first 2 months of 2014 in review

yesterday I painted the last battalion of the Russian 12th Infantry Division,  the 2nd battalion of  New Ingermand(or New Ingria, depending on your source du jour)  musketeer regiment.

New Ingermand Musketeer Regiment, 2nd battalion,

 at the same time i also knocked out 2 brigade commanders, one perry, one foundry.  both are excellent figures, although the perry horses are a little nicer.
 

Russian Brigade commanders, left: Perry, Right: Foundry

I also took stock of the first 2 months of the year while waiting for a wash to dry.   I look back at the blog and also in some cases i had at hand, and came to the compulsion that since new years I've painted about 260 28mm infantry, 15 cavalry, 6 28mm buildings,  8 forest bases, a bridge, a 12x12 feild, 18 feet of roads, and some bockages stuff. oh, and  4 feet of snake fencing.  not to shabby!  it's amazing what you can do when you don't(or inexplicably can't) work for a living(see below).

Aside from painting figures I've been looking for a co-op for the electrical engineering technology program I'm enrolled in.  I came close to getting on once in early january, but since then everything has dried up.  fortunately  my ability to paint to channel my frustration has returned. It had been absent for several years.

More terrain, and almost certainly more Russians(Artillery) are in the works for March.  I'm in the process of getting ready for Hotlead, a convention in Southern Ontario at the end of March.

RN Naval Boarding Party

so yesterday after posting, I finished up a set of 8 Ironclad Miniatures Royal Navy Boarding Party figures as a 2nd lot for a recent commission.  they were lead by a west wind officer in similar garb.

interesting figures to be sure, and unique too. Although the sculpting is not to the same level as the IHMN figures I painted yesterday they still came out nicely. They are also noticeably smaller.

Lord Curr's company is next on hte block. they will be started on tomorrow.

IHMN commission

I recently took a commission of a few teams of In Her Majesty's Name figures.

The first team I worked on is the Scotland yard team  it consists of 12 figures, including notable characters like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as consultants.

Left to Right: Chief inspector, Sergeant,
The Consulting Detective, the Good Doctor

Special Branch with carbines

Constables with English All Electric Truncheons

the detail is overemphasized on these figures so they  take washes very nicely.  i was rather pleased with how the turned out.


I was in a bit of a painting rut last week.  had some insomnia which threw my mood off and I could not bet to painting anything.  I'll be getting back to painting again as i have several things I have to finish to get ready for a big game at Hotlead.  I'm hoping to finish the other 2 teams in the commission by the end of the week.

More French and Russians

Despite a bought of insomnia which screwed up most of my week, i still managed to get 3 battalions painted.  the last Russian battalion is sitting on my desk awaiting paint.  when it's done, I'll have completed the first of 2 divisions.

the first 2 of 3 battalions are perry plastic french with a couple of Perry metal officers, painted as Legere. the main change is that instead of painting the cuff straps I simply left them blue and painted the white angles on the arms.

The Russian battalion I painted is the first battalion of the New Ingria regiment (or new Ingermand regiment, depending on the source referenced). they are perry with a foundry metal officer I've had kicking around.

as mentioned the 2nd battalion is awaiting paint, and will be the last battalion to finish off the infantry portion of my first division.  the artilelry have been ordered and are en route as we speak..

Russians and French

So after getting back from my  reenactment last weekend, I started painting Monday afternoon. By the time I had wrapped up painting for the week late Thursday night, I had painted 4 battalions of infantry(64 figures).  I had painted about 6 hours a day.

Battalion of french infantry in greatcoats,
Perry palstics with a metal flag bearer and drummer

 

Russian Alexopol regiment
Perry figures

2nd Battalion, Narva regiment.

I'm gonna try and do the same thin g this week, but alternating between french and Russians.  I'm currently 2 units away from completing both a Russian division and French brigade.  alternating will hopefully keep me from getting sick of painting Russians


Since new years I figured I've painted something like 160ish infantry and at least 9 cavalry plus building/painting a butt load of terrain.

more napoleonic Russians and such

this weekend I pounded our 2 more units of Napoleonic Russians, and a skirmish unit of Baden Jagers.  39 figures this week to round out my January painting.

the first is the 1st battalion of the Narva Regiment.  and yes, the grenadiers are on the wrong side.

Perry Plastic Russian infantry, representing the 1st Battalion
of the Narva Infantry Regiment

the next unit is the last of the 26th Infantry Divisions Jagers, a battalion of the  42nd Jagers, in line.

Perry Plastic Russians and a metal perry officer representing
the 1st battalion of the 42nd Jager Regiment

rounding out the group is a unit of Baden Jager battalion "Lingg" these are bavarian elites from Foundry.

Foundry Bavarian Elites representing the
Baden 'Lingg' Jager Battalion

 I'll be away over the weekend doing revolutionary war Drill up north, in the snow(YAY!). should be lost of fun.

Flag Day!

Today I spent about an hour converting all my Napoleonic  Russian flags using my new flag texture. I had previously spent many hours cobbling these together form pictures in books, and scans of the centre crests. I could not find all the flags commercially so i decided to make them myself(mostly). this is the precursor to my returning to painting my 28mm perry Russians.

The force I chose to build this time was the Rievski's 7th Corps(Kolubakin's 12th and Paskievitch's 26th Divisions) at Borodino . I also chose 2 grenadier regiments to build from the Prince of Mecklenburg's Grenadier division. also, for the battle, the Ahktyrka Hussar regiment was detached from Sievers 4th Reserve Cavalry Corps, along with the 8th light(horse) artillery Company.

