Sergeant Hansen Moe

 I haven't done any work on my Norway vs Sweden Sharp Practice project for well over a year. But I've finally added a Level 1 Leader, Sergeant Jens Hansen Moe, from the Telemark regiment. He is named after a long-ago ancestor of the wife, who lived in Telemark at that time, he would have been 36 in 1808, a good age for a veteran sergeant.  

Also added the two finished units in the background. 

1 company of Lædalske light company, I independent light company, just a few years before 1808 the people of Lærdag rebelled when the Danish king reneged on a deal he had with them. And several leaders of the rebellion got executed. But in 1808 the company was instrumental in the victory against Swedes at Trangen. 

The other unit is a grenadier company from the 1st Trondjemske Regiment. This will end up being the main formation, consisting of 4 units/companies of grenadiers, which was the standard core in the taskforces that fought the Swedes in 1808/1809 Together with the 4 company grenadier formation, I have enough to do a smaller 3 company formation of light infantry. Pluss the Lædalske skirmish formation I've done. And I'll use Steve Barber's ski troops for the last skirmish formation.

Sergeant Jens Hansen Moe will be a level 1 leader helping keep the grenadier in order.

Threw in the other units too.

Trondhjemske Grenadier company.

Second unit for my Norway vs Sweden 1808-1809 project, I had done half the unit before I started on the light troops, but found out my bases were too big. In the end, I couldn't wait for the new bases to arrived and so saw and knife was used to cut 25x25mm bases into 20x20mm and a 100x50mm movement tray to 80x40mm movement tray.

This is a company(as I personally visualize each close order unit as a company) Of Trondhjemske regiment, specifically one of the grenadier companies. During this war, the line companies and most of the cavalry and artillery stayed in the towns, cities and fortresses. So the field forces consisted solely of Grenadiers and various light troops(sharpshooters, jaegers and ski troops) With a basic force consisting of 2 divisions of grenadiers(each division being 2 companies) And some companies of light forces.

During the battle of Trangen in April of 1808, Grenadiers from Trondhjemske engaged a force of Swedish troops, the grenadiers had to hold their ground while Norwegian light troops moved in behind the Swedish for a classic pincer move. But the grenadiers were starting to falter. That's when grenadier captain Nikolai Peter Dreyer, a man said to be ignorant and unable to du his basic duty as an officer, jumped up on a tree stump, he stood there for all to see, got two men to load muskets for him while he stood there on the stub and fired at the Swedish, stood there and got hit several times, in the end, he slumped down, and died a few days later of his wounds. But his grenadiers held.
in 1814 with Nationalistic fervour and Norway fighting for its freedom, he became a symbol.

I plan on doing all 4 grenadiers companies but will aim at 3 first. Nikolai Peter Dreyer will be their leader and I feel he should be level IV for bravery alone,(since apparently, he wasn't good at much else.)

I threw in two drawings showing Nikolai Peter Dreyer on his stub, an older one and a new one. Both showing him and his grenadiers in the wrong grenadier hats(as an officer, he should be using a round ha

 These took forever to paint, I only paint 4 and 4, but those 4 took at least as long as the 6 I normally paint.  The blue, red and yellow, are all painted with Andrea paints, so that's 6 layers for each of those colours, so I had to spend two days on each of the 4, one day doing those colours and the other day to do the rest. the flesh, black and white are also Andrea paints.

 Apparently the stub is still there were the battlefield was.

Treacherous war heroes.

In 1803 the Danish king revoked a deal with the people from Lærdal, that exempted the men from military service as long as they maintained the roads over the mountains. This the Lærdølingene didn't like so the rebelled, in the end the leaders ended up executed.  5 years later Lærdalske lette infanterikompani marched 320km over the mountains in winter to get to the Swedish border, they took part in the battle of Trangen, a glorious victory over the Swedes. 

I've wanted to do my patriotic duty and do a Norwegian project, but there aren't that many options, it's the GNW, I got a book on the war in Norway and it's great for inspiration, but I feel the skirmish pose figures are missing. And you have modern, with Norwegian soldiers taking part in many actions of the last 20 years. The last option is the Napoleonic wars, with battles both in the 1808/9 period and 1814. I choose 1808 for a few reasons, 1 tophats are FAR FAR cooler than the boring shakoes. 2 It will let me do What-ifs of British amphibious landings so I'm not limited to fighting Swedes.

