bits and pieces on an idle saturday

Massed French Cavalry: 3 Cuiraissier regts, 1 Carabinier, 2 Polish Lancer, 1 Polish Cuirassier, the Zastrows, Westphalian Guard Du Corps, 3 chassuer regts all supported by 4 Horse batteries

- All from mine and John Lander's collections.   

Been a busy week, for a multiplicity of reasons, work plus I was away for a long weekend. I only mention this because the proposed house move (its been proposed for at least 10 years) may actually be taking shape. While I was away we found a property which sort of ticks all the boxes (there are a lot of them to tick). However, amidst all the discussion of domestic arrangements there was only one thing I was actually focusing on, which was the early comment made by my missus, while looking at the 2 outbuildings, which was "Of course, you'd better have the bigger one".....

We'll see...Long way to go yet, I don't even know for sure if the owner wishes to sell (its unoccupied).

Meanwhile, the Hungarians are getting a bit of attention, might finish them this weekend. Not mad keen on how they have turned out, no idea why, it might just be the figures.

Next up will be another helmeted unit, followed by artillery, which will give me a small corps of sorts, 6 btns, skirmishers and artillery. Enough to tack on to some Prussians or Russians for a game.

Whilst at John's the other week we did talk about expanding my Austrians....via a purchase...watch this space.

So for a diversion; a few pics of some French cavalry, a big old Cavalry Corps, (well, more like 2 really) with 7 armoured regts, 2 lancer, 3 light and 12 guns.

A good mix: Back rank (yellow facings) Connoissuer figures. Middle rank(red facings) Old Glory, Willie figures officer and trumpeter (a FANTASTIC figure) and Foremost. Front rank (blurry) Old Glory,and Foremost. 

Not  a bad turn out. John and I have a decent amount of French heavy cavalry apart from dragoons of which we only have 2 - there are a couple more lancer regts knocking around, plus several light regts of French and allies. Believe it or not, I would actually like at least 1 more French Cuirassier regt, if for no other reason than  because 3 is such a rubbish number. One day.

2 of the French armoured regts, both painted by the late Ian Stables

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And now for something completely different

The View from the Howdah

Something for a bit of a change, previously unseen on this blog; Ancients!

I went to see John a couple of weeks ago and gave him a small gift of a big piece of bunny-fur for him to experiment with. While it was rolled out on his table and we were discussing it's possibilities we thought it looked just right even unpainted for trying out his latest mini-project (mini by John's standards) of Romans and Carthaginians in 54mm.

He has had the Carthaginians for a while but recently took some time out from his world of 1/35th WWII in order to produce some Roman opponents. He reckons it took him about 3 months for a DBA army. Here are some of the results

The Battle opens: Cavalry skirmish on the flank. Warbands advance in the centre 

Most of the figures are from HaT models, with a few conversions, notably the Elephants and the cavalry, spears are all replaced by steel versions. All these figures are John's work, 54mm (naturally) and very fine they are too, he thinks the whole lot might have cost about £50...cheaper than 25mm metals.

We played the game effectively on a 9' b 5' which gave ample room.

The lines close: Legionaries duke it out with spearmen and auxilaries

While Ancients is a world I enjoy visiting, I wouldn't want to live there, if you know what I mean.

I've had plenty of ancient armies over the years but its not really my thing deep down. Having said that, I really enjoy simple Ancients games like DBA. No frills, quick, just pure tactics.

The game we played was a great example, a little hesitency on my part almost lost me the game, and John capitalised. We eventually closed, and he managed to destroy 4 of my elements to my 2.This meant a win for Carthage. We decided to play out the remainder of the turn. There were only 2 combats remaining. I would have to win and destroy the enemy in both of them in order to gain a draw. This I duly did! Thats my kind of game, down to the last throw of the dice. Its what wargames should be about.

The final turn: sticky time for the Romans

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Austrians on Parade part II

Grenzer Regt 16

This hasn't quite worked out. After putting up the pics yesterday which I wasn't too happy with, I thought I put up a couple more using natural daylight. For some reason these seem worse!

My  camera skills don't do these figures justice which is a bit annoying. They look a lot better in the flesh, but it seems you'll have to take my word for it.

