| D6 Junkie | 31 May 2015 8:27 p.m. PST |
Want to build an ACW Confederate brigade with my new Perry plastic confederate box. What brigade would serve in the most battles? |
79thPA  | 31 May 2015 8:41 p.m. PST |
A generic brigade, or whatever you want as far as a historical brigade is concerned. Is your opponent supposed to find a Union brigade that was in the same battles and in direct opposition to your brigade the majority of time both brigades took to the field? What army? What theater? What year? IMO it is a fool's errand. Do you have a favorite battle? A brigade from that would be as good as any. |
 Saber6  | 31 May 2015 9:25 p.m. PST |
Why stop with a single brigade? Cornpone's Brigade would be a good choice for any gamer |
| TKindred | 01 Jun 2015 2:54 a.m. PST |
A generic CS Brigade will do you the most good. Plain gray uniform jackets with a mix ox drabs, grays, and earth tones for trousers. Stay away from te sky blue trousers for now. Black accoutrements and haversacks, and knapsacks, blanket rolls should be grey, tan, or other drab colors, OR black, to simulate the painted or rubber ground cloth with the blanket wrapped inside it. Black shoes with tan/drab green or undyed wool for socks if visible. Canteen should be either plain tin (silver) with an oiled leather strap, or in some cases, an off-white cloth strap. Hats, if used, were more likl=ely as not to be black, as it was by far the most common color of headwear amongst the civilin market, both north and south. If not black, then some shade of drab or coffee would work. Caps would be grey, for certain, and I would, for a generic CS brigade, stay away from any trim on the cap. If you MUST add some, use eith black or a royal/dark blue band at the base of the cap. Officers should have a cadet grey coat, with a matching cap. Either some shade of grey trousers, if not a matching cadet grey, or a royal (not sky blue) or dark blue color. All accouterments, straps, etc, should be black. Canteen may be tin or a drab or grey cloth cover. Best of luck with this. Most CS brigades averaged 4 regiments, so you could have some options based upon the pose(s) and uniform colors for each of the 4 regiments. AND……. before you even think about basing these minis, you should consider which set of rules they will be used for. Best of luck! |
| doc mcb | 01 Jun 2015 4:32 a.m. PST |
Easy enough to have extra command stands and use the same rank and file. |
| cwbuff | 01 Jun 2015 4:53 a.m. PST |
Recommend generic with add on labels for whatever battle you want to do. Uniforms, weapons and strength are a snap shot in time. |
 Extra Crispy  | 01 Jun 2015 5:12 a.m. PST |
Agreed. And for the most part brigades spent most of their careers either in teh West or the East so you'd need to decide on theater first anyway and then be limited to that… |
| Lou from BSM | 01 Jun 2015 5:31 a.m. PST |
I agree with everyone's comments re: generic brigades. The truth of the matter is that most brigades were rather generic. If you want to paint a well known brigade that gave good service in several battles, then my personal favorite would be the Irish Brigade, but that's just one man's opinion. |
 ColCampbell | 01 Jun 2015 6:53 a.m. PST |
But for a Confederate Brigade, you could do the Stonewall Brigade or Hood's Texas Brigade for the Army of Northern Virginia or the Kentucky Orphan Brigade for the Army of Tennessee, depending on which theater you choose to set your action.
Jim |
| Frederick | 01 Jun 2015 7:08 a.m. PST |
Start with a generic brigade – TKindred's comments on how to paint them up are spot on and I could not agree more Over time you can get your favourite "boutique" brigades but generic for both sides is the way to start in ACW (says the guy whose first Union brigade was the Iron Brigade) |
| wminsing | 01 Jun 2015 7:23 a.m. PST |
Yep, generic brigade is the way to go, possibly with alternative command stands if you want to get the flags right. -Will |
| Bill N | 01 Jun 2015 8:10 a.m. PST |
I am a fan of generics as well, but there is a compromise. Do the ranks as generic but buy extra command sets that you do to represent different commands. Then you simply swap out command stands depending on what action you are trying to portray. |
| jowady | 01 Jun 2015 1:37 p.m. PST |
Generic will work well for all (by switching out colors) except for Hood's Texas Brigade who were renowned for wearing a lone star on the hats (okay, I'm not certain how late in the war that held up) but really, unless it's a Zouave unit most Confederate Brigades probably looked similar. |
| John Miller | 02 Jun 2015 5:57 p.m. PST |
If I was building one brigade and if it belonged to the Army of Northern Virginia, I would have to do Hood's Texas Brigade. For me, romance always comes first. The first brigade I built for my Army of the Potomac was the Irish Brigade but in most of the games in which it took part over the years, it was used as a substitute for another outfit. All that being said I think Bill N's idea above of swapping command stands sounds very practical. John Miller |
