Looking back and looking forwards

So this is the obligatory what I did and what I plan on doing.

In my personal life,  I got my first car(cargo van)  still don't have a license to drive. I  got married and I lost my grandmother. She died just a few weeks after the wedding,  Looks like she held on until I  got married.  It was not a sad death, She was 96 years old and she died in her home of 60 years. She had a massive heart attack a couple of years back,  at her age she could not get any surgery. But she lived another two years,  eating what she wanted and drinking her delay cream.  She died in her home happy with her gossip magazines and tv. I near had any other nanny than her, she lived 5 minutes from where I grew up. So not a sad death, a natural death after a long good life. But it's strange not having her around and missing her.


The Wedding was perfect,  we were told by a fellow student of Anita that June 4th was going
to have wonderful weather,  as her husband's birthday is on June 4th and he always had nice weather on his birthday. And she was right. It was probably one of just 4 good summer days this summer.

Wedding on the terrace of the inlaws summer home.

Anitas best friend is her maid of honour  and my dad is my best man.

The day  was perfect with good food and good people, After the wedding dad in law drove us with  his  boat to a resort  where we stayed in  the honeymoon suite 

So we also had a new litter, Freke and Naisha went on  a date. And we got a litter, We kept one we named Huldra.

Huldra!

Hobby  wise, I    have been quite productive. I managed   to paint some 230 figurs for my GNW/WSS project, I still have quite a  few unpainted  laying around, but loost steam. I have also painted some 105 SYW figures, again  a  few laying  around waiting to be painted. Add some Russian and Prussian Napoleionics and a few 30YW I'm not far from painting  450  figures this year.

After an intensive first 8  months the steam started to go empty. The last few months I've painted sevral things not having finished  them, I have painted  12 French Legere, that was supposed to become a 30 figure unit,  I painted 6  troopers and 9 horses for some Chasseur a Chaval,  also not finished.

So I don't have much to show, But I have this.

Had some random  British light infantry I painted up and ordered a movement base from warbases.

I did however, have a late year project. The theme of this year's Christmas gifts was homemade.
Antia made some wonderful embroidery with the names of our nephew on and we put them in some frames. It took a long time to make, She also embroidered some Christmas oven mitts for her and mine parents.

So  I decided to make Anita's gift too.

And  Here it  is:

I made a little diorama of Anita and all of our ten dogs. The miniatures are Copplestone, with some wood glue and white flock, some random ebay  trees, A picture found online and glued  to a background. I tried to paint the dogs as the look, with their markings.  Some of our dogs are quite similar, painting it so that Denali, Beriniga and Fjellbris  look different is quite hard, Beringia at least got white spot on her neck. Some of the models got a slightly curly tail,  So I  gave those tails to our dogs I know got a little curl on them. Orca while black has that curly tail and his shoulder is very  white, so it's easy differentiate him from the other black dogs, luckily our dogs are color coded. So I simply gave  their harness  their color. From bak to front. Orca and Stjerne, Gaia and Såga, Huldra and Naisha,  Freke and  Denali and finaly  up  front Fjellbris and  Berninga.


So that's what I've done 2016, now looking forward.


I  do plan on continuing my WSS/GNW project, as well  as my  SYW.
While I'm  tempted  to do more Napoleoincs  I think   I'll only have the attention span to do  a few figures at a  time. I also want to   try yet again to do ACW,  but we'll  see.

I'm also concidering doing more Ancients and Italian wars.

But first up is a new project(new year new project)

This will be early 100 years war. This is something I've wanted to do  for some time. Mostly because of  the figures from Claymore. The style is just so  cool, a mix of leather, gambison, mail and plate. I do find the full plate kinda boring...

Now there are sevral complications. First Claymore so  far only have only have a  few packs.
They have french foot knights, crowbowmen and pavisers. Naturaly not enough  to do a proper force. So  I much go hunting. I have orderd some Front  Rank mounted MAA,  they seem  to  be about the same period. I also orderd some  Kingmaker knights. Now the kingmakers are probably a little to late for the first 20  years of the war. so my  early 100 year war project will be slightly generic stretching  from 1337  to about  1390. So some units will be post 1360(like kingmaker)  While FR and Claymore will be more very  early part. But I'm mostly staying away  from  the later Perry ranges ect.

