the First Russians

I finished basing these russians Yesterday.


the first unit is the 1st battalion of the Smolensk regiment.

1st Battalion of the Smolensk Regiment,
12th Div., 7th Corps, 2nd Army of the West

these are warlord Plastic Russians with Perry Plastic command. The warlord starter armies only come with one set of Pavlov command. I had gotten the perry command for my birthday.  My dad got an email confirming that he wanted 22 Russian command sprues. they thought there had been a mistake.

these figures have gaiters which is not historical(for the later period these are for, 1810+. earlier they wore full boots, still no gaiters).  I painted them white so they are hard to see, but if you look at warlord pictures, tehy actually paint them black.

now you might note that the Foundry skirmishers below also have gaiters, and I painted them.  first, the foundry figures around 20 years old.  A lot of stuff that is proliferated on the internet wasn't in the mid 90s. Where as 2 years ago when the warlord stuff was released it was easy to find. The gaiters on the foundry figures were distinct enough that painting them white wasn't an option.  plus being Jagers, they already have a great deal of black, which further simplifies painting.  lastly, I'm willing to tolerate the  Gaiters on these figures because perry doesn't make Jagers skirmishing in fatigue caps(only in shakos), and I like to differentiate my Jagers  by using figures with fatigue caps. My units of Jagers in line will be  perry with fatigue caps)

Elements of the 5th, 6th, and 42nd Russian Jagers Skirmishing

I'll be Taking a bit of a break from Russians to paint a battalion of french in greatcoats, and a battery of artillery in great coats. I'll be sure to post them when they are done(hopefully by Monday)

NATO Forces Arrive!

I had intended to post earler, but i spent two and a half week dealing with reeneactment issues rather then painting..

US Abrams tanks.
These are actually M1A2s(post-cold war) but most
people can't tell the difference

Last week I finally got back to doing some painting. i pulled out some NATO Cold War Micro armour.  I've been meaning to do this for some time, since i sold most of my allied force(the USMC  battle group) to my friend Dan.

US Bradleys.
Again, these are post-cold war variants  but again the average
person can't tell the difference unless it's pointed out

German Leopard 2A4s

   
I painted up  both Tanks and IFVs for Americans and Germans, plus a few extra support vehicles for the Bundeswehr.

German Marder 1A3 IFVs.

German M110 SPG,  Jaguar 1, Luchs, and
2 command stands: 1 leo 2A4 with M577, and 1 Iltis Jeep

so now that i have a decent core of NATO opfor for my horde of soviets(these guys are outnumbered about 4 to 1 by  T80Bs and BMP 2s), I can start playing some game again when my friend Dan is NOT around.

I should be back later this week since  i have  several units of napoleonic russians waiting to be based.

Cheers!

Borodino Command Stands

In the recent foundry order i previously mentioned, i grabbed the 'Napoleon, Marshals and Staff' pack.  I've been looking to get this pack for a while. and the price cut really made it possible. the figures depict napoleon as depicted in a famous painting of him at Borodino by Vasily Vereshchagin .

Napoleon, Marshals, and Staff, from Foundry

Napoleon at Borodino
by Vasily Vereshchagin

I tried to capture the spirit of the painting in the arrangement of the figures on the base. I also added the little dirt drop-off in front of napoleon.

Better view of the back figures

and of course last year, the Perry Bros stared their Napoleonic Russian line, of which the first pack was Russian high command at Borodino. this one was bsed losely on the painting Mikhail Kutuzov at the Battle of Borodino by Anatoly Pavlovich Shepelyuk.

Perry 'Russian high command" pack

Mikhail Kutuzov at the Battle of Borodino
by Anatoly Pavlovich Shepelyuk.

  I've posted a pic of these before because I painted them last August.  This picture is better, and it seemed apt to post both command stands  together.  The Perry's penchant for research is obvious in the inclusion of General Wilson, a British officer and adviser to the Russians during the 1812 campaign. He was present at the battle of Borodino so it makes a lot of sense to including him in a high command pack.

On a Whim....

While I was at Hotlead this year, i picked up a few things, including a  Victrix British light battalion conversion pack(a rare find in person these days, since victrix metal line was sold to brigade) and a warlord ECW cannon & specialist pack.

when exams started , on a whim, i sat down and apinted the cannon team with the  gunner specialist from the specialist pack.   I had decided to paint something different after the relative monotony of the Peninsular  Napoleonics.  despite a total lack of opponents I still intend, at some point int the future, to finish my ECW army.

