Painting Challenge entry 2: Regiment Prinz Friedrich August

My first proper entry to the painting challenge was my first finished Saxon Regiment for my 1813 project. Or more exactly the first battalion of Regiment Prinz Friedrich August. I had painted the second battalion beforehand already and planned to finish the whole regiment before the painting challenge started, but didn't have time so left it to be painted as my first larger entry.

Originally raised in 1701 by Count Beschling and participated in the multitude of wars during 18th Century including the Wars of Polish and Austrian succession and the Seven Years War. The battalion fought against the French in 1806 with the rest of the Saxon army followed by campaigns against Austrians in 1809 and the ill-fated Russian campaign of 1812. After the Russian expedition the Regiment could muster one under strength battalion that took part in the battles to slow down Russian and Prussian advances in early 1813. Brought up to strength during the short armistice they later suffered heavy casualties and finally switched sides at Leipzig with the majority of the Saxon army.

As detailed before the paint job was kept fairly simple with block colours being applied over white before being washed with black ink and then highlighted with 1-2 different shades depending on the area. To add a bit of variety to the unit I decided to paint some trousers with different shades. I kept the jackets the same colour for everyone, but for future units I might have to try adding slight variations to the uniform colours as well as some mud.

The flags are from GMB designs as pretty much all the flags I've ever used. A bit on the large side and only a few millimeters smaller than the free flagpole area, but they definitely look amazing.

These AB miniatures really are a joy to paint and don't feel like a chore like most 15mm miniatures. Almost makes me start to think that 28mm isn't the better scale :) The downside is that there's sometimes even too much detail, which makes them quite slow to paint if you really want to do them justice. The only real issue is that there's only 4 different poses available. Calls for some conversion work and I think I'll add at least some Sappers and convert some greatcoat wearing troops from French troops in future units.

 1st Battalion

2nd Battalion

Happy holidays!

It's that time of the year again when a bearded old man comes crashing down your chimneys! So I wish  all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I'm off for the rest of the year with little or no hobby related things happening, so here's a final post with some christmas tree ornaments that I painted up for this christmas! It's the first time that we got our own tree with the missus so I felt we needed some suitable decorations :)

 

Painting Challenge entry 1: Chaos Santa

Time to get started with the three months of madness that is Curt's annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. It's the sixth edition of the challenge and the fourth time that I'm participating in it. Once again I'm aiming for the 1000 points as in the last couple of years. 2013-14 saw me pass it by a great margin while last year I only just got over the target. With real life interfering more with hobby time nowadays, it will be bit of a stretch to get that done. But we'll see how it goes! Might have to participate in one or two of the bonus rounds to make the points this time around.

But without further ado it's time for my first entry. I wanted something really fast to paint up for the first miniature and while rummaging through my lead pile I found a bunch of old citadel sculpts that I'd bought from eBay a while back and more or less forgotten about them. With Christmas around and me coming from the land of Santa Claus I figured that this old limited edition christmas special was the perfect choice! What we have here is a Citadel Chaos Santa sculpted by one of the Perrys and being available during christmas sometime in the mid to late 80s. Last year I had plans to paint this up and make a small vignette inside a christmas decoration with it, but that never materialized so this time I just went with a normal base.

Coming up next in the challenge are some Saxons and then I'll probably finish off the rest of the Flames of War Americans. Plus some miniatures themed christmas decorations :)

Flames of War US Mid War vehicles

With today being the 98th Finnish independence day it's time for some vehicles from the only major Allied nation that didn't declare war on Finland during WW2, namely the US. They have been sitting for way too long waiting for finishing touches, but I finally got around to adding mud and varnishing them this morning.

So once again more Olive Drab, this time of earlier variety with vehicles that were mostly used during the African campaign. 5 M3 tanks with the long barreled gun and two M3A1 scout cars to have some fast recce elements to support the tanks and armored rifle platoons. I'm sticking with my tried and tested method of base color with modulation done by airbrush and weathering by chipping and enamel washes.

With these finished my autumn US project is finally drawing closer to the end. Only 3 platoons left and some extras like Jeeps, command stands etc.The only real larger thing missing is one Armored Rifle Platoon. Hopefully I can get the rest finished before the end of the year as I should have a little more time for painting as for the first time in months I'm actually home on the weekends instead of hunting trips etc.

And finally something suitable for todays occasion.

