Somewhere in Belgium 1815

 Back in May I started, albeit on a whim, painting Napoleonic forces for the 1815 Hundred Days campaign. Five months later I finally felt that I had enough done to throw on the table.

I was able to field three Brigades comprising eleven units a side for a small solo game of General d'Armee.

The French forces were 6 battalions of line, 1 regiment of Hussars, one regiment of Chevaux Legere lanciers, two regiments of Chasseurs a Cheval and a battery of guns.

Opposing them were an Anglo-allied force of four battalions of British foot, two battalions of KGL foot, a battalion of KGL rifles, a battalion of Hanoverian Landwehr, two regiments of Light Dragoons and a battery of guns.

The report follows below in annotated images.

Both sides suffered very badly from poor ADC rolls (both sides had at least two turns each with no ADCs) and brigades going Hesitant at the most inopportune times even when Brigade ADC's were assigned!

I'm calling a winning draw to the Allies, both forces were badly beaten up but as the French had just about run out of infantry and their artillery was very close to dispersal.

It was a fun game, and the rules work well for solo play, but I think that both sides need more units. The French certainly need more infantry and the Anglo-allies more cavalry for a start.

19e Companie 6e d'Artillerie a Pied (2)

 As I'm planning to use General D'Armee for my "Big Battle" games I needed to increase the size of my artillery batteries as in these rules each model gun represents a section. Last month I added a third gun to my British battery to bring it up to strength, and this week I added a couple more guns to the French artillery I painted back in July.

I purchased these from Perry Miniatures, the first gun is from the Foot Artillery firing 6 pounder pack

The uniform blue is VMC Dark Prussian Blue, washed with AP Strong Tone then the basecoat is re-applied and then a couple of highlights adding successively more VMC Royal Blue to the mix.

Once dried a wash of AP Blue Tone is applied to bring out the detail.

The second gun is from the Line Foot Artillery Firing 5.5in. Howitzer pack and brings the battery up to full complement.

The gun carriages are painted with a base-coat VMC Russian Uniform WWII and then a wash of AP Strong Tone is applied. Once dried the basecoat is re-applied and highlighted a couple of times adding more VMC Iraqi Sand to the mix.

The final shot is these two guns deployed with the two from the previous post.

I'm happy that I now have enough stuff painted to have my first game of General D'Armee so plan to set up a game and play it out solo over the long Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.

I do note that the Perry Miniatures website has been revamped, a lot of earlier articles now have broken links that I likely should fix.

Painting Kilts quickly & easily

I recently added a unit of Gordon Highlanders to my Anglo-allied forces for the Hundred Days Campaign and wanted a quick and easy way of doing the kilts.

The kilt is blocked in with VMC Prussian Blue, given a wash of AP Strong Tone and the VMC Prussian Blue reapplied.

Next a grid of VMC Luftwaffe Green is painted on.

The square where the Luftwaffe Green lines cross is painted VMC Flat Green

The kilt is then washed in AP Green Tone

The Flat Green is then picked out again

Finally the green lines have a fine line of VMC Gold Brown overlaid on them.  

The finished figure ready for basing.

This blog article really is here as an aide memoir for when I try to remember how I did it again in years to come.

Landwehr Battalion Verden

Having already painted a good sized contingent of British and Kings German Legion troops it was time to start on some Hanoverians for the Hundred Days campaign. 

I picked up a box each of Warlord Games Waterloo British line and Late Hanoverian Infantry so that I could mix them into units. As the Hanoverian Landwehr were typically in Stovepipe shakos I really should have used the Peninsular British infantry instead of the Waterloo ones, but ho hum!

Rather than being hand sculps, these are digital sculpts and although technically very good the limitation of digital sculps back when these were released really shows. 

Some of the detail can best be described as lumpen and I think three or four battalions will be about the limit of my endurance for painting them.

Each box contains four frames of five figures, as the Hanoverian Landwehr did not have flank companies you should discard the figure with swallows nests, hence my 20 man battalions rather than the 24 man unit intended with the box content.

The standards are from the excellent GMB Designs range, this unit having a Kings colour and the white Regimental.

Although, I should not have painted any figures from the flank company I wanted to add one KGL veteran to the mix so this seasoned campaigner with the beard filled out the unit. 

The set comes with a blister with four command figures and this chap in the greatcoat turns out rather nicely.

I've another unit of these underway and plan to pick up another box of Hanoverians and a box of the aforementioned Peninsular infantry to complete the brigade.

92nd Regiment of Foot (Gordon Highlanders)

It's been almost two weeks since the last update, but I've been plodding my way through a rather large unit of Highlanders for my Anglo-allied force for the Hundred Days campaign.

 This unit represents the 92nd Regiment of Foot, the Gordon Highlanders, that were part of Pack's 9th Brigade of Picton's 5th Division during the campaign.

It was madness really to decide to do a large unit in kilts after all my previous Anglo-allied units were much smaller and it's one of the reasons for the delay between posts!

The mounted Colonel is from the Perry Miniatures British Colonels pack, while the Highland infantry themselves are from their Highland command charging, Highlanders charging, centre companies and Highlanders charging, flank companies packs

The standard is from the Victrix flag sheet, but is the wrong one for this unit, being instead that of the 91st Foot, I'll likely change it at some point in the future, but for now at least it's the right colour.

Painting the kilts was actually rather easier than I thought it would be, and, I'll put together a blog article with the steps to do this. I think the detail on the stockings and bonnet is probably more of a fuss than teh kilts.

I also added a couple of bases of skirmishers to the unit to add to the brigade screen, a pair of them are from the Highlanders charging, flank companies pack but the other two are lovely Paul Hicks sculpts.

Chum Drew donated me a pair of "Rude Highlanders" from Black Hussar/Westfalia Miniatures

This pair of cheeky laddies are doing sterling work keeping the French skirmishers at bay.

Now it's back to painting more mundane infantry with a Hanoverian Landwehr battalion on deck at the moment.

Anglo-allied Skirmishers

 A small update with a few skirmishers and a leader for the Anglo-allied forces for the Hundred Days campaign.

All the figures are from the Perry Miniatures Plastic Napoleonic British Line Infantry box set 

The officer will be a leader for our Sharp Practice games and be useful as a marker in our "big battle games"

Another pair of flank company skirmishers for the Kings German Legion, to join those I painted a few weeks ago.

Finally a couple of bases of riflemen from the 95th join the skirmish screen.

These few made a nice change from painting cavalry, but the kilties on deck at the moment are tedious!