Prussian Horse Artillery WIP1

 Just started the last of my Prussian artillery, this time AB horse artillery loading crew.

These are some of my favourite Prussian figures, I'm guessing sculpted after the foot artillery as they look fresher.

I had a little bother cleaning up a couple of the poses, the chap with the ramrod had quite thick flash between the ramrod and arms/body

and the chap with the moving stick had a lump behind his left elbow that needed cut out, this was a pain as it covered a good bit of detail.

I also added a shoulder strap on 1 pose, I can't remember if it was missing on the horse battery crew I did a few years ago?

That's me for the moment, happy modelling and wargaming!

Prussian Artillery WIP 18.1.21

I managed to finish my guns. I don't think I'll bother highlighting the metalwork as I don't really think they need it to be honest.

Managed to get the sand down on the last 2 bases so they are slowly slipping closer to completion.

Be nice to have some more troops ticked off the work bench.

Hope everyone is well, happy modelling and wargaming!!!

More preparation work

I've managed to clean up 3 Prussian landwehr battalions from Old Glory (original OG not blue moon). They will be Pomeranians with white collars.

Love these little figures, I've added variety with these guys as there are a number in each battalion that started life with a tall shako (probably seen mostly in the Waterloo campaign on landwehr figures?)

 I've clipped off the shako tops and added flat cap covers with pro create.

Not sure when I'll get the chance to paint them but they are pretty much ready to roll.

Happy wargaming and modelling!

Looking to the Future

In the background of my hobby life I've been quietly cleaning up my pretty large unpainted figure mountain. Every odd half hour I've picked up scalpel and files and progress has been good.

So far I've managed to clean up and glue 2 regiments of Prussian hussars. A mix of figures purchased from a friend undercoated and from Fighting 15s.

These will be Silesian in brown with yellow braid and green with yellow braid as I already have the Leib hussars plus brandenburg hussars painted up.

I have always loved these charging hussars as they remind me of the many illustrations of the 1813 period hussars (as well as the Elite 28mm hussar I once owned). The figures took a bit of time to clean up especially the horses that had a number of lumps between the rear legs.

I'll not jump straight onto them after the artillery as I have some panzers id like to put to bed but I'm looking forward to doing them as I've not painted horses in a while.

Happy modelling and wargaming!

Prussian Artillery WIP 14.1.21

There is a chance I may bore the hell out of everyone with my constant posts of Prussian foot artillery by the time this lot are done.

I'm afraid it's just my way of keeping tabs on my progress and these are a good few hours away from being completed.

I managed to finished off my 4 big guns, got varnish on the centre section plus barrels of my 2nd set so just the wheels to complete them, set 3 are still in base coat only.

It is, what it is, after the crew figures, guns are a wee but monotonous, however I'm still enjoying them.

 I'm still unsure if I will do a highlight on the metalwork of the guns as I usually do, black alone maybe be enough?

When I get the last guns finished I'll catch the ammo boxes plus any rubbed areas on guns/figures.

I'm getting some really pleasant flashbacks of my early Napoleonic painting/Collecting while doing these guys, memories of purchasing Elite Miniature Prussians.

That's all for now

Happy modelling and wargaming!

Prussian Artillery WIP 13.1.21

Well it's been a helluva long time since I used my blogger account. I lost access to my blog many moons ago when I switched over from my old yahoo mail account after a few friends said they had, had funny emails from my account (I hadn't sent them), it was around the time yahoo was hacked.

It coincided with me falling out of love with blogging as my wife and I had moved over to Samsung phones and tablet and for some reason the software to create/edit posts was sticky in them.

A friend mentioned my old blog recently and it  after having a look I tried to figure out a way around things.

Hopefully I've been successful in changing over the email account attached and the email address that receives notifications. Also the editing software looks a whole lot better especisply as I'm able to put this post together on my mobile. So I'll give it a go again and see how it goes.

Here is a couple of pics of  Prussians I'm working on, I'll take pics soon.

Still getting the hang of the software, I don't think ill be able to reply to comments for 30 days as the account changes over and it takes that long for Yahoo to permanently delete the old enail address. Fun times.