Another problem is the style. Claymore is very animated  and very detailed. Not that many  other figures mix well.  Black tree desgins make figures that look quite good and they are for the right period of the war, but they look stiffer, less  natural  in poses. And from  the picutres they look slighter in style.

My first unit  will  be a big unit  of knights and infantry. I'll  have 2 ranks of knights in front so 24 knights and to ranks of infantry. So a big unit of 48 figures. So I'll repurpose the pavisers, by giving  them none paviser shields and giving them a few other weapons then spears, they'll become infantry.

So  that is the plan.

I hope to  have something more intresting to show soon.

Belated Marry Christmas and a  Happy New Year.

End of Year Report/Next Years plans.

So this year has been one of the best painting years in a long time. While the volume might be slighly lower. It was still a great year.

I found a nice spot in the yard to take picutres, that really help to make my figures look good in pictures.  I've actually finished almosy all units I've started on.

A few of the units also looked quite good, I've painted the lovely Calpe miniatures, I'm not sure how he does it, but somehow I never paint as well as when I paint calpe. I can never get my perry and others to look that good. Even sevral years ago when I was a much lesser painter, my calpe did look alot better then my other figures. Sure now when I paint perry they have far surpase my older Calpe.
But new painted calpe looks much better then new painted perry. Now some of that might be because the calpe I'm painting now are mostly dark blue and gray. And I have great colors for dark blue and gray. So the right colors help alot.

I also finished a unit of Ashigaru and have ALOT of perry sengoku figures bought this year. And I'll get back to them.

I also did more figures for my unspecified ancient project, two units of Carthagenians and one unit of hastati.  My part 2 of ancient project is now about 80 figure strong, Plus the over 250 ones I have from way back. It means my ancient project(s) are the biggest 28mm I've done except for Napoleoincs.

But the highpoint must be the last part of the year. Where i painted 4 "units" in just a few weeks, that is a higher volume then I've painted in years and years. I don't know if it was the periods, the figures them self, or the new basing style. Probebly a mix of them all.
I did try and paint some Front Rank Napoleonic british after I used up my Warfare Swedes and "Dutch"  These are the new reenforcment packs from FR so very very nice. But they where marching poses. I did find them boring. And I couldn't finish a single batch of 6 figures.

I feel that painting goes faster, yet figures look better. Painting 4-6 figures steem to go faster. Might be that GNW/NYW figures are somewhat simpler then say Napoleonics, But it feels more like I've just found the grove.

So whats Next for 2016?

Well I'm in the prossess of rebasing my Minden prussians and austrians. This is a project form early 2014. I did small units of 16 infantry and 6 cavalry. I'm now rebasing and I want to expand the unit to atleast 24 infantry and 12 cav. So I need more minden figures. I'm also using the new basing system 4.5 on these.

The new basing system drasticly diffrent from my old style/philosphy. When I had my gaming table, I was very obsessed with getting as many figures as possible on my 4x7 table. The idea was if the bases and unit widths are small more units and figures could fit the table with out it beeing to full.

Now my table is gone for the forseable future. I might in a few years get it up again, and mabye even get room for a 5x9 or 6x8 table. But even if I don't have room for sutch a big table. I'm, really only a wargamer in theory, I'm really only a miniature painter that makes units and dreams about having big armies. So if my unit takes 25cm frontage insead of 18. Then who cares.

I do have some minden stuff still, I've painted a few commanders. And a small battalion gun with crew.

 One of the new things A battalion gun. The "straw" in the breaches and vest is probebly to dark.

 This is how far I've gotten in the rebasing: III Guards and one base of Sers Fusiliers

 They are now based in the Next Genration basing (TNB)

I still kinda would have liked them even closer based, very shoulder to shoulder, but it would make it impossbile to do the bases.

 Franz Leopold von Nádasdy

Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz

I also got a lovely gift from my Fiance.

This has allready been sent to Barry as an order for Swedish cav and infantry. 

I wanted to continue my GNW and NYW projects, but Did not know where to find the money. 

in January I'll buy some minden, and so I did not know when I would get the money for my swedes given we got a wedding comming up in six months time. We need food for the wedding, clothes and ofcoruse the rings.

But now I'll get to do 18 more Cav and 23 more Inf.
I hope to have the time and money to finish the first half my my swedes(3 battalions and 9 aquadrons) Before summer.

