A while back I played a game with French and British 2mm armies from the Irregular Miniatures range. Basing a single block on a base did not work for me. Here is a reminder how it looked back then:
I got several recommendations on how to improve to look. After a couple of work sessions the two armies are on the march again, albeit smaller than before:
The new look uses much brighter colors and 2-3 blocks per bases. The bases are 1″ and about 2mm thin. I should paint the top of infantry black to represent the shakos and other headware, but it makes the units too dark and they get lost in the terrain. The infantry is clearly distinguishable, the cavalry well enough and for artillery it is not that important. Here is another shot:
Up close the paint jobs looks sloppy and barebones. There is a reason for that. My paint job was sloppy and barebones! From the usual distance they will be looked at, everything will blend in together anyway. Table ready is the term of the hour. I already played a game with the armies but more on that in a later post.
Still on the 2mm front I, very slowly, produce armies for the Ancients rules set Strength and Honor:
Up top a roman legion in triplex acies opposed by two massive blocks of tribal warriors (gauls for example). Everything has been assembled in layers of cardboard and then painted. I’m still unsure about the size of these units and their look. Probably the reason why progress is slow.
The final bit of unusual hobby news from me is a bit of science fiction. I recently rescued my decades old Space Marine stuff from my old room at my parents. Xenos Rampant gave me a bit of a kicker to do something with these and I painted a small test unit:
This batch of Blood Angel or Blood Raven Space Marines with Rhino transports represent one of the smaller units in Space Marine or one of the later versions of the Epic rules system. I have tons more to paint, as well as Eldar and Orks in corresponding strength. My first foray into Xenos Rampant was not particularly enjoyable though. It felt too much line Lion Rampant, which by itself I sometimes like and sometimes really dislike. Fortunately there is no shortage of rules to use.
Painting progress reports still feel weird for me. Does somebody likes these 😉
Wargaming Everything 
I enjoy painting updates. Keep them coming.
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Thanks Jon.
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great post – helpful as i have some 2mm irregular nap armies and am wondering hwo to paint them – i also got some Project Wargaming 2mm armies, which are highly detailed 2mm units comparatively speaking, and am even more at a loss to know how to approach painting them, afraid the bristles of brushes will break them even!
instead though i am doing 3mm scale paper napoleonic armies and trying to get the colours right in order to makie things stand out is a challenge, but i think i dont mind if a block of infantry from either side might look the same from a distance, – flags and other things can help differentiate them — accentuating the plumes on Guard shakos and using colours with a strong contrast and saturation can help too to make them distinguishable even from a little way away
the Strenght and Honour rules are intriguing, i have to look into those
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Thanks Mitchell. From my experience you can paint and see flags and other details only close up. When they are all on the table the only thing that helps distinguish the units is the general color of the block. That’s why the irregular blocks are fine by me. Any more detail is lost anyway.
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On top of the blue for the french I am wondering if you could add some dots of red or yellow or green where applicable to indicate Grenadier, voltiguer etc companies
Do you have some closer up pics of the paint jobs you did for cavalry with the irregular 2mms? Would love to see them,
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Little colored dots are easy to paint. But I don’t think they will be noticeable from a distance. My cavalry is mostly in the old style with somewhat darker colors. Stay tuned for a battle report where I will include some close ups.
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regarding the irregular 2mm figures – i got some of their napoleonic range recently and started painting them finally but i noticed that the infantry pieces i have are much wider then yours – did you cut your line infantry blocks to have less frontage?
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Mine are the ~1 cm wide blocks. 3 ranks deep with flag. Was a couple of years back when I ordered but to my knowledge nothing has changed.
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Yes after I wrote the comment I went to the irregular website and saw that they actually do a range of infantry blocks in diff sizes, the ones I have are the 78 man blocks
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