Behold an update! The Coalition!

Part II of the Behold an Update! series of updates. The author makes a hasty post before disappearing back into his man-cave once more, never to be seen.

I've decided what to do for my "Coalition" (ie non-French) army.

I have settled with a Austro-Bavarian Corps, but with the addition of a British brigade to spice things up. While in the beginning, painting white was incredibly tedious, the Austrians have slowly grown on me, but I didnt want to just paint white all the time either, and needing a little "oooo shiney" battalions here and there, decided to spice things up by adding the colorful Bavarians and a British brigade (consisting of two British line infantry battalions, and two Hanovarian Landwehr battalions).

Currently its essentially a small division with two unfinished brigades. In one, I have 2 Hungarian infantry regiments, a Jager battalion, and some cavalry (Hussar and Uhlan regiment), and the other consists of a Grenz battalion, and two German infantry battalions.

Still left to do:

2 German Infantry battalions
1 Grenz battalion
Artillery
Bavarian brigade (4 infantry battalions, artillery battery)
British/Hanovarian brigade

Most of the work in this Army of the Coalition (of the willing) is still not done, but I hope to have plenty of time during my business trip to get some more done. Looking forward to painting the Bavarians though, as the colors are very different to the standard Austrian white! Even the British were quite fun to paint... other than the flags that were a massive pain :(

Behold an update! The French!

Here, the blog owner appears from his man-cave to unveil the scribbling he has made upon bits of metal.....


It's true that I've been gone, but I've also been hard at work (painting)! Really!  There's been talk with my co-author of the blog to see if we can create a website to better organize our projects, but I'm waiting to see what he has in mind.

In the meanwhile.... my paint brushes have been furiously at work. Speaking of paintbrush, I did try out one of those Windsor & Newton brushes at 00 / 000 size that people have been talking about on various blogs. They're definitely quite something else - but there's this bizarre fear within me about "wasting" these brushes, and would rather use the Citadel Fine Detail brushes. It's irrational, I know. But even if the Citadel brushes lose their tips after a few months of furious painting, I still like them. All habits die hard.


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I did make a post on the Pendraken forums regarding my work with miniatures, but out of respect to the guys there, I try not to link non-Pendraken products. Whereas Battlefront have straight out and went ahead to ban / delete threads that contain non-Battlefront 15mm WWII products, I find their way of doing it rather insulting, in a way. Pendraken don't have that policy, even if their annual painting competition disallows non-Pendraken products - but the reasons behind that are a matter of common sense.

The current "French Army" in its "complete" form. At the moment it's divided into three brigades:
First Brigade, consisting of 6 infantry battalions and reinforced with 2 artillery batteries.  The brigade consists of 3 line infantry battalions, and 3 leger battalions. They're essentially split into a Line Infantry Regiment with 3 battalions, a Leger Regiment with 2 battalions, and a Leger Regiment of 1 battalion.

Going from left to right, looking at the "complete" army, is the Cavalry Brigade.

The cavalry brigade consists of 2 hussar regiments (1er and 2eme Regiment du Hussards), and 2 Chasseurs-a-Cheval regiments (1er and 13eme Regiment de Chasseurs-a-Cheval), along with a horse artillery battery.

There is also a regiment of lancers that are out of place but are added in this placement photo because it's currently not part of anything, much like the Dragoon and Eclaireurs-de-la-Garde that currently act as "bodyguards" for the General de Division. Eventually though, I'll be adding another 2 regiments of lancers to have a lancer brigade.

The lancer models, from Magister Militum I was surprisingly pleased with, and felt they had the right proportions, and were also easy to paint. I ended up doing some surgical work on the porte-etendard and painted my own flag in its stead.

The final brigade, is the second infantry brigade. Consisting of 5 battalions of infantry, of which four are line infantry (two regiments with 1st and 2nd battalions each), and one Leger battalion in skirmish/open order to represent the more "veteran" Leger. Regiment wise, the flag was painted to represent the 9eme Regiment d'Infanterie Legere. This brigade too, is reinforced with a foot artillery battery.

All in all, this totals the French army at 11 infantry battalions, 7 cavalry regiments, 3 foot artillery batteries, and 1 horse artillery battery. The skirmisher stands have not all been completed, with several stands still need doing (depending on the ruleset used).

In addition, I have another 2 line infantry regiments left to do (though not sure whether to paint them up as the Swiss or one regular line and the other Joseph Napoleon), and one combined line grenadier battalion.

Eventually, I'll also have to paint up another brigade general and equalize the brigade around a 4-5 battalions per brigade mark.

That's it for the French for now!

Waterloo 2015

In the ultimate expression of my terrible addiction in miniatures and Napoleonics, I have traveled to Waterloo, Belgium to witness the re-enactment and commemorative ceremony of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo.
It was good that I had managed to get tickets about 3-4 months in advance, as not only were tickets sold out roughly 2 months ago, but the site was packed.

(French army officer of 1815 with one of 2015....)

 The site was gorgeous, and so where the costumes. Weather held pretty well throughout the two days, with slight rain towards the end of the day.

