6mm Prussian Landwehr by Adler

 With most of my painting time now used for none wargaming projects it was nice to take a step back into an old project and paint up some more Prussians for my 100 Days Prussian Army. I say 100 Days as these did not even show up at Waterloo as I have all those already painted.

As per most of my Landwehr we have Baccus skirmishers and Adler for the main body. A few of the bases also have mounted generals to add interest.

Three battalions leading the way, 4th Westphalia 1st Corp Second Brigade, only nine battalions of the Corp made a showing at Waterloo, though some cavalry and guns did. Of the infantry I only have nine reserve and three Landwehr battalions to complete the infantry as well as a regiment of cavalry and two guns then one Corp is fully finished. 

The 4th Corp just needs four cavalry regiments painting to be finished but that's because most of that Corp was at Waterloo. I have the figures to do most of the remaining units to have the lot painted up. The fact I will never need all these units for any battle remains a mute point now. Given the amount of money needed to get all the units I don't have I simply don't see the point of not doing them all.

The 3rd Elbe Landwehr regiment from the second Corp, 8th Brigade. This needs six battalions of Reserve Infantry three regiments of cavalry and four guns (2 batteries) to complete. Third Corp is the one needing the most work with 21 battalions of Reserve or Landwehr infantry six regiments of cavalry and six guns including a horse battery. These will probably be the ones finished last, well unless Lee suddenly wants to fight a battle that these were in!!!

I know it's kind of pointless painting up all these battalions when in many of the cases I can just sub a different battalion without much chance of being pulled up for using the wrong battalion based on collar or cuff being wrong but at least I can fantasise about using them all in a sweeping campaign.

I also painted up a couple more command bases. At some point I need to check how many I have so to make sure I can supply enough for any battle. Our rule system requires a fair few. Next up for this army is a couple of cavalry regiments but they are being bumped down the list as other projects need work doing on them.

Old Guard At Bay 75mm Figure and 6mm Reinforcements SOLD

 A couple of first's, first 75mm figure and first battalions for my 6mm French Napoleonic's for a couple of years. It was great to get back to painting some of my 6mm Napoleonic's especially as I was working on Old Guard in both scales.

A bit of a difference in size, I have only a few French Guard units in 6mm, I don't even have a large number of castings in hand as Lee took care of most of them for our Waterloo game. I always planned to add them but in no real hurry so will be happy to get through more of the castings I own before buying more.

The 75mm figure (over 90 to top of his bearskin) is from mitchesmilitarymodels.co.uk and they do a fair range of 75mm and 200mm figures and also busts of which I have already bought two. I am very tempted by the Hougoumont dio set which I will probably get at some point.

The kit is made of high quality resin and comes in about 15 parts, I had to paint them as parts rather than post assembly due to overlapping making it too difficult to paint made up. However the parts are really good fits and I have discovered Vallejo plastic putty which really helps seal gaps when putting together.

The figure is based on the final stages of the Battle of Waterloo where the Old Guard was under attack whilst the now defeated French army fell back in disorder with only the Prussians in pursuit. This is the first use of the Andrea white set, the effect I am pleased with for this old standard. The staff is also broken so I tried to represent this with rough painting of the staff.

The backpack was mostly oils to get the mixed finish of cowhide but again the white set was used for the straps. 

The greatcoat and trousers were Andrea blue set but I went a little darker base on the trousers being from different material and dies. The red on the standard is also Andrea (red set) and I really like working with them. The blue on the standard is a mix of Vallejo blues and came out how I wanted it to look.

The base is from modeldisplayproducts.co.uk and was dispatched same day as I placed my order! I do like using this company as having met the owner at a show he comes across as a top guy.

The wheat is from an Italian supplier and has great prices, I literally bough a huge box of materials from them a couple of years ago but this is the first use of these. dioramapresepe.com is the company, has some great how to videos on his website. 

Back to 6mm, these are Baccus as is most of my French army. Whilst we normally do not use skirmisher bases with our rules we found they would be useful when we did the attack on Hougoumont so now when I paint a few units up I will add skirmish bases to the pile. I made the mistake of doing four figures on this one, they should have three. 

Don't really have much to say about them really, dice cells and bases from Warbases the bases being 60x60 but these are very old ones as they are pre laser cut era. Next up in 6mm will probably be some more Prussians. However I have finally got my figure mountain under 3000 figures!! 

Project FINISHED, well for now

I now have everything painted I needed for our display game we was going to be running at Joy of Six a couple of years ago. Given we had to cancel our game the final painting had been set aside but I finally just got on with it. I am not sure if Lee is in the same position, if he is then maybe we could be running it at next years Joy of Six if Pete has space.

I needed four more units of Greek type Peltasts and a fairly basic paint job as it's the mass effect I have been going for with these armies. These can also be used with my Persian army that is FAR from finished.

I also needed the correct elephant units so here is my Seleucid models. These are more imposing than the ones that would be in a normal Macedonian army, it's all in the towers you know.

