10mm Napoleonic Austrians

I've mentioned my collection of 10mm Napoleonics a couple of times in passing, and always meant to share a few pictures on the blog. It's still very much a work in progress, a project I tend to dip in and out of every now and then. The forces (Austrian and French) are almost at a useful size now for small games, but I plan to add lots more as time goes on.

A fellow blogger was asking me about them, so this gave me the much-needed nudge to get finally get the camera out. Here are some photos of the Austrians first of all. It's not all of them, just a sampling of some of the different troop types.

Generals

Cuirassiers

Cuirassiers

Cuirassiers

Dragoons

Hussars

Grenadiers

Jagers

Grenzers

Landwehr

Horse artillery

Foot artillery

Hungarian fusiliers

German fusiliers

German fusiliers

Almost all of the minis are by Pendraken, with just the horse artillery by Magister Militum. I like both ranges, and even though the MM ones are slightly bigger/chunkier, you don't really notice once they're on the table.

For those who are interested, I use 15x20mm bases for my infantry and 20x20mm for cavalry. The buildings in the background are from Total Battle Miniatures' 6mm range (and rather lovely they are too!). I also have a few of their 10mm buildings but haven't got round to painting them all yet.

I'll share some pictures of the French army in another post.

British line infantry - 44th East Essex

My first unit of Napoleonic British is now finished! These are painted to represent the 2nd battalion of the 44th East Essex, which was part of Pack's brigade at Waterloo. Hopefully I got most of the uniform details correct, although I'm starting almost from scratch as far as my knowledge of British uniforms goes. I think I'm right in saying drummers didn't wear reversed colours by the time of 1815 (officially, at least), but I decided to go with the yellow jacket anyway for the sake of variety.

Figures are by Newline Designs. Flags are from warflag.com

I originally intended to go all out and paint a 36-figure unit, using 6 bases of 6 figures, but I changed my mind at the end and switched back to my usual 24-man unit on 4-figure bases. As a result, I still need to add a couple of flank companies, so I'll probably swap out two of the bases at some point and repurpose them for a different battalion, once the flank companies are painted.

I'm keen to dive straight into another unit of British, but can't quite decide what to do next - lots to choose from. I'm very tempted to stay with Pack's brigade and paint the Black Watch battalion next. Time to put a brew on and have a think about it...

Expanding the collection...finally!

So, my plan to start painting some of the other nations from the Napoleonic Wars - notably the British and their allies - has finally started. I originally intended to get stuck in at the start of this year, but distractions with terrain projects and other things got in the way.

Foremost among those 'other things' is, of course, the current situation with the pandemic - an anxious time for everyone, to put it mildly. Although far from normal, life has slowly settled into a new routine here in the Wee Painted Men household. Both me and Mrs Kev are able to work from home, for which I'm extremely thankful, and both of our incomes are, for the time being at least, relatively secure. I do still worry about elderly parents and close family members working 'on the front line', but just hope and trust that we will all be ok.

I'm gradually getting into a healthier daily habit which doesn't involve being glued to some 24-hour news feed or other. Keeping up with details of every unfolding event seemed vital at first - even obligatory - but eventually it just became all-consuming, not to mention utterly depressing. Things like painting toy soldiers were put firmly in the back seat, but I soon realised that keeping up the ordinary, day-to-day hobbies was important. The fun stuff is what helps you through bad times.

Over the Easter weekend I had a go with a couple of rulesets using my French and Prussian collections. The first was Field of Battle (mentioned in my last post) and the second was Waterloo, the now out of print game published by Games Workshop. Of the two, I had the most fun with Waterloo. So much so, in fact, that it suddenly ignited my enthusiasm for getting out my big lead pile o' British troops from Newline Designs.

I'm sure I'll be talking more about the Waterloo rules (written by Mark Latham) in future posts, and I hope to put together a few battle reports. In the meantime, I'll be pressing on with this first unit of British line infantry, which I've decided to paint up as the 44th East Essex. I have the idea of doing a few battalions from the 5th (Picton's) Division from 1815, and the East Essex seemed like as good a place to start as any. I painted this first miniature to completion just to get my bearings with the uniform, and I'll be doing the rest of the unit in larger batches next. (I'm not sure yet whether I'll paint the regiment's number on the back of the napsack or not.)

All this doesn't mean I'll be abandoning the French or Prussian collections - far from it! Both of those armies still have units I want to get painted, so expect me to be jumping around between nations for the forseeable. I may even be doing a (big) bit of rebasing if the Waterloo rules continue to hold my interest. And there's still the terrain collection to be improved...

Lots to do! More soon...

Some more Prussian infantry

It's been a bit quiet for me recently on the hobby front. The hex terrain project I mentioned in my last post only got so far before my enthusiasm hit the buffers. I may return to it at some point, but at the moment I'm still searching for terrain ideas and inspiration.

I did manage to reorganise my hobby room so that I now have a permanent 6 x 4 foot table set up, which feels like a great luxury - even if my battlefields are still rather sparse!

I've also been reading a lot of Napoleonic rulesets, trying to find one that might be good for solo play and which is not hex-based. Although Commands & Colors is my favourite game to date, I would like to have a more traditional, non-gridded look to my games sometimes. Field of Battle by Brent Oman is the current forerunner, so I think I'll spend some time trying out those rules over the Easter weekend. Hopefully a standard 6 x 4 tabletop will be big enough for a decent sized game using my 20mm collection.

In the meantime, I decided to paint up some more Prussians from the lead pile. I still need to finish the bases and attach the flag, but it's nice to have another unit of musketeers added. I now have enough for five such 24-fig units, with another unit half done.