Voices From The Napoleonic Wars Winner

Disappointing turn out for this Giveaway but it did give those that entered an excellent chance to win. Jonathan Freitag gets the win so I will be sending this out sometime this week. No need to send me your details as a previous Secret Santa entry I have the details.

I am happy for this to be payed forward or just simply kept given the lack of response Aleksandar may well be correct and the idea may not go far.

Talking about Secret Santa with the kids about to go back to school it will be time soon to start the ball rolling, lets hope it continues to grow so more on this in a later post.

That Time of Year.........................

Every year give or take a few months I take my computer to be cleaned up and generally given an health check. Well it's here again so I will be off line for about a week to ten days dependant on if something needs fixing. It's running real slow and I was lucky I got it back last year without much pain in the wallet. This time it may be more of a case of get yourself a new one than all is ok, lets see.

So I won't be visiting blogs or posting here till I get it back, at least I have enough things to paint without the need to check the internet, so it's not all bad news. See you on the other side..........

Persian Levy Infantry by Baccus

These have been painted up for awhile now, just not got round to blogging them. They are Baccus figures from the Persian range. APE04  Persian Archers to be exact. I need a bunch of these as the Persians relied heavily on missile power. Worked a treat until coming against more determined Greek armies.

So three units to start me off, I will do a few with Pavise (big shields) though by the time they faced Alexander such devices were more or less discarded. Typical of Baccus these needed little prep and were fairly easy to paint though they took a little longer as I painted them in mixed coloured clothes for a more irregular look.

Each base holds 36 figures so they should show a nice bit of mass on the table. Originally they were on strips of four but being in three ranks I have snipped off one to two figures and mixed the front rank again adding to the irregular look. 

I need to paint up a few more cavalry units and paint up enough command for a game and we can give them a go against my Alexandrian army. I still need to paint up a fair few more units for that army but in the short term will have to focus on my Persians so to have enough for a decent sized game.

Also don't forget the giveaway I have started for Voices From The Napoleonic Wars which closes on the 26th August. You can go to the post by clicking HERE.

Pay It Forward Voices From The Napoleonic Wars - A different Kind of Giveaway

With The Other Partizan looming up I thought I had best put into practice what I was chatting about at Partizan. I became familiar with the concept of Pay It Forward via my wife's blogging. It is where you give a gift to someone and they do the same to someone else and so it goes.

I have adapted it a little so that rather than the recipient having to supply a new gift they simply read the book I am sending out and offer that up on their blog. I did this once before with a book I received from a Blog Giveaway a few years ago.

Just like that one I want each winner of the book to add the details of their blog to the first page of the book so as the book builds it's journey we will build a list of like minded blogs for the next winner. It would be great to see this pass through many hands.

The rules are simple, if you are interested in reading the book and have a blog then leave a comment below. I will pick someone out at random and so it goes. The winner is free to change the conditions of play such as countries that can take part (mine is world wide) but the need to have a blog is key so that has to remain part of the deal.

If I get chance I will do a review of the book in the coming week, lets just say for now it's good enough to be offered up as a giveaway.

You have until the 26th of August to throw your hat in the ring so good luck

Lancashire Games French SYW Artillery

Keeping with 15mm but switching to the SYW I have finished the first three units for The Boy's French army. Sounds impressive until you realise it's artillery so very small units.

I continue to be impressed by Lancashire Games products, true the cavalry let them down a little but these figures look the part and again paint up nice and quick. I went with a dark blue and crimson to make them pop, my son rather likes them so a score there.

The pack comes with three different sized guns so I crewed the smaller one with just three crew. The wheels go on the carriages with ease and they have enough detail to be interesting to paint whilst not too fiddly. The guns are a slightly darker blue than the coats of the crew.

The Boy has chosen his next unit which is infantry so I will be finishing a unit he started way back around the start of the year, also Lancashire Games. Today I ordered him the Schomberg Dragoons as he wants to have a unit in the distinctive green. These are Blue Moon via Old Glory along with a few higher command figures to lead his troops.

Meanwhile I have started a battalion of Grenadiers for my Prussians, seems to be all go and all 15mm on the desk at the moment. So I will be looking at getting a few more 6mm units across it sometime soon just to keep it fresh.

Forged In Battle War & Empire - A Closer Look

I recently took a look at the yet to be released War & Empire 15mm 1st Century Roman Auxiliary Cavalry pack that will be released in Autumn. You can see my first thoughts here. To get a better look at the figures and indeed half decent images I needed to prime and ink them. For some reason this took longer than I expected, mostly down to running out of primer!

Whilst you can see a fair bit of detail with the raw material, so much more pops on inking. I was impressed before but now I am super impressed. The detail is really crisp but is not over stated allowing you to paint up the full detail or step back a little if you don't want to spend the time on doing a full on job with them.

All three command figures have lovely detail and the horses are well proportioned and have a great breadth, a world away from the examples from the last post. The horse furniture stands quite proud making them easier to paint, that's a big plus for me as it's one of my least favourite bits to paint.

