B is for Butter Nut....and Brown...

...and red and yellow and orange and green and blu'hoo! No, not blue, blue and grey are another rule of ACW, but today we're looking at the other colours - well; the few in my collection!

Starting with everyone's favourites; the Britains Swoppets and Herald ACW confederates, although the rule is Blue for Federal Union and grey for Confederate, they being the typical colours of a mass body of either side's armies - despite both sides having units in the other colour scheme - it is also accepted that 'butter nut' is a confederate colour, as they tended to have the greater logistical and financial problems when equipping their forces, and the fall back neutral colour was commonplace, particularly among poorer units or later in the war.

As the civil war is a lot older than the First World War, and people are already arguing over badges and patches from that war it's no surprise that there's a lack of consensus over what butter nut was, but suffice to say the three main sources seem to have been (and in no particular order); sun-bleached/sun-burned grey following summer service or other weathering, late Confederate Government issue 'suits' in a nut-dyed grey that rapidly turned a brownish shade and home-spun neutral fabrics.

Above we see the butter nut versions of the Swoppet figures on the left and what I'm assuming is a home-painted Herald figure on the right.

The blue/grey 'rule' (with its butter nut addendum) is allied to the red for Zouaves, Mounties and Garibaldi's red-shirts rule, with minor - obvious - rules like the red shirts for post-ACW cavalry, yellow for Confederate artillery and cavalry, green for the Irish Brigade &etc...being the norm of the gaming table.

However the above are wacky colours because I think they are Kiosk toys and Kiosk toys were always wacky colours. They seem to be copies of Reamsa 7th Cavalry (another rule is that post-ACW cavalry can be used for the earlier conflict!) rather than original Reamsa figures.

The lower figure is a Cherilea 'Custer' from a small range of single moulding solids they did (others were a knight, American Indian, Life Guard etc...), his Confederate colour may be original (sans paint), but I suspect he's one of the unpainted, 1990's re-issues? His horse has lost it's tail!

Top left is a Hong Kong copy ('copy' is paying it too much credit!) of a Timpo solid in a fetching brown with yellow saddle - so gotta-be Confederate! Next to him is another HK pirate, except this pirate is a Deetail ACW figure.

The Italian 'Kit Carson' could be a Kinder figure, but equally could be a little boxed pocket-money toy by Giodi, we looked at his true Confederate pal at the bottom of this post here.

The last group are re-issues from the Marx moulds of the late 1980s (?), and for unpainted war gaming give us four Confederate figures in three shades of butter nut, an Union Irish Brigade figure, a Union Artillery out-rider and err...a ghost!
 

The more modern/current companies have a four-colour, blue, grey, red and butter nut rule, producing all or some of each range in any of the colours. Above some of the lovely sculpts done by Peter Cole of Replicants for Marksmen which we looked at in small scale last December.

Below them are one (middle) from Accurate, and two from Imex - but they may be commission pieces run in these shades for the likes of CTS or Weston's?