Battle of Austerlitz

We had a largish 15mm Black Powder game depicting the Northern part of Austerlitz with the French attempting to take Stahre Vinohrady and Prazeberg to push towards Austerlitz itself. Great game and many thanks to Juha and Antti for putting this thing together! Nice to try Black Powder with a larger battle too. Completely a different game with Corps sized armies compared to the division sized ones that we usually run in 28mm. Maybe I'll get my motivation up to paint my 15mm Prussians so I can get them on the table.

In the end the game ended up with a marginal French victory as they had control of their objectives. However Russian reserves were still mostly intact so no major gains would really have been possible.

 The battlefield

The battle began as both sides approaching the Pratzen heights. On the French left flank Lannes anchors his lines alongside Bosenitz in an attempt to halt Bagration's troops from flanking the French army.

 The Austrians reach Pratzen heights first, but are quickly counter-attacked by French colums. The slow grind for the heights would last for most of the game.

 Flanking Russian hussars are counterattacked by French light cavalry.

 With the first Austrian lines broken, the french press forward.

As Lannes's corps start to crumble under the russians superior numbers, the Guard and Heavy Cavalry move in to join the fight.

Fighting on the right flank where the French slowly grind their way through both Russian and Austrian troops.

The Guard moving towards Pratzen

 Guards hussars start the Russian counter-attack followed by the rest of the Guard

 One heavy cavalry division engages the Russians on the left flank to stop them from reinforcing the rest of the army.

 French Old Guard moves in to attack their Russian counterparts.

 

 

The battle ends with both Guards thick in the fight and the French controlling Pratzen heights

 Austrian heavy cavalry and one Russian division are still completely unengaged in the end so the battle could only be called a marginal victory for the French.

44th East Essex

Next up half of the 2nd battalion of 44th East Essex for my 5th Division at Waterloo. The Regiment, and especially the 2nd Battalion served with distinction throughout the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns with the Battalion capturing a french eagle from the 62nd regiment at Salamanca. The regiment had it quite tough especially at Quatre Bras.

All Perry plastics once again and painted with Vallejo paints and Army Painter inks this time. Had a minor mishap with the white Army Painter spray that I used to basecoat the minis. The surface became quite rough eventhough I shaked the can well before spraying. Couldn't get it all removed and it shows on some minis. I've now tried Vallejo, GW and Army Painter white sprays and none of them really seem to work all that well. Probably I'll just have to stick to basecoating with my airbrush even if it takes a lot more time.

The next half coming up later when I've finished some minis for a large Saga game that the club is holding in a couple of weeks. After that only the 28th and 42nd remaining and I have the British infantry contingent ready for Waterloo. Need to start ordering some cavalry fellas next.

Papa Nurgle

More or less finished a few Nurgle models today. Didn't quite get them done by yesterdays tournament, but they were good enough for gaming so I decided to sleep the night :) We finally ended up third even though we had the two first games starting quite catastrofically.

The bases are still not finished as I'm planning on doing winter bases for them and I'm missing snow for basing. I decided to try the new GW special effects paints on these guys. Pretty happy with the rust and slime effects, but couldn't really get the blood paint to work like I wanted. Maybe needs more practice. The knights still miss some weathering and effects as I need to practice using the blood effect more. And the banner is still WIP.

Base colors done with an airbrush and detail using a normal brush. Wear done using a sponge and dark brown paint and then rust and streaking grime done with AK interactive products.

Pictures taken with a new photo background that I built using some old shelf which I based and added a background image on. Works quite nicely even with only my phones camera.

Papa Nurgle approaches

I've been painting some greenish chaos boys for a Fantasy Battle Doubles Tournament next weekend. Starting to be more or less complete. Still need to paint the shields for the knights and paint their banner. Wear and gore are also missing but I'm probably gonna do that later as they are already of tabletop quality or higher. Time for hi-fi later :)

I also got my copy of Mega Wargames today. Some seriously epic tables and miniature collections there. Also slightly depressing to know that it would take decades to reach the size of those collections. Anyway a great book and I do recommend buying a copy!