Also planed but now idea when.

Continuation of my NYW, I still got 1 more dutch battalion, 3 Danish and 3 English battlions.

A brigade of Dutch dragoons and one danish and one english brigade of cav. Then ofcourse the French.

I also want to do Scanian war project. Also with Warfare figures. It will give me a chance to be patriotic and paint some Norwegians for once.

So I hope you enjoyed this blog post or atleast the Miniature pictures.

Biggest Loosers

 Argubely the biggest loosers were the Prussians of 1806, this was ofcourse not the fault of the soldiers, but the soldiers were let down by their commanders, both in the field, and back home.

 If they had been propperly lead, the would have won Auerstad, granted it's never easy to beat Davout, and davout was at his best in 1806, and I do belive that had the Prussians met any other french corps, they would have won, it was just french luck and prussian bad luck that it was Davout they met.

Now even Davout would have lost had the prussians been lead propperly, not even his famed 3rd corps could have won against 65 000 prussians, hell the prussians wouldn't even have had to be lead by super generals, had they only been lead by someone remotly competent, they would have won.

Instead Davout dictated the battle, he could use his super soldiers exploit the command problems of the prussians.


But the true reason the prussians of 1806 are the ultimate loosers, was the total collaps of the army after Jena-Auerstad. Thousand of prussians got captured every day for two weeks.

But the prussians aren't all bad, the small corps of some 20 000 prussians did link up with the Russians, and they were well lead, and did thier share of the job at Eylau. So they can be used well on the table.

The figures over are Blue Moon, and compeard to the AB British in the post from yesterday, they are less refind, especaly the faces, but they are animated, and they got lots of detials, the trunbacks are raised, so easy to paint, the cufs are also sculpted so they are easy to paint.

I have serious problem choosing between BM and AB, Blue moon even with out old glory army card, is half the price of AB once shipping is take into acount. And they do paint up nicely even with my limited skills.

This is the offical reactivation of my 15mm Napoleoinc project, I feel it's only right, after all I'm painted 538 AB napoleonic figures, that an investment far about 3000kr when shipping and tax in added. just pure metal it's over 2600kr.
I've looked over the painted figures, and while they are not up to my current standard, most are pefectly ok, they are in sevral diffrent styles. But thats ok to.

I have bought enough for two more french line units, and two prussian units 1 more russian dragoon unit, and 1 more jeger unit . Added to allready sizable force I have, I get 9 french battalions, 6 I repeat 6 cav units, thats alot, and one battery.
My allied force is will then be 10 battalions, 7 russian 3 prussian, 2 big dragoon units, a cossack unit, and a battery.

Total 716 infantry, cav, artillery and command.

There is quite alot of infantry and cav compeard to artillery, so I'll probebly add 1 more french battery, and 1 or 2 russian batteries. I'll also add a prussian cuirassier unit, and a either a prussian dragoon unit or russian hussar unit. By then we will be over 750 figures. I also need to add some more brigade commanders, speificaly prussian brigade commander.

Generic ACW rebs, and a list

So the unit is done a small 18 figure unit.

I actualy think this unit looks better then my last russians, the russians ofcourse are much more complicated to paint, they simply have more stuff to paint, and you got the facings, pom poms, more straps ect. I probebly spent twice as long on 8 russians as I did on 9 rebs, the rebs are really quite easy when you got the right colors, 80% of the time, goes to the uniform, as both trousers and jacket needs 3 layers and you kinda have to concentrate when you do that. The rest is sevral smaller jobs that are kinda boring to do.

I based then single line for Fire and fury.

So over to the list, or lists.

The following list is my projects, First list is major projects, second is secondary projects and the third list is possible projects. Now this is just active projects, not any of the 200 dead or hibernating projects.

Major Projects.

1. 28mm Napoleonics This is basicly any thing after 1812, so russians, prussians, french, and british.

2. 10mm ACW, this is a rather new project, but is now one of my main ones, problebly going take up much of my time.

3. 28mm Ancients, this is Republican romans, Carthageinaisn and succesor greeks. got a little bored with them, but I hope to get back soon, I still got quite few to do.

4

Secondary projects.

1. 28mm ACW, again new project, started becasue I had a box of perry plastic infantry, I've allready stop my self from spending money on this project twice, but I need to save up for the 10mm ACW project

2. 15mm Napoleonics, this was my major project for a long time, but has fallen out of favour for a long time now.

