Quatre bras

Just a few pics of Thursday nights game

A hard fought tussle which ended as an historical draw.

Age Of Eagles - French Painting Progress

Just over a Month on from when by Baccus order arrived I have made steady progress on the Age Of Eagles French Army. I have been painting as much as I can find the spare time, the weekends have been the most productive as I it's the best time to prep more figures and get them primed.

Here are some photos of my finished and based up brigades.

FRENCH INFANTRY OF THE LINE 1809

The infantry are much quicker to paint than the bloody cavalry!

FRENCH CUIRASSIER'S

It's taken me a full week to paint his brigade up. I took a lot longer than I anticipated but I really wanted to put everything into getting a nice paint job.

I am pleased by how nice these have turned out. I was careful not to accentuate the blue uniform too much as I was trying to make the figures look bright but retain the depth of the uniform. I do tend to make my figures look deliberately brighter as I feel that 6mm needs to stand out.

CHASSEUR'S A CHEVAL

FULL ARMY SO FAR.

The Limbers and 6 and 12 Pounder artillery units were more fun to paint than I imagined. Normally I truly hate painting Limbers but these were done fairly quickly.

My next push is to paint up my divisional and corps commander stands, then complete another 23 stands of line infantry this will give me 40 stands of infantry which should be more than enough to get some brigades on table on a Thursday night and thump Jon's Austrians.

Out of £130 worth of figures I will still have around 16 bases of Grenadiers and another brigade of Cuirassier and Dragoons plus some limbers.

If everyone enjoys the rules and I get more inspiration from playing I will possibly order more stuff to build on the army for bigger games.

Jon - please send the the orders of battle so I can focus on specific builds. Thanks

On The Bench - Baccus Napoleonic Hussar's Age Of Eagles

The postman arrived on Saturday morning and since I have been afflicted with a terrible lurgy since Friday what better way to spend the weekend than painting!


I ordered a load of French Napoleonic stuff from Baccus on 10th December mainly consisting of a mix of stuff I needed to get cracking with.


No sooner had the figures arrived I was straight on with checking the order and then deciding what to paint first. As you know I am just about out the woods with my Tennis Elbow problem which has really hampered me with painting so embarking on this small project left me with mixed feelings. I was really hoping that I could pick up a needle file, brush and not have to suffer the pain I have been so used to.


Thankfully all went very well and I am not feeling the effects prepping, painting and basing these very nice figures.



I was speaking to Mark on Saturday about all things including his Star Wars tournament which he was attending today. While I was chatting for about an hour I slapped on the base coat for the horses.


I tried to do as much research on French Hussar uniforms as I could.In the end I found some pretty decent links so used this colour scheme.

Just based and ready for action!

Age of Eagles Cavalry is based on 25mm x 25mm squares in 2 ranks of 3.

The effect is actually rather impressive

I was explaining to Mark how I use a black primer as a pose to using grey or white.

For me this works best for 6mm as you can see the effect on the faces by using a "less is more " approach.

Some say that using black dulls the colours. I don't see any dulling here.

Cavalry where painted first using three Vallejo browns followed by a heavy ink wash.

The unit comprises of 42 horses in total and in between doing other bits and bobs today did not take me very long to get these all painted and based.

I airbrushed a coat of Vallejo gloss and matt varnish to protect the figures and after a bit of experimentation with my basing colours finished these off.

Tomorrow I have a unit of Chassuers 'a cheval to crack on with.

I'll post some photos of these mid week.

Has Jon Gone Missing in Action

To quote Ian ,'real life' is getting in the way of my war gaming at the moment with work and family conspiring to deny me the pleasure of watching Mark bugger up yet another plan. That being said, my 'free' time has not gone completely unproductive. My painting room has undergone a major overhaul and is now the calm ,organised workspace I have always wanted.

On the figure side I have based the fifty stands of Napoleonic Russians that my 'painting friend' sent me. With the exception of a few touch ups to faces and hats it I had very little to do other than the basing which took most of an afternoon and I am really pleased with the results.
I have already commissioned  thirty seven stands of ACW Union Infantry (adds another full Corps to the Union OOB) and fifteen stands (3 Brigades) of Russian Dragoons this month with Confederate and Union Cavalry, Confederate Infantry, and more Russian Line bagged up and ready to go. I meanwhile have been painting up three Brigades of Russian Cuirassiers and some Russian Artillery plus units of Modern Germans.
 I have an order with Pete @ Baccus for some Russian Grenadiers, Jagers and Hussars and a new order to go in this month for some Bavarians, Cossacks, Austrians, Wurtemburgers and Saxons plus more ACW . Since the French armies are massive I have also decided  to help Russ out and will be adding some French units to my collection soon.
In short chaps I am drinking lots of coffee, have the impetus and I'm not stopping.

Massed Ranks of Russian Line

China Trip (it is historical !) and back to the painting project update for 2017

Still jet lagged from the return trip but had a great time visiting China.

Terra Cotta Army was something else and you cannot begin to understand how the emperor Qin Shi Huang decided to spend 40 years preparing for his own death and by his cruel desires enslaved hundreds of artisans and peasants to build these fabulous statues.

They are actually cast in moulds, and if you ordered them from H & R you would probably have to wait just as long as the real things!

Great Wall photos - again an unbelievable achievement. I never thought I would be so impressed until I actually got there to see it. When I discovered it runs for over 5000 miles it puts a whole new perspective on things historical.

I am so used to other history and never really thought a lot about the Chinese side of things. When you read into the history it really makes you realise that the Chinese where miles ahead of the Western civilisations.

 Another photo - you can see how far the wall climbs up that mountain ridge and no we did not walk up there, it was 30 degrees C that day but there were people up there!

Now I am back I have had time to contemplate on what I am doing on the Project side of things.

It's been a relatively benign 6 Months for me, other than Star Wars Armada I have otherwise had no interest in my Wargaming pursuits since last November.

I think I was suffering some burn out after painting up my British and German WW1 corps so the rest has done me good.

Thanks to Frank for picking up my Russian cold war army and a copy of the modern spearhead rules I can now focus on getting stuck into this project but I also need a sidekick to this and have been chatting to Jon about doing a French 6mm Baccus Napoleonic army for Age Of Eagles.

Jon has ordered his copy of the rules and I think he is going to order some Austrian and Russians so we can build up to Austerlitz.

I just ordered a load of French infantry, commanders and artillery for my army from Baccus today which I will collect from Phalanx on the 16th June.

I am looking forward to working on this Project with Jon so we can further expand into the Napoleonic period.

Phil has a load of of British Baccus stuff which he is willing to re base for this rule set so that adds a bit more flavour already without too much expense.

This lot will keep me busy for the remainder of 2017 and into 2018 for sure.