Wheat's Special Battalion Color Guard in 28mm

    

    Civil War regiments were meant to be 10 companies on paper. Some had more some had less. Each of these Companies were meant to have 100 enlisted men, noncommissioned officers, and Officers collectively. Of course, after sickness, casualties, and attrition these units were rarely at full strength. Each Battalion had a center company that was designated as their color company. That would be the company that the color guard would be attached to the left of, signifying the center of the regiment with a stand of flags. One flag for Reb regiments, and two (a state and a national flag) for federal regiments. These could be used to identify them on the battlefield by other field officers, and aid the men of the regiment in maintaining their place in line when smoke and carnage obscured the battlefield. Being a color sergeant, or even in the color guard was a notably dangerous position to be in, being that a lot of enemy fire would be directed toward their position in line. When forming the color guard, men were chosen from different companies within a battalion who were deemed capable for the job. 

    All that being said, I've been very slowly working on recreating three of the five original companies of Wheat's Special Battalion for my game "Vortex of Hell". I finally finished Co. A "The Walker Guard" recently and figured it was time to finally undertake the pretty daunting task of recreating their color guard. The battalion itself elected to carry Co. C's flag they had brough from New Orleans as the official flag just prior to Manassas. It was a silk first national battle flag; a very common early confederate regimental flag. This flag was carried into the battle of first Manassas and used to help get Major Wheat off the field after his initial wounding. 

                     

The Finished Walker Guard, Co. A led by Captain Robert Harris

    As stated above, the flags were meant to be carried by a sergeant, specifically a denoted color sergeant. That was his job in the battalion. Wheat's Battalion flag was carried by 1st Lt. Austin Eastman, of Co. C at Manassas, which was a very unorthodox situation. He remarkably survived their attacks up Matthews Hill, and later assumably helped the wounded Major, returning to his company and his proper spot behind the line. It is also very important for me to note that, this battalion never ever carried a Louisiana state flag, regardless of how they're almost always portrayed carrying one in inaccurate art or on the tabletop. 

The original Delta Ranger's Flag, carried by Lt. Eastman, stained with Wheat's Blood. 

(Memorial Hall museum, New Orleans)

    That was a lot to preface a post about little toys. So here we go! I wanted to depict each of the battalion companies within the guard itself. Originally I thought I shouldn't include a member of Co. B (The Tiger Rifles) since it would look jarring or out of place, but in the end reality won out and I painstakingly converted one. This was a way for me to represent each uniform that each company wore at Manassas in a collected color guard. "Color" being the notable word there haha 

    

    First, I started with Lieutenant Eastman, who is a pivotal mini for this project. I think this was the main reason it took me so long to get started on this color guard. I was looking for the perfect model, even thinking that a Perry model from another 19th century South American range could be converted into him. But spending almost 40 bucks on essential one model that I then cut up, wasn't worth it. I went with a random color bearer mini from by civil war box, and figured I could just go nuts. I chopped down his slouch hat and shaved away the top of his head, added a kepi, and sculpted a havelock onto his cap since Company C specifically was issued them. I then crudely sculpted skirts onto his jacket using Tamiya putty so it would work as an officer's frock coat. After it dried a bit, I carved it into a better looking shape. 

    Next up for specific conversions were two men representing members of Company C, the Delta Rangers. These base minis for most of the color guard are Perry miniatures representing early war volunteers in slouch hats and overshirts. They were a great starting point for most of the companies in the battalion. For these Co. C guys I clipped off their slouch hats, and just like the good ol' Lt, I added a cap and sculpted havelocks onto them. 

    Because the color guard would not follow some other arms positions the rest of the battalion would come to, I opted to keep them all at shoulder arms because that is generally how they'd be carrying their muskets while in formation. Because of this, I realized I had to figure that out for our dear old member of  The Tiger Rifles. First I tracked down an arm carrying the musket the correct way. I landed on a French Napoleonic arm from my Napoleonic bits box. I shaved off the French cuff, and trimmed down the French Charleville to better look like an 1841 rifled. With that out of the way, I grabbed a perry zouave body and got to work. I shave off the tombeaux on the jackets front, then clip off the bayonet scabbard on his left side since they weren't issued them. Then I shaved off the side of the jambieres so I can paint them as socks down the road. I cut back the right side of the pantaloons to make sure the rifle can sit in its proper position. This model came together surprisingly well. 

   For fun, here's the primed full company of Delta Rangers that needs to be painted.

    Ok, Here's what I was working with once converting these previous guys. Two members from Co. A (The Walker Guard), one from Co. B (White's Tiger Rifles), three from Co. C (The Delta Rangers), two from Co. D (Catahoula Guerrillas), and one from Co. E (Old Dominion Guard).

