Napoleonic project

I mentioned in the comments of my last post that I planned to start some more Napoleonic guys.
These will be in 15mm scale. I'll be using AB Miniatures's excellent range of Napoleonic guys which are technically considered "18mm." Kind of like 25mm soldiers evolving into 28mm over the years.

I'm aiming for an Austrian brigade, and one French brigade from the 1809 campaign. I'll use a ratio of about 1:96, placing each brigade at about 200 soldiers.

What I have been doing while I wait for the figures is experiment with different techniques as well as check my accuracy using spare 1/72 soldiers. I will use these (below) as references once I start painting my brigade.

L-R: (line). Voltiguer, Grenadier, Fusilier. (light). Chasseur
If you see any mistakes in what I have painted thus far, let me know now.
(p.s. I know the fusilier should not have epaulets, or sword, and that line soldiers do not have tasseled gaiters)

Yes, a New WIP

Neither the Hat nor the Italeri set cuts it for me with their French Chasseurs a Cheval. I had another option though, convert!!!

The Strelets set, Guides of Napoleon were on sale at TSC last month as were many other 1/72 sets. So I buy them and the newer Hat foot Chasseurs.

On another note I bought some Strelets Russian WW1 figures for my RCW project, and three more sets of Orion Federal Russians for the stash.

The "guides" set has several poses of trumpets and lances which I didn't want in my regular light rgt, so I removed the unwanted arms and replaced them with the otherwise terrible Italeri set.

My method for converting figures of different hardnesses of plastic is to melt a staple into the hardest, sharpen it on the belt sander, then dab the soft plastic part in wood glue and press it on the staple. The join was cleaned with a hot knife where necessary.

The components: Arm, Italeri; head, Hat; body, Strelets.

All blended together.

1st squadron of the 15 rgt of the Chasseurs a Cheval of Lamotte's brigade.

I'm far from pleased with the result. Some of these Strelets sets are too much of a challenge for the small amount of time I want to spend on them.

Thanks, enjoy.

A Trip to the Projects Box

Well I decided to start a box of the main, smaller elements of my large projects, hopefully this will inspire me to actually finish something!

Anyway, first up were the Iraqis I started a while back, I had to complete about 6-7-8 more figures and base them to have my platoon.

The platoon is in the Soviet style, these are Republican Guard thus the fancy camo when most others would be wearing green PJs.

The box. Iraqis are right in the middle, off to their right is a French Infantry Rgt which is right above some Don Cossacks. To their left is a mounted Chasseur Rgt, above is half of the 1st/95th Rifles!

Sorry for the somewhat poor pictures, I took them too late in the day.

The most diverse squad camo-wise. DPM, Blotch, and  Desert DPM are all present!

The second figure here is my favorite, Hat US tank rider head on an ESCI body. Drum magazine added of course ;)

A little more standard: All wear desert DPM.

I'm not sure if the Iraqis would have used the RPG-26. I had to use the Orion figure because I thought I didn't have any  more "standard" RPGs.

Most of these have Hat US Tank Rider heads.

The platoon leader and a sniper/assistant.

One of my favorite desert  DPM examples.

A little blotch and desert DPM.

Thanks for looking.

Prussian Brigade Finally Done! The Beginnings of the Light Division

Finally, here it is, the moment not very many of you have been waiting for! My brigade!!!

Is that thunder I hear?

No, it is the sound of destruction... the 9th regiment of Hussars is sent forward to point out trouble points and churches to loot

The infantry element...

Is shortly washing around us like an overwhelming flood of dark blue and grey.

One rgt of infantry, their grenadiers have formed into the brigade grenadier battalion in the background.

Half a battalion, rather beautiful figures, no fault of mine

Is that a Waterloo 1815 figure in there??? That is not supposed to be an eye patch, I missed it painting 

The proud brigadier watching over his flock

For Black Bob Crauford!

Here is the beginning  of my next project I guess. The Peninsular has been my favorite part of the Napoleonic wars for most of my gaming history, ever since the candle was lit in me by the old Don Featherstone books I guess.

The battle of the Coa on the Spanish/ Portuguese border in 1810 involved the 95th, 52nd and 43rd light infantry rgts and 1st and 3rd Cacdores; the 1st Hussars and 16th LDs  and Ross' battery of horse arty if I remember correctly. That is my goal.

The 1/52nd light infantry.

Ditto

and again. These are A Call to Arms and Hat figures.

I also have done the 43rd thus far

The entire 12th dragoons, humor me and pretend they have red facings :-/

The very old worn out Airfix Horse arty with an excellent ACTA gun.

How come I think of Elvis when I see this picture?

Hope you enjoy, any help with what to do for the 1st Hussars will be appreciated as well!

12th Light Dragoon, ~1809 and a Modern Vignette

Here is a pre-1812 British Light Dragoon I finished today. This one is just a test figure, I have the other eight waiting to be painted to make a regiment.

Scouting out the Coa!

"Heroes"

Here is my unsuccessful vignette for the latest Benno's Figures Forum painting contest: I lost big time but did learn a couple lessons.

• Don't get too close to the peice I'm photographing.
• Take the picture outdoors when possible.
• Make sure the picture is correctly sized!

These are not the pics I used for the contest, I took these today.

Foamboard base and wall: the former being covered in sand and the latter in thinned clay.

I hope you enjoyed today's update!

Prussian Brigade WIP 3: Beginning Basing and something for Bob

 I began basing my brigade today.

After the first step of this project I mounted the figures to strips of card, such as from an old Revell Model box, my traditional basing material, with hot-glue.

Today I first covered the bases with air dry clay. Once the clay was dry I slopped on some wood glue to keep it from being too brittle.

I painted the bases with model master earth red.

An artillery crew slough through the Belgian mud...

Here you go Bob! These are certainly not my best job but they are the requested figures!

Hope this helps a bit, let me know if you do something with them, I would like to see the end result.

Meanwhile, back in La Belle Alliance...

I will place an order for some woodland scenics "earth blend" ground cover for the brigade project. Meanwhile, maybe I'll look into some post 1812 French and fixing some details such as shoulder tabs on the grenadier battalion and the pants and sash of the artillery crew....Thanks for looking.

Prussian Brigade WIP #2: Artillery and Hussars

Each Prussian brigade had it's attached artillery battery and some form of a cavalry regiment. Therefore I needed these to finish MY brigade.

The natural option that pops into one's head is, "Hat has Prussian arty," well true, but they are very low quality being one of the first sets made by that company.

I was left with two options: convert or not. I decided to tackle the former. The first two figures you see are from the M part of Hat's MAC Prussians, the officer is from the C part, and the remaining two are from the actual artillery set.

I added a rammer out of twisted copper wire (because un-twisted was too thin), with a shaped hot-glue sponge in top. the other fig has had both arms melted at the elbow and a plastic cylinder full of grape shot placed in his arms.

Un-modified Commander. I should have done something with the buttons.

Original fuze lighter, the shako is from one of the new MAC sets. The join is not as clean as I hoped for but it will do.

These cavalry are by "Waterloo 1815" and are very excellent figures, I am rather proud of the result. Of course, Hussars look great no matter who the painter is!

My brigade has an attached cavalry Rgt of four squadrons. I am choosing to represent one squadron with each stand of three horses.

These are painted as the 9th Hussars which were present in the Waterloo campaign. Another unit of these are here [I know nothing about this blog, a google search for the 9th has brought it to my attention.]

Blue on, er...light blue!

I still need to finish the bases on these but hey, the painting is done! Have a great weekend.