KGL with and without the visor

 

As I alluded in the last post on the blog I have purchased myself a LumiVisor for painting and this stand this week is a good illustration of the different results you can get.

The figure on the front left (ramming his musket) was painted a few weeks ago, using just my magnifier light, whilst the rest of the figures on the stand were painted this week. I can certainly see a difference in the brush control, especially on the face and on the piping.

The model I picked up off Amazon was a Carson LV10 and came in at under $30.00 

These were painted using just my standard distance prescription (+2.5) and the 2X magnification. I found if I use my "reading" prescription (+4.25) that the focal length is too short to use and I'm painting practically at the end of my nose.

You do look a bit of a tit wearing it though :)

I also need to work on my "Not crashing it into my daylight lamp" skills.

These four figures are helping me clear the decks for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge that starts in just over a week - cannot wait!

The 2nd Somersetshires thicken the skirmish line

I'm clearing the decks in preparation for The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and I had a few built and primed British infantry set aside.

The General d'Armee rules allow for a thickening of the Brigade skirmish screen so I thought that these would be useful to represent men from the centre companies sent out to add to the skirmish line.

As I've already painted a unit representing the 2nd Battalion, 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot this would give me an opportunity to take a break from all those white belts and straps and do some in buff again. 

I also added a sergeant who can also be used as a leader in our Sharp Practice game if this log see service as a unit of Skirmishers.

All the figures are plastics from the Perry Miniatures Plastic Napoleonic British Line Infantry box set and are a nice change from the Warlord plastics.

I've decided to give a Carson Visor a try, especially when doing the highlights and fine detail, and although it's a little uncomfortable to wear I am finding it really does improve my results.

It's also really useful for cleaning up and assembling figures, the mold lines and flash I missed before are much easier to see. 

Next unit on deck is a battalion of French line and a Pierre Ducos on foot and I think once they are done we'll be into the Challenge.

Pierre Ducos

 

Ok, so Ducos was dead by the time of the events of 1815 in Belguim, executed by a firing squad after attempting to steal the Emperors gold, but, Victoria bought me this lovely model from Brigade Games.

I've painted him in the bottle green coat that is warn by the actor Féodor Atkine in the TV series.

No doubt we shall be able to call him a "Bastud" in a broad Yorkshire accent during our games.

He'll be a good Exploring Officer for our Sharpe Practice games or an ADC for our General d'Armee games.

Light Dragoon reinforcements

 

A few weeks ago I painted some British Light Dragoons, but I only had sixteen figures available, leaving me with two small units of eight, well outnumbered by the four twelve strong French units in the last game.

I've purchased another box of the Perry Miniatures British Light Dragoons 1808-15 that not only allows me to add a third unit, but also to bring the current two units more up to strength.

The first unit that I've added two new figures to is the 16th (The Queen's Own) Regiment of Light Dragoons that was the first unit I painted, bringing them up to five bases so now constitute a standard sized unit.

I've learned my lesson of the previous builds and these chaps all have their carbines attached in the right place.

The 11th Light Dragoons that I painted most recently are also bought up to five bases strong.

The remaining ten figures in the box will be painted over the next few weeks as the 12th (Prince of Wales's) Light Dragoons and that will complete the 4th British Cavalry Brigade. 

As I add more units the couple of spare figures in each of the box sets will allow me to make all units six bases strong eventually. 

Landwehr Battalion Lüneburg

 If last weeks game proved anything it was that I needed more Anglo-allied cavalry and more French infantry, so, of course to not remedy that situation the next unit from the painting table is a battalion of Hanoverian Landwehr! 

To be fair, I had already started blocking in the base-coats on these before the game so did not want to immediately change tack and remedy the issue.

Like the previous battalion of Hanoverian Landwehr, this unit was made by mixing a box each of  Warlord Games Waterloo British line and Late Hanoverian Infantry, actually the left over figures from the last unit.

As mentioned on the previous post, you will only be able to use 20 of the 24 figures as the Hanoverian Landwehr had no flank companies.

Three of the four command figures in this box are from the British Infantry set and include this rather lovely officer enthusiastically waving his shako. 

Despite the soft nature of the detail of these plastics I am quite warming to them. 

The pair of standards are from GMB Designs, although I note that in the second shot I have got some of the tacky glue on the Regimental, I'll try and gently scrape that off later.

I quite like the red that I am getting on the soldiers coats of this force, the base-coat is a 50:50 mix of VMC Black Red & VMC Flat Red, once dried washed with AP Strong Tone.

Once the Strong Tone has dried the base-coat is re-applied and then a couple more highlights done adding more VMC Flat Red to each layer. 

Once the paint is dry the detail is picked out using AP Red Tone. 

The officers coats are done in a similar manner, but but kept lighter with a basecoat of just VMC Flat Red with none of the darker colours added, then a glaze of the VMC Flat Red is added after the AP Red Tone.

As noted I'm warming to these figures so have decided to pull the trigger on a couple more boxes so that I can complete the brigade.

For the meantime though I'm back to remedying some of the deficiencies in the collection and on deck at the moment are some British Light Dragoons to bring both current units up to strength and to add a third unit to that brigade.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is starting on the 21st so I'm also working on prepping and priming my initial entries for when that gets started.

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.