Since the "battles" in the war of 1808/9(and 1814) at best can be called "actions" but are probably just skirmishes+ I've decided to use Sharp Practice 2. I've watched som SP games on youtube and they look jolly fun. 

 Lærdalske lette infanterikompani used green jeger uniforms.

 I haven't quite figured out if they used rifles or the jaeger-muskets, it does appear the rifle wasn't standard for the norwegian light troop. I know we had them as I've seen them at a museum. 

A painting showing the  Lærdalske lette infanterikompani crossing the mountain. 

Review The Kings Choice(Kongens Nei)

On the 8th of April 1940,  sightings of  war ships close to the Norwegian waters were reported. For some reason the Norwegian armed forces were not put  on alert.

The movie starts with King Haakon VII of Norway at Skaugum, the loving grandfather playing hide and seek with his grand children. King Haakon started life as a Danish  prince. choosen by the norwegians to  become their king in 1805. He arried with his son  Olav. Now 35 years later, he is a widower, feeling his age with a bad back.

As night falls on the 8th, more sightings  happens. The commander at Oscars Borg fortress, Birger Eriksen puts  his men on allert. With out  orders from  above.  He gets reports of german  ships fireing on norwegian ships.  He orders his troops to train  and make  ready.

At the same time, a  german diplomant gets sent to the Norwegian  foregin minister. Germany is only here to protect Norways neutrality from the British.  The cabinet is asked  to sign a  document  that would more or  less  agree to ocupation of Norway by Germany. This poopr diplomat  didn't know  anything about this before this night.  He honestly  wanted Norwegian   neutrality.

At around 4 AM search lights light up a siluet of german  Cruiser heading straight for Oslo.
The commander gives order  to fire, when told he has  no  orders from above   he simply states.
" They have fired on our ships,  they are moving in our waters with no  lanterns, these are enemies, we fire on enmies. They fire of two  28cm costal  guns, Both score a hit. The weapons  on the other side of the  sound fires of everything they got, At the last  moment, Two tropedoes also hit the enemy cruiser. Fires spreads and  sevral  hours later the German Heavy Cruiser Blücher sinks,  With   the loss of up  to 900 sailors and soldiers.

The  28cm  guns going  off

Blücher was at the head of a task  force, tasked with   taking Oslo,  the cabinet and the royal family.

The sinking means, the cabinet,  royal family and gold reserves escape.

We now follow the king for the next few  days, The german dipomat tries  to secure a peaceful solution,  not  easy with warmongering german officiers trying to capture the king.

The movie shows  the king as a very  human character. He misses his  wife, He learns  his brother the king of Denmak has submited  to  the germans.  He is in constant pain from his back. And all  the while he is hounded by the fact he can't do anything to  stop all this from happening.

Even after  the escape, the cabinet still wants to negotiate with the invaders. They hope to get the same "deal" as Denmark. The Crown prins, a man trained in military matters, But not only  trained, he is skilled,  having the respect of  the army  and even foregin leaders.  He want to take an active role, And have been advocating  for making Norway ready  for war for months.

Royal family taking cover under a railway brigde as German warplanes fly over.

His father, has another view of it. He strongly belives in the constituion, He has no  real power. He does not want to meddle with the democraticly elected  goverment. But in the ned,  it comes down to  him.


Besides showing the battle of Drøbak  Sound(a battle that has facinated me since I almost lived at the armed forces   museum, it had a diorama of  this battle. Watched it for hours.  Now I have seen in in a big budget war movie,  And I can die happy.) It also show the battle of Midtskogen,  where about 100 Norwegian  royal  guardsmen and some voulenteers hold of an attack by about 100 Fallsjermjeagers.

Battle of Midtskogen

There  aren't that many norwegian wars movies,  And those we have, have consentrated on the resistance movment, the Heavy water sabotage  ect. This is  the  only one I know of that  shows full scale open  warfare. The Battle for Norway lasted  62  days, Making Norway second only to  Russia  in holding out againt the invading Germans longest.(with  Russia never being conquerd)

The effects are great be they from a  buring Blücher, to Colt machinegun fire. Most impressive is how  they made Oslo ca. 1940. This must have been  done  with heavy use of CGI, As no   way could this have been done by simply closing down some streets and putting some old cars on the road.

Having grown up in Oslo and lived my first 29 years there.(now  at a ripe  old age of 31)  It was wonderful to see my  Oslo  from  the past come  to life.

