Yet more Prussians!

This about adds up to a 12/13 point Prussian 1813 army with the addition this week of the artillery, command base, landwehr light cavalry and regular heavy cavalry, plus jagers and another landwehr infantry unit. In the pipeline on order from Eureka are reservists (in short British supplied jackets), Hussars and the baggage piece. Also on order are some Bavarian allies for the 1813 French force.

Can't do much more until the orders arrive so it's back to John's WSS meantime, just wanted to get the Prussians up and running. Hope to get them on the card table over the weekend for my first 1813 game.

Current total is close to 800 painted figures now, and looking back at my Eureka online account I see I only placed the first order early April so pretty good going.

Photos: so much blue! I really need a change now for a couple of weeks. 107 AB figures painted over 2 weeks in January.

 

Five points of Prussians!

Between Monday to Friday this last week I managed to paint 50 more Prussians, a 10 figure infantry base per day, good going even for me! With the base featured a week ago this now makes up 5 points towards the 1813 DBN army, 1 point each for the line infantry and 1/2 point each for the Landwehr bases. 

I think this output was fuelled by events of last Sunday when I had reason to drive into Maidstone from Rochester to drop off some essential baby supplies to my youngest daughter (Daisy's Mum) for whom we are their support bubble (child under 1 year). It's only a 15 minute drive but to say that I was staggered by the amount of traffic on the roads and the numbers of people walking about is an understatement. It certainly did not feel like the middle of a lockdown, far from it, and as one who has worked really hard at sticking to the covid rules since this pandemic began it really shocked me. In Maidstone I saw a group of at least a dozen older teenagers sitting on a wall with cans of beer just around the corner from the Police Station. When I got back home I felt somewhat depressed, and decided to do what I always do when feeling like that, paint it out of my system. So I set myself a goal for the week ahead of 50 figures in five days.

The figures are all AB's painted at some speed in my tried and tested method. I have included details of the painting method below and a shot of the limited (wet) palette used. I tried to lighten the Litewkas of the Landwehr somewhat compared to the line uniforms. I'm guessing around 3 hours per base split into a couple of sessions, the Prussians are easier to paint than the British and French due to having less lace and plain covered shakos. Should add that flags are printed from the Warflags site and may not be accurate in terms of unit facings etc.

DBN 1813 Prussian.

The  Prussians will initially form a 12 point army and expand to 18 points:

4 bases of line infantry (Line muskets)  

4 bases of Landwehr (Militia muskets)

2 bases of 'reservists' (Militia muskets)

2 bases of Jagers.

1 base of Kuirassiers (no armour).

2 bases of heavy cavalry (Dragoons)

2 bases of Landwehr cavalry (Militia lancers)

2 Foot artillery.

Command base & baggage base.

These are all AB figures that I have in my drawer apart from the baggage piece. I think I must add a couple of bases of Hussars to the above and maybe a couple more line infantry which will give me some variation.

Painting sequence:

Black base coat, Prussian dark blue jacket highlighted by adding a touch of Azure blue. Medium grey trousers and overcoat roll, facings, white belts, light brown flesh base with sunny  skin tone highlights, flat brown musket stocks and packs, steel barrels with silver added for bayonets, brass for sword hilts, scabbard ends and cartridge box plates, and black/grey highlights to shako cover, gaiters and cartridge boxes, flat green bases. Varnish is my standard Satin and all the above are Vallejo. using small dabs of each on the wet palette allows any correction to be made without needing any fresh paint, the method is pretty quick and effective. 

First of the Prussians & other matters.

 Bloody Hell it's cold this morning, so back from a shorter than usual dog walk it's nice to settle down with a coffee for a blog update.

I had held off starting on the DBN Prussians until the New Year and so it was time to decide what to begin with. After consulting the Ospreys and from what I have seen on various 'vintage' blogs this is clearly going to be a most enjoyable army to paint. First up is a typical line infantry unit based on plate G from the Osprey book 152. I must confess to knowing little about uniforms/flags etc so it's going to be a learning curve and I'm sure the flag is wrong for this unit but I wanted to add one to gauge the overall effect of a finished base. The figures are by AB and are wearing covered shakos so sadly I don't get to add the pom-pom, but they look suitable dark and menacing I think. 

