For the Motherland!

Hello folks! I'm back!

After a hiatus including lots of "real life" that's been getting in the way of painting, I've finally found the time and inspiration to do some more painting. Well, with the long weekend and all, that time has come.

I thought that I'd change things up a bit and do something different. Hence, I give you...

Russians!

(Click the pictures for bigger versions)

These fine fellows are from the 7th Battery Company, under the 7th Artillery Brigade of the 7th Division that fought at Borodino. They are serving a 20 pounder "unicorn," a field piece that combined the attributes of a cannon, howitzer and mortar. These pieces were very effective, and continued to serve the Russians up until the Crimean War in the 1850s.

The gun and crew are Hat plastics (see my earlier review). They were very quick to paint up, if very lacking in detail. I think I did a pretty good job of them anyways.

Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully I can get some more done soon, but of which nationality I have no idea. Whatever urge strikes me I suppose...

All the best!

--Chuck

1/72 Napoleonic Miniatures Review

Hello everyone!

Now that school is underway, I have now had time to examine and review the 1/72 miniatures that I bought over the summer. Here are my thoughts...

Initial Impressions:

First off, not all 1/72 scale figures are equal. From the mix that I have, Italeri are the largest, followed by Revell and finally Hat, which is the shortest of the bunch and about a head higher than the metal AB figures. Does this make them unusable? No, but they will definately stick out on the table top without some devious base modification.

 Italeri French Imperial General Staff

Scaleability:

• Revell: These are the best proportioned of the three manufacturers. The torsos and limbs are allthe right thickness. Revell is also the shortest of the three manufacturers, and would be the easiest to hide amongst the regular 15mm figures.
• Italeri:  These figures are well proportioned as well, but they are the largest of the three. They are nearly a head higher than the Revell miniatures and are twice as beefy as a regular 15mm figure. Though very nice figures, they dwarf all of the others.
• Hat: These guys, height wise, are in between Revell and Italeri. However, they are very skinny, about as skinny as an AB figure, which gives them an anorexic air. These guys should fit in ok if put in units made up of other Hat figures.

Revell British Rifles

Quality:

• Revell: Lot's of mould lines, but not unmanageable. The plastic is very soft and bendy, which will probably mean that the paint will chip off of them. Hopefully spray varnish will keep the paintjobs intact.
• Italeri: Casting quality much better on these. They are cast in a stiffer plastic that is less prone to bending. These are by far the best minis right out of the box, but as mentioned earlier they are massive compared to most 15mm minis, and even other 1/72 manufacturers.
• Hat: Hat really is the middle ground. Cast quality is ok, with a few mould lines. The plastic is somewhere between Italeri's and Revell's, slightly bendy yet firm. I will say that these chaps are the poorest sculpted of the three manufacturers, but it may just be this set. These Russian gunners are all legs!

Italeri French Line/Guard Artillery

Price:

Here's the raw data:

For the 82 Italeri and Revell figures, not including guns, limbers and horses, that I purchased off of eBay, I paid less than $0.18 a figure.

For the 24 Hat Russian figures, 4 horses and 4 guns I bought from the miniature store in Gettysburg, PA, I paid $7.50 total, or approximately $0.23 per piece.

Hat Napoleonic Russian Artillery

Overall Impression:

All in all, not too bad for the price. Plastic figures are pretty economical, but the size differences between them and regular 15mm figures are pretty big. This means that more work is nescessary to make them compatible with 15mm figures within an existing army. While I will enjoy painting these guys up and using them on the tabletop, I don't believe I will be purchasing more 1/72 miniatures for my armies. All in all, this was a fun, but ultimately unsuccessful, experiment.

That's all I have for tonight. Look forward to a couple more reviews of some of my newest figures in the near future (when I get more time!).

All the best,

--Chuck

Salamanca Summer Painting Challenge Part 1

Hello everyone!

Well, today my order from Rob at Eureka USA came in with all of the minis that I need for my entries in the BRICOLE painting challenge! Yay! So, as per the competition rules, I took pictures of the figures "in the nude" so to speak:


This will be General Pakenham as part of the British Army command stand for my Battle of New Orleans project.

From left to right: MG Pakenham, dead redcoat, MAJ MacDougall (Pakenham's Senior ADC), dead redcoat, drummer, soldier, mortally wounded redcoat, and line officer.

And these chaps will make up a Russian Brigade command stand for the 1st Brigade of the 7th Division, led by Colonel Lyapunov. I've decided that the good colonel would be a man of musical inclination:

From left to right: COL Lyapunov, officer, fife player and drummer.

Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend to start work on them. Right now I'm back at school and this is a very busy week getting ready for classes to start and whatnot. I should also have a review done of the plastic miniatures that I recived this week when I got back.

