28mm Austrians March - Depot Battallion

January would seem to be the month for raising your units, load the magazines, and make grandiose plans for the coming campaigns.

I have, so far, managed to assembly my entire collection of Austrian plastic that had been stockpiled. The lions share of these are victrix models which have different poses (and 2 arms!) so are much more time consuming to assemble than the marching Perry's.

In rough numbers I have a bit over 150 Austrians. Some miscellaneous stuff was also assembled to try and clean the computer desk up a bit. I intended to prime them up for the 'look I've done work!' shot, but the local game store is out of stock of the 'wraithbone' coloured priming I'm hoping to use. The plan, roughly, will be:  to prime off white, basecoat some flesh and other colours that benefit from a wash, ink it, and highlight everything necessary.

I converted some metal colonel figs with helmets to bicornes to make some higher level (field) officers. I think the heads might be sitting a bit proud on the cut neck, but I don't relish drilling out the neck so I'll live with it. 

Napoleonic French Young Guard & Guard (Empress) Dragoons

I realized as I was working on my New Year post that I don't have any (*ANY!*) pictures of stuff I painted this year. Mostly I haven't painted much, the stuff I have done was mostly prep, or partially complete. I did finish a whack of napoleonics for Enfilade back in May that I never documented. I hope that means I finished other stuff but didn't take photos, but who knows...




These figures were part of a mystery lot I got off TMP that were aggressively priced. Conveniently they ended up being a mix of elite and regular line. The elites I peeled off to use as young guard, mixing in the last 20 figs from a victrix box of guard (the previous 40 parceled out to old and middle guard).






I only needed 4 units (~10 men each) for the convention game, but I decided to make 6 bases to future proof my young guard for other campaigns.








I had most of the other figs I needed but was short some empress dragoons (guard dragoons). I already had a box of perry french dragoons but the saddle furniture and braid is different so I attempted a conversion with green stuff putty and some suture material for the braid.



 I wasn't super pleased with the result...looking closely you can see that the 'scales' at the front of the saddle furniture and a bit too variable, and that the 'lay' of the braid loops is a bit too flouncy. I was under the gun and it meets the 2 foot table top standard so good enough.
It also helped with the excess number of dragoons I'd probably otherwise have.

Dutch Red Lancers - Perry Miniatures

These guys are colorful and actually a treat to paint. As much as napoleonics are generally considered bright and finicky, sometimes you hit paydirt and get a unit like this. What a color explosion!

I know essentially nothing about these troops. They were part of the imperial guard, so obviously are  fairly elite. The nationality is not totally unusual as there are a number of formations in the Grande Armee that Napoleon simple ported over from their parent army and occasionally redressed. Why ruin a crack unit when you can 'borrow' it? The benefits of empire I suppose.

This jpeg I managed to find online and was totally invaluable in painting the unit. I wish it was easier to find stuff like this, as napoleonic uniforms can be confusing at the best of times.

Russian Dragoons & Officers - Perry miniatures

And now for a big change...more napoleonics! Russians at least. I was 'short' some Russian cav, so I ordered and painted up some more dragoons. The officers I believe were moldering away half finished for quite some time, so I finished them at the same time.

I suspect the officer with the sword high is actually a warlord figure, but I might be confused.

French Headquarters - Perry Miniatures

As part of a larger Perry order I grabbed the 'Napoleon and Staff' collection. It's fun to have some recognizable figures/personalities on the board. I actually had already painted a napoleon I grabbed out of a box at a convention, so I handed this new one off to a local gamer who didn't have one (and therefore *needed* one).

I probably could have crowded more figs onto one base, but I figured this was good enough. 

French Imperial Guard Cannon - Perry Minatures

More Imperial Guard on parade today. I need two bases for Enfilade but decided I might as well finish the requirements for Waterloo (4). I'm not sure that I will use the horse artillery as horse artillery, but we'll see. I have vague plans to have different colored dice (there's a dice frame on each base to track strength) for horse artillery.

 The horse artillery always looks a bit more glamorous with their extra lace and curved swords.

 My picture setup is a bit lacking right now. So apologies for the terrible 'background'.

French Gendarme D'Elite & Grenadier A Cheval - Perry Miniatures

Looking to fill out my French troops for a Waterloo campaign, I need 3 elements/units/bases of Imperial guard heavy Cavalry. I figured nothing says guard like bearskins, so I selected the Grenadier a cheval (the obvious choice) and the Gendarme D'Elite.

These latter guys sound like pretty tough customers in a non frontline setting. I guess non civil policing can be pretty rough at times. They were fun to paint up (as most perry metals are), but their outfits are so similar I'm sure I'll forget which ones are which. Grenadiers have the yellow trim.