This really is a nice piece, an the addition of the specialist aiming the gun really  makes it that much nicer. the Warlord ECW  line really is their best offerings.  the sculpting is head and shoulders above that of the Napoleonics they've been releasing.


Next is a set of Perry Plastic Carabiniers I painted 2 weeks ago. this is part of my friend Derek's French army. you'll be seeing more of Derek's French as I paint it over the summer.

These were quite nice to paint(as perry miniatures often are). I'll be doing a regiment of these when I eventually do my own French contingent.


and finally is a random photo of my peninsular war British rushing to defensive positions  at el matadaro 

 I had taken some pictures close in on my new fur mat when I set it up for the first time. I got bored 2 weeks ago, and grabbed one of the pics and photoshopped in a background. this is the result.

Stay tuned for more...

The Peninsular Armies(finally)

It's been a busy 2 months....

After hotlead was finished, school reared it's ugly head. we had all kinds of issues with  professors so i really needed to buckle down. in the words of one friend:

 My college course has somehow become a National Lampoon film, with me as a character within it. A real life college course can not possibly be this outrageously poorly run. I can only comprehend the last few weeks by believing I am actor trapped in a never ending college comedy flick, and not as a human being in a real world college.

sadly that was a common feeling.  

 After the year was done, i ended up being occupied by a seemingly never ending succession of renovations.  first was ripping out a wall so the crack in the foundation could be fixed. then it was pouring a concrete pad for a shed, and then assembling the shed. following that, i had to insulate the enclosed porch out back, to make it a 3-season room.  while we were doing that some mild leaks popped up in the roof  of the porch, so we had to fix those as well. all of this was in preparation for the new windows and door going into the back porch. 

 earlier this week i finally snapped some pics of a few things. the first of which is the 2 armies I used for the Sharp Practice game I ran at Hotlead entitled, "Assault at El MAtadaro".

in this scenario, the french were assaulting the fictional town of El Matadaro. the terrain is that seen in the previous thread.

French Forces for the Assault at El Matadaro

 the french infantry are Victrix 1808-1812 french.  the dragoons(both mounted and dismounted) are perry, and the cannon team and crew are Front rank. there were 3 line company groups, 1 grenadier  group, 1 voltigeur group, 2 dismounted dragoon groups and a mounted dragoon group. then of course the gun team.

British defenders of El Matadaro

the British defending the town are a combination of Victrix Peninsular centre and flank companies, along with Victrix British gun teams, and a group of British Hussars. the British had 3 centre and 2 flank groups, 2 cannon teams and 11 unit of hussars. the British cannon teams had no limbers, which forced the British players to make some hard decisions.

In the battle at the convention, the end result was a draw.  one British cannon had been captured, the other one was be mandhandled back a bit. the french had made it into the edge of the town but had not made much more progress past that.


also, a few weeks ago, i ordered some Napoleonic stuff from foundry, in light of their new pricing.  they had brought back individual packs of  Russian opolchenie, so i picked up enough packs to finish of the 2 half units I've had unpainted sitting in boxes.  I also grabbed 3 packs of jagers in firing line to use as skirmishers. I also grabbed the Napoleon, marshals and staff, which is a vignette of a painting of Napoleon at Borodino.

In addition to that, my birthday was last Friday, and my father ordered me the perry Russian command sprues I needed(22 to be exact) to be able to make units out of the 2 warlord Russian starter armies(which had 1 command set of 4 figs for 120 infantry!) , so I'll be starting in on them soon. they gave him a call the day after he ordered to confirm he actually wanted that many.

so expect to see lots more Russians in the near future, as well as more french for my friend Derek's army./

Hopefully I'll be posting a little more often now that the pace of renovation has slowed a bit.

Hotlead peninsular game

So I'm putting on a game at this year's Hotlead In Stratford, Ontario. I decided to do peninsular war skirmish, as a way to get it kickstarted. it also allows me to use all the spanish buildings I have made to date.

I also took the opportunity to experiment with a fur terrain mat. i managed to find a place that was selling fur ends in a tan-brown for about $17CDN a meter. they had a 5x7 piece and I also grabbed a 2-foot piece to experiment on. The total bill was 54 bucks.

I used animal clippers to vary the length of the fur and to shave out the ruts for the road. I then used an airbrush to spray the colours on.