This shot really shows off the detail, all have neckties which is a really nice touch. I showed the figures to Lee a couple of days ago and he also was really impressed. 

The rear figure has an ornate horn that's going to really stand out once painted. I am looking forward to getting these painted up as they will be a joy to paint. 

The three command stand figures all have cloaks that will add a nice splash of colour and the sculptor has added some nice movement into them.

Not that the troopers are spared nice detail. The armour is nicely detailed with good finishing detail where the armour ends in pointed links, a real nice touch.

I am a real fan of the multiple horse and rider poses which will really make the unit have that more real look about them. Between the spears held in different directions to the shields being at different angles you get the diversity but not so much it will be a chore to paint them up.

Another big plus is the fact that all riders fit the separate horses really well, I really dislike the balancing riders or the search for the correct horse to rider (often in vain) so this really makes me a lot happier. Small detail to some, big point to others (me especially). The width of the base also is a point worth pointing out, whilst I like Essex figures (excepting the perched riders) their thin cavalry bases are the bane of any gamer when it comes to basing. These are about right, not so chunky as to be difficult to hide but wide enough that they can stand with little fear of them toppling over.

So with priming and inking my already high opinion has risen even higher. I will certainly be getting some of their Macedonian figures at The Worlds after all you can never have too many pike can you?

3rd Leibregiment of Cuirassiers by Lancashire Games

I managed to get a regiment of Cuirassiers painted up in the first few days of my week off work. Good job too as most of my hobby time post this was spent on basing up or painting more of The Boys figures.

These are Lancashire Games SYW Prussian Cuirassiers and I have based them eight figures to a base for a sixteen figure unit. Four figures more than I used for the Hussars and one or two more than the Dragoons will get. This makes my cavalry rather expensive given the price of 15mm but after seeing the game at Partizan this year it was the only way to go. 

The horses are a little skinny for my liking but have reasonable detail and take paint really well so overall I am pleased. I have enough figures for one more regiment then will have to decide if I am going to buy Blue Moon or buy more of these. Either way it's quite probable I will be buying more Lancashire Games ones just for the speed they can be painted. The cost is also a draw being rather cheap, price to quality is a real good mix.

Given that I will possibly end up with about nine regiments of Cuirassiers the lower price the better. I read somewhere that the Cuirassier and Dragoon regiments used black horses so I went for all black on these guys whilst the Dragoons will have to have a mix as I work on the idea that they would not have the pick on the bunch.

The ensign had a metal flag attached but I cut this away so I could add a Fighting Fifteen's flag. This is the same make as the infantry ones seen previously.

I still don't have enough painted units for a game but I took all my based figures over to Lee's last Friday for a game (camera ran out of battery on first shot!). The game was fun with Lee really mauling me at a few points. I beat back his cavalry - just - even though I outnumbered his but they were in such bad shape that I was not in a good position to fight the rest of his cavalry off. Meanwhile I broke one of his infantry divisions but only to see one of mine routed. As mine were holding the village and the loss of this meant Lee had a lot more infantry to throw at my remaining division I thought it better to scarper. So two games with Lee so it looks good at least for now.

6mm Adler Napoleonic British Redcoats

The Boy gets three more battalions for his Peninsular Army. This brings him up to a tidy force of infantry though I still have another battalion of rifles to finish basing up to add yet more punch. This leaves him in great need of more cavalry and generals to lead them. These I will fit in between doing his SYW French as he really wants these doing. I have painted up three guns and crews for him as he requested these first.

Back to the British, these were actually Lee's but when he counted up all he had he found out he actually had more than the British army so these were spare. So Lee being the decent chap he is gave them to The Boy, along with the yet to be finished Rifles and a number of skirmish bases. More on these in a future post.

The first battalion is the 45th Foot 1st Nottinghamshire who like all the regiments I am painting up for The Boy fought in the Peninsular. As I am not working towards any one battle not all the regiments will necessarily have been in Spain at the same time but it's enough for me that they did actually serve there.

The 32nd Cornwall is up next, all I have done is add the flags and base them so the real work has been done by the guy who paints a lot of Lee's Napoleonic troops. Indeed he has done such a stellar job that Lee not only has an excellent collection but is getting close to being able to field large armies for most nations. Now we just have to sort out a few games with some of them!

Last up the 36th Herefordshire 1st Battalion also sporting a green regimental colour. The flags are printed on a really nice photo paper that really folds nicely without showing creases making my job of winding them a lot easier. They are also a slight bit bigger than Baccus flags but not so much that they stand out on the table. I still have a bunch left so will continue using them whilst I have the right colours as they really do look nice.

As you can see the painter has done a nice job front to back. All figures except a casualty are Adler and suit the big bases we favour protecting them from too much handling. The casualty is another gift from Lee and is from the Baccus British casualty pack. 

I have had all last week off and even though we have gone out a lot I have managed to get a a reasonable amount of work done including another Prussian SYW unit and a first for a long time most of one of my 32mm Arena Rex figures, I should have him finished before the week is out.