The number of reenactors on the field numbered roughly 5,600 last I heard on the loud speakers. The first day represented the French attacks on La Haie Sainte and Hougoumont, and the arrival of the Prussians, and the second day represented the British and Prussian offensive and the withdrawal of French forces from the field.

I also managed to find an interesting deal with a vendor (who happened to be ex-French army) whom I struck up a long conversation with, and managed to get a deal for a whole set of drawings and paintings done by Guy Sajer and Michel Faure, the authors of the graphic novels "Les Fils de l'Aigle". These were serial numbered and very limited, so I managed to grab these, with their "Les Hussards" drawing album depicting all the hussar regiments numbering one through twelve. I also bought a slate painting done by Guy Sajer, but unfortunately Belgian roads are just notoriously bad, and the slate got cracked on the trip home. I was really disappointed about this, so I tried to fix it the best I could, and will have to get a proper frame to hold it in place.

All the pictures are below - though due to the sheer amount of photos taken, there are only a select few below.

I have also several videos that I took, but here is one that has been uploaded during the final phase of the second day of the reenactments: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qtml3pql95a2ttr/20150620_215211.mp4?dl=0

Enjoy!

Austrian reinforcements...

After much slaving away this week, I've managed to lessen my painting pile by two battalions for the Austrians.

I had a couple days off this week, so that easily translated into 8 hour painting sessions (okay, maybe not that extreme) to get most of this done without reducing quality. I did however, manage to find ways to increase the speed of painting, using a mix of washes and less intricate colors and detail that would otherwise over-crowd the figures. As in, I'm not sure I really need to paint up the Hungarian lace on the upper thigh for each individual Grenz trooper, for example.

Also finished up the work from the week before by adding flock, so this is what they end up turning like:

1er Regiment d'Eclaireurs de la Garde

57e Regiment d'Infanterie de Ligne (Elite Line Infantry)

The Eclaireurs came out okay, but I still have my doubts on Magister Militum. I ordered French Line Lancers from them because the preview screenshot showed better proportions - so we'll see how I feel when they arrive. But I think they might be the last Magister Militum "troops" I'll order (aside from personalities and generals, that Pendraken dont stock); their proportions are just something that feels off.

The Elite line infantry unit, which is to say, regular line infantry with mixed greatcoats had the effect I was looking for. Campaign worn, but badass. I really like that look, as it makes it look much more realistic than troops in pristine uniform. Now the challenge... how to differentiate them from my future french units that have greatcoats, but are considered as veterans. Hmm, that's something I'll have to think about (different flag pattern maybe?) or paint up the Swiss.

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For the Austrians, I added the second battalion to my 'Hungarian' regiment, IR19 "Alvinczy". The painting of the flag almost became a nightmare, but the end result was pleasing.

So. Small. AAAARRRRRGGHHHH

Hmm okay, this actually looks good.

I had my doubts whether I could pull this off because of how intricate Austrian flags are. For my Grenz, I decided to go with orange facing (no reason in particular, I already did light blue for the line infantry, and felt green would be a little hard to see? Red seemed to be overdone by looking at pictures on Google), and thus came to represent the Grenzregiment n.3 "Carlstädt-Oguliner".

The flag seems to fit quite well

Close up of the Grenz

Part of me feels that maybe I should've taken an actual order of battle, like say, Wagram, and rebuilt the roster, but I feel that that's a little too detailed / button-counting for my taste, as I'm primarily painting for the enjoyment, and the eventual possibility of playing casual games, and not specifically refighting a specific battle with the exact regiments being modeled. 

And so, the Austrian army for now:

Avant-Garde Brigade/Division

Oh, oops. I noticed just now that one of the Austrian stands are a bit camera shy and facing the other way....

I still have the 2nd battalion of the Grenz to paint, and that's all I have in my collection for the Austrians to do. That said, I have already made an order to start filling up the gaps. The addition of a general will round off this Avant-Garde brigade or division (havent created the proper roster), and I have ordered enough components for a regular infantry brigade from Pendraken to support the above: x4 'German' line infantry battalions (or 2 regiments), with their position artillery and brigade general.

Likewise for the French, I have a brigade of 4 battalions (2 regiments) with their artillery battery and general arriving within the next few weeks.

I still have a French general, the Elite line infantry battalion and artillery battery left to paint to complete my Elite infantry brigade.

More pictures!

Got a new phone, so this means better pictures! What better way to show off my horse artillery... than showing them with their brigade together?

In the cooker:

I've also just about finished my 1st Scout Lancers, or rather, their correct title: 1er Regiment d'Eclaireurs de la Garde from Magister Militum. I had bought these models a while ago. I think they turned out okay, even if I dont like the sculpts - I think a little flock and proper base will make a difference too.

And then next to finish (with the basing) is my first battalion for the Elite Line Infantry unit. These are coming around quite nicely, also have some skirmishing stands for them not in the photo. They appear a little clean at the moment, but I'll be adding some grime to them when I do the basing, it should make them more "campaigned".

And that's it for now - started work on the Austrians again to switch it up a little to make sure I'm not bored by repetition!