Monday 13 April 2015

Waterloo mini musters part 4

It's been a while, but I'm back, and it's a big one. The 3rd British infantry division was the strongest division in battalions 13 in all plus 2 coys of field jaegers.
Let's have a closer look.

The 3rd British Infantry Division
Commanded by Lt. Gen  Charles Count Alten
strength at Waterloo 8,091
casualties at Waterloo 3,725
Deployed on the right/centre on the ridge.

2 /30th British line
33rd British line
2 /69th British line
2 /73rd British line
1st light infantry KGL
2nd light infantry KGL
5th line KGL
8th line KGL
Duke of York field battalion Hanoverian
Grubenhagen light battalion Hanoverian
Bremen field battalion Hanoverian
Verden field battalion Hanoverian
Luneburg light battalion Hanoverian
The full division with command and attached artillery bases one Royal artillery and one KGL foot artillery. British on the right, KGL in the centre and the Hanoverian infantry on the left.

In the next part of the Mini Muster, I will post a battle report on a larger fictional battle between the advancing French under Nay and the withdrawing allies under William Prince of Orange. Not quite on the scale of Quatre Bras, which went almost as historically as it could, with the French having the better of the early stages but the reinforcements just kept coming which slowly ground the French assaults to a halt, but the French under Nay almost pulled off a bit of a moment when their cavalry smashed through the allies left and the allies almost bolted. A real brown trousers moment.
Till next time.

Thursday 9 April 2015

From Box To Base No1 Perry Miniatures French Hussars

I thought i might have a go at a new series on my blog.
From box to base.
In this series I'm going to look at a box/pack of miniatures, see what you get, look at how I'm going to use them, and go through the painting and basing. I'm going to cover my painting technique, most of which will be nothing new to most of you and might not be some people's cup of tea, but im hoping it might come in useful too some.
ok let's have a look at the first box in the series.

French Hussars by Perry Miniatures in the box you get 14 multi - part figures
2 of the spur types you get as an example.

Nice sharp details on these figures, like most plastic figures there is a moulding line on some parts, which will need to be cleaned off before painting
 ( use a very sharp knife for this)
The horse parts and an assembled horse. A nice miniature good size will fit in with the main manufacturers size wise, nice clean detail.

The main spur for the hussars, the box comes with lots of shako version's to cover from 1790 to 1812, this is great as you can adapt the figure to the campaign you want to cover,
The Hussar parts and an assembled Hussar again nice miniature lots of detail, should be fun to paint.

The figures are going to be used for my French Grandeur army. Each base will have 5 figures, this will give me 2 bases plus 4 spare Hussars ( I'm going to use these as single mounted skirmishers for a later Peninsular project ) The bases are also going to be for the Peninsular Campaigns, so I'm going to use the covered shako for the troopers the full shako and cords for the officer and the colpack for the trumpeter. You only get one of the trumpeters arms in the box plus a hand holding a eagle standard, I'm not going to use a standard but I will use a trumpeter, the other base will only have an officer. I'm going to paint one base as the 1st Hussar and the other as the 4th both served in the Peninsular wars. A quick look at the handy painting guide that comes in the box, will give you all the information you need to paint your Hussar.

So on to the painting .
My painting technique has 4 stages not counting the under coat. It sounds quite an ordeal but trust me once you have done it a few times it works quite quickly.
Under coat: I use a grey. Why to be honest I have tried white and black, but I have found grey suits me.
One under coated horse.

STAGE 1
Paint your figure with what I like to call the flat colours. eg: for a horse it would be it's coat colour, markings, the horse equipment all gets painted in it's flat colour. Same think for the Hussar paint him up in his flat colours from his skin out (I got this tip from a friend ) you don't have to be that activ as you work your way around the figure as long as you know that you are going to cover up any little mistakes as you go.

The horse and Hussar at the end of stage 1 flat colours.

STAGE 2
Ok this bit will be familiar with most of you. We are going to ink wash the figure.
My secret weapon brown ink.

With a soft brush wash the ink all over the figure, what we are trying to achieve here is to blend all the painting elements. The ink will run, (if that's the right word) into all of the figures detail, but it will also leave a thin coating over the hole of the figure. As brown is a neutral colour it works over all colours. Leave to thoroughly dry. Then spray a thin coat of Matt varnish.
The horse and Hussar inked. end of stage 2 but not matt varnished

STAGE 3
ok hang in there.  Next up we are going to use the flat colours we used in stage 1 to highlight our figure this can be done with a detailed brush for the likes of belts,tiny details, the face. For the larger areas I find a dry brush technique. (dry brush is using a small amount of paint, even wiping the brush till it is almost dry then applying this to the figure). paint in the highlights on the figure add in as much as you want or as little, it's up to you. Leave to thoroughly dry then spray a thin coat of Matt varnish.

The horse and Hussar at the end of stage 3. The horse has had a coat of varnish.

