Fire&Fury ACW using Epic miniatures for the Western battles (part 1) - CSA Stephen´s and Cleburne's brigades

 

General A.S.Johnson adresses an  Arkansas regiment before urging them forward around 2P.M on the 6th of April, 1862, at the battle of Shiloh. He holds a cup taken from one of the Union camps early in the day. He will move in front and will get killed a few hours later, being the highest ranking officer killed on both sides during the American Civil War.

Don Troiani  painted his beautiful 'Men of Arkansas' which served as an inspiration for the Army Command Stand were I placed General Albert Sidney Johnson. The figure of Johnson is the original officer on horse from the Epic sprue with its torso replaced by the foot officer. The slouch hat was trimmed until it got the shape of a kepi. The cup is a small slice of sprue glued to the right hand of the foot officer. 

Well, this is something. Since the advertisement  that Warlord was about to release new small (13,5mm) ACW miniatures in plastic I confess that I started to speak my poor English again with an American accent. 

 I built for many years the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia in 20mm for the Gettysburg battle using the basing system of  Fire&Fury. It was a pleasurable project with around 4000 minis built and painted that forced me to read books and magazines, watch movies and documentaries about the Civil War in the East, its uniforms, flags and campaigns. Years after I could say I had a reasonable knowledge of the battles of 1st Bull Run, Antietam. Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and specially Gettysburg to name just a few of the more famous. But frankly I knew nothing about the battles on the Western theater and names like Shiloh and Chickamauga were vague and distant to me. A few months  ago I saw  in the History Channel two documentaries about Grant that are absolutely magnificent, some of the best pieces TV ever made with an historical purpose. The depiction of the  battle of Shiloh is a work of art of the finest quality which is strange in a channel that now believes more in monsters and ghosts than in facts.

By coincidence about the same time Warlord releases its hard plastic Epic scale miniatures and offers a sprue with 100 of them in each January 2021 Wargames Illustrated magazine. Then, on their website, there is also a juicy box with 24 of those sprues plus a lot of other things in pre-order. Went looking for these magazines, found six and ordered the big box from Warlord. So, soon 3000 miniatures total! 

With all this I started to think and read about the Western campaigns with battles like Shiloh, Stones River, Cickamauga and Atlanta. The flags, particularly the Confederates, are far more diverse and interesting than the ones of the Army of Northern Virginia. Another aspect that lead me to make these Epic miniatures for the Western Campaigns is that the small 10 men groups have a mix of slouch hats and kepis which is exactly what the Union soldiers wore on those campaigns, on the contrary of the Army of the Potomac to the east which used almost nothing else but kepis, with some honourable exceptions. So the sprue being equal both for Union and Confederates is not bad at least for those who want to model and wargame the armies of the Western campaigns. 

The Brigades will be shown as I can find details of flags and uniforms, not in any other particular order. 

This picture is from an advertisement for the 2nd edition of the Brigade F&F rules showing day one at Gettysburg. It uses the same one line stands of the Regimental rules. Even if looking good I prefer much more the two line stands of the 1st Brigade rules. 

I aim at having all Brigades in the style of the 1st edition Brigade level  F&F units (with 2 deep stands) for Shiloh and slowly moving to the larger Chickamauga Order of Battle. Many units participated in both battles even if belonging to different armies and flags are also sometimes of the same type.  

To the left is Stephen's Brigade of Cheatham division  represented here by the 9th Tennessee and to the right is the 6th Mississipi, from Cleburne's Brigade, Hindman's Division, of Rhea Field fame. The uniform of the 9th Tennessee is mostly Cadet Grey as given to most of the Tennessee units that were at Shiloh, while the 6th Mississipi wears mostly Butternut colours in its uniform. This last unit should have had a bigger percentage of kepis but I ignored that detail, lazinness oblige. 

The 6cm base was cut in two as well as the 10 men line for them to become F&F (aproximate) 3cmX2cm stands. Some shoulders and arms were touched with a naked flame due to some X-Acto damage. An advantage of dividing the infantry lines is that you get four possible combinations of lines instead of two (there are only two variants of lines in each sprue excluding the command line).

To the left is the converted command stand from an original group of five figures you can see to the right. In fact a group of normal infantry can be used for command if you do something like this:

- the second figure to the left had its rifle carved out and replaced by a piece of sprue, becoming a drummer.

- the third figure, the officer, had the rifle replaced by a piece of plastic that became a new sword. With gloves painted he has extra pay.

- the flagbearer had its rifle replaced by a pole of plastic after drilling the hands. 

Like this you get an extra command group in an easy way.

The command stand of the 6th Mississipi is the one in the sprue, less five of its figures and with the torso of the officer on horse placed instead of the original one (who became General A.S, Johnson of the first picture). 

The massed look of these miniatures is very realistic. 

The artillery stands were painted in the usual colours of the Confederate artillery. The limbers will be released later together with cavalry, dismounted cavalry, wagons and Iron Brigade all in resin. 

Here they go towards Prentiss and Sherman's division early on the 6th of April for the the deadliest battle of US history. Until then. 

Next: wether more Epic miniatures or BEF 1940.