Nap. Russian Infantry #1

 

I actually did this unit quite awhile ago, but didn't post it yet. They are my first attempt at painting a 28mm Napoleonic unit(not figure) and I had a great time! I think a huge reason for that is the figures themselves are superbly sculpted and casted and are some of the most painter friendly models I've done! The figures if you don't know are from Front Rank(now under Gripping Beast) and are exactly right up my street in terms of style and sculpting as alluded to.

My approach to painting Napoleonic armies will be similar to how I do my ACW armies in that the units will be small so as to better work in relation to the table I have in my hobby room. My table is 5ft x 8ft that I can extend to 5ft x 10ft if needed. I could go larger, but to be honest I wouldn't want to as it would get too cramped. In terms of rules I like rules where the player sets the size of units like Field of Battle 3, Black Powder etc. In addition I prefer fighting portions of a battle rather then the whole thing so all in all it works out for me in this approach to unit sizes. 

 A note on how I paint my figures. I paint my figures with the idea of being largely historically correct, but I will take as many liberties as I want to get the look I'm after regardless if it is accurate or not. In other words rule of cool is in effect in my projects. This unit is an example of that in which I like the look of units with some in greatcoats and some not although my understanding is they would either be one or the other. If you see something incorrect then half the time it will be deliberate and the other half ignorance.:-)

I'm currently painting a French unit to figure out my colors for the armies and then I plan on bouncing between the two with the intentions of adding Prussians into the mix as well....Front Rank or Calpe hmm... maybe both. This of course is a long term project because time needed to paint it all and the cost(mostly metal) as I'll largely be using Front Rank, Calpe and maybe some Victrix if I can push through assembly process. Oh the Flag is from Flags of War I think if anybody was curious.

I've noticed I'll need to add a spot of matt varnish again here and there as a few got some shiny areas. Oh well things you notice after taking a picture. I'll try and post some more stuff as I now have a bit of a backlog. I'm so lazy taking pictures and posting!

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company-Front Rank

18mm AB French in Greatcoats

 

This is my first try at a Napoleonic regiment and I thought I would start with the renowned AB miniatures in 18mm. I'm not sure if it's a project yet as I mostly did this so I would have a something to add when a friend that I have comes over with his Nap collection. It may become a project, but too early to say.

I've always had a strange relationship with figures smaller than 28mm in that I like how they present an army feel to them, but find them sort of a chore to paint as I feel somewhat constrained with all the small brush strokes. I'm quite happy with how they look and really like the solid compactness they present. I would really like to add more regiments to my collection, but the process of getting there dampens the enthusiasm some as they are quite time consuming.

I'm hoping to add more 15/18mm armies to my collections as I do really like the army feel they present and maybe doing more of them will become more comfortable in time, but 28mm will stay king as I really do like painting the scale and the dynamism in posing it offers. 

The figures are amazing and full of detail that would put some 28mm to shame, but I wonder do you really need so much detail in 18mm? After all nobody will see it unless they pick it up for inspection. I'm on the fence about it because for pictures with close ups and those that like to have close inspections of miniatures it's great, but if it's just for army building then maybe not as much. I would say before I paint the unit I wish there was less, but after I'm done I'm glad their was more...... so perhaps I'm not the best to ask because I can't give straight answer other then a muddled "depends".

I'm a novice in uniforms and organizations in the Napoleonic wars so mistakes may of been made that might make some Grognards gasp, but truth be told if I liked something that wasn't correct I'd still keep it as I take liberties to give impressions that I want, because for me that's the most important thing of any project or figure I paint.

 

I have some more French that are about half way or so finished in between other things I'm doing, but this time without greatcoats. I thought I would start with greatcoats first as they are easier to paint then uniforms when getting my feet wet for the first time.

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company- Eureka/AB miniatures

Iron Marshal Devout

Beginning my 9th challenge starting with a Napoleonic figure after leaving the last challenge with a Napoleonic entry which is strange as I've only ever painted Napoleonic figures for theses submissions so far!

Louis- Nicolas Devout Duke of Auerstaedt, Prince of Eckmühl aka The Iron Marshal was a Marshal of the Empire during the Napoleonic period and was arguably Napoleons greatest general if you counted just wins and losses. Everyone has their favorites, but either way he would be recognized as being counted among the best by most historians.

