Russians are coming! (Napoleonic wars)

Having been stuck with essentially an infantry brigade or division (depending on the rules) and one regiment of cavalry for ages as I have concentrated on Prussians and Austrians I decided to get some Russians done by Perfect Six and after 4 months break I am starting on a huge basing process. So this is somewhat a work in progress for my Russians.

So here is my rather pathetic Russian force prior to getting some done:

 The last thing I added was a grenadier battalion and I painted that quite a while ago now

The first reinforcements arrive:

Guard Kuirassier regiment:

Guard Hussars - I decided to have these in the early uniform as it looks more colourful:

Little Russia Kuirassiers:

Pskov Dragoons:

One squadron of Moscow Dragoons entering the battlefield ahead of the rest of the regiment:

I am working on a number of Austrian battalions but I think I will do a post on my Austrian army later this week rather than wait as it could be a while and my Austrians are my largest army so far.

Borodino church is in the background and I have done an earlier post on that. The small village with large wooden church are Timecast models and where about the first Russian buildings I painted.

Also for an easy way to see all my Napoleonic posts check out the Napoleonic summary page.

German light trucks

Three different types of German light trucks:

• Captured French Renault ADK 1.5 ton truck - Pithead model
• Krupp Protze truck Kfz 70 -  Pithead model
• Steyr 1500 Light Truck - Arrowhead model

 Renault ADK 1.5 ton truck

Krupp Protze truck Kfz 70

Steyr 1500 Light Truck. A few shots to show the detail of the Arrowhead (previous Wargames South) model. They are very good but to be honest once I found Pithead I have not bought any more from Arrowhead. I am happy to buy their tanks but even a few pounds extra for a truck seems a bit much for an item that hardly sees any use. Plus Pithead have more types of truck than you can shake a stick at!

For an easy way to see all my WW2 posts check out the WW2 Summary page.

WW2 British Artillery Spotters truck

A quick post on something I finished painting before my trip but just completed the basing for. This was a new Pithead model in the latter part of 2015 and I got because it looked cool rather than having a particular need. However, I suspect I will use on the games table in place of a regular spotter stand just for the look of the thing.

I put the truck in buildings as I don;t have trees quite the right height to use effectively.

An eye level shot showing the spotter is only just visible behind the building roof.

Some closer shots, both front and rear.

A lovely little model and definitely will add a bit of character to my artillery units.


For an easy way to see all my WW2 posts check out the WW2 Summary page.

Basing 6mm Napoleonics

A few people have asked about my base sizes in comments on various posts so I thought I would just do a summary of my basing.

You can check out a tutorial on basing here, but this post is all about the sizes and the unit make up.

I have always used a scaled down version of base sizes for In The Grand Manner rules as well as the basic unit sizes for these rules. I have kept those when moving to more modern rules as I like to be able to form line and column and square plus I like reasonably sized units. Newer rules don't much care about base sizes so I have had not problem.

I use 1.5mm ply wood. It takes the glue for sand much better than plastic and once I found a place that did laser cut bases in 1.5mm ply (fenrisgames.com) it all became much easier.

The main sizes of base I use are:

20mm x 20mm
20mm x 25mm
20mm x 30mm

15mm x 24mm (although 25mm is fine)
15mm x 18mm

10mm x 15mm
10mm x 22.5mm

Artillery

Horse guns are on a 20mm by 20mm base with 4 crew figures. Most nations have 3 gun batteries although British can be 2 guns. Russians and Prussians have 4 gun batteries.

Examples

French horse guns
Prussian horse guns
British horse guns

Foot guns are on a 20mm by 25mm base with the frontage being 20mm and again 4 crew figures. Most nations have 4 gun batteries although the British are usually 3. Russians have big batteries and have 6 guns.

Examples

Prussian foot battery
Bavarian foot battery
British foot artillery
Portuguese foot artillery

I made up my own size for Austrian Grenz guns which is a smaller 15mm by 20mm as they are small calibre

Infantry

French pattern battalions are 36 man units with 6 bases each 18mm wide and 15mm deep with 6 figures on each base. I have not posted French line yet but a number of nations use the same organisation.

Examples

Bavarian Infantry
Polish infantry

Most other infantry battalions are 32 man units with 4 bases each 24mm wide by 15mm deep (although 25mm wide works just as well) and 8 figures on each base.

Examples

Prussian infantry
Wurttemburg infantry
Saxon infantry

Early Austrians can be 48 figures which just means an extra two 24mm by 15mm bases. Later in the wars I use 36 man units based like French.

British are a bit of a law unto themselves but mostly use 24mm by 15mm bases with either 32 or 40 or sometimes 48 figures (Guard): so 4 or 5 or 6 bases with 8 figures each

British infantry

I have based the British Light Division on 30mm by 20mm though and use special rules for them.

Some nations have smaller units such as Portuguese and I have them as 24 figure units on 18mm by 15mm bases (4 bases with 6 figures on each). I have a couple of British units of this size as you can see in the above British infantry example.