    The base colors are down. The two guys in the grey uniforms on the left are from the Catahoula Guerrillas. I opted to have one without his jacket as many men dropped theirs during the battle of Manassas. Co. A and Co. E were wearing the exact same thing, Co. C was wearing the same uniform as A and E just with caps and havelocks instead of civilian hats. And finally, Co B which was the infamous zouave company. 

    A little more work with washing and some more base coloring. 

Here are some highlights. This step started to bring out the real unique looks of each company. 

And here they are almost done. 

Co. C, The Delta Rangers

Co. B, White's Tiger Rifles

Co. A, The Walker Guard and Co. E, The Old Dominion Guard

Co. D, The Catahoula Guerrillas

The gangs all here. Now I need to finish alllll the guys for Co. B and Co. C! I also need to do the flag itself still. Thanks for checking this out. Hopefully I'll update this again relatively soon. 

-Tyler

https://www.instagram.com/tylerisalrightatpainting/?hl=en

Adepticon 2026 Prep!

 

Ayoo, lately I’ve been crazy busy with life, work, two sweet little cats, and wallowing in a deep dark depressive state. Mostly though, I’ve been preparing for Adepticon 2026! Here’s an update on some of the stuff I have been trying to get done for it. Merch, minis, etc! 

Golden Demon:

First, I’ve been working on a few pieces for Golden Demon. This year I wanted to up my game a little bit with some plinths and diorama bases. Some of the feedback I got from the judges last year was that they didn’t know how to display my Plague Marines and that a base would help a lot. So here’s some process pics of their new set up. I’ve still got to do some finishing touches, but it’s all there now. 

Next up is one of my favorite minis I’ve ever converted and worked on. I figured it was time to take him off the 40mm base and give him a proper display plinth. My friend Shane suggested I use old chair legs to make plinths. So I went to the Salvation Army and found a 30 year old junk chair. Here are a few WIPs of this Ogryn’s new plinth. 

And third for the Golden Demon stuff is a top 5 mini for me. The classic Reiklander Youngblood with spear. Years ago before Mordheim had its renaissance, I collected a bunch of the Reikland Youngbloods on eBay for actual reasonable prices. So I figured I’d give this guy the hero treatment and get him looking his best. 

First, I cut a gnarly piece of the chair leg and sculpted the green stuff cobblestone to it. Then I fit the mini to the base. I had primed and started this guy years ago, so he needed to be reprimed for this. I also thought it would be nice to add his slotta tab as a name plate to the plinth as well. 

Here’s the primed model. A heavy zenithal, as I knew a lot of this guy would end up being pretty light colors. 

Here he is toward the end of the process. 

And here’s a better pic of the mini itself. From here I just need to work on the base, add highlights, add some sort of skull possibly, and do a little bit of clean up.

Demo Board:

Here’s a look at the Demo Board I made for INHUMANE HARVEST. While the game is ideally played on a 3x3, this 2x2 will get the job done for playing demo games throughout the weekend at Adepticon. 

Below are some finished board photos.

Merch:

I’ve also been working on some merch to sell at the SMASH BASH/ HIVE SCUM BOOTH. Hive Scum and Totally Not Panicking are slinging goods at Booth 808 this year with all our shirts, minis, games, zines, free stickers, half eaten uncrustables, and more. 

Shane has been working hard to get the nice finalized INHUMANE HARVEST books finished! I’ve still got to add blood to the covers.

The first prints of Vortex of Hell will also be there! It’s my smaller scale American Civil War game. It focuses on historical accuracy and fast, fun gameplay in Company and small Battalion sized games. 

A new shirt! I’ll have these as well as the remaining tylerisalrightatpainting shirts that are leftover. 

I sculpted these modern/near future casualties a few years ago and am finally getting around to casting them. Perfect for INHUMANE HARVEST loot tokens.

I’ll also have a bunch of painted minis for sale, for those who want a cool one off painted conversion. 

I’m so stoked to see everyone at Adepticon. Even if you don’t want any of this junk, come to booth 808 to say hello to us! And check out the Grim Dark hallway. Don’t know where it is? Ask a freak!

Puddle and Artemis say hello. 

Diving back into 28mm Civil War

Getting The Details Correct: Early War Specifics of Two Rival Battalions at 1st Manassas

 I’ve been working on a Small scale American Civil War tabletop rules system called “Vortex of Hell” for a while now, and it’s pretty much finished. Before historicon this year, I painted a battalion each of Rebs and federals so my friends could playtest it! I’ll write more about that soon in another post I think, but it was fantastic to get two fully painted battalions (75 or so individual minis each) on the tabletop with striking and well detailed terrain provided by my friend Turhan. 