3. 28mm AWI again a long term project. just kinda started up again.

4. 28mm WSS, again a project I want to do, but kinda got bored.

5. 6mm Grand Amree

6. 28mm Vikings

And finnaly projects I want to do, but for time and money I don't know when and if I can do them.

1. 28mm Early napoleonics, French in Bicorne, with early russians, and hopefully early prussians if they ever get any of them in 28mm.

This would be a major project in cost and time, I would use Victrix metal russians. And probebly brigade games french, I would love to do this project. But neither Brigade games or victrix are cheap figures, both are about £1.1+ pr. figure if you buy them in bulk. The victrix are expenvice has hell unless you buy full battalions or even brigades. Same with brigade games. on the upside, both victrix and brigadegames use the same sculpter.

2. 15mm ACW those bluemoon look great, but this would be a total over the top luxury project, as I do the period in 10 and 28mm.

Napoleonic Project number 6!!

Well I started work on my irregular project, I'm done with the prussian cav brigade and soon the III cav corps for the french,



But irregular really don't let me paint the napoleonics the way I want, sure when you got like 2500 of them they look ok, but they have very little details and are hard to paint.

When painting Prussians it's not that bad, but the french are a let down, and the cav is realy a let down, I painted some french hussars, and the back is ok, with the palisse they actualy look ok from the back, but from the front it's just a jumble of lead.

So it's time for baccus again, and you know by now I don't do small projects,

So before I reveal the project, here are the numbers

4400ish infantry and between 940 and 1880 cavalry depending on how much cav I put on each base.

So whats the project?
Well there really is only one project left to do for Napoleoinc wars propper(that is not revolutionary wars)

So have you guessed it.

Waterloo, now sadly there is no Dutch/Belgians or Brunswick from Baccus, so I have to concentrate on the Anglo in the Anglo allied. Atleast I can do KGL and Hanvoerian.
I'll use Polemoes rules, but the general de division not the marshal of empire, this means 187 battalions 103 cav regiments. lots and lots of figures.

Anyway I'll post pictures of the irregular cav when I get some good light.

Long time, no post

Sorry for the long pause in posting, it's becasue I actualy havn't done anything, I lost steam and havn't gotten it back, I have a unit of primed russian greandiers but so far the need to paint them havn't grabed me. The good news is that I havn't spent any more money of figs. the bad new is that have still don't have any money, why? Well instead of spending all my money on figs I now spend it on booze and bills, or booze isn't the right word, the word is, high end single malt whisky. Ok that was 5 words.
I had to pay bills for a course I tok, so that was 3000kr right out of the bank, AND I had long ago orderd stuff from Doug over at Battlefield terrain concepts. So that was another 1400kr out of the bank and I still havn't pick up the stuff I orderd.

So what can you expect the coming weeks? A big picture heavy update with all the stuff from BTC, I hope to have finished the russian grenadiers by then, the post will show a few 100 figs on the table from my Lasalle/CGII force.
I do have sevral more figs to paint, two units of french line infantry, another unit of russian greandiers, lots of artillery, and a unit of french chessurs.
I will try and paint them all before spending more money on figs.

So I hope to have a big post with in two weeks of figs and table.

PS. Take a look at my whisky blog over at Whiskynoob
http://whiskynoob.blogspot.com/

Lasalle Plan

I got my bok of Lasalle rules today, I had not gotten the message it was hardcover, so it was a nice suprise.

Now that I got all the army builders it's easier to decide what to paint, I had just started to buy and paint regular line/musketeers infantery as I knew I as going to have to make alot of them.

As I'm duing conquest French and Russians the following units will be made.

6 French Vetrain infantry, (I'll paint two of them as legere, but they will have the same stats, it's just to get something els to paint. and it looks good)
1 Divisional Battery.
I'll then make one organic brigade, which will be light cav brigade, 2 hussars, 2 chessurs and a horse battery.

