Napoleonic weekend in Devizes

Advance of the Austrian cavalry

It has been a busy work week - four evening meetings and Friday night out with friends for dinner, so painting has been slow.
I've caught up a bit this weekend and finished off a couple of units of cuirassier that I had started and finished two units of hussars from scratch.

The foremost unit CR2 is from Adler Miniature and everything else from Baccus

I have been working my way though the Baccus Miniatures Austrian Napoleonic starter army but found I had an old unit of Adler Miniatures cuirassier that I had never finished. Not sure why I had these as my Adler armies are Napoleonic French and Bavarian.

As you can see from the picture above the Adler figures are quite a lot larger than the Baccus. I like both makes but don't think they sit well together in the same army.

Austrian hussar regiment no7 to the front

I have another two units of hussars to paint but need to buy more dragoons and cuirassier at some stage. So next will be more hussars before returning to the infantry.

One for the woad...

Not Napoleonic but I umpired a great game of Warmaster Ancients at the Devizes club yesterday. It was an Ancient British civil war using 10mm Pendraken and Magister Millitum figures.

Neglecting the small guys...

Yesterday I met up with the recently retired Will for a quick coffee in town. We talked about the forthcoming Waterloo game the club has planned to help commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the famous battle. They intend to use the Age of Eagles rules, a spin off from Fire and Fury.

Will is furiously painting his Prussians for the game whilst I am taking my Prussian painting at a more leisurely pace because I am not going to be playing in the game. Whilst comparing notes on our progress, figures used and many details about uniforms and equipment, I looked to show Will a photo on my iPad and stumbled on a couple of shots I'd forgotten taking over Easter.

I have finished all my 6mm Baccus Napoleonic Prussians and based them up for Polemos rules; having finished them doesn't mean that I don't need more!

Anyway here are a couple of shots of the recently completed project.

The garden is looking good in the background!

Whilst talking about the 6mm figures we are working on - Will is building both French and Russian and I have French with Bavarian allies (Adler Miniatures), Prussians and I am currently painting 6mm Austrians when I am not getting sidetracked by 15mm Prussians and many other projects - the subject of rules raised it's head once again.

Rules are a very subjective matter. We have one club member who wants to change rules as soon as they are published regardless of if he has played them or not and others like me who are still looking for the Holy Grail of rules in each period. Polemos Napoleonics are OK and possibly we just need to play them more to get the best out of them? To me they seem a bit slow.

I mentioned to Will that I had been reading a bit about the Blucher rules by Sam Mustapha and found a video on YouTube that had piqued my curiousity.You can see the Blucher Introduction Battle Report Video here:

Will, however, surprised me by saying he already had them and fancied giving them a try with our 6mm armies. So we need to set a date to meet at the club one Sunday and set to. So watch this space for our own battle report in the not too distant future.

Napoleonic Progress

It has been a productive week or so painting Napoleonics. The intention to finish my 6mm Baccus Austrians has slipped a bit as I have been tempted to just 'test' a few 15mm Prussians that I bought at Salute.

The first of the 6mm Austrian Cavalry - Dragoons

The 6mm Austrian cavalry has been started - it makes a nice change after 5 infantry regiments. Prussian cavalry and infantry on 15mm were also 'tested' and I was quite pleased with the results.

15mm Prussian cavalry - command figures are from Warmodelling and the troopers from Black Hat. On the right is the first stand of Prussian line in greatcoat from Lancashire Games. I'm trying to decide how I want to base this army.

What I was less pleased with were the Warmodelling figures I bought from Stonewall Figures at the Legionary show. Notwithstanding the fact that I accidently bought three packs of command figures instead of troopers the quality was very poor. As you can see from the pictures below one of the two packs had a figure missing and both packs had badly crushed horses.

Brent figures and one rider figure missing

Bases and legs bent at almost 90 degrees and difficult to straighten

I have already painted some of the other pack as a command for the dragoons shown above. The horses however were so badly bent at the legs that even with the best and most careful  of straightening they still looked as though they had a really bad case of rickets! Luckily I had a few spare Old Glory horses to replace them with.

On the painting table I have some Old Glory Landeswehr Cavalry and some more 6mm Austrian dragoons.

On the painting desk tonight - 11 May 2015

Napoleonic Prussians in 15mm - the scale of the problem

It sometimes comes as a shock to realise what choice is actually available when it comes to wargame figures. Like most of us I have my preferred periods and consequently figures to match. But what happens when it is something new?

In March I spent a freezing four hours at the Corn Exchange, Devizes, playing a 15mm General de Brigade game. It was only freezing because the organiser of the Toy and Model Collectors' Fair thought he was doing us a favour by putting us right by the entrance of the venue. Unfortunately the doors stayed wide open and the outside temperature was hovering around zero!

It was nonetheless a good game; Mick provided terrain, figures, scenario and an up-to date version of the rules rather than my second edition that didn't seem very compatible with Mick's.

Over Easter I finished  (yes finished!!! ) painting all my Baccus Miniatures 6mm Napoleonic Prussians.

Of course I may need more at some stage but not for the moment. Intoxicated with the success of actually painting and finishing a complete army, down to the last figure, I recalled that I had 6mm Austrians from Baccus too so I made a start on these whilst thinking that 15mm Prussians would be good to have and play with.

After considerable research I pre-ordered figures from Time Cast - Old Glory and  Magister Militum to pick up at Salute last weekend. I also ordered some sample Prussians from Black Hat who make and sell the Gladiator range of Naploeonics.

Whilst at Salute I also bought some Lancashire Games figures. Maybe not surprisingly there is quite a difference in the size of figures and I should say that I hardly do anything in 15mm these days - 6mm, 10mm, 1/72 and 28mm is quite enough scales to cope with.

So here are some photos to show the contrast between the four makes of infantry I bought.

Above: Prussian Napoleonic Landwehr and Line infantry from four manufacturers side by side. Each with its own style of sculpting.

Here is a shot with a ruler to show the actual height of the figures.

And some cavalry too. I couldn't get any Lancashire Games cavalry at Salute as S&A Scenics had sold out of Prussian cavalry just before I hit their stand.

There is far more contrast between the cavalry figures than the infantry so it will be harder to decide which way to go when I start building the cavalry regiments up.

In the meantime it is the 6mm Austrians I need to get on with before I start 15mm Prussians...OK I confess I have been tempted to 'test' some of the Lancashire Games Line Infantry in Greatcoats.