"Re: Most Overpainted Unit" Topic

While this may not be the best approach to a poll, one thing I was thinking about was what is the most over-painted unit on the table? While I suspect this varies a lot from period to period the ones that spring to mind are:

Ancients – Praetorian Guard – a maximum of 12 cohorts top

Seven Years War – Prussian IR40 – who doesn't look better in pink?

Napoleonic Wars – French Old Guard Grenadiers (for all practical purposes 3 regiments total) or British Rifles regiments (also 3 in total if you include the KGL)

ACW – Berdan's Rifles and The Louisiana Tigers – maybe also the Iron Brigade

WWII – Tigers in general (1,370 total) and King Tigers in particular (570 total) versus the common StuG (9,700)

I am sure there are lots more – thoughts?

Seven Years War – Prussian IR40 – who doesn't look better in pink?

And here I was thinking I was the only one that thought that was a sharp outfit.

WWII – SS in general. I like STuG's, I have 3.

Napoleonic: Dutch Red Lancers. More ubiquitous than the Guard Grens.

Napoleonic: Pavlovsk Grenadiers. If they have one Russian unit, it's this one…

Persian immortals (Archaemenid period)
British grenadiers (WSS) – those mitres!
Samurai!
and more!

Forgot about the Red Lancers and those rascally SS

And of course the immortal British grenadierqs!

Anything from Games Workshop.

Napoleonic : Scots Greys. My 15mm army has more Carabiniers than the actual army had.

My WWII German army never has had any SS. I refuse to paint any.

Yeh, SS, way overdone.
Being an inverse snob I have a no Tigers policy in my German army, Panzer 4s and STuGs in support, Panthers if I must, along with a preference for fielding captured equipment (French Shcnieders rather than Krupp 105s, pak 38/97s and the like, mostly horse towed). Just my preference.

Hmmm… agree with Old Guard Grenadiers and Immortals. I will add to the list:

1. Prussian Death Head Hussars (both SYW and Napoleonic)
2. Irish Brigade for ACW
3. Alexander's Companions

Yes!
Napoleonic: Brunswick contingent in 1815. If there had a been a hundredth of the Brunswickers able to take the field as have been painted over the past two years, Napoleon would have stayed on Elba.

I wonder if "over represented" is a more precise phrase. I don't know what over-painted could mean if you hadn't listed examples.

Napoleonics: British Guards and KGL

In naval -
Santissima Trinidad
Kitakami and Oi

WW2
Brumbars – how many were there really?
Pershings – enough said

Napoleonics
British Horse Guards

Waterloo Highlanders, Imperial Guard, Household Cavalry.

Not sure the Waffen SS ARE over-represented-if you are doing British and Canadians in Normandy and Market-Garden, the SS seem to be the most frequent opponents.

Yes, Tigers. I've been looking at Kursk recently, and the actual numbers are tiny, Das Reich only having ONE available for the Prokhorovka attack [hasn't stopped me accumulating four…]

Spartans.
14th New York State Militia (or just zouaves in general).
WWII British para.

Space Marines.

Every gaming circle I've been in has the Iron Brigade and Texas Brigade for ACW. One reason I prefer the western battles. Old Guard everything, except the Empress Dragoons which I personally think are dead sexy. The Wild Geese and Swiss show up regularly. Yeah… what they said.

My Marian Roman's have had their shields overpainted at least four times, does that count? I may be about to redo them again using decals this time.

WW2 British paras/glider units are popular, but not over-represented-if your interest is Arnhem.
There, they are standard troops.

Any German Maus would automatically cause an off the scale result for over-representation.

Over represented unnits of course. Easy…Scots greys/RNB Dragoons. One action during the entire Napoleonic wars but every British army seems to have a unit.

Polish Lancers (to support the Imperial Guard Grenadiers:)

I think the thing with Tigers, is you need to paint enough of them proportional to the battles they appeared in. And curse those Germans for producing so many different kinds of tanks….

How many people have fleets of Matilda Is, which also fought in precisely one battle? Ahem.

95th Rifles, naturally. I go out of my way to eliminate them every time I see them appear on the battlefield.

As noted above, it depends which battles you are intersted in. If you solely restrict yourself to battles within five miles of Caen in June and July 1944, you'll need British infantry, paras, commandos, Canadian infantry (in their greener BD), Polish, armoured brigades, tank brigades, funnies. For the Germans you'll need Ostbattalions, regular infantry, LFD, normal SS, 12th SS in Italian camo, Flak, Panzer Lehr, those jazzy 21st Panzer Div converted vehicles, and more Tigers, Panthers, Pz IVs and Stugs than you can shake a stick at, included Porsche turret Tiger IIs, both types of Tiger Is (in multiple battalion strength). If you don't go as far west as Caumont you might not need any Jagdpanthers.

In fact the only thing you don't need are FJ….

These chaps all then reappear at Arnhem a couple of months later, except you need Henschel turreted Tiger IIs. You can leave the British commandos at home, but you'll need the FJ, some Pz IIIs for Pz Ko Mielke and of course all the converted French tanks for Pz Ko 224 and chuck in some German naval infantry, Herman Goring Div. You'll need some Jagdpanthers and Jagdpanzer IVs as well.

"Brumbars – how many were there really?"

Several assault gun battalions were equipped with them, so if you are doing the battles those battalions fought in, you need a battalion of Brummbars.

I have nine A11 Matilda tanks.

AWI:

British Guard
Blue faced red Americans

Napoleonics:

French Old Guard
British Guard
95th Rifles
Royal Scots Greys

ACW:

Iron Brigade
Louisiana Tigers
114th Penn. Zouaves
Texas Brigade
1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters (Berdan)
1st Virginia Cavalry

WWI:

German A7V Tanks (They only produced about 20.)

WWII:

Tiger Tanks
Airborne
SS Anything