So I can reply to comments with 1 Google account but in order for them to be seen I have to switch and moderate them with my hotmail (now new google account) that I use to create my blog posts! 🤣🤣🤣

20mm Russians for Barbarossa

Some of my 20mm WW2 Russian kits for Barbarossa 1941.

UM Models BT7s, BT2s and S-Models t35.

I purchased an airbrush from my nephew David when we decided to get a new 1. It's been a while but it's been fun to spray kits again. I've been busily adding to my 20mm collection over the past year.

Visit to Waterloo

I was incredibly lucky to have had the chance to travel to 1 of our Napoleonic bucket list battlefields this month. With 3 other Napoleonic daft chaps we made the pilgrimage to Waterloo for the 203 anniversary!

It was an awesome trip and will remain in my memory for the rest of my life!!!

A really cool and funny thing. We were doing a staged closing of the gate pic. We had just finished and had started walking away when I thought I heard a knock on the gate, we looked over the wall and standing before us was a good number of French Napoleonic re-enactors in full gear looking to gain entry to hougoumont, class!!!

To stay in period we should really have denied them entry, however we decided that both Europe and times had changed, so we showed them round to the museum entrance. 😁

Prussian Yorck progress

I'm gonna try and reignite my blog. I met a few people recently who have said they enjoyed seeing my progress on the blog and it's given me a kick to try again. Time has been short all around my life and hobby time has had to be cut back but I still paint when I can.

So I had this command sitting around and decided to get it going again. Short and sweet as I'm uploading on my phone and I know if I try to add any more pictures blogger will struggle.

 A late addition. These are a start to a fast paint project for a friend in the USA. If your in the Napoleonic Wargamer group you'll know the circumstances.

Hope everyone is well. Happy wargaming!

Saxon Guard Battalion 1813

I'm struggling to maintain the blog as anyone reading this will have guested. Doing plenty of stuff, mostly WW2 in 20mm, lots and lots of building plus painting. I have recently finish this Battalion. I have a few videos in youtube of what I've been working on if anyone is interested.

Small limits in the technology I use and lack of time to get on the laptop hold me back from using blogger more, problems mostly with downloading/uploading pics on my phone and problem with blogger app on iPad air that only shows half my post when editing.

I've completed a Russian Jäger battalion, 5 figures away from completing a Pavlov battalion and half way through another Russian jäger battalion.

Anyway, sorry for the odd post.
Happy wargaming!

28th Massachusetts

Almost a full month since my last post. I've had a good bit of bother this past couple of months with life not going 100% to plan for myself and people I care about. However that is life and as is expected the hobby side of things has taken a hit not that, that matters so much.

I have had some positive hobby things happen lately. I went to Claymore in Edinburgh and had a nice day. I didn't buy much to be honest but there were a number of cool games to see.

My biggest lift came from a delivery of ACW 28mm figures from Raven Banner Games in the US. I signed up for their kickstarter (my 1st) mainly for my brother, however as they are lovely figures I've decided I'll be doing a few regiments myself. The Kickstarter I'm pleased to say went really smooth and I purchased around 10 regiments worth as well as upper command sets and I'm really chuffed with my purchase.

The troops as you can see are all in greatcoats and I am amazed by the amount of poses that are supplied.  There are 10 regular trooper poses that are joined by officers, flag men, musicians as well as enthusiastic types.

I finished them off with a kinda autumn/winter look and GMB flags and I'm pretty happy how they came out.

I also recently finished General Thomas Francis Meagher leader of the Irish brigade. Lovely figure!

I hope everyone is doing fine and getting on with their own projects.

Happy wargaming!!! 

Saxon Guard Project 1

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been having work done around the house, a new tiled roof and boiler fitted. Unfortunately it didn't all go smoothly so the hobbying side of life slowed down a good bit.

Thankfully fingers crossed I can now get back to life and painting. I've been working on the Saxon Guard battalion I converted and I'm at the half way point.

These guys are for 1813, there is some debate around what headgear they wore in battle. I've gone with bearskins, it would have been far easier with shakos however I took Kawe of Westfakia Miniatures advice and went with the head swaps.

So 16 down, 16 to go. They have been a lot of fun so far. The pics aren't great as I did them with my samsung phone and the quality is far to good. Makes the finish look very rough.