One last thing, I'd like to welcome Der Feldmarscahll to the blog. May you enjoy your stay and that I make this humble blog entertaining enough to be worth staying for! :)

As always,

--Chuck

A Shout-Out to New Friends!

Hello everyone!

Not a long post (or directly related to Napoleonic wargaming, either), but I would like to welcome Rosbif and Willie Anderson to the blog! My only hope is that you enjoy what you see and that I can continue to make my humble efforts worth following!

I said I'd be brief, so that's all that I have for tonight! :)

Best wishes,

--Chuck

Salamanca Summer Painting Challenge 2012

Hello everyone!

So, I recently joined the La BRICOLE wargaming forum, a site dedicated to Napoleonic wargaming. The members there were very welcoming and I'm looking forward to sharing with them! :)

Anyways, the site is hosting a painting competition, and I've decided to enter. It will be the first painting competition that I've ever entered, so I'm pretty excited!

The theme for this competition is "vignettes," which also includes command stands. (A link to the rules HERE) While I normally don't like to do command stands until after I get units completed, I figure that doing a couple will be a nice change of pace from the rank and file.

I will have two entries: one will be a Russian battalion command stand (Colonel Dmitry Petrovich Lyapunov, 1st Brigade, 7th Division from the Borodino OOB), and the other will be an Army command stand for the British Forces at New Orleans (MG Sir Edward Pakenham). I will need to order some minis from Eureka here within the next week or two, then I will post up the required pictures in a thread over at La BRICOLE (and here, of course ;) ) This will also be a good chance to do some experimenting with bases for commanders to make them recognizeable on the table.

Well that's about it. On the buying front, I was able to get the RHA Rocket Battery, but was sniped on the Portugese. Oh well.

Have a great week!

--Chuck

New Figures and Thoughts on Artillery

Hello again!

NEW FIGURES:

After another week I have now become the proud owner of three boxes of 1/72 plastic Napoleonic miniatures for my 1/72 scale experiment. Here's what came in the lot:

British Rifles, French Guard Artillery and French Imperial Staff, all of which I can use (the Rifles to represent the 3rd Battalion of the 95th at New Orleans, the Guard Artillery for Borodino, and the Staff for command stands).  Hopefully my experiment will be successful and they won't tower over the other figures too much.

Also, I figured it was high time that more Americans were represented, so I purchased a battalion's worth of American infantry from Blue Moon Miniatures. I must say, they look really good, and I'm looking forward to painting them up as the 7th U.S. Infantry Regiment.

Other than that, it's just a few other eBay bids that I have running at the moment: a troop of RHA Congreve rocket artillery and some Portugese infantry. I hope I can score these without too much fuss (I got bid-sniped on the 1/72 plastic lot and had to snipe them back at the last minute).

THOUGHTS ON ARTILLERY:

 I have determined that instead of using one gun to represent a battery (as per the Black Powder rules that I like), for these I will use half of the number of guns actually used in a battery at the time. This means a British battery (which generally consisted of 4 cannon and two howitzers during the Napoleonic wars) will be represented by three guns on the table, an eight gun French battery will be represented by four models, and so on. I think this will look better visually. During movement, however, the entire battery will be represented by one caisson or limber, and each battery will have a battery commander mounted on a separate base. I think this arrangement will work well both visually and practically. Besides, when there is supposed to be a battery, I expect there to be more than one cannon on the table; I'm a sucker for massed guns. :)

Well, that's all I have for the night. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

I'm Back, Sort of...

Hello everyone!

So, it's been a little while since I've posted, and it's been longer than I've anticipated. I'm currently away from school doing training so my paints and figures will have to be put on hold until the start of next semester in mid August.

On the other hand, since I've got internet access, I have been doing a little shopping in preparation. I've ordered more miniFigs British from eBay to fill out the ranks and I'm watching some more in another auction. I've also bid on something else: some 1/72 plastic soldiers.

While I love the look and heft of lead soldiers, I thought I'd do a little experiment. I've played with 1/72 scale figures when I was a child, and I don't remember them to be much bigger than the AB figures that I love so much, so I will try a few stands using them (if you've had success or failure with this, be sure to leave a comment!). If they are too big, then it shouldn't be much of a problem as they are cheap, and if it turns out to work then I have yet another source of figures to bolster the numbers of figures that I need. Either way, it will be an interesting venture for next semester.

As far as what I've completed in my absence, well, it's not all that much, I'm afraid. I only finished one figure, the ADC for my French command stand (and he looks smashing with his leopard skin saddle blanket, by the way), so I will have to finish the other two figures before I will have a picture of him up.

Well, that's everything for now. Hopefully I will have more soon.

All the best!

--Chuck

Mars, des soldats de la 8e Ligne!

I hope that makes sense... I learned Spanish in school, and my French is for all practical purposes non-existant. It should translate to something like "March, soldiers of the 8th Line!" That's because I finished the last stand of grenadiers and the 8e Regiment d'Infanterie de Ligne is complete!