The regiments are listed in order of seniority inside the division.  This is important because the epaulettes on Russian uniforms were colored different colours for the seniority in the divisions: red for 1st, white for second, yellow for 3rd and light green lined red for 4th. each division also includes 2 Jager regiments, but they were never issued standards.  Jager epaulettes were pale yellow or light blue, based on seniority again. All grenadier epaulettes were red.

Paskievitch's 26th Infantry Division

Jagers: 5th and 42nd Regiments

 Artillery: 26th Heavy , 47th & 48th Light Companies

Nigegorod Infantry Regiment

Lodoga Infantry Regiment

Poltava Infantry Regiment

Orel Infantry Regiment

Kolubakin's 12th Infantry Division

Jagers: 6th and 42s Regiments 

 Artillery: 12th Heavy , 22nd & 23rd Light Companies

Smolensk Infantry Regiment

Narva Infantry Regiment

Alexopol Infantry Regiment

New Ingermand / New Ingria Infantry Regiment

Random Grenadiers from Mecklenburg's Grenadier Division

Fangoria Grenadier Regiment

 

Moscow Grenadier Regiment

I'll be working on the 26th Division first.

I still have Sievers 4th cavalry Corps from  alst time i build (and then sold) a Russian army. i picked the infantry corps before i started researching so i had not yet realized teh obvious(hussar) connection between these 2 corps(they also were on the same part of the battlefield at Borodino).

I also Still have 3 battalions of a the Preobrajanski Guard Regiment, Guard Artillery, Guard Jagers, and the Emperor's(guard) Curiassier Regiment.  Also have 5 battalions of Foundry Opelchinie(3 painted, 2 in the queue), 2 of which are pike armed.

Electorate Mounted Pandours

Just a quick entry, I painted up my 8 mounted pandours of the Köztársaság  regiment. along with them is Vargha Gyorgy,, a ruthless commander with a penchant for the macabre(hence the head).

Köztársaság Mounted Pandours. Figures by Front Rank

The figures turned out well. these may stand in for some polish cavalry until I get the actual figures for them i plan to use.

Onikszta Haiduk Regiment

or Hajducy Muszkieterzy na Onikszta in polish.   Onikszta is the Powiat(country) in which the regiment is raised, and quartered in times of peace. most counties are responsible for the raising of at least 1 Haiduk Regiment.

Hajducy Muszkieterzy na Onikszta with command.
figures are of course The Assault Group

 the Commonwealth of Polhynov is coming out of a period of reorganisation of  it's military into a more modern fighting force.   Although they keep their more traditional style dress, the colours have been made uniform for each district and the colours are of  the voivodeship that each country belongs to.

they have been trained very similarly to other western infantry. the one concession was the use of the light bardische axes.  the veteran haiduks refused to give them up, and units have been training in their use anyway, so the king decided to include them in the new military system.  they do have the added impact of making the polish infantry hard hitting in a charge. the guard retain their heavy bardische axes, making them formidible against cavalry as well. they do sacrifice a great deal of firepower in doing so(in Maurice they count as pike units)

Next is the army command stand, Hetman Wielki(grand hetman) Wlodzislaw Mielczewski.    Mieczewski grew up in a Koenigsreich occupied county. he was joined the a konigsreich infantry regiment on the far side of the empire and learned their trade.  but his heart always belonged to polhynov.  when the current kings father pulled together the voivodes and  reclaimed conquered counties, Mielczewski abandoned his post in the Konigsreich and returned to Polhynov to aid his country. he quickly rose through the ranks wand was an invaluable advisor and general when fighting the more western style armies. 

the  banner was a new  attempt at making my own wavy-flag texture. it turned out quite nice.  this is battlestandard of the Rzechczypospolita na Polhynow.  the crest is actually

the Battle standard of Polhynov, without being all wrinkled and wave and crap.

Jan Sobieski's, but the red and blue fields are of my own design. It turned out quite nice.

this was was pretty productive, I've painted 45 infantry and 2 cavalry. i plan before the weekend is out to paint my mounted pandours as well.

Sunday's ACW game and the culmination of last week's terrain Blitz.

closeup of tree bases made for martin. there were 7 in total.

this past Sunday we played a game of 28mm ACW at my friend Martin's house.  some of the buildings, fences, roads, and woods and a field were a good portion of what I spent the previous week making. it was played on an 9x6 table, with foam terrain tiles made by Myself and Dave Hoyt (unfortunately not present).

shot of most of the table.

Berdan's sharpshooters in some spiffy woods

Dan's zouaves wade through a pond for an
advantageous position on Martin's line.

Dan's brigade closes with Martin's Confederate line.

Tthe figures were painted  from several sources, Martin painted some, I painted 3 units of zouaves for martin, and he bought some already painted.

zouaves are egged on by a union commander,
painted by Martin

the rules used were Foundry's From bull run to Gettysburg. these were odd rules, which really trivialize morale, cover, and artillery.  it was fun rolling dice and shifting figures around with friends, but we all thought maybe next time a different rules set is in order.  unfortunately i can't really do a battle report because the confused nature of the rules keep me occupied enough that i forgot to make mental notes. not that I usually remember to do that anyway...

The church and confederate supplies

on the left, the 3rd Union brigade closes on the flank
of the farm under covering fire from the guns.

Martin and I, along with our friends Dan and Jon try to get together every 2 weeks for a game. The next game however will be in 3 weeks, as Dan and I have a rev war reenacting Drill  weekend on scheduled weekend.

My main brigade assaults the confederate
defended farm commanded by Jon.

This week appears to be the week of the polish. already painted 24, painted another 12 today plus a polish general. i hope to finished the 2nd 12 by the end of the weekend, so I'll post them then.