Devout was not flamboyant in either dress or behavior and was a strict disciplinarian with both himself and his troops hence the Iron Marshal title, but this did makes his troops very reliable and as a consequence his troops were given some of the most difficult tasks which in virtually every case were performed above what is normally expected . Thanks to his tactical expertise and his disciplined formations Devout only lost one battle and thus will go into history as a feared and respected adversary.

I'm not exactly sure where I got this miniature, but I think it was special figure for an event I attended(Tactica?) and was done by one of the Perry's I think. If someone knows the background  information on this miniature as to who made it please feel free to mention this in the comments. I painted the miniature using mostly Foundry colors with some Vallejo as well plus my trusty Mig pigments on the base.

Perhaps I'll do some more Napoleonic material in the future as the mood strikes.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Perry miniatures?

  

Old Mill / Farmhouse and Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

Blowing the dust off the blog before the year ends with a terrain piece I painted up because it's time I posted something and more importantly because the yearly Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is ready to start here on the 20th of December and lasts until mid March or so.

The challenge always helps me get back into the painting chair and it's a tradition I've been involved with since the 2nd iteration when it became an open event. We are now going on the 10th edition so pretty impressive run Curt has managed to keep going! With this 10th edition Curt decided to put together a special challenge where the competitors will be traveling to a unusual and fascinating kind of island so I highly recommend visiting the link I gave above for the details.

Another reason to get the blog going is the fact I need to start learning how to use my camera again which I still cannot properly use. Maybe one day I'll actually know how to use it!

The model is from Ziterdes terrain and supposed to be a mill if you add the water wheel it came with or can be used as a large farmhouse. It's made out of foam so is surprisingly very light for it's large size.

The building painted up nicely using a selection of my usual craft paints with a liberal amount of Mig pigments for some weathering. This example will work for most any European setting from the horse and musket period right up to modern day so a useful piece indeed. I think I may have some more of these buildings, but would need to check my inventory and if so will likely paint up some more.

As usual I have backlog of things to post that I'll try to add in between the material I post for the challenge, but the challenge will take priority so if not during the challenge then after. I hope everyone has enjoyed their year so far and thanks for your patience!

Merry Christmas!! May all your stocking be stuffed with plastic and lead!

Thank you for viewing!
Miniature Company- Zitterdes terrain 

Russian Napoleonic Officers

About a year ago I traded some miniatures for a large collection of Front Rank Napoleonic Russians and just finally got around to trying them out. I've never painted any Napoleonic miniatures before as the period was always pushed aside for other periods for a variety of reasons, but I've always liked the look of Front Rank Napoleonic figures and thought it would be nice to try some someday.

I do not own any LOTR miniatures for Curt's Fellowship entry fee for the AHPC, but I knew Curt was a fan of the Napoleonic period so I sent him an e-mail asking if he would accept some Napoleonic figures instead and he happily said that would be fine. Now to my shame I didn't send him a figure last year because I forgot due to other distractions(weak excuse I know) so instead of doing one figure I did two to make up for that shortcoming.

Full disclosure I've never delved into Napoleonics generally preferring the North American period, but was always curious. So how did painting my first set of Napoleonic Front Rank figures go......I enjoyed it! I think a great deal of that has to do with the sculpting style of the figure itself which made it a pleasurable experience. Also, they do look rather eye catching with all the braid work and sashes. I feel because the sculpting was so nice it made that fun to do whereas anything less well sculpted would have turned it into a chore.

So am I now going to turn out hundreds of Napoleonic figures and plunge head first into the great black hole of Napoleonics you may ask. That's hard to say as I'm a horrible butterfly making any kind of prediction difficult to say the least so for now I'll just say I'll paint some more as I both enjoyed the experience and really like how they look and see where it goes.

Since I'm  new to painting Napoleonics I had to decide on the approach I'll take in that will I worry about getting everything right or paint things how I prefer them to look while retaining the impression of the period. Well since I take liberties in almost everything I do I won't make an exception with Napoleonics and will continue to paint things in the impression I want while still retaining a legitimate period feel. If it's accurate then that's great, but if not then that's also fine as long as I'm happy with the final look which is what is important with our personal figures.

Napoleonics has a lot of white and if you have too much bright white imho it can overpower things so I decided a more subdued white was the order of the day. I've seen Russian uniform coats painted in a a dark green almost black and others medium bright which neither work for me so I went for what I feel is a medium dark green and liked how it turned out.