I used this tutorial HERE.  It was a fantastic resource.

churched finished

Over the Christmas break I finally got the Spanish church finished. I had ordered and received the Renedra gravestones from J&M miniatures by the end of October, but due to school I didn't really get a chance to add them to the church yard until Christmas eve. Christmas night I managed to get the texturing and painting all done. I thought it was rather poetic to be building a model church over Christmas. the base is about 24" long and about 15" wide at the cemetery portion. the bell tower is 12" high. the tower is 2 pieces above the main level. and the roof of the church is removable.

anyway, over the weekend I had a few friends over, and we decided to have a game of Disposable heroes.   I decided  to pull out the completed Spanish buildings(i still have 2 more bases under construction). the excuse we came up with to allow the Spanish buildings was that German volunteers in the Spanish civil war were actually positioning along the french border for a secret  attack, and the french caught wind and launched a preemptive strike into a small Spanish border village to stop them.

we jsut through down an old green GW game mat some roads telephone poles and the buildings, and played. the game ended in a tie, leaning slightly towards the french.


This semester looks like it's going to be merely busy as opposed to the usual frenetic frenzy we have become accustomed to, so I'll probably be posting a little more often. although over the next week or so I'll be packing and moving into my grandfather's old house. I hate moving, but I'll have a decent basement that I should be able to set up a bigger gaming table in.

New movement trays

About a month ago a friend and fellow miniature gamer from my World of Tanks clan(I'm a Deputy commander in the [CARD]1st Canadian Armoured Reconnaissance Division)  put me in touch with one of his friends.  this guy has a laser cutter, and does custom stuff for his local gaming scene.  I should probably also mention that both of these guys live in the US, and I live in Canada. I only mention that because I find many times, in situations like these, some  Americans don't like shipping internationally.

I was looking to get some pieces cut to make movement trays for my skirmish cavalry(which are on GF9 pill bases).  so i discussed the idea with him and he game up with what you see here.

Finished trays with a pair of laser cut bits as-is.

I put together an order with 3 other guys. I bought 40, and between the other 3 guns there was another 80 added.  WE picked the order up form a US PO box just over the boarder last week, and i finished off 3 by mounting them on 1.5mm(1/16") plastic.  The pill bases fit perfectly.  I'm very pleased with the final product.

In other news,  after 2 months of waiting my local hobby store(not the Local gaming store, the actual model/RC/train store) finally got in my order of O scale   Spanish roof tile.  So now I can get going on the rest of my Spanish village.  I can't yet finish the Spanish church, but the grave stones will be ordered next time J & M miniatures puts in an order to Renedra.

Mor Peninsular Buildings

well last week I got back to college. any gaming stuff i do will probably slow a bit in pace.

 anyway, Sunday and Monday(I have most of Monday off), I finished the 3rd base of my Spanish village. these are 2 of the larger buildings in the village(only the church is bigger at the moment)

One thing I'm going to have to do is change where the roof braces are.  I usually place the braces to both reinforce the roof and make them snug with the inside edges of the end walls so that the roof does not slide around.  as you can see from the Coach house-type building the roof is lopsided.  I misjudged the braces on the one side of both buildings.

anyways, the church will be next, but I have to wait a few weeks, as i ordered a set of Renedra's Gravestones from J&M Miniatures to finish the graveyard. I'm also waiting on a local store to get in more Spanish roof tile sheets to finish off the other 4 or 5 buildings. in the meantime if i have any spare time, i may just paint a few peninsular figures.

The Beginnings of a Spanish Villiage

I have long been building a series of Spanish  buildings.  I posted WIP pics of a Spanish church in May 2001, and in July of this year I posted pictures of my WIP  Peninsular war Spanish village.

the Spanish church has largely been on hold until i could find a set of suitably Spanish grave stones.  as such i decided to try and get a few bases complete, and test out the texturing and colour scheme. I finished detailing and painting the small house  and yard, and the larger Spanish Hacienda.

Getting some terrain has long been a sticking point for really starting my peninsular war skirmish project. now that i have some buildings and one or 2 more bases on the way, i can realistically start thinking about getting more figures painted.

Small House  & courtyard with front rank gun team

Large hacienda, with Victrix British ambushing Victrix french.

Hacienda from the opposite angle

 I settled on a mixture of water, white glue, durabond 90 and fine balast for the texture. this is a modified recipe that i used for the rock outcroppings i made way back when i started the blog 2 years ago.  the druabond dries hard as rock, and the white glue makes it less prone to chipping. the combination is  very durable. you would not know from feeling teh courtyard walss that they were made out of foamcore.

For the large hacienda, i still need to put some plants in the planter in the courtyard.

I almost have another base ready to be textured, and if i can find some  more O-scale Spanish roof tile i can have 2 more ready to go, plus maybe a town hall.  the church will be last because i have to order some suitably Spanish graveyard accoutrements.I'm also looking at buying a nice set of doors for the front of it.