(Click for bigger pictures)

The grenadier company in all of its glory.

The entire battalion together in line.

The battalion in attack column

The battalion in square.

It's good to finally have these done. I doubt I will get any more painting done in the next two days, so it will be well into June before I will be able to paint --and post-- again. Hopefully I can get another bunch done in that time.

Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

Bare Lead

I took stock of all the bare lead that I have today. Here's what I've got:

France

• 1 understrength battalion (45e Ligne: it was actually understrength at Fuentes de Onoro)
• Demi-Brigade Commander (Colonel Chabert, 1st Demi-Brigade, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, IX Corps)
• 1 8 pounder gun (Artillerie a Pied)
• 2 6 pounder guns (Artillerie a Pied)
• 1 regiment of hussars (3rd Hussars)
• 1/2 regiment of cuirassiers (12e Cuirassiers, fought at Borodino)

Russia

• 1 full strength battalion (Moscow Regiment)
• Brigade commander (Colonel Dmitry Petrovich Lyapunov, 1st Brigade, 7th Division)

Portugal

• 1/2 of an infantry battalion (21st Line)

Britain

• 1 limber (Royal Horse Artillery)
• 2 Companies, 5th Battalion 60th Regiment of Foot (Royal American Rifles, attached to Mackinnon's Brigade)
• 1 company 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers)
• 1 full strength battalion in Belgic shakos, 4th Regiment of Foot (King's Own, fought at New Orleans)
• 1 full strength battalion (74th Regiment of Foot, all but commander and piper must have their shakos converted to Highland bonnets)

United States

• Baratarian Company, New Orleans Militia

Odds and Ends

• Cheering Frenchmen
• Russian militia
• "Imperial Guard"
• Leftover French artillerists and infantry
• Leftover British infantry
• Leftover Russian infantry

This should help me focus on what I currently have to work on as I paint over the summer. It's nice to have it all written out and in one place. It looks like I need to get busy...

-Chuck

A Weekend's Progress

Here's what I managed to paint up over the weekend:

A 5.5 inch howitzer, or "obusier de 5.5 pouces," of the French foot artillery (artillerie a pied). These are Heritage miniatures with an AB howitzer.

Scale wise, the AB gun is a little large for the Heritage gunners, but it isn't easily discernable from most angles.

I think they look pretty good myself. For as small as they are the Heritage minis have quite a bit of detail, save for the faces, which are a bit muddled.

An the last stand of fusiliers from the 8e Ligne. These are from AB.

The green of their pom poms is purposefully bright, as I wanted to easily differentiate them from the darker green of the voltiguers.

This leaves the battalion only one stand (the grenadier company) shy of being complete. I should have them done (hopefuly) before the week's out and I'm off to my summer training.

Two more orders came in yesterday; one was from Eureka USA with the AB guns, Portuguese line and Russian command figures, and the other was an eBay win of some Minifigs British in Belgic shakos. As such, they're destined to become part of the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot and will be slated to fight my Americans in New Orleans.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

The Promised Pictures

Enjoy. :)

(Remember to click on the picture for a bigger image)

All of the OOP Heritage minis from my eBay order.

The two newly completed stands of Marines.

Stand with the officer.

Regular stand.

Another fusilier company for the 8th French Line.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for looking!

-Chuck

New Naps, and a Review

My big shipment of 15mm Heritage minis came in today! Yay! Unfortunately they came in one big bundle, so I had to sort them out and put them in baggies based on my limited expertise. Here's what I got:

-36 Russian Infantry
-28 French Infantry
-22 French Artillerists
-11 French Hussars
-4 French Curassiers
-4 Landswehr/Militia
-2 Dismounted and 1 Mounted Mystery "Imperial Guard" (They have bearskins...)
-And 2 very lost Peninsular British Infantrymen

A total of 110 minis for less than $30!

First impressions:

Scaleability: These dudes are TINY, true 15mm figures. My AB Brits and French dwarf them, and so will the officers and guns that I bought from AB today to go with them. I will have to put them on slightly thicker bases to compensate for the height difference.

Quality: The casting quality varies from pretty good to just passable. I'll have trouble painting some of the figures, but overall it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Price: I can't beat the price, less than $0.28 a figure, including the cavalry. Especially considering these guys are out of production sculpts.

Overall: Not too bad, considering what I paid for them. They will make good fillers for units and won't look out of place if set by themselves. It will take a little bit of devious trickery on my part to get them to jive with the bigger AB figures, but I do enjoy a challenge. :)

I'll take pictures of them tonight, after my afternoon final.

More updates:

I finished the last two stands of U.S. Marines over the weekend, and I finished another stand of French on Tuesday. I'll post pictures of them tonight with those of my order.

Also, some more eBay victories: Battle Honours Portuguese Command and Minifigs British in March Attack pose. Currently I've got a bid up for 50 Old Glory British.

