Plastic 1/72 miniatures

I love 15mm for wargaming, I’ve used them a lot for years for DBA, DBM and Fields of Glory, mainly thanks to my brother’s large collection (and my limited one). I still have lots of them unpainted, especially Essex Byzantines, Turks, Arabs, Macedonians, Persians, Classical Greek and even a bag of Old Glory SYW Austrians. But being married and with 2 twin kids means I have to cut a bit on hobby expenses, therefore I’ve turned to 1/72 plastic minis. I have a lot of them since childhood, mainly Esci, but also a few old Airfix and Atlantic, and more recent Revell and Italeri (I also had one box of Zvezda Cossacks, but I can’t find them anymore). They are mainly Napoleonics, but also several WWII and a few ACW, TYW and other periods.

They have now become my go-to scale, due to the fact I already have many, their cheapness (I can more easily afford a new set from time to time) and also generally good quality and increasing number of available sets. Quality varies between sets and between producers (see PlasticSoldiers Review, an excellent resource), but overall I’m pleased and willing to pass over errors – after all, my main aim is to play!

Lately I’ve (re)started painting them too. I never had a great hand, even if I was still able to produce some passable work. Now, with fewer time and worse eyes and hand, I’ve stuck to Bruce Quarrie's famous quote:

“But do, please do, make some effort to paint them. Even if your hand isn't as steady as you would like, it isn't so much to ask of anybody a black shako (hat), red or blue jacket, and gray or white trousers, with perhaps a touch of pink for face and hands, and black shoes and musket – is it? If painted in batches of a dozen or so at a time, doing all the hats first, then all the jackets, and so on, it does not take long, and the result in terms of tabletop appearance well justifies the slight effort”

Quarrie, Bruce, Napoleonic Wargaming  (Patrick Stephens, 1974, p.6)

So yes, I’m just going with basic colors (mainly Vallejo) and reducing details to a minimum and painting in batches of 24 at a time (2 bases as I use them). I've seen that around 20-25 figures at a time are something I can easily adapt to – not too many that I get bored by painting a single color, but not too few that I'm eager to paint more and can't. In addition I also found a trusty help in something I’ve bought some years ago and never opened until now: the Army Painter Quickshade. Even a basic, plain paintjob like I do gets a considerable boost with it, and results have been really satisfying.

1813-1815 Prussians (Revell)

IR9 with Leibfahne (right), IR10 (left), mounted officer

I have a general-purpose Strong Tone, even if for Austrians or others with white uniforms maybe a Soft Tone would be better – unfortunately one can is already quite expensive and therefore I think I'll stick with the Strong tone only, at least for now. At first I thought about giving a matte finish with a spray, but I’ve so far chosen otherwise: the lucid effect QS gives may look a bit strange, but it really makes colors shine and emerge, which I like.

Ok, if you really look at them close-up, you’ll notice several errors and a few points where I’ve been sloppy. But from the tabletop, at “wargame distance”, they look great. Bruce Quarrie was right, you don't need a great paintjob to create a visually-pleasing game. And so far, it's all I'm looking for.

Moreover, this has renewed my enthusiasm with painting minis, and that is a good result by itself. As practice increases, maybe my technique may even improve a bit.