Hmm.... what next to do....more Russians, Texas War of Independence or perhaps something ancient ....I'm curious to find out what I'll do.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Front Rank

A wargame in England while on vacation

A few days ago I returned from a lovely vacation in England with my family visiting amusement parks, cities, children attractions, museums, battlefields and other historic sites which I'll post about at later date and of course having an absolute wonderful wargame with Ray from Don't throw a 1 blog fame and his gaming group called Postie's rejects headed of course by Postie himself.

The battlefield as seen from the French left flank with infantry facing off center and left and cavalry off in the distance on the right. Told you it was a huge battle!

Well I thought we were just going to have an afternoon scrap with a few guys until Ray and Postie guided me into the fabled wargaming shed where I was presented with a massive table packed with 15mm Napoleonic figures! A truly epic sized game with about 3 corps per side which to my understanding is the largest game they have ever put on. The only time I've ever played in games roughly that big were at conventions using 15mm ACW so I felt quite chuffed to say the least to be included in such an epic game. Thanks a lot guys!!

We decided to draw paper bits to decide which side we would play on and the results were as follows:

Russians
John - de Tolly
Ray - Tuchkov
Richard - Strogonov

French
Surj - Davout
Myself- Eugene
Ian - Montbrun

Postie- Umpire

Well actually I drew the cavalry, but since I was new to the system(Posties home brew) and do not have a lot of experience playing Naps especially cavalry, but do however in infantry tactics from other horse and musket periods Ian kindly switched with me giving me control of the infantry in the center and himself the cavalry on the flank.

The Scenario

The Battle of Vyazma 31st August 1812

As Ray described in his blog "Napoleon and his Grand Armee are advancing towards Moscow, chasing the Russians. In a change of history, de Tolly has decided to try and halt the French advance, he set up his army to delay the French by the small town Vyazma and waited for the French."

Personally I was very happy the scenario took place in the Russian campaign as that is my favorite of the Napoleonic theaters.

Surj, Ian and myself discussed our strategy after viewing the armies dispositions. Basically the Russians had a relatively strong defensive position commanding a low ridge line with regular infantry holding the center and Grenadiers holding their right flank and a mix of regular and elite cavalry on their left with more heavy then light from what I could tell.  Opposing them we had mostly regular infantry on our left and center and a mix of elite and regular cavalry on our right with more light then heavy. It quickly became obvious what our strategy was going to be. We decided to only engage the Grenadiers if we had to by simply doing a slow march towards them. Our cavalry was to stall the other cavalry for as long as possible while the center would advance as quickly as possible thus becoming our focus of attack as we had the numbers there and more equal footing in terms of troop quality. It turns out John, Ray and Richard guessed that we would do exactly that so dice rolls would be really telling on the outcome of the game.

John yawning as he faces yet another victim for his Russian cavalry. Apparently John has a bit of a reputation for rolling exceptionally well while in command of cavalry. Other then the heat I guess that was why Ian was sweating freely??

An impressive sight as the Russians Grenadiers can be seen formed up on the hills, but would only see some action since we avoided them as much as possible.

My French Italian infantry who I had difficulty keeping organized thanks to a failed command roll and disordering the lot. However, I did eventually get them in line and managed to press some form of an attack attack on John's infantry. I also had regular French infantry not shown facing off against Ray's Russians.To the right can be seen Ian's cavalry. 

John's Russian infantry opposite of the Italians with their cavalry chomping at their bits to get at Ian's French to their left.

Rays Russians enjoying the high ground and basking in the sun confidently holding the center. At this point the drums rolled and the French began their attack.

Ray magnanimous as ever expressed his feelings in a very sporting fashion on seeing my first divisional commander being blown from the saddle. In fairness I had been warned to keep my commanders more then 2inches from my units or they could become casualties. However feeling the odds were very much in my favor I took the risk and.....was of course shot dead on the very first opportunity!Arrrrrr!

Once again I could rely on Ray to keep a gentleman like composer and not rejoice when my second divisional commander was parted with his head from yet another hellishly accurate cannon shot! Those damn artillery pieces must be destroyed!!!!  

