2mm Extravaganza!

If you've not read it, I'd advise reading the blog 'Steel on Sand' for a good resource-pile relating to 2mm - for my money, one of the most routinely under-rated scales in wargaming. While my Wars of the Roses painting rumbles on, and my ACW campaign is on hold while I write up my campaign history (book-keeping - in real life, and in the hobby, it gets everywhere!) so I've taken my inspiration from it and dug out some old 2mm figures to see what I have. Turns out: far more than I realised! I have several armies of Horse & Musket kicking around in various states, so I thought I'd pick one to illustrate:

Take the above, for example - a full Confederate army in 2mm. I'd based it for DBA or something similar, but now with the excellent Black Powder rules in my hands, I'm thinking of converting it over to bases half this size.

Above are some Rebel infantry, which show the uneven and half-completed paint job I got through. Some units have little face-dots and stars-and-bars flags, while others are grey basecoats and no more. The above even has some rear-line regiments fashioned experimentally out of matchsticks. This may sound mad, but once painted and viewed from over the 'two-foot rule' distance, they are virtually indistinguishable from the moulded lead ones! To the front, a Corps commander plus his staff have a base of their own.

Here is a close-up on the cavalry, which includes Jeb Stuart and some light horse-artillery. The troopers themselves are modelled as a dismounted scrum of skirmishers (the collective noun?) to the fore, and a clutch of tethered horses to the rear. Looking at the photo, I've walked round the table and photographed them from behind - D'oh!

Now up to more refined levels - Army headquarters! the right shows the reserve artillery park of batteries, most of which are to be attached to the infantry corps. On the left is the HQ camp of R. E. Lee, with staffers, tents, hangers-on and even a little wagon. Behind it is the army supply base of yet more tents and such. One of the best things about 2mm is that you can model not just the fighting edge of an army, but the 'tail' as well, which can add a real extra dimension to large-level campaign games. (Plus, having it pillaged by enemy cavalry is a pain in the backside!)

Some close-up views of Johnny Reb. I feel like adding some variety to the uniforms, by putting in some splashes of browns and such - they're too neat and uniform! Each little 'unit' is a strip of a formed body of troops, forwarded by a skirmish line. I originally based them as 20mm by 10mm units, but then glued them together for DBA into 40mm by 20mm (as shown here.) For Black Powder I'll probably revert back, and a BP unit (probably around a brigade-sized outfit, at this scale) will consist of two 20mm x 10mm bases. This way they can go side-by-side for line formation, or back-to-back for a column. By converting scales I reckon they will move at about 2" a 'move' order and have a range of 4" for rifled muskets. At that scale, I can probably fight a battle on a small table or use a large one for effectively doing a series of battles - the entire Seven Days' battles on your dinner table?