As I'm now heading North out of Spain I required some new buildings so ordered a few more from Steve Clay at Battlescale. Whilst they are 10mm scale I find they work very well for my DBN village bases and with 18mm figures. I reconfigured a couple I made earlier to make more space to place a unit base in them. Under the rules these small bases are classed as Non Linear Obstacles but a couple can be placed together to form a more substantial Built up Area. I wanted to keep roads running through where possible so they fit with my home made MDF road sections that now includes a couple of 3 way junctions (thanks again to Tony Barr at east Riding Miniatures). I had also wanted to make a watermill for my river sections and the Battlescale model was perfect for this. I'm pleased how this is all coming together now with the option of a Peninsular theme or a more Northern European theme, and as all the road/river sections are 125mm or 250mm sections they work with the C&C printed mat or with DBN. The DBN village sections are 100mm squares so again can also sit comfortably in the 125mm hex grid. I have the option now of playing DBN games on the folding card table (2'6" x 2'6") or using the printed mat on a 6x4 table with doubled up units.

I have also started on some WSS figures for Old John. For these white uniformed units I'm employing a mid grey basecoat rather than my usual black and then giving them a careful controlled dry brush of 'off white' as a starting point. So far 24 figures painted (Naples & Milan) which are Les Higgins and now starting on some lovely Hagen figures you see below. These are rather elegant sculpts with nice long scale muskets. Also on the go are some 6mm WSS bases for Gerry. I must confess it's taken a bit of a while to get my eye back in the scale, but the additional lamp is making it much easier.

 Some Les Higgins for John, red drummer as had a bit more lace added as he looked a bit plain beside the other drummer.

Image below shows how the off white drybrush is used to leave the lace and button holes showing. Next stage is to build up the white a little more carefully.

Below, nice detail on the Hagen 20mm figures.

Finally for now we now have our first Grandson (Oscar Lee) who was born a week ago today to daughter Jess and partner Blake. Oscar completes our five- a- side football team of Grandchildren! Given the outrageous photo of 3 month old Daisy with her Dad Liam below we have offered to buy Oscar his first West Ham kit, I mean that is really not on is it.

Below: New arrival Oscar with his Sisters Lilly and Violet.

Below: Disgraceful images of poor Daisy with her Dad Liam!

Imperial Guard for DBN.........

Every one an AB figure representing the Old Guard & Young Guard plus light and heavy cavalry and Guard Foot artillery (2nd gun and crew on the painting desk). Not present in the Peninsular of course so this is a nod towards the 100 days to come in the future. The bases represent numerous regiments, for the Old Guard 1st and 2nd Grenadiers, Chasseurs & Marins. For the Young Guard are Tirailleurs-Grenadiers, Conscrits-Grenadiers, Tirailleurs & The Voltigeurs all featuring their colourful unofficial fanions as they were not issued Eagles. 

I must credit the following blog which was my main source of refence for these figures:

Jemima Fawr's Miniature Wargames Blog

Spanish army for DBN rules, 12 points with options.

I managed to achieve my target of finishing my Spanish army for DBN before I settle down to some painting for friends from Monday. These kind of self imposed deadlines work well for me and helps keep the painting focused. In the last 7 days I have painted: 

2 bases of Spanish line infantry

1 base of Spanish Grenadiers

1 Spanish baggage base

1 base of Young Guard Voltiguers

1 base of Old Guard Chasseurs.

That's a grand total of 50 foot plus the baggage wagon and a couple of pieces to dress the base up, not bad going!

So without further ado here is the Spanish army and I plan to get them on the table soon as the opportunity presents. It comprise the following AB figures:

4 x line infantry (muskets)

2 x Militia

2 x Grenadiers

2 x Light infantry

2 x Light cavalry

2 x Heavy cavalry (dragoons)

2 x Foot artillery

1 x General.

1 x Baggage wagon.