STAGE 4
Ok last part use a light stone colour, and this time we are going to dry brush over the hole of the figure. This is what I like to call giving them that campaign look. I have read lots of Napoleonic books and all have the same thing in common. The uniforms of the combatants don't look good for long, when you are on campaign. So I like to dust them up a bit.
Ok what we are looking to do in this stage is to apply the lightest of covering of grey over the figure. (this might take a bit of practice  use a black painted figure to have a few tyres before you try it on a painted figure). As you get better at this technique you will be able to apply as little or as much,as you want to your figure.
There you have it a quick spray of Matt varnish to finish.
You may have picked up on my multi use of varnish, I use this as it creates depth to the figures.
The horse after stage 4  and the Hussar and mount.

Ok the base I start with painting the base a earth colour then apply PVA to the base and cover this in my sand, stone mix.
Leave to dry and then apply PVA to the areas you want to grass I use a mix of Army painter static grass. Once dry add some larger stones and some straw. I'm hoping this will give the base an arid look? Then dry brush with your stone grey on the stones and where you want, and there you have it.
The base of the 1st Hussar ready to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of France.

Well that's it for the first on my From Box to Base blogs  Hope this was of interest to some.
Till next time.

Saturday 4 April 2015

On the work bench more French for Grandeur

So far I have painted up 3 bases of French line infantry each base represents a brigade 12 figures on a 15cm by 8cm base. The army lists for Grandeur are designed for the full scale version of Impetus  (as of yet no Basic Impetus version or list figures crossed) were you can field a full army of between 2 and 6 corps each between 2 and 4 Divisions, with each Division represented by 1 to 3 bases. Potentially the army could be made up of each corps having between 8 to 12 bases with up to 2 Cavalry bases representing the corps cavalry arm, with 1 or 2 artillery bases for the corps artillery.
Know I'm sure this would look spectacular on the table, but I don't have the room or the funds for this project.
So I have played around with the army lists a bit so they fit better into the Basic Impetus format, of between 8 to 12 bases per army.

FRENCH
1 Infantry Corps of
2-4 infantry Divisions each of  M  VDU I  D VD
1-2 line infantry  (FP)                  5    4/5 1  B2  SK A
OR conscripts line (FP)              5    4/5 1  C1  SK B
OR veteran line (FP) *                 5    5/6 1  B2  SK A

Corps Cavalry Division  of        M  VDU   I  D VD
0-2 dragoons  (CM)                    10   4/5  1 B2
OR Chasseurs (CL)                     12   3/4  1 B2
OR hussar (CL)**                        12  3/4   1 B2
OR lancers  (CL)***                     12  3/4  1 B2

Corps Artillery of                       M VDU   I  D VD
1-2 heavy batteries F art****    6   2       0 B1 artA
Or medium batteries F art        6   2       0 B1 artB


* maximum of 2 divisions
** veterans
*** veterans only one base can be fielded
**** only one base can be fielded
This gives a maximum of 12 bases all up still a large number but more manageable.
              
BRITISH Peninsular Campaign
In the army lists the notes state  (and rightly so )
before the Waterloo campaign the army did not use the corps army structure, they tended to format divisions of infantry and had separate cavalry Brigades, some times divisions. The artillery was generally spread around the army or deployed were it was required on the battle field. So the army list looks like this.

British and Allies
1-3 Infantry Division each of       M  VDU  I  D VD
1-2 foot line British/ KGL  (FP)    5   5/6  1 B2 SK A
OR light rifles (FP) *                      5   6/5  1 B3 SK A
OR Highlands  (FP)**                    5   6/7  2 B3 SK B
OR Portuguese line (FP)***         5  4/5   1 B2
OR Portuguese line (FP)****       5   5/6  1 B3 SK
OR other allies line (FP)*****      5   4/5   1 B2

0-1 Cavalry division of                 M VDU  I  D VD
1-2 heavy dragoons  (CP)******  8   5/6  2  B3
OR light dragoons  (CL)               12 3/4  1  B2
OR hussars  (CL)                          12 3/4  1  B2

Artillery attached of                     M VDU  I  D VD
0-1 medium batteries  F art        6   2      0 B1 artB
Or horse batteries  H art             10 2      0 B1 artB

* only one division can be fielded
** only one division can be fielded
*** represents early Portuguese line infantry 1808 to 1810.  must field one division
**** represents late Portuguese line infantry.  must field one division
***** represents all other allies. must attach a base to any division in the early campaign 1808 to 1810 if fielding all 3 divisions

This gives an army of a maximum of 9 bases smaller than the French, but generally historically correct. As the British found themselves out numbered.
The above is just a trial version of the army lists my own in ideas not official. I have left out the legendary Old Guard and the British Guards as I want to look a bit closer at these. I might not use them or limit there use. Feel free to change any of the above comment's and ideas always welcome.
Only 9 more bases for the French, I think I might have a go at some cavalry next.
hope you enjoyed
Till next time

Wednesday 1 April 2015

On the work bench more Gallic warrior's

The last of the Gallic warrior's I could find in the bits box just enough for 4 more stands. A real mix of figures, some Essex Magistar and some I have no idea.



The Gallic warrior's a site to strike fear into any Roman
Well that's it for the Gallic's for know hope you have enjoyed
Till next time