Ok I hope everyone is enjoying our hobby and pushing on with their projects. Happy wargaming!!!

Prinz Clemens 2nd Battalion

So I have at long last finished another Saxon battalion. This is the 2nd battalion of the Prinz Clemens regiment. I believe the 1st Saxon battalion I painted was the 1st battalion of this regiment so that's the regiment completed.

A wee video on the finished bits and what else I have on the go.

I've added in an NCO to the battalion converted from the newer AB French set. He's a fair bit bigger than the older Saxon range however he still fits in pretty well.

I've again tried to give a bit of variety to the unit by doing different colours of trousers and mixing up my shades of white on the uniforms and belts. 

I also added in a converted officer in the blue/grey uniform that was apparently frequently used on campaign.  I started off a bit too warm on it and I'm not 100% happy how he turned out, however within the battalion he'll mingle and do fine.  

What next? Well I've cleaned up another Saxon battalion and I'm painting some Saxon skirmishers and an ADC that I've converted. 

Saxon Commands 1

Well I should really be posting pics of a completed Saxon battalion however I caught the bug to push on with some Saxon command types to lead the troops.

Not so long ago I spotted on a youtube channel that Peter at Calpe had released 28mm upper command troops for his Saxon 1813 range and I also heard mentioned that there was a Peter Bunde colour plate to go along with them.

It had been in my mind for some time to do some conversions to create my own Saxon brigade and upper command figures seeing as there are no appropriate figures in 18mm or at least not in the AB range.

The finished figures are not 100% perfect in uniform but close enough for me and they are not all exact brigade commanders but officers that I thought would be kicking around the brigade and divisional command groups. The calpe commands are aimed at 1813 when the rank of the commanding officers was apparently a lot lower after the incredible loss of life in 1812.

This dude is an inspector of reviews next to a mounted officer of the Niesemeuchel regiment. He has the silver/white metal buttons and fittings of that rank.  

This grand chap is obviously a mounted Saxon guard officer with a converted AB French officer turned into an officer of the Saxon royal general staff.

I'm very happy how these guys came out, the head swaps look pretty good especially as some of the bodies were quite large so finding a head to match wasn't so easy. I was interested to see that in 1812-13 the Saxon upper command were wearing the bicorne shoulder to shoulder. I had assumed that this was the pre 1810 style as there are a number of colour plates showing it worn in the later french fashion of front to back? I did converted a brigade command a number of years ago in that style.

Anyway I have enough done to get me started so I'm gonna move into something until I need to finish the rest.

Hope everyone is enjoying the hobby at the moment, happy wargaming!!!

Saxon Progress

I've been pushing on with my Prussians and Saxons lately mostly with conversions however I've still been painting a good bit too in my spare time.

I managed to get a battalion of Saxons finished ready to base.

So this is the 2nd battalion of my Prinz Clemens regiment for 1812-13. This battalion finishes off the regiment.

A slightly converted AB NCO. 

This is my least favourite pose with what seems to be a head swap of a french man onto a Saxon body. The collar/neck on these guys isnt to pretty and needed a wee tidy up. I decided to jazz them up with some fancy trousers.

I took some shortcuts with the whites to get the battalion finished quicker. Still look pretty good to me.

More stripes for a little bit of a campaign look.

And 1 final little Saxon side project I've been working on is converting various figures to Saxon upper command for 1812-13. I picked up the 28mm Calpe figures and Peter Bunde plate and have been trying to match them as best I can. This is the 1st of them, he's my colour test for the blue, the rest are primed and ready to go.

Anyway I hope everyone's doing well with their projects and happy wargaming!!!

Prussian Reserve Battalion

Well I'm happy to say I managed to get another battalion finished off for my Prussian army. This time a reserve battalion.

This is the 3rd battalion for my 6th Prussian reserve regiment. All the figures are Old Glory (old OG) and were great fun to paint. I have had this battalion sitting about for years so it's a wee bit more of a buzz to see them ticked off. 

I have mixed in the regular Old Glory Prussian infantry as a few NCO's, officers and musicians giving the battalion a good variety of poses. This battalion finishes off the 3 battalions of my 6th regiment. 2 West Prussian and 1 Silesian battalion.

And now back to the Saxons!!!

Until next time Happy Wargaming!!!