Prussian Landwehr 2

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!!!
I know I am a little late on posting for Christmas, I planned to get this post done before the big day however I just ran out of time. This will be my last post before New Year as I will be back at work until hogmanay so I wish everyone a wonderful New Year and thanks to everyone who took the time to look over or post on my wee blog. As usual I planned to post many more finished units however I did manage at least 1 post a month so that was a good achievement for me!

   

So I finish off the year with the newest battalion to enter my collection. the 1st battalion of my East Prussian landwehr. This was 1 of the battalions I picked up from Darren a few months back and since Darren very kindly sent me up the blue he used as well as some AB Prussian guns (Darren you are a star!!!) I managed to get them finished off.

  

I added the mounted officer into the mix plus a new flag man with flag from GMB (nice flags). I did a little touching up to the caps adding the red pipping and painting them blue.

I didn't add any highlights to the coats or faces as they were light enough. I had planned to paint the gun slings red/brown however as they are militia I figured it wasn't so important.
   

I also painted the gun metalwork to turn it to my own style. Great little figures the AB landwehr figures and all in all I am very happy with them.

  

So my usual basing with static grass to finish off and they are ready to fight the evil French hordes that for so long have occupied their homeland.
  

This was a nice little touch Darren added to the figures, little landwher crosses on many of the ammo boxes, Sweet!

So once again I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hopefully I'll see you in 2013. I have enjoyed reading over everyone's blogs and exchanging emails with everyone. Von B keep going with the SYW so you can get them off your workbench and get back into your Naps!

Silesian Fusilers

Well it has been a long while since I last posted however I haven't been idle. 1st I would like to say a huge thanks to Rosbif, Sgt Steiner and Der Fieldmarschall for nominating me for the Leibster award, I have definitely missed the boat on it so all I can say is sorry and again thanks a million!!!

I've been re-basing and adding to the Prussians I bought from Darren. I have been concentrating on the 1st Silesian regiment and I have finally finished the fusiler battalion.

  

Darren had done them as West Prussian fusilers but since I have them already I repainted their facings and added in a few figures.

I added the buttons where I could and highlighted the shakos and was able to highlight the trousers and blue (not that you an really see it!). The sword knots are Darren's, nice touch!

I finished off by painting the gun slings red/brown and painting the gun barrels bolt gun metal to tie them in with my own battalions. 

   

All in all I'm really pleased with them and here they are with their regimental buddies that are very close to being finished too. I just have to decide what I'm doing with the volunteer jagers next.

  

I was going to keep these guys for another post but I'm really excited about them so thought I would show them in their WIP state.

They are a battalion of East Prussian landwehr painted by Darren and re-based by me. I have been painting the caps blue and adding the red pipping lately.

The flag man has been changed and drilled with a paper clip flag pole and GMB flag added. The officer was separate from the battalion originally so I gave him a new mount and added him to make this the first battalion of 4. Thanks Darren for the great figures. I'll be finishing them off soon as Darren is sending me up the blue he used on them

I would just like to finish by saying how sorry my wife and I were to hear of the tragic events that happened over in America in the past few days and our hearts go out to the family and friends of all the children and adults who were so cruelly taken from them. I cannot begin to imagine how the families must be feeling at this time and we wish them all our very best.

Subbuteo Spectators

This is the reason I haven't painted any naps over the past couple of months. 

  

Loads of Subbuteo spectators for a friend in Italy painted as Roma fans.

They are now finished and this is the last lot I will be doing.

  

Hundreds of the **** things!

And back to naps I go. 

  

Getting into the rebasing at the moment so hopefully I'll get some finished by the new year.

  

So for now I'm waving bye, bye to these little guys.

New Prussians

The past couple of months have been a wee bit of a challenge, life stuff has jumped up and took a nibble out of our bum. However hopefully things are starting to take a more normal shape now. Good news Mai is doing well and is back to her grumpy self.

 In amongst everything I scunnered my free time by painting a large amount of subbuteo spectators for a guy in Italy (totally killed my figure painting and it will be the last time).

  

Thankfully recently to counter my lack of painting I picked up a Prussian army of 8-9 battalions of Prussians as well as extras from Darren. I decided a while back that I wouldn't be buying any more painted figures because of a few let downs through ebay however the pics Darren sent up of his troops looked great.  

  

And they are brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   

Darren has done a great job and his painting style is pretty much the same as my own so the figures will slip right in with my own battalions.
   

Darren also covered units I have not completed myself so all I really need to do is rebase the troops.
   

All the figures are AB so again fit in well with my plans.

   

So a whole lot of rebasing and the odd facing colour change and my Prussians will grow to 19-20 battalions. thanks a million to Darren for the figures, they will be well used.
   

The landwehr are my favourite and I have started to rebase them already.
   