Skirmishers

I base all skirmishers on the same size bases, either on bases with 2 figures (15mm by 10mm) or 3 figures (22.5mm by 10mm). Strength of unit depends on the size of the skirmish screen

British skirmishers
Prussian skirmishers

Cavalry

Cavalry squadrons are usually 6 or 8 or 10 figures and regiments usually have 4 squadrons although less can be fielded for understrength units. Some nations had massive cavalry units early on but often best to split into two normal size units, although I usually keep Austrian 6 squadron units as a single unit.

French

Generally light cavalry are 4 six man squadrons and I base the unit on twelve 20mm by 20mm bases, so 2 figures a base. Heavy cavalry have 4 eight man squadrons and I base those as follows: each squadron has 2 figures on a 20mm by 20mm base and two bases with 3 figures on 30mm by 20mm bases. Guard have big squadrons of 10 figures and I use two 20mm by 20mm bases and two 30mm by 20mm bases for each squadron. The same organisation (i.e. line organisation) is used by most French Allies for their cavalry.

French line cavalry
French Guard cavalry
Saxon and Polish cavalry

Prussian and British

All Prussian and British cavalry are 4 six man squadrons based as per French light cavalry. I sometimes base six man squadrons on two 30mm by 20mm bases although that was mainly before I managed to get laser cut bases and I wanted to reduce the number of bases I had to cut out by hand!

Prussian cavalry
British cavalry

Austrian

All Austrian cavalry have 6 squadrons of six men (36 figures). I bases these as per French light but obviously more bases for the two extra squadrons - although I sometimes have half of the squadrons with 3 bases 20mm by 20mm and then the other half with 2 bases 30mm by 20mm simply to reduce the awkwardness of moving the unit.

[link pending]

Russian

All Russian cavalry except Cossacks are based like French heavy cavalry - so both Russian light and heavy cavalry have 4 eight man squadrons using one 20mm by 20mm and two 30mm by 20mm bases per squadron.

Russian cavalry

Commanders

I initially used square bases, sometimes with rounded corners, but I now use round bases - again thanks to laser cutting. Generally I use 30mm diameter for corps commanders, 25mm for divisional commanders and 20mm for Brigade commanders. However, I tend to be a bit more flexible with commander bases.

Russian commanders
Austrian commanders 
Prussian commanders
British commanders
Murat
Napoleon

French line cavalry

Here is my French line cavalry. I have put a few commanders out but not focussed on them as they were in an earlier post. I have just finished painting a few figures to complete some squadrons as well as the basing with tufts and undergrowth added.

I have two regiments of Hussars, two of Chasseurs, three of Dragoons, one Carabinier and two Cuirassier. Also two line horse batteries.

The Chasseurs a chaval:

Hussars:

Carabiniers:

Dragoons:

Cuirassiers. One is with the new Adler figures and one is with the original Cuirassier figure:

Horse batteries. The second one I had Richard at Perfect Six paint for me as I was busy with other stuff and his painting style and quality is an ideal match for my stuff (and he paints massively quicker than me!).

Also for an easy way to see all my Napoleonic posts check out the Napoleonic summary page.

Interlude..

I have not posted for a while. I went to Taiwan, Australia and (mainly) New Zealand for 6 weeks over the winter. With preparing to go, being away then back to cold wet UK I have not been doing much (January and February and never productive months for me anyway!) and I have been ill of the last month which has delayed me getting back into things.

I have been concentrating on finishing off a pile of things on my workbench - as I may have mentioned in earlier posts I do suffer somewhat from getting distracted by the latest thing and so end up with lots on the go. After a break I always try to finish all that off before starting anything new and so a lot gets finished in a fairly short time and I will be doing quite a few posts in the next week or so.

By way of a first post in the new year a few photos from New Zealand. An absolutely spectacular place to visit even if you aren't a Lord of the Rings fan - so doubly great for me!

A few shorts of Hobbiton (you get a bear in the Green Dragon Inn as part of the tool - specially brewed for the film, although the actors had it watered down heavily during filming!). A definite place to go if you are a fan or have kids.

The tree above Bag End was off for refurbishing. Apparently Peter Jackson wanted a particular look and so they built a tree - the leaves had faded by the time they came back to film the Hobbit and so he insisted that the leaves all got repainted by had - I forget how many hundred of thousand there were, but it only ended up in a long distant shot for a matter of seconds.

Weta Studios was an interesting visit, they don't allow photos inside but here are some trolls outside:

A very long drive on a crushed rock road gets you to where Edoras was filmed. Worth the trip as the scenery is spectacular with or without the connection to LOTR.

The national park with several volcanoes which includes the one used for Mount Doom is also worth a visit. We were luck enough for great weather and tool a flight over the volcanoes.

Other than Lord of the Rings, the scenery is just generally spectacular and the food is good as is the beer and wine and great value too. I just wish it was not so far away!

Some really vivid colours in a thermal area:

Normal service will be resumed shortly...