9th (Swiss) Division in Russia

M3 Lee's got sidelined a bit for a few days as I decided to empty my paint desk of half finished projects. One of them were the command bases for my Swiss and Croat forces for our Russia 1812 campaign. I didn't quite finish them for the last game where they were needed in May and as they weren't needed for a long while I more or less forgot about them. Well last week I finally got around to painting their horses and basing them. One more project finished and away from the desk.

When I got them finished I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of the force, so with the last minis finished from the project it was high time to take them out of the cabinet and take some pictures. So behold the 9th (Swiss) Division of the II Corps of the Grande Armee. I ended up painting only the foreign units of the division so it's missing four French battalions, but as there are plenty finished by other clubmates it wasn't really an issue. Technically the uniforms are actually wrong as the Swiss didn't use Bardin in Russia, but my manufacturer of choice Campaign Game Miniatures didn't have any suitable ones available I decided that the differences were minor enough not to bother with buying something else.

The 9th Division and Swiss troops in general were a nice subject that was quite close to me as even being a Finn I lived quite a few years in Switzerland as a youth due to my father's work. Being a history buff and interested in the Napoleonic period already back then I naturally stumbled upon the exploits of the Swiss troops. The Russian campaign does hold quite an important place in Swiss history symbolizing quite the sacrifices that Swiss mercenaries have made throughout history. A song based on a 1790s poem 'Die Nachtreise' is also popularized as a song called Beresinalied after the Battle of Berezina where the remnants of the Swiss troops held the Russians allowing thousands to escape over the river. Of the completely foreign rearguard force less than 300 survived the battle and only around 210 would be around when the regiments reassembled after the campaign.

First up the command stands representing Generals Amey, Condras and Coustard and a lone ADC. The ADC was painted up as halfway through painting the command stands I realized I'd accidentally taken an ADC model for a General and had to start one more mini. He'll serve as a disorder marker alongside wounded and dead soldiers. A rushing ADC should prove to be a good way to show a unit getting their orders mixed up. Most miniatures from AB as I find their command minis are better and far more varied than CGM. I haven't painted up the overall Divisional Commander Pierre Hugues Victoire Merle as we only use brigade commanders in our games. I still might add him later just to have him on the table for show if I need a quick appetizer project as I already have the miniatures ready.

Then the artillery park with 2 batteries of 6 pounders and 1 battery of 12 pounders. As far as I know the Swiss didn't have much integral artillery and their own artillery units were mostly stationed as garrison troops in Europe. Instead they had French artillery attached to them. All painted in the regular French artillery uniform.

The 3rd Provisional Croatian Regiment was raised in 1812 from the Croatian land ceded by Austria in the peace of 1809. Known as excellent skirmishers they were employed in that role in the French army as well and having a the same cut of uniform as French Light Infantry. Even though the Croats were not very enthusiastic about serving Napoleon two regiments still fought with distinction on the Russian campaign. Out of roughly 2000 soldiers of the 3rd Provisional Regiment only around 150 returned from Russia having fought in Polotsk and Berezina as well as multiple smaller skirmishes.

1st Swiss Regiment was the first regiment raised in 1805 according to the 1803 military convention between Switzerland and French requiring the Swiss to provide 4 regiments of all together 16,000 men for French service. The 1st Regiment would provide two battalions to the Russian campaign. The Swiss regiments saw heavy fighting in both battles of Polotsk against Wittgenstein's Russians before joining the rest of Grande Armee on the retreat where they would perform a vital rear guard action at Berezina.

2nd Swiss Regiment was raised in 1806, but only reaching operational strength around 1808. It participated in the Russian campaign with 3 battalions.

3rd Swiss Regiment was raised in 1806 as well, but as with the 2nd Regiment it would take until 1808 to reach close to it's official strength. Their strength in Russia was 3 battalions.

The final 4th Regiment started forming in 1807 initially with large amounts of Prussian prisoners of war. However when Napoleon discovered this an inspection of all Swiss Regiments was ordered in order to remove any Prussian soldiers from their strength. However by 1808 they had reached a strength of roughly 4000 men. As with the second and third regiments three battalions of the 4th Regiment served in Russia.

So there you have it, my little Napoleonic project from last spring and early summer. 13 battalions, 6 guns and some command figures all painted between March and May. It was really nice to build up a complete unit in a rather fast pace, but it did leave me quite uninterested in painting anything for a few months after that. Next time with the Saxons I'll leave more variety in between by painting other projects as well.