The Grenzers are a right old mish-mash. Connoissuer, Elite, plus the standard bearer, mtd officer and a private are Front Rank. Firing Line heads on a few of the Connoissuer figs.I think the mix is fine

Close up of IR 9

IR 9 STILL has a pink flag! Well, believe me, its yellow. The Front officer on show, the paint job looks much better for real (sigh) . One thing I've noticed is that these figures have turned out REALLY matt....I have a theory that it might be to do with the Army Painter. More anon.

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Austrians on parade

I have now finished 4 x 48's of the Austrians (+18 skirmishers), which I think is not bad going. I feel heartened to realise that this is about 20% of the line infantry done! Although that does mean a bit of selectivity in ignoring the small point of the grenadiers, cavalry and artillery, but it makes me feel better. I should wind up with about 16 x 48 of line  plus 4 x 48s of Grenzer, so I'm sticking with my 20%.

Considering thats about 2 months work which included a long period of doing no painting at all because of the Falmouth game I'm well chuffed. Even MORE so because in the last month I've also re-done the kitchen, laying a new oak floor, redoing most of the woodwork and re-decorating it. So, not only have I managed to get this done and keep up the painting, my Brownie-point quotiant with the missus is through the roof.     

IR 4. "Hoch-und Deutschmeister

We also have a new tweak to the basing, in the above photo, you can see the addition of some little flowers which I couldn't resist from the Fredericus Rex catologue. I'd seen them on some other pics and liked it. I'm going to limit them to just one base per batallion (probably the command stand). I might bung some on Generals' bases etc.

IR 4 in the lead, IR 1 behind and IR 9 on the flank 

IR 9 (green facings) on the left in the above pic is a bit wierd, its flag has come out pink in all these pics!.In the flesh its a slightly paler yellow than normal which looks quite good and faded. Must be my terrible lighting.

I couldn't resist breaking a golden rule with this unit.: Mixing manufacturers. The mounted officer is a Front Rank figure,bunged in with the Elite masses. Personally I think there is a lot of cobblers talked about how "you can't possibly mix x with y". It might be true if you have 12 man units but in a batallion of 48 it really doesn't matter. 

I really like Front Rank as a company. They make what wargamers want. They do well detailed figures which are very painter friendly, they still sell singly instead of ripping folk off with packs made for "ease of production" (profit). They charge sensible postage. Individually their figures are lovely. The trouble is, if you put more than about 6 of them together they look boring. I've no idea why.

Some of their ranges suffer from "stumpy musket" syndrome, and their horses are a bit horrid, but generally they are great figures. They just don't do it for me. I wish they did. I find them really easy and nice to paint.  

So, what next? I'm quite in the groove for doing the infantry, so I think I'll do 2 more 48's and finish some gunners and then I'll have a division of sorts, rather than pitch into the cavalry just yet. I might treat myself to a Hungarian regt next. Shakos rather than helmets which will make a bit of a change.

Little yellow flowers shown to good effect
Off up to Cambridge tomorrow to Lander's for the week-end (cashing in on my BP surplus) for a Crossfire game. I'll get in some Napoleonic phots too.
On a final note, I bought some paints from Net-Merchants this week. Brilliant service! Ordered them monday morning, they hit the door-mat on tuesday. I've never had anything but good news from this firm.Highly reccomended.


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A white I quite like

Elite Austrians base-coated white with light tone Army Painter brushed on

Heres a quick run down on the latest version of my white painting technique. I've never been that happy painting white, I think this is a pretty common affliction amongst figure painters. Embarking on this Austrian project meant I had to sort this out. I'm getting there. I'm still not 100% satisfied but this version seems reasonable plus it's quite quick which is another all important factor.

Next step: The figures are dry-brushed with Vallejo "Grey white No.993

I kicked off with my usual undercoat of white from Halfords, before brushing all the relevant white bits with Army Painter Light Tone. I was quite generous with this, but if it pooled too much I spread it around a bit before it dried. Drying takes a while, probably at least 2 hours, if you are of a cautious nature then double that.

Final white highlights were Vallejo Ivory No.918, followed by "normal"  white No.951.

Once the base white was sorted out I painted the figures as normal, blocking in the black on the helmet, boots, musket, cartouche and bayonet scabbard, then highlighting the musket in gunmetal and the black bits in German Grey. A tan base coat on the backpack, A dark brown on the musket, and a wash of Paines' Grey oils on the greatcoat. Block in the flesh, then the base of the facings; in this case "Gunship Green".

Then I washed the flesh with Burnt Sienna oils and the backpack and waterbottle with Burnt Umber oils.