 All that is to say, that those two forces were painted to portray troops in mid 1864 or so. After realizing the game we played at historicon ‘25 was playable and dare I say even enjoyable, I got back to it, editing and adding clarifications. While thinking about specific book scenarios, I kept going back to a Matthews Hill type scenario. Lately I’ve wanted to get back on the ACW horse to paint some opposing battalions for very early war stuff, probably Manassas themed. So, July of 1861.

Above: Wheat’s Special Battalion arriving at Manassas Junction in late June, 1861. 

 I’ve been fascinated by and have diligently researched “Wheat’s Special Battalion”, raised in New Orleans, for over half my life now. 20 years is a long time for a mega hyper fixation, but then I realize I’ve got minis next to me right now that I’ve had for 27 or so years. So, it’s a theme. Wheat’s Battalion, or the “1st Louisiana Special Battalion” as they were also known were and still are a very misunderstood and often misidentified unit. Folks have a hard time understanding who they were, what they did, and what they wore. I get into that a little in a YouTube video I made while painting two members of the battalion, if you’re interested. 

 On the left, we have a member of Captain Alexander White’s “Tiger Rifles”, who would form Company B of the battalion. On the right is a member of Captain Robert Harris’s “Walker Guard”, which would become Company A of the battalion. 

 I go into some specifics of these uniforms in the YouTube video, but it’s worth noting that of the five companies that made up Major Wheat’s Battalion, each had their own distinct uniform. Each company was roughly 100 men on their enlistment. Wheat’s Battalion was certainly colorful, but proved to be very aggressive fighters when it came to it. Many of the men from Co’s A and B specifically were veterans of  many Filibuster missions to South America prior to the war, where they honed their skills and learned very brutal combat tactics. Now, there’s way too much to get into with all of that, and keep this blog short. For now, I’ll just note that many of them were brutal dudes who most folks wouldn’t likely invite to dinner. 

 Along with these two companies, I’m in the planning stages of starting on the Battalion’s Color Company, the “Delta Rangers” (yes that was their actual name), who were assigned as Co. C in Wheat’s Battalion. They were uniformed very similarly to Company A, but were issued blue or grey caps and havelocks. 

 At Manassas they primarily fought against troops from Rhode Island on Matthews Hill. Specifically, John Slocum’s 2nd RI infantry. So, I think it’s only appropriate as I plan, slowly build, and paint three of Wheat’s companies, I should begin work on some of the Rhode Islanders who valiantly held against the ferocious attack that day. The Rhode Islanders, while not AS wildly dressed as some of Wheat’s soldiers, had a unique look of their own. 

 These men were outfitted with a dark blue indigo dyed flannel pullover shirt that was fairly long, and had a deep placket. It was made of the same material as a Federal army 1858 fatigue blouse, but was fairly simple in construction, and assembly a good way for the state of RI to uniform and outfit her first volunteers. Their trousers were dyed grey that most likely faded to a dead grass/tan color. And the men wore a mix of blue (possibly faded to a deep grey) caps, caps with havelocks (white cotton cap coverings that were intended to keep the sun of their necks), and civilian brimmed hats of various makes. One stark color contrast were the red state issued blankets they carried as bedrolls or rolled in a blanket sling. Their equipment was a mix of oddball state items as well as regular federal government sets of leathers. 

 I got excited to start working on a few Rhode Islanders, while I wait to order some of them from Perry’s Minis. I landed on these two so far. I’m very happy with the first guy. The second might be changed. Initially, his pose looked ok to me, as a guy encouraging his comrades forward. But I’m not sure I dig it. Either way, a bit of minimal sculpting got these two looking pretty close to my ideal 2nd RI look. 

 These two minis started a federals in sack coats, so I converted them into Rhode Island blouses with some (old) green stuff. The caps were an easy fix since I added the skirts of the havelocks. The second guy got a quick blanket roll, and they were finished. if I were to change anything, I could elongate the shirts a bit to closer match most of the original examples, although they did vary in length.

Above: For some context and to see them in color, here are two museum quality uniform reproductions I made for a National Park program at Manassas a few years back. These detail what a member of White’s Tiger Rifles would have looked like there, as well as what a member of the 2nd Rhode Island would have looked like. Modeled by myself and my buddy Tom. 

 Next, I’ll paint up the guy below as a test model for the 2nd RI, to figure out exactly how I want to tackle them. I think for the long term on that battalion, I’ll do two companies advancing at shoulder arms and one more like the guy below in different stages of firing and reloading while advancing, to portray their skirmish company who was out front of their main body of troops and first engaged with Wheat’s Battalion at Manassas. 

Ok, I’ll end the rambling for today. Read more actual history, it can get pretty cool and wild. 

-Tyler