I purchased a few more AB figures today as well to go with my new minis, including some command figures for my new Russians, some cannons for my French artillerists and some Portugese infantry for my incoming Portuguese to command.

Well, that's it for now. Pics tonight after I slog through my engineering final. Ugh...

-Chuck

Just Bought New Minis!

So, my foray with Ebay was a success! Woot!

I now have 110 casting coming my way, a mix of French hussars, French Artillery and Russian infantry, or so the descriptions tells me. There may be more nationalities and troop types mixed in... it's sort of the risk when you buy a mixed bag like that. So we'll see! :D

Also, my classes end today, so I'm planning on getting some painting done this weekend before I buckle down to study for my finals next week. That means I will hopefully have some new pics of painted troops up soon, and I will definately post a picture of my new order when it arrives.

Long Overdue Pictures

Here they are, as promised! Enjoy!

(Remember to click for bigger pictures)

French Ligne:

Company from the 5th Battalion, 60th (Royal American) Rifles:

British Brigade Commander Colonel Henry MacKinnon:

Captain Bull's 'I' Battery, Royal Horse Artillery:

A Company of United States Marines:

I finished up a couple more Marines tonight, but not enough for a full stand. I also have a couple of Ebay bids out there... In the future we could see some Portugese, French Hussars and ... Russians? Oh dear, this project may get out of hand...

--Chuck

It's Been A While...

Hello folks,

It's hard to believe it's ben two months since my last post. Has time gone by that quickly?

Anyways, Real Life has taken control over the past little bit with my school work and all, so not much painting has happened. I have completed a stand of U.S. Marines from the War of 1812, I just have to finish the base, and I'll post some pics. Also, I owe y'all some pictures of my (half completed) French battalion.

I'd also like to welcome my first follower, Monty! Thanks for taking a look and I hope you like what you see; and I hope I can post with more regularity from now on!

Regards,

Chuck

Halfway there!

Chalk up one more company of French Ligne. 1/2 the battalion done.

Got the package slip in my box today announcing the arrival of my figures from Capitan Miniatures today... too bad I'll have to wait until Monday morning to pick them up. :( On the plus side though, that's only 10 days from order placed to goods arrived, from Spain! That's pretty good service if you ask me, especially since I've ordered things from here in the States and have taken longer to get here. So props to Capitan Miniatures!

Pics soon.

--Chuck

Two Companies Down...

I finished another comapny of French line tonight, bringing my total painted French up to two completed companies. Only four more and the 1ere Battalion, 6e Regiment d'Infanterie will be done!

Pics tomorrow, if I can find the time to take some decent ones...

--Chuck

45th Regiment of Foot

As promised, pictures of my first completed battalion, the 1st of the 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment. Click on the image for bigger pictures.

Arrayed in line.

Half the battalion: two line companies and the Light company.

Slightly blurry pic of the other half, with the battalion command, a line company and the Grenadier company.

The entire battalion deployed for battle, with the Light company deployed as a skirmisher screen.

Hope you like them! Next up will be some pics of Bull's RHA battery.

Thanks for looking.

--Chuck

Welcome to my new Blog!

Hello folks, my name's Chuck and this is my Napoleonic site. I game in 15/18mm, and this site will be used to post pictures of my miniatures, as well as the progress of my projects. I am currently working on two: British and French Divisions using the Order of Battle from Fuentes de Onoro, 1811, and a seperate, British versus American project based on the Battle of New Orleans to commemorate the 200th Anniversary to the start of the War of 1812. Pretty ambitious, but that's what hobbies are for.

I've taken pictures of my first painted Battalion, the British 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot, as well as I Battery, Royal Horse Artillery deployed for action (have yet to paint the caisson and horses) and the Brigade Commander, Colonel Henry Mackinnon. I've also completed one stand of three of a detachment from the 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot. I am currently awaiting some more basing material to complete the other two stands. I've also been working on a French battalion, one of the 6e Regiment d'Infanterie a Pied. So far I have the Voltigeurs completed.

In the mail I have some American Marines and a few sailors that will be painted as a company of Jean Laffite's Baratarian pirates that fought under Jackson at New Orleans. I'm looking forward to recieving them.

The vast majority of my figures are from AB Miniatures, and the marines and sailors that I've purchased are from Capitan Miniatures based in Spain. All of my units are based for the ruleset Black Powder, sold through Warlord Games. For me, this means that the standard base is 40mm by 40mm, six bases to an average infantry battalion, with six figures per base. While this is time consuming to paint, the impression made by 36 15mm high miniatures formed up really makes it look like a battalion, and not a half platoon like some scales and rulesets make it seem like.

Well, I'm getting long winded. Hopefully I can get my pictures uploaded fairly quickly, and I hope that you continue to drop by my blog!