This is the first I'll work on, I'll then paint the two extra line battalions for the "attack bonous"

The russians will be 4 musketeers, 2 gernadiers 2 jegers, position battery, thats 8 infantry units,
As I'll had french cav I'll do the same to the russians, one organic brigade of dragoons, thats two big dragoon regiments, 1 cossack regimetn and a horse battery.
I'll then add the two extra infantry units for the "attack bonus"

This is about 650 figures, Now I have to just keep at it.
I decided not to do the extra prussian, british and austrian armies at first. I might buy an odd unit just to get to paint some redcoats of some nice landwehr,
But I'll concentrate on the forces I mentioned here.
When that Is done, I'll add more and more of the suport brigades, to get sevral options to choose from.

When I'm done with the BIG core armies and the extra brigade, doing the odd suport brigade of say 2 kurassir regiments and another battery isn't that much of a job.

Well thats the plan, even tho Lasalle don't deal with historic units, each unit will be based on a real Battalion/regiment just to keep track, and so I can use it for Carnage & Glory II

The Lasalle Virus is spreading

Well Now I've gone and done it, I orderd Lasalle and have started to buy AB 15mm Napoleoincs.
I feel my 15mm Now look decent, and my first love was after all 15mm Napoleoincs.
So I'm going oldschool with new rules, I will also use the figs with Carnage and glory 2.

As the game is tactical division sized game I'll build my self two divsions, one french and only mainly russian with prussian suport, it will be from the 1805-1807 period.

The french Force will be Morands Division From the 3rd corps.
I will also add 3 cavalry regimetns in suport, 1 hussar, one dragoon and one curassier.

The russian is harder to pin down, I want it to be atleast based on a real corps from the period, then add one brigade of prussians(just two battalions)
Again the cav suport will be light, medium and heavh, the heavy will be a unit of prussian kuriassirs, not sure about the medium(uhlan or dragoons) and a light(thinking hussar here to)

Now I have learned that the french battalions will be BIG battalions 6 of them actualy should have 6 bases in propper number of troops, I'm still now sure how much "better" a 6 base unit is compeard to a 4 base unit, so it's hard to balance the forces.
Either I just have to drop the 6 bases thing or as someone said upgrade the quality of the troops instead.
Or I can give the russians more battalions or batteries, as I said with out knowing that is good or bad in the rules it's hard to balance.

Anyway Useing AB the whole thing should cost about $850 PLUSS SHIPPING, which isn't that cheap from australia.
Anyway I'm realy looking forward to this, I've bought enough figs for a good 8 battalions pluss the unit of kuirassirs.

As I said, 15mm Napoleoincs were my first love, it was the first thing I bought when I started wargaming in late 07. I've come a long way since then, and it's only right I should go back to it.
Tactical Napoloeinc rules was also the first type of rules I bought so againt it's full circle thingy.

Anyway stay tuned, I expect the figs to show up next week

Finnalty back to 6mm

After not doing anything on the 6mm front for about 2 months I'm back at it, on a slower pace tho.
Did 150 more figs over the weekend, brining the total on the AWI project to over 660
Planing another test game for my home writen rules during the week, after finishing a few more units.

Workbench

Ok, I'm technacly on vacation, tho my vecation is more work then my regular life.
As I have to take care of my half paralized dog and two love parrots.
I like my dog, as I havn't had this much time with her since I moved out last August.
But now I have all day with her and she sleeps in my bed at night.


But I still got a little stuff done this past week.
2 divions of french infantry for minden, pluss Hanoverian Guards and hopefully by tomorrow hanoverian kurassirs.
for a total of 5 complete divions for my minden project. to french infantry one french cav, one anglo allied infantry divion and one cav divion.
Still a long way to go, but I have painted about 620 out of the 1500ish for the whole project.
So about half way there it also brings the total of 6mm figs painted in about a month to 1958.




Gruechy's french infantry divion with 4 brigades.


Beaupreau's infantry divion with two brigades


Hanoverian Guard, for Sporken's divion, the two british brigades are done at home


Also started work on some papr terrain buildings, from their european village set.


And finnaly I've finished the cards for The couldn't hit an elephant rules for my upcomming ACW project(oh forgot to say, I have a ACW project coming up, with Adler figs, aslo a second nappy project also with adler

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

Some "army" shots

Well not realy an amry, more like 3 brigades worth

Ok, the Britsh force,

Leslies brigade, and part of the reserve brigade.

Total figs 226, of which 50 is cav

The american force, mostly milita.

Another shot, about 1.5 brigades


Both forces 533 figs, this is less them 3 third of the project.

Looks prety good on mass