 I also needed two more Scythed Chariots for this army. This gives me six so maybe one will get something done? All models are Baccus as all my Ancients are. Not much clean up required and easy to paint. Always a plus when you have had as many as I have had to paint.

I would like to say this is the whole army but I have another about twenty units on top of those set out there. If I was to use this as the basis of my Persian army then I probably need to spend another £500 plus in castings to do it justice. I don't have plans to do so at this point but if we do the display game we have planned and Lee gets to spend the day "chatting" about it I can't promise I would not be going home with a few army packs worth to get it started.

Three Baccus British Heavy Cavalry Regiments

I managed to paint these three in a day and base them the following day. Seem to have some of my old speed back. These are for my son's Peninsular army. Whilst they were there they actually did not really get involved in much fighting and when they did it was hard for them to actually get anyone to stand against them as the French cavalry by this point were in a poor state through lack of suitable remounts etc.

Front left we have 1st Life Guards and alongside the 3rd Dragoon Guards and at the back Royal Horse Guards, or The Blues as they were known.

Typical set up, nine figures in a unperfect line to suggest the start of a charge. 60x30mm bases with the sand and masonry paint mix dry brushed to give more colours and static grass and tufts applied. I really spoil that boy ;-)

Rear views, I really like Baccus as you can paint or ignore detail dependent on your style and it does not take that much effort to put together a fairly reasonable looking unit.

I still have plenty of figures left of Joseph's to add to his force. More infantry, light dragoons but need to get some horse artillery at some point.

These were prepped for the Analogue Painting Challenge I dropped out of not last year but the previous one so were well over due. I have manged to prep a bunch so I may have a reasonable run and quite a mix of projects.

Baccus French Napoleonic Infantry

It's been quite awhile since I last painted any French infantry so it was nice to sit down and do them. I thought I had quite a few standard battalions left to do but turned out I only had four left to do so added the last two in bicorn as well.

I bought one small blister pack of French Bicorn when Baccus released the new codes. One battalion was painted up straight away and I did a second one as Paris Guard in red uniform. These will most likely be the last bicorn wearing French infantry I will do as my army is all shako wearing.

I painted up three of the battalions as line as you can never have enough. Lee also has a large number but if we ever get round to doing one of the bigger battles battalion for battalion I am confident we will still need to paint up a bunch more.

The other battalion of course is light infantry, I don't even know how many of each I own anymore, never mind the cavalry so I will have to get them all out and have a count up.

Whilst I am now out of standard French infantry from Baccus I still have a fair few battalions in greatcoats and Grenadiers both with and without greatcoats. I also have extra skirmisher figures that will be added to smaller bases for games where skirmishers had a bigger role than we allow in our rules.

On top of the Baccus I still have most of a Adler army pack I bought via Dave D all those years ago. Still my unpainted figure count still is over 3,000 though breaching this number is within site. This of course does not include the figures Joseph has that I have yet to paint for him as well. I am purposely not adding them up!!

Talking of "The Boy" we have managed three games of Command & Colors Napoleonic during the lockdown and will be getting another one in soon. This will be the last one from the base module so looking forward to playing more from the other add on's.

Isolation Painting Challenge Gets Me To Finish

A great idea (not mine) was to form a Facebook group for painting whilst in isolation and I decided to join as it looks like my place of work will be closed down for a few months (or more). This I hoped would spur me on to get more painting done but in fact I seem to be riding a reasonable bubble of enthusiasm so double score.

However whilst I was still feeling the wish to finish off part painted projects Matt P was good enough to get me to pull out three phalanx's that needed just one little job doing.....

Yes, sticking little sticks in far smaller hands! It takes about 30-45 minutes to do 96 figures worth, that being one block. These are of course Baccus 6mm boys and are meant for a game Lee and myself were going to run at Joy of Six a couple of years ago but things got in the way and we could not finalise the game and the project ran out of steam. I plan to attempt to finish this off whilst I am off work along with plenty of other projects.

So This brings the total to 25 blocks, that's 2400 figures and that's a lot of bristles! I hope to get round to showing off the whole army as it stands as it should look quite impressive. The general perception is that 6mm works out costing less than other scales but this little lot at todays prices comes in at £180 for castings. That said I would not be so mad as to paint up that amount of units in 15mm!! This project is all about creating a mass effect so I really look forward to being able to pit this mass against Lee's thin Roman line.

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.

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.

To The Strongest Test Game

A few weeks ago Lee and myself threw a few units on the table and tried some test fights whilst trying out the rules. Our lack of a proper gridded battlefield did not help but we had enough of an idea for Lee to get a cloth and me another set of the rules. Fast forward a couple of weeks and armed with a set of rules each, a pair of decks of cards and the trusty game mat we were ready to try again, that much larger and that more prepared.

Now don't get me wrong, this was no well balanced game, merely a mixed force to see how the rules handled and how well we could come to grips with the mechanics. No winner or loser here, that is unless the rules rock or flounder.

Lee's favourite saying "To see what would happen" was thrown around all over the place. Lee has small compact Roman commands whilst I am using a massed block of troops the main battle being 12 phalanx's with around 6 units of supporting troops and two wings of cavalry.

