Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Great Helm Grenadiers

I saw a passing reference a few weeks ago to #Turnip28* and didn't really think much of it.  I guess it fermented unbeknownst to me and then bubbled up again last week.  I have a lot of 54mm Napoleonic infantry, painted in "imagi-nation" uniforms that have lived unused in boxes for several years now (their last outing was a game of Charge! in 2015).  I also had some unpainted Timpo knights that have really funky helmets.  I had some unpainted Wuttemberger grenadiers, and with about an hour of tinkering these first three fellows of the Great Helm Grenadiers were born!


The tattered cloaks are torn paper towel bits, coated in diluted PVA (wood glue).  


The turnip28 minimal backstory is that the Napoleonic Wars never ended, and that some sort of invasive turnip showed up that killed other food sources, and that eating said turnip causes you to grow these turnip/tumors.  At 28mm this is easily represented with some static grass, but I'm not sure how to pull this off on 54mm figures.  Still pondering that part.  Anyway, you have these warband armies that scavenge medieval armor and are muddy and don't actually fight for the original Napoleonic powers anymore.  


All of this is a great excuse to mess around with custom figure creation and also paint Napoleonic infantry free from the dread uniform accuracy bug.  For these three, I ended up doing the jackets in a blue with yellow cuffs like the original Wuttemberger grenadiers, but I did pants in brown or grey rather than white. I tried mud splatters for the first time, using a sponge brush. This is a bit unnerving since you're blotching brown paint on a "clean" painted figure!  But the mud can help tone down the blue and yellow.  Finally the whole think was given a black wash.



I'm going to do another 9 of these Grenadiers (I have the Timpo heads for them).  I also ordered 100 Marx knights for $20 to serve as more donor heads to the other 54mm plastic Napoleonic figures.

* Here is some turnip28 info, sparse as it may be:
A Blog post (described it as "dark fantasy Napoleonic wargaming with a horrible root vegetable theme")
Another blog post



8 comments:

  1. I have been interested in this too and have done some figures in 28mm. It is weird indeed and I come and go in my enthusiasm for it. I did support the guy on patreon. I do like your 54mm fellows, terrific. I too am in the dark as to whats it is all about but will continue to follow things and model too.

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    1. Given that I have a large supply of figures ready at hand, I'm planning to convert enough figures for a two player game. I'll use a ruleset I already know or modify one. Pondering how to convert artillery. Cavalry seems out of place altogether.

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    2. The originator of all this is currently working on a set of rules which might feed into yours. Some people have been doing cavalry and artillery, still trying to work it out...

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    3. Occurs to me you could do ragged caparisons on Napoleonic horses, and for riders you could graft the crests and whatnot to top of medieval helmets. That might give the right combo look...

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    4. Sounds a plan, are you going to try it out...

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    5. I'm going to concentrate on converting infantry first.

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  2. I am absolutely fascinated by the look of the setting and your figures. For relatively straightforward conversions, they have so much character!

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    1. Agreed!
      The old quandary for 54mm wargamers is that the figures on the market can never *quite* build the armies that you actually want (medievals are particularly guilty, and ACW and WW2 seem the exceptions to this). The possibility of a fantastical hybrid between Napoleonics and medievals provides a solution for that quandary, or at least an outlet for scratching two itches at once.

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