Reactivation of Möckern.

I've had a fascination with the battle of Leipzig for many years. just the scale of the whole thing, but particularly the battle around Möckern, really the battle within the battle that sealed Napoleon's fate, Prussia risen from the ashes fight a hard battle against some of the best troops Napoleon had available in 1813.

 I've tried to do the battle several times, in 6mm I had like 1500 figures painted, but the project died and the figures are now gone. I did start a 28mm project, I finished a few units. But I lost steam and the few units I have finished are packed away. I have since started an 1805-1807 project which is the only period I prefer more than Leipzig. And together with other large scale projects, I just didn't have room or time to try and paint 20 battalions for this project.

BUT in comes SP, I can do a couple of forces inspired by the OOB at Möckern. I also happened to have enough unpainted Calpe figures to do a few SP units. First up are some skirmishes from East Prussia Jaeger regiment. I used various greens from AK Vietnam uniform set. It gives a good mat colour, that gives the impression sun/rain washed uniform. The grey, black and red are from the Andrea colour sets.

 I did want to use another background, I hoped to find a picture of an old german village that might look like Möckern, but I didn't find one, and the printer is out of toner anyway.

I have enough Calpe figures for an 8 figure unit of Prussian musketeers, and an 8 figure unit of French infantry.

2nd battalion 4th Marine artillery regiment

Well it's been exactly 1 months since I posted.
But I've not been idle. Since last post I have painted 6 more Swedish cav, 9 russian hussars, 12 french infantry and 2 guns and 6 prussian Napoleonic gunners. I hope to finish the last 3 hussars today and post pictures sometime next week perhaps.


On to the 2nd battalion 4th Marine Artillery Regiment.

I thnik this unit looks great, I had painted 12 of them allready but I felt I needed to rebase them to my current basing system, so those 12 where rebased and i painted the last 12.
While they look very good, man am I bored of painting them. so much blue..... Iike to paint blue, I got good blue colors that look great. But the sea of blue gets very boring.

24 figure unit, The biggest battalion in the 1st brigade of 21st divsion 

Flag is from Mavrick 

I feel the new basing style dosn't suit small bases, I think I will order some 50x50mm for Napoleonic infantry. 

You lucky bastards!

 Two blog posts in one week!
Here is a WIP of the 2/4th Marine Artillery Regiment. Half done!

I like these, for their relativly simple uniform, they take quite a while to paint,

 I tried something new on the faces, I usual use Foundry Excepert flesh A,B,C,E,F but not D as I think D and C are so similar.

But I wanted to have more shading, so before I start on the expert flesh I use red brown. I think that give big contrasts.  Helps bring out the face. Make it more 3d. Thanks to Janner for giving me that idea with how he painted the face on the on russians!.

It's a lot of blue, but damn I love this blue, like with the prussians, the blue is to light for real french color. But its so vibrant and so easy to make look good. Again the colors are Foundry union blue A,B and C with extra highlights of coat D arms fester blue, I love the contrasts of dark vibrant blue and the deep red.

Right now I'm working on a prussian howitzer with crew, I tried to use granite gray (simply because I'm bored with Rebel gray) granit gray does not look that good, The shade A is quite a diffrent color from B C, making it look od. Also the end resault is much to like and greenish for it to be prussian gray.

You can see I have used granit gray on the shako covers on some of these marine artillerist. It works on "small " things, were you need massive contrasts, it does not work on bigger stuff(like jackets and trousers) So this gray will probebly only be used on shako covers, blankets ect. Not greatcoats, jackets or trousers.

So I was stupid enough to stop by the Napoleonic board on TMP, I knew it was a bad mistake before I did it. There was wonderfull pictures, talk of history, a thread listing favorite manufacturer's

I was also stupid enough to stop by dhcwargamesblog, and saw his wonderfull prussians and Möckern project. Möckern is ofcourse my favorite action during the Napoleonic wars. I've read digby Smiths Leipzig 3 times(only book I've read that many times) and the Möckern chapter of said book many many times. I've orderd a unit of Prussian line infantry, and Landwehr Cav. But I needed to paitn something while I waited, and I had to dig far into my boxes(from the move) to find some FR french. The boxes was in the "wall" up stairs. almost got stuck in there. I had like 12 big boxes to check, ok a few I knew had only dvds, but still quite a project. I also found my french cav(also FR,) they are still in the package they were shipped in. I know they are a unit of dragoons and one of Chesseurs.



Anyway, I finished the grenadiers, these are the new(well newish now) FR reenforcment packs. They are wonderfull. They still have super detail of FR, but are less stiff and bulky. Still much more hefty then say Perry, but now very close to Calpe. I'm torned I like the french uniform, but for Leipzig, the more down troten style of Calpe french in greatcoats is probebly more realistic. So realism or flash?

I tried something new on the french, a full 6 blue colors on the blue, Not sure if it's worth it or not, but I wanted to try it.

So those other french I did sevral months ago, they are painted more or less the the same, except for lack of eyes and 4 blues instead of 6.(and diffrent bases) But I think they look close enough.

I did notice I have lost some skill, the while lines on the cuffs seems straighter on the "old" figures then the new. Lost some of the tuch apeantly.

Napoleonic Extravaganza

Ok, after two days of intencive baseing the first 802 figs are done(out of almost 5000 for the whole project)

This is the 7th Brigade(division) of Yorck Corps

8 Battaljons 3 cavalery regiments and 1 battery.

Russian 11th Division of VIII Corps

3 brigades of 3 battalions each

French Division, this one is big, almost the same size as the prussian and russians combined

2 Big brigades of 7 and 8 Battalions

Then all 3 divisions togeather, 32 battaljons(out of 171 I have to make)

3 batteries, 3 cav regiments

802 figs

456 Napleonics in 4 days

Ok theise are all irregular, far from as well made or crisp as Baccus.
But you do get 6 to a strip on the same size as 4 on baccus.
Eventho I do love the baccus, they are spaced quite far away
So even you if you got many many of them you might not get the super massed feel.
For all it's faults you do get it with irregular, I'll be honest I have a hard time getting the same quality of a paint job as I do with baccus, but on mass the do look amazing, atleast I hope so when I get them based.
I've decided to paint ATLEAT one unit of nappy figs(24 infantry or 8 cav) each day until I get the bases from litko, which may take two or three weeks, they seem to have a lag as they got many many orders coming in each day.
But once the order has been sent, it usualy only take 3-4 days before I get them.
Anyway here they are 456 nappy figs, All made for möckern, well not realy möckern, more like most of the northern sector around leipzig on the 16th,
So one corps of prussians, a corps group of russians and two corps and an cavalry corps for the french.
Total figs, somewere around 4500, I do think I'll have to balance the forces out, the infantry is almost perfectly balanced in number of battalions atleast, same goes for guns, but the allies have twice or more the number of squadrons, so something has to be done with the cav.

Anyway here they are

456 figs, total of 19 battalions,

Russians, 216 figs, 9 battlions, one complete divison

168 French, 7 battalions or one brigade in the 8th divison

72 Prussians AKA 3 battlions

Sorry for the crap paintjob but they do look ok on mass