First Manassas - The 2mm Armies

I'm a cheapskate when it comes to new periods, I will always look to try rules out without buying figures.  It stops, well limits, overspending on little lead men I may end up never using.  Trust me I have done that a few times and oft, that's how lead piles get started.

So for Altar of Freedom I decided to go cheap, very cheap, 2mm lets me do that, especially in an ACW setting where most of the troops are infantry.  The beauty of 2mm infantry is that a couple of matchsticks provide the basics of an infantry line.  As AoF uses brigade bases four blocks of infantry on a base looks like a brigade.  The base frontage is 60mm so four regiments on 25mm frontages deployed in two lines of two regiments works nicely.

The massed matchsticks of a Federal Infantry Brigade

To make the 'regiments' take two lengths of matchstick cut into 25mm lengths and glue then together along the long sides this represents two ranks of troops.  Four of these get glued to a base. Paint them blue or gray for a kriegspiel style look or if you are feeling ambitious take to MS Paint (other graphics programs are available) and create a paper print to glue to the front, top and rear of each regiment.  I do that as a single piece that wraps around the match sticks using PVA glue. The downside is that I have to draw the individual figures pixel by pixel, the upside is once I have done a couple of figures I can cut and paste to create the rest of the rank.

Artillery and Generals are trickier and I will probably limit myself to top down pictures or maybe a portrait taken from the OOB in the rules for Generals.  Cavalry will be bigger blocks, well horses are bigger then men after all.  I have tried out a couple of modelling styles for cavalry but  haven't decided which I prefer yet.  One thing I do know is that the beauty of 2mm is that it isn't that much extra work to do mounted and dismounted versions.

For First Manassas (or Bull Run if you prefer) I need 23 infantry brigades as against  two cavalry brigades, eight artillery batteries and three command groups.  The total costs costs will be measured in pennies rather than pounds which really pleases that cheapskate streak that I have!