The rules allow two units in a box, being one in front of the other. We went 4 units to a box as our display game will have a massive force. The idea seems to hold up fairly well, more testing to be sure but so far so good.

Lee also bought a load of counters though the ammo counters seemed to be the only ones required in this game. Future games may have the numbered counters instead of the modified card decks.

A view from Lee's side of the table. I was really struggling to get my blocks moving forward as we expected. The lights went ahead of the blocks whilst the cavalry attacked on both flanks.

The square grid is clear enough for you to focus on when required but does not stand out when looking at the game as a whole. We both really like the look at the mats and have no problem recommending them. Here  my cavalry get in my own way.

Lee just needs to grass his bases and he will have almost his whole army ready whilst I still have around 500 figures to paint. Such is the difference in our troop strengths.

So after a stop start evening we remain quite happy with the rules. Lee being Lee is looking at using the rules for 15mm, we both have quite a few figures and 28mm, Lee has a few units. Whilst I am happy to try 15mm without the added changes, I still enjoy Hail Caesar so suspect this may or may not remain a 6mm rule set for us but 28mm would require a lot of units or the games would be really short.

Of course we made plenty of mistakes and still need to get the rules sharpened but I really think we have the rules for the demo game. How they will actually work full blown is something we will have to wait and see but such a mass of pike is a bit of a knee trembler for sure.

Joy of Six and Spends

Joy of Six has come and gone, I was really looking forward to this years as we were having a year off from putting on a display game. The only issue was getting to the event! Unknown to the organisers and most of Sheffield's population the vast majority of the roads around Hallam University was closed for a bike race. Sheffield Council have form for incompetence in organising events. Just the other year they had a marathon but failed to order water and only on the day realised cancelling the event!! Par for the course the people standing at the barriers did not know alternative routes nor it seemed did they care. Eventually we found the way in but I know more than one had to park miles away and walk in after trying and failing to find that one road out of many that got you in.

Regardless the attendance was good, not sure how it compared with last years but again space was all used up and plenty of games and traders were in attendance. The food remained good at prices that were reasonable, something that is getting rarer at shows making it the only show I don't take a packed lunch to.

I did not get any photo's of the show, just never got going with that sort of thing. Plenty of good looking games though, it was kind of weird seeing another Waterloo game in the same spot we had a couple of years ago and impressive it was too.

Most games were display but plenty of games were also participation. One such me and Lee played towards the end of the show which I was not really keen to play at the offset as by this point I was feeling rather tired. Turned out to be a great opportunity. The rules are based on Too The Strongest and is the ECW version that looks to be coming out in the future. I am a real fan of the ECW and so am a little difficult to please. I have to say that to this point no ECW rules have really grabbed me but these have a great feel and the mechanics whilst simple are very clever. Hopefully we will be getting our hands on playtest copies so we can try them out further. They are close to wrap up so I doubt we will have much influence on their development but I think these will be our go to rules for ECW.

They look to be able to play out medium sized games (15-20 units a side) in a short evening and should be able to handle very large games without to much trouble. We had around 15 units per side and the commands were all over the place to stimulate a confused command were neither side were ready for the battle and this came across well as you tried to make units work either together or separated by terrain or distance. We both got the gist of the rules relatively quickly and started to explore tactical options and how the game mechanics worked these moves out.

It's enough to say that when we turned up at the show we were selling our old Baccus casting s and getting new ones in the future. Now the plan is to keep the old, carry on painting them and get them on the table then get the new stuff and replace as we go. I am even thinking of trying out To The Strongest rules for our 6mm ancients because if they play as fast and have similar mechanics they could work well for next years game.

Of course a show is nothing without it's purchase. First stop was Leven Miniatures though it was mostly to drop off very late models but I did buy a few bits. Having painted no buildings for myself for well over a year I just did not want to increase the hoard too much, plus I actually don't know which buildings I need. I do know though that I will need to add to my ECW suitable buildings and the Medieval MED18 Large Manor & Stables will work. I also bought GEN18 Spanish Windmill, I really should have bought another one or two of these so will get more at a future show or post. Lastly a retired stone building that originally was in one of the American ranges but again I think I can use it elsewhere.

No one got rich off me with Baccus just getting a small order mostly because I forgot to sort out a list of what else I need for my Magnesia army. So two packs of elephants when I needed the, I bought two packs of Celts, naked fanatics and light cavalry. In both cases as the packs I wanted were sold out (buy early not late!). Again I needed more Celtic infantry than just one pack so need to add to these. The light cavalry will be OK though.

We returned home and everyone had a great time. Lee is buzzing over the ECW and picked up a raft of painted figures as well as about completing the lead required for next years display game. I have a few ECW cavalry regiments on my desk awaiting paint so it's got me revved up as well.

Talking of painting desk, two battalions of 15mm SYW Prussians are about to shuffle off whilst I have three British Dragoon regiments for The Boy's Peninsular army and another four phalanx blocks just marching on behind the cavalry. It's going to be very 6mm for a few weeks.