Then a highlight for the facings in German Camo bright green, this needs a couple of thin wases sometimes to give it a bit of depth. 

The greatcoat was picked out in neutral grey and the helmet given a quick dry-brush in the same to pick out the detail. Then the yellow crest was dotted on, and the musket highlighted in a light brown, the water-bottle was washed over with a Windsor&Newton brown ink and the flesh highlights done. Gold bits picked out. and Steel on the musket re-touched

Finally the white highlights were done, first in Ivory and then an additional highlight in White. A matt artists varnish brushed on and thats about it.

Like I said, There are plenty of people who achieve better results than this out there, but with over 1,000 infantry to paint  time is a factor here. Whole thing from soup to nuts was about 4 hours for 15 figures (excluding the Army Painter drying time, in this case overnight). This is a sort of managable number for me. 3 approximate batches like this and I get a 48 man unit. These go into the box with the first 24 so I only have about 8 command figures to finish the unit. Then I think we might have a little parade of the first 4 btns!

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Still white, but slightly different

Connoissuer Saxons painted by yours truly about 4 years ago

A while ago, I put up some pictures of the beautiful Saxon cavalry belonging to the Wargames Holiday Centre. Well, I found these pics of my own efforts. These are the same Connoisseur figures but this time the painting and conversions are mine. I would never try to claim my stuff could compete with the old master Doug Mason's but I was quite pleased with these. 

A few differences,certainly (I don't have a Garde Du Corps regt for starters) but these figures I recall being a joy to do. I'd certainly do the white differently these days, the horses are almost all Firing Line and they supplied many of the heads for the Bonnet de Police, bandaged types etc. The Trumpeters ARE Garde Du Corps figures (Gilder never made trumpeters?????). Sabres were removed and replaced with steel pins, heads were twisted both on horses and riders, I got the effect I was after, which was of a charging unit with plenty of figure differences.

New swords, lots of head work, and some tortured horses!

Now, enough of this onanism....I'm well on the way with the latest batch of Austrians, and have settled on a method I like - which involves Army Painter!!! heresy, I hear you say...no, it works, not maybe the way the manufacturers intended but I've got there-as have a couple of other painters I've seen blogging- odd, how people independantly arrive at the same results. 

The next crop of Austrians will appear soon. At which point, even though this Blog is by no means a democracy, I will be asking you to vote on what I am to paint next. However, that can wait till next time.

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Finally Austrians (I hope you lot like white...because you are going to be seeing a lot of it)

Here they come, the first units of Elite Austrians. I've been painting quite a bit more than it appears here, as one of the methods I've been using is to mass produce figures which get painted but are waiting for other bods before getting based up. So I have nearly enough for 3 x 48 man units (2 line, 1 grenz) plus a load of guns and gunners and about another 20 skirmishers in addition to whats on show below. This way hopefully  plenty of units will be appearing here at regular intervals.

This is very much a "work in progress" and I think my white style will change a bit as I produce more units. The figures here were sprayed white and then washed with a thin tan with then a grey white and finally a normal white applied. For the next batch I'm going to try a yellow ochre oil wash rather than the tan as I think this will be more controllable. I doubt anyone could tell the difference but you know how we all get a bit quirky about these things.

The Grenzers are nice, one of those very rare occasions where you can get away with mixing manufacturers. Most are Elite but I "found" about 80 odd Connoissuer Grenzer lurking in the Box. They mix nicely. They are old soft metal figures so I've managed a few head replacements and twists to give them variation, The 48 man unit is awaiting finials for the standard bearer but is finished other than that.
I also discovered that Elite do yet more skirmishing Grenzers in the old 1796 style headgear. I'll have to investigate these.
I like the green facings for these chappies. Just about every wargames unit of grenzer I've ever seen always has red facings....no idea why, they had all sorts of colours...(I'm drawing the line at pink, though)

As usual GMB provides the flags, Austrian standards being what they are these are really detailed, and make a massive difference to the finished unit
No need for any conversions in the line unit, there are so many variants in there anyway.
So, thats a bit of a start to my Austrian adventure. I had to smile the other day reading some waffle on TMP. Someone was enthusing about embarking and nearly finishing a "big project"  which was some 150 figures....It suddenly occured to me that that was about the number I've finished and I sort of view these as samples as much as anything...hmmmm the perception of scale. Mind you, I bet his are better painted than mine.

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