And Austrians!!! even more brilliant, again they will slip in with my AB Austrians that I still have to paint. 

Collection So Far (2)

I'm not painting naps at the moment however I did take some pictures of our full collection recently (not totally full as young David took half his guard home and our Brits are not present plus I forgot about my Minifig Prussian brigade!) so I thought this would be a good opportunity to take stock of where we are at.

  

Pretty much all of David's French army as it stands at the moment.

   

Plenty of cavalry regiments with plenty more to be painted. I also have a number of AB French cavalry regiments to paint at some point (not until the allied cavalry are more of a threat!).
  

David's cavalry are made up of Minifigs (2nd generation), Battle Honours and also Old Glory.
  

David started us off long ago with his 1st Minifig battalions (I was still at school at the time so 25 years plus). Robert sold David some BH and Neil sent up plenty more BH French that make up most of David's force. There are a few OG French infantry thrown in too.
  

Davids mostly Minifig artillery (I missed a box so there are a couple more batteries).
   

Some Minifig eye candy.
  

David did these BH up as separate skirmishing voltigeurs, not really seen them in action yet like this?
  

My own collection as it stands minus 4 battalions of Minifig Prussians and artillery battery.
  

My Russians and Prussians are pretty much equal in size at the moment.
  

Recent Russian additions.
 

My poor Russian cavalry commanders desperate for someone to command (watch this space!!!)
  

And me Prussians
  

My new Blucher taking his place at the head of the army ready for anybody!!!
  

Not forgotten: I really enjoy painting Bavarians however as David has plenty of French I need to concentrate on the main Allies.
  

Again I love painting my Saxons and I have enough for a full brigade ready to paint but they are a side line for the moment
  

And finally my French and Austrians. The French will get done over the years but only when my Russians and Prussians are more solid. The Austrians are on hold as Cameron has a new job and I have other commitments at the moment. 
 
Hopefully I'll get a couple more units finished before the New Year?!?

David's Guard Artillery

I had my brother and nephews French collection at my house for a wee while so I decided to take a few pics of it for my blog.

  

These guys are pretty new to their collection. I won a few packs of OG French and British off eBay at a good price and the old guard foot artillery were the main reason for my bid.

 

I think the figures are really nice and David Jnr did a nice job on the uniforms.

 I posted these guys in their WIP state a few months back and this is them finally finished off.

 

 This time very nice painting by David Snr.

  

 And very nice figures by OG.
 
Their guard ranks are growing all the time. Middle guard on the workbench at the moment I believe!

Gebhard von Blücher

This past couple of weeks have been hell at work with the only real break our wargame Sunday past (or the Sunday before I can't recall?). I have had broken sleep due to my shift pattern most of that time and any time I was off I had barely 3 hours to myself to switch off. However I have today and tomorrow free and after returning this morning I took a short nap before getting this command stand finished. 
Sorry about the pics again, I took loads and most were a total blur, the shading hasn't came out well and there was no good pic from the rear.

 

I've had these guys lying around for a couple of years now with the pictures from 1 of my Prussian Ospreys in mind (Blucher surrounded by advancing landwehr). With my recent purchase of Prussians from Darren down in England and a few more from Dirk over in Germany (thanks guys!!!) I figured it was about time I knocked together a command base with the old warhorse.

  

The Landwehr are spare AB after I put my battalions together and the command figures I believe are AB although they maybe BH? the horses are definitely AB.

 

I pinned the head of the landwehr officer and drummer so they are looking over at Blucher etc as they ride past. I put loads of shade into all the figures but hardly any is seen? The officers whiskers came out really well. I gave my landwehr white webbing instead of black just to make them stand out. My landwehr are old veterans and get the best of gear ;0)

  

Of all the figures in the bunch this is the only 1 that troubles me. I was told by a friend he is Gneisenau? He certainly looks like the figure in the Osprey Prussian Staff book? The trouble I have is he is in full dress while all the rest are in campaign uniform. Still I was short of Prussian command figure and as he is saluting so he fits my wee diorama well.

  

I took this pic from my mobile a couple of weeks ago to show my thinking. The little bag on the right hand side has the 2 headless corpse of the drummer and officer before head repositioning.

A big thanks to John (von Blucher) for keeping me motivated with  my command projects. I was going to throw in the towel after my Austrian commands but John kept me inspired with his own French and Prussian commands and our weekly discussions. Sorry for not visiting every ones blogs more frequently, I am spending less and less time on line due to work and life. Hope everyone is enjoying their painting!
 
Also I bought a new copy of the GdB Deluxe rules recently from Dave at Caliver Books and the book arrived within a couple of days. Unfortunately a lot of the pages were stuck together at the bottom edge, however when I emailed Dave to tell him about it he sent out another copy straight away no problem. Just wanted to say I am very happy with Caliver Books service!!!