Three Prussian Landwehr Battalions

I continue to expand the Prussians for the 100 Days Campaign with the three battalions of the 3rd Westphalie from the I Corp, 3rd Brigade. You Napoleonic experts will note that these did not get to fight at the Battle of Waterloo itself but did take part in the campaign. 

These for the most part are Adler figures but as Adler do not do a skirmish figure for the Landwehr I have used Baccus for these. I have painted up the three battalions in column as Adler just don't base well and the spacing is all wrong to have them in a two deep line though I sometimes do the Prussians in a three deep line.

As often mentioned here Adler do excellent little figures, the animation and detail make them a joy to paint but a devil to clean up. When I am finished my Prussian army will be about 80% Adler, whilst my French are about 90% Baccus. Maybe one day I will get all of both armies out and take a group shot.

I think of the Adler infantry for the Prussians the Landwehr are the nicer figures. With the mix of blanket roll and bread bag these are more interesting. Of course painting a few thousand of the buggers does take the shine off them.

I don't see me finishing them all off in the next twelve months, nor even probably in the next twenty four but you never know. I don't have much left to do with regards the Cavalry or Artillery it's mostly infantry and possibly a few command stands but with other projects also demanding time I will have to make a conscious effort to keep these ticking over.

Two 15mm French Seven Years War French Infanty

I continue to add to The Boy's army, this time with Regiment 43 Bourgogne and as usual these are from Lancashire Games but a slight change to normal I had included grenadiers on one stand.

Having painted a reasonable number of these fellows up it was straight forward, the flag is from Cadogan Hobbies I bought the sets for French infantry and cavalry and the two sets for the Prussians  so literally have hundreds of the buggers.

These have already seen action in a rare loss for The Boy. The three bases allow us to move them in march column or deploy in line. The cavalry come on 60x60mm bases that conform to three bases of infantry.

Just four grenadier figures on the right hand base allows them to have the correct position and adds a little something to the base. Difficult to believe we have been building these armies for over two years now. Still once I have a couple more cavalry units painted he will have a reasonable force for a full game.

It's never worth just doing one regiment so her we have Regiment 37 Royal Roussillon, The boy picks the units he wants painting based part on uniform and part flag. Mostly the flag is the driving force behind the regiment, here the two uniforms colour pops nicely.

Again I did grenadiers for this regiment, not sure how many more units worth of infantry I have for him left to paint but I have at least two units worth plus at least four of cavalry.

Not a fan of stiff flat flags I like a little movement in them so some repainting tends to be required where the flags show white crease lines but it's worth the extra effort.

1812 Napoleons Fatal March on Moscow

It's a few years ago, but I read a review of this book and decided to buy it. Once bought it sat waiting for an opportunity to read it and was almost forgotten. Problem was that every time I thought about it I had a couple of books already waiting a turn. However I finally got round to reading it and have to admit I really enjoyed it. Part of the reason I took so long to actually read the book has been the idea that the part of the book dealing with the retreat would be repetitive and so grim as to wear down the reader. Whilst it is grim by the very nature of the retreat I feel Adam Zamoyski did a great job of narrating the events and kept the text fresh as he moved along the retreat.

Not that the book was all about the retreat of course, much of the book deals with the build up of events that lead to the forming of the Grande Army and how Napoleon and Alexander slipped towards a war neither really wanted and how the tragic events unfolded. Most interesting was the level of losses taken by the advancing army to which Napoleon was for the most part unaware as commanding officers gave false reports so as not to anger Napoleon. Indeed the whole venture showed that Napoleon seemed not to be his old self and the steady erosion of the army was avoidable to a fair extent and the rushed preparations and fairer to follow up orders sent was a root cause of the eventual loss of the campaign and the fall of France as the major power. Shades of Hitler's invasion from start to finish really are apparent.

Adam Zamoyski's view of Kuturzov being extremely cautious and incompetent really makes interesting reading and leaves the reader with the thought that if overall command had been given to a more aggressive and competent commander then far less of the Grande Army would have made it back to friendly bases and the 1813 campaign would have been much shorter if it had happened at all. This leads to the question of the possibility of the return to power of Napoleon and the whole 100 days campaign being a none starter? 

The book provides less meat for possible battle ideas than I was hoping for but certainly will add some flavour to anyone thinking of wargaming this campaign. I can fully recommend picking up a copy of this book though don't sit on it like I have done.

Baccus Slingers

For Project Magnesia I need a few units of slingers so added these to my Christmas wish list. Santa was kind and along they came with the three pike blocks, three elephants and a couple of scythed chariots. The phalanxes are painted and based just needing the pikes adding (like that's a five minute job!). The rest are still in their packets, maybe next week.

Very basic paint job so really quick to paint. Rather than the usual nut brown ink I washed in Nuln Oil which gave a more Mediterranean flesh tone and stopped the white tunic's going reddish brown. You get two poses so a little bit of arm bending helped flesh these out a bit. In To The Strongest these are the weakest units out there and have a very limited use and survival prospect, I wonder how they will do against Romans?

For the game I think I need two units so have plenty here. I also kept a few back to add to the elephant bases as escorts to make them more interesting.

This leaves me the last few peltasts to paint up along with the elephants and chariots. I have also made a start on the Gallic cavalry unit that will complete all the cavalry for the game. I still have to check if I have enough phalanx units, it's possible I need two more units which will be a pain as I feel I have done enough already. Still with only a couple of months to get everything sorted I need to really get my head down and get done.

Not Dead Yet, Christmas Based

Hello and welcome back to the Blog with No Game. It's been awhile and as I stated before I went off the air I was in need of down time. Unfortunately it's far harder to just get on with a fresh post rather than just keep on not doing. I have instead through a lot of energy into my ASL blog that had previously suffered this blogs fate. Now at last I feel the urge and ability to post on. So where better to start than a couple of very nice Christmas gifts.

I received enough figures for me to base up four units of peltasts, these will be used for the game Lee and I will be doing either at this years Joy of Six or next year dependant on painting and opportunities to play. As you can see these are a colourful bunch and I will be using them as guides and inspiration for the other peltasts units I need to paint up.

As you can see lots of detail went into painting these guys and they will fit in very nicely with the rest of my army. These are Baccus figures and will be part of my Seleucid army that is pitted against Lee's Romans.

I also got enough figures for four units of Gaul's, these are the same models as I bought, though my version I clothed so now I have both options. I really like the shields too.

These boys are a bit fresh as you can see from behind, or should I say from their behinds. So too very nice gifts that have now been based for a couple of months awaiting photo's. Mostly I can blame the weather but more than once I had the opportunity to take the pics but cried off.

The good news is that I have also taken pics of the other finishes. Most of these have been finished a month or two though until last week I had not painted anything since end of February but just finished off three battalions of Old Guard for my French Naps. Next on the desk is two regiments of SYW French cavalry for The Boy, these are Lancashire 15mm and come in at sixteen figures a regiment so I may be at them some time.