That was indeed the idea as well for the historicals... till I researched the flags. I admit, that would be above my talent to paint them freehand, so I went searching the internet and found two excellent providers, Battleflag and Flags of War. Both around the same price, both looked great, so for the Irish Brigade I ordered the well, Irish Brigade sheeth from the latter. It arrived today (and as the last models of the unit where painted this morning, I just needed to cut the flags out and attach them to the bannerpoles) and I must say I really like the quality and look of the unit flags.
It is fine to draw freehand banners for fantasy, but my limited talent can`t cope with the historical detailed flags... and reservation three happily went out the window.


Now, of to paint the first regiment of my ECW Parliament army...