But what drives the movie is the great acting of Jesper Christensen  as King Haakon VII and Jesper Christensen  as Crown prince Olav.

The king  is shown as loving father and grand father.   And  the Crown prins  as a  enegertic  and profesjonaal man,  yet also  a loving father and son. The both have great respect for each other, Even   tho  they disagree on how to "rule"  The  dynamic of  these too  are really what drives the movie.

Olav ended up as a great peoples king, Many  stories about him exist.
One of my favorites is from the Oil crisis of the late 70s, Driving cars was banned on the weekends. And so show solidariry, instead of taknig his   car(which he could have) He got his skiis. And took the train   into the forest. When asked if he  wasn't afraid to go out with out his body guards, he simply replied  "I have 4 million body guards"

So it was great seeing this man  potrayed in the big screen.

King and Crown  prince running as bombers and fighters attack.

I'm embarrased by not knowing sevral  things   that happend those 3 days in April. I  didn't know just how damn  close the  cabinet  came to accepting the  german proposition. I didn't know the  King met in private with this german dipomat.  I didn't know just how close the king and crown  prince came  to be killed in those early days.

I think its great to have  a movie that shows and honours not only the king, but the norwegians that fought those 62 days in 1940. These men and  women  have in many ways been forgotton, Instead  concentrating on  hour resistance heroes.   This is a movie that needed to be made, and  I'm very glad it was.

I recomend everyone  to  see this movie, It's not a your typical WW2  movie(it got princes and princesses)  It's a vital part of modern Norwegian histroy, that has not been told in this way before.

Knight Command

 So did these a few days ago, quite a few days, but blogger decided to be an asshole. So I didn't bother doing this update, but now I'm bored So might as well do it.

This is the command, well 2/3s of it, still need the thrumpeter. Took quite a long while doing theise. The "lord/officer" is black and yellow. Even his helment is painted(which aperantly they could do) The standard berrar is even more so, with sliver and red.

 I like this picure, but aperantly it's not realistic. The "scara" fought in tight packed formations boot to boot, quite alot like later cav bee it 30YW or WSS or Napoleonics.  So they were really were thanks, a mass og iron and meat. So theise while they look look like this, would infact be more "blocks" like we usualy play with in miniatures.

My medievals so far














Also up next is either 2 more knights(9 and 10 of 12) or if I get my fireforge box(it's taken now 17 days for the order to go from Italy to me, mabye the mafia got it) (or coked out fashion people from milan) If I do get it, I will try and make a conversion. Aperantly Scandinavian people loved the kettle hat so much even knights used it more then the great helm. So I will cut of the heads of my foot knights(most of them) And glue on some plastic fireforge kettle helments on most of them(a few get to keep their heads and helms)

More knights

 Finished 3 more knights: I do 3 knights after I have done 6 infantry so I'll start on some crossbow men today. then when those are done I'll do 2 knights. I'm quite happy with these knights.

 I really like this one, I got the checkerboard pattern pretty well done, and it look good in the light blue.

 There I like the dark green kinght, but not so much the lightgreen.

 Half done with this unit.

My medievals so far.

Spearmen are done!

 Spearmen are done, my first unit for this project.
The uni actualy takes up alot of room, 20cm wide. the figures are not spaced as closely as most of my other units. This was parly because I wanted to figures to show more, with shielded figurs if you space them to close all you see is the shield and heads. this way more of the armor and clothing is visable, pluss i had alot of bases that worked this way. But 8 bases pr unit is alot so I defiantly need sabots for these guys. One cool thing with 3 and 3 on the base is I can mix up which ones are in the front.

 I gave them the norwegian coat of arms, that was used as kings flags in the 13th century.
I will give this to all my "kings troops" Bascily infantry and mounted sergants will have this. While the knights ect. will have their own stuff.

I plan on making a small forces under command of earl of Iceland, bascily the shiel one of the guys on the left has, the one that is yellow, white and blue.  Basicly the king calls on the earl for troops.

I think it's a good looking unit!

Knights who say neeeething.

 As they are of metal and so have no vocal cords.
First 3 of 12 knights on barded horses. Good figures, but hard to get my head around. I had alot of problem with paint flacking off. And again have problems gluing spears/lances on the figures, the shields work just fine. One blue knight with gold crosses and diamonds, one red with red black diamonds. and one black knight with black and blue bard and red hounds on the shield and surcoat. The mail is blackend barrel B, while the helment is verious colors, stating with blackend barrel B, then some gun metal and finaly silver highlights.