Wait......what the hell...... Ian has decided he cannot wait for any stalling tactics and charges his cavalry corps headlong at the Russian cavalry in what many were thinking was a suicide move given all the Russian heavies and John's notoriously fast dice behind them, but Ian instead becomes bloody LaSalle reborn outright winning half the combats, drawing a couple and only losing 1 fight!! Well, well doesn't this change things a bit! This now gives us more flexibility to turn a flank if the center gets stalled.  

John looks on in disbelief at what happened to his cavalry corps which is struggling to stay on the field and wisely forms some of his infantry in squares to prevent his flank from being rolled up by a rampaging French cavalry.

YOU DOUBTED ME! Ian gleefully takes a picture with his phone of the destruction he unleashed on John's cavalry.

Ray and Richard still confident they will win the day as they control the hills.

That is until Ray's Russian infantry decided they in fact forgot their powder in the baggage train resulting in all 4 infantry regiments protecting the hill failing their morale tests to stand vs the French infantry charges and fleeing off the hill disordering all the reserve units behind! This left the artillery to face some very angry French alone!! The French quite happily marched up onto the hill to occupy the vacancies left by the Russian infantry and with great enthusiasm started to give a little pay back to those officer sniping artillery. At this point Ray sat down with plenty of colorful verbiage! He-He.

Ohhhhh yes! Surj's reaction on seeing the Russians abandoning the hill.

After dispatching the irksome artillery The French rolled over the hill pressing the attack. Ray did manage to reform his lines a bit, but this left him no time to recover any disorder effects which I then pushed my French troops to take advantage of as quickly as possible. It was here that I then took a moment to get Ray's point of view of how things were going and his general opinion of things so far.

Richard happy in the knowledge his Grenadiers held up their end and would not be blamed for any failures.

Bored the Russian Grenadiers seeing the French were not that interested in a scrap uphill against elite troops decided to move off the hill and take the fight to the French. Perhaps if this was done earlier it might of helped a little, but by this point it was too late in the battle.

Cossacks intended for a flank attack should the French move against the Grenadiers never materialized so they spent the game playing go fish.

Things just seem to get worse for the Russians as the French now begin to widen their attack in the center in effect splitting the Russian army. Panic begins to set in and recriminations are starting to form. Shouts of "Vive L'Empereur" can be heard ringing across the battlefield.

Portions of the Russian Grenadiers and what's left of Ray's Russians try to mount a counter attack in the center and do cause some damage.

But the French reserve line plugs the gap pretty much ending any real chance the Russians have to turn things around at which point the Russians throw the towel in mumbling something about being given trick lead dice and us having magnets.

No guys the scenario doesn't mention anything about a forth Russian corps entering center field.

Yes sir that's right I'm now a proud honoury Posties reject!!

I stole this pic off Ray's blog as my after game group shot came out blurry. As you can see we are a bit worn as it was hot and we also played for 9 hours or so, but nonetheless happy! From left to right is Richard, Ray, Postie, myself, John and Surj. Ian had left a bit earlier as he was needed at home.

While I'd like to claim it was our utter brilliance which swept aside the Russians the truth is dice rolling did indeed play the key roll in deciding this game with Ian on fire and Ray rolling abysmal failing almost all his morale tests, however he was rolling pretty good with cannons as my officer corps can attest to. The rest of the group rolled more or less average with myself included barring the officer casualty tests which were pretty amusing for all even if my colleagues were getting concerned this might portend things to come, but fortunately this proved not to be the case in the end.

So the Russians did delay the French, but were unable to stop them from advancing on to Borodino. The game was a tactical victory for the French, but strategically is more uncertain as the French were delayed and not able to crush the entire Russian force leaving many to fight another day to include most of the infantry who rather then being cut down had instead fled and a relatively untouched Grenadier force, but the French did badly maul the cavalry and captured several artillery pieces so considerable damage was done. 

Plenty of banter, shouts, insults and celebrating your good fortune and your enemy's misfortune in other words a damn good time with gents who just want to have fun! I laughed so hard I thought my ribs would crack. No question if I get another chance to game with them again I'll jump on the chance!

Blogger is really ticking me off lately as my posts for the past few months are delayed for hours. This is beginning to really sap some of the blogging fun folks. Well off to catch up on the blog world and happy gaming everyone and don't forgot to check out Ray's blog for his version of events at Don't throw a 1.

One more thing all the figures are from Postie's collection and believe it or not but he also has drawers full with more!