Marshal Ney

This is the Marshal Ney figure from Newline Designs, which I finished a while ago but hadn't got round to basing. I was originally going to add a foot soldier or perhaps another general to the base, but in the end I used some small, circular mdf bases covered in filler (with a hole cut in the top one) to create a kind of water trough. Not a very grand feature for a general's base, I know, but it's something different I suppose, and done partly for the sake of trying out the Woodland Scenics resin water I bought recently (which turned out well, but you can't really see it in this photo). I found pictures online of rectangular stone water troughs from the early 19th century, but I'm not certain there were circular ones. Seems plausible though.

None of the books I've read so far on the Napoleonic Wars has covered the life and exploits of Marhsal Ney in any great detail, and I would certainly like to read a good biographical account of this legendary soldier. There are a few to choose from, but nothing recently published in English that I have found so far. I like the look of A. H. Atteridge's book, Marhsal Ney: The Bravest Of The Brave, first published in 1912 but reprinted by Pen & Sword in 2015. It looks like a good place to start, so I'll track down a copy of that.

I'll do a big French army update in my next post!

More French...

Most of my time lately has been spent on painting more line infantry for the French, so there's not a whole lot to share that's different from some of the photos I've already posted. However, here are a few different bits and pieces...

Grenadiers and voltiguers. Same figures, painted differently.

Lying down on the job. One of the French line casualty figures from Newline.

Another general, on a smaller base this time.

I've almost reached the end of what I'm calling 'Phase 1' of my French army. I have one more mounted general and a one base of infantry to add, then it'll be back to the Prussians. There's still plenty more to paint in the lead pile (and more planned purhases, besides), but both armies are now pretty well big enough to give me a reasonable sized game, so I'm looking forward to finally trying out some of the rulesets I've picked up over time.

I'll do an overview of the French collection next time before posting some more updates on the Prussians. After that, I'll be spending more time on adding to my terrain collection and thinking about some scenarios to try out.

French line lancers

I finally finished this first unit of French lancers for the 20mm Napoleonic project. It ended up being on the painting table for a week or so longer than I'd hoped, but I don't like to rush these things! As always, the miniatures are by Newline Designs and (as always) they were very enjoyable to paint.

I replaced the separately cast lances with wire spears from some 28mm Gripping Beast miniatures, and they are a good fit size-wise. I made some paper pennons and glued these on, but subsequently realised that 1) they are probably a bit too big, and 2) the colours should be red over white, not the other way round (oops!). Never mind, I may go back and fix them at some point (which probably means I won't!). Next up, more French infantry...

French line infantry so far...

I'm a little over half way now towards my initial target of painting up eight line infantry battalions for the French. The latest unit is the one pictured here on the left with six figures per base instead of the usual four or eight. I like this basing better, so I'll probably stick with it for future units. Each base is 35mm wide and 25mm deep, so a slightly narrower frontage per figure compared to the 25x25 and 50x25mm bases. The plan is also to get each battalion up to 24 figures, so a few of the ones shown here need to be topped up.

There's a short video below to show the miniatures more closely. The next battalion is undercoated, but I will probably take a break first and paint some more cavalry or one or two generals.

At last...some flags!

I suddenly (and finally) got round to start adding some flags to my 20mm Napoleonic collection this weekend. I've been putting this off for ages, but it was annoying me that I had so many painted infantry units that were not really finished.

I haven't had any success looking for places to buy Napoleonic flags for 20mm scale minis, so these flags are courtesy of Alan Pendlebury from the excellent www.warflag.com - thank you, Alan! The designs are very well done, and look great on the tabletop. Unfortunately, my printer didn't do a great job in reproducing the colour of the red flags, so I painted over them, which helped a lot. The blue flag of the rearmost regiment printed ok.

The size that I decided to print them at are maybe ever so slightly bigger than they should be, but I preferred to give them a bit of height on the tabletop. All in all, I'm pleased with how they look, and relieved to have finally solved the problem of what to do for flags, thanks to warflag.com. I'll probably add flags to the remainder of the Prussian infantry battalions quite quickly now.

Meanwhile, I'm turning my attention back to the French. The collection is a bit further behind the Prussian in terms of painted units, and I really need to add more line infantry, so I'll be doing those next.

And the lead pile just got a bit bigger this weekend as well, with the arrival of another wee purchase I made from Newline Designs for more 20mm Napoleonic goodness. Lots to do!

East Prussian Landwehr Cavalry

So, my first unit of Prussian landwehr cavalry is now finished. I have one other lot of 9 miniatures still to paint, which will probably be done in the not too distant future. As with the French chasseurs, I've gone with three figures on a 45x30mm base, which is also handy for making the most of the Newline Designs unit packs, which contain 9 figures.

Rather than painting another Silesian regiment, I decided to paint these guys as an East Prussian, so it was nice to paint some red collars etc rather than yellow. The central figure in the command stand is actually a landwehr colonel, which I bought separately from Newline and swapped in for one of the regular troopers to add a bit of variety.

I'm rather fond of the landwehr portion of my Prussian army. I think it's the uniforms that appeal to me. They're simple but look good once painted up, and a bit more colourful than the regular Prussian line infantry. Apart from the other pack of cavalry, I still have one more unit of foot and that'll be the landwehr finished for now. No doubt I'll want to add more in the future, but this will be enough for the time being.

Currently on the painting table is a base of Prussian reserve infantry, which I decided to do next in order to experiment with how a 6-figure base looks agains the 4- and 8-figure bases I've used so far. I'll post pics of these and the other completed reserve infantry units in the next post.

Bye for now!

Chasseurs á cheval

I got my first unit of French line chasseurs finished and based today. This will be the first of two units, both of which will be painted as the 16e. I've painted chasseurs á cheval before in 28mm (since sold) and in 10mm, and always enjoy doing them. These are probably my favourite of the cavalry figures from Newline Designs that I've painted so far. Really nice figures. I spent a bit longer on the horses than I normally do. Horses are not one of my strong points, but I'm slowly improving I think.

I used the Osprey Men-at-Arms book, Napoleon's Line Chasseurs as my main reference for the uniforms. The command figure in the centre is based on one of Angus McBride's excellent illustrations from this book, showing a subaltern from the 16th regiment.

I decided to start using a different approach to basing cavalry for my 20mm Napoleonics. Instead of two miniatures on a 30x30mm base I'm putting three miniatures on a 45x30mm base. So, same frontage per miniature, but it'll mean fewer bases per unit.

It's back to the Prussians for my next unit. I started work today on some landwehr cavalry, which should be quicker to do than these chasseurs. I have two packs to paint, and may do both together, but I'll see how it goes. I hope to post pictures of these soon.

I doubt this blog will be getting much traffic at the moment, after such a long hiatus, but if you do stumble across it then I hope you're enjoying the posts. It's likely I'll be staying focused on this current project for the rest of this year, so if you like 20mm Napoleonics then there should be more posts to interest you over the coming months.