 I hope I can finish this unit, this year I have not done any cav units bigger then 6 riders and horses.

A big part of the hood on the horse had lost it's paint and I did not see it untill I got the photos in PS, so had to PS my self out of it.

Spearmen part 2

 So finished 6 more figures, half way there. This lot got les haraldry and more fancy color mix.

Theise are still fun to paint,  But still not a fan of the faces(don't have the skill to make them look good.














Like this picture, looks like more then just 12 figues in this angle.

 I added a former templar to the mix, been to the holyland and back to spread Norwegian rule to the rest of the world.

All the 12 so far.

Medievals and News

 Well New period/project. Medieval period, I'm aiming at Mid 13th Century. I'm making a unhistoric norwegian army, with campaign in focus. It will start as a 5000 strong army. It will go to war with Sweden and other countires, But first it will fight the Scots! Norway at this time was at it's biggest, Iceland was part of norway, so was all the islands in the north atlantic. And some of the Scotish ones. There was a war in the 1260s That more or less cast Norway out of the british isles. But what if this war became the main focus for a Norwegian king.  This is the what if. The king will land with his army. Theise are curteys miniatures and they are very good. Have not heard about them before, but they hold up very well. Most of my army will be these spearmen/foot serjants. I have orderd 1 in armor and one it with, but I think for the next time, all will have armor, the unarmord just seems to naked, and given the army is small it would be possible to get some armor for most of them, instead, I'll give uints either mail or gambion(this one is mixed) I'll also havbe crosbowmen, foot knights and mounted knights. Most armies of this period would have a large congiant of mount knights/serjants, but norway is not a cavalry country. So either I'll have 40% spearmen, 20% archers/crossbow 20% foot knights and 20% mounted. Or 30% spear and 30% mounted, not sure yet.

 I'm very happy with theise, good figures, good paint job overall, I liked the off color I got for the undied padded gambions, but also the red color for the colord gambion. the mail I really like, I used a darker metal color(called blackend barrle B) from foundry. I feel mail is often painted way to bright,

 The shields are simple for the most part. the one that is more fancy, is loosly based on the earl of Iceland during this period.

 Here you see well the colors of the gambion and mail, I like theise, Even the undied ones, look good and not do drab. Most of my gambions will be this shade, but now and then a red or blue one might show up.

 My only problem with the figures it: it's very hard to get the spears to sitt in the hands, even with super glue it takes sevral tries for each spear. The unit will be 24 strong.  I also got a unit of foot knights, unarmord spear, unarmord crossbow and mounted knights.

And NOW: on to the really big News, On the Sunday the 12th Exactly one year since our first date, I asked my girlfriend to marry me! She said yes, I had planed on asking her at chirstmas or during New years eve. But I could not hold it in any more, so it became a spur of the monent thing. So I didn't have a ring or anything. We are both very excited. The plan is a summer wedding, we don't know if it means summer 2015 or 2016 yet. All parents in all sides are happy and everything is great. This is a big thing for us both, but we are exicted. And looking forward to spending the rest of our lives togeather.

My Girlfriend comes with paint on, not need to assable and she is 1:1 scale at 1660mm

Something Uniqe?

 I think so, This is Norwegian Special Forces.
The figures are actualy Force Recon figures from Eureka, but today most NATO SOF look more or less the same, use the same gear ect. Granted Norway used C8, which has a uniqe barrle, and now we use HK 416, Which looks slightly diffrent, but close enough, the only thing that stand out as plane wrong is the M203, Norway have as far as I know never used them, didn't use them on C8 and don't use them on 416, so really this is just force recon with Norwegian cammo

 The figures are very nice, nice faces, lots of detail, Good poses. The cammo looks good, but the light green is just slightly off, I went through all my light greens and this was the closest I got.

 I'm gonna use these for Norwegian Tears of the Sun game, Basicly Norwegian Commdoes saving Norwegian citizens in some generic african country.

 I did the bases very green, becaue they are forest/jungle type stuff, I'm gonna buy the same figures again, and paint them in Norwegian desert cammo, to use them as norwegian special forces in Afganistan ect.

 This is infact the very first time I ever have painted Norwegians, granted I have painted vikings, but they could just as well be swedes or danes, I have never done any norwegians soldiers from the 17-19th centuary.