20mm Scots Greys

It's about 5 years since I was looking at the 20mm Napoleonic ranges, so in my current tidying up mood it seemed reasonable to finish painting these Scots Greys.

The colours aren't quite right because I followed the picture in Funken rather than look up several sources... also, I can't paint greys very well... Also, think you can buy a copy of Funken cheaper than £109.

Still had the 25mm 7YW Hussars lying around so thought it would be nice to do a size comparison. As I have said in the past, the '20mm' ranges are really 25mm and I only call them 20mm to distinguish them from the later, much larger, 25mm ranges. Perhaps I should really call the larger figures 28mm?

20mm British Napoleonic army Review

Another army that is a battalion light... note I don't have the 'official' codes for some of these - they don't appear in any of my catalogues - I simply found the originals lying around mixed in with other figures and masters!

Life Guards

BN3 Grenadiers marching

British artillery with a Rose gun.

BN8 Line infantry marching with BN4 officer

Dragoons

Devils in skirts

I've finished this unit so it can be fielded in two different formats. Here it is basically ordered as three separate units - perhaps three companies in a battalion, or three battalions in a regiment, or three regiments in a brigade! The officer in the kilt then acts as the senior officer.

And here the extra command groups have gone to give a 24 figure unit with one command group.

So I have a total of four officers and three pipers.

As for the other ranks... those tartans and stockings are enough to make me never do a Scottish unit again! The 42mm Scots are much easier!

 So that leaves me with one lancer squadron to finish this 'army'. I doubt that I will do a version of this army based on elements - I'll leave that to 20mm.

25mm Napoleonic Horse Guards

When the Queen died I was actually at Centre Parcs on a week's holiday. Getting home, I decided to see what I could put together as a reasonable parade or two for the funeral. A squadron of Guard cavalry in dress uniform seemed like a good idea - except, didn't have any figures. So I settled for a squadron of Napoleonic Horse Guards.

Just didn't realise how long they would take, especially considering the other units I needed to do. So they didn't get finished in time.

A pity really. The poses really lend themselves to parades!

Didn't realise until it was too late that I was painting an extra officer figure... but it still looks OK.

I'm the first to accept some of the colours are liable to be wrong, especially on the horse furniture, but overall the figures have turned out OK. Unless I do more figures as 'They'll do' stand ins for late Colonial cavalry this will probably be the only 25mm Garrison Napoleonic cavalry unit I do!

British Interwar infantry

 Continuing the Interwar/Pulp Army based theme, more Christmas figures just completed.

Figures are by Early War Miniatures. The force consists of 2 10 man sections with Lewis gun, 1 10 man infantry section with Bren gun, and 2 officers. Basic war games standard paint job, the force is sufficient for most of my purposes (with heavier support - machine guns, etc) - certainly for pulp actions - though may be increased for more normal war actions - such as an imaginary war with Japan.

Vickers Medium MkII

 As part of my latest Frontline order I included 3 Vickers Medium Mk11s. These are now part of my not-really Interwar Lovecraftian style army - most of the 20mm buildings I'm collected are from Germany, so the obvious thing is to 'base' things in an Interwar Germany partially occupied by the Alllied Powers.

I've followed my previous tactic of giving them fictitious markings that are nominally for a Guards Armoured Division.

The idea being that all the pictures of these things I can find seem to have no markings at all which is pretty boring.

This is an interesting picture. A Vickers Medium next to an Independent of the same Division. The impression you get is that these tanks are not to the same scale, that in fact the Idependent should be a lot bigger. It's just not tall enough. Until you look up the specification and find that, in reality, the Independent is a couple of inches lower that the Vickers!

20mm Napoleonic British Dragoons

Loosely based on the 1st King's Dragoon Guards...

Loosely... this unit, painting isn't right...

For example, saddlecloth on back rider...

Etc... helmets... still, look OK at a distance and fine for wargames purposes!

42mm British army Review.

Having produced a lot more on this project than I ever expected, it does seem to be a good time to do a Review of the currently biggest army...

In order to get everything in I had to push the army further and further back on the table!

28mm buildings don't look too out of place size wise. Well, the bigger ones anyway!

Looking down the army from the right flank. Got more infantry than I'll ever use in one battle, could do with some field guns... this picture is a slightly different setup to the first two - I hadn't added the lancers at this point and the guns are separated.

If I've got any sense I'll leave the British for now, get the Russians sorted and perhaps a few more French. And Prussians.

Disclaimer:
I don't have any sense.

More 42mm Zinnfiguren homecast

This time painted up as British infantry and Dragoons.

A dozen infantry and five cavalry.

I'm trying to cut down as much as possible on detail, but increasing the command group to officer, standard bearer and bugler eliminates any time gains.

Now, the cavalry. Should have been a 4 man squadron one of whom was an officer. Then another officer to act as a general staff or possibly infantry officer. Then I only painted 1 officer... Horses I'm simplifying by not painting on eyes, blazes or stockings. The casting itself is simpler in the sense non of the figures have carbines...

The officer is from one of the artillery moulds. Need to overpaint the red on his bincoculars! Bugler, all-action pose and has a backpack.

So although all these figures are meant to be 1901 Germans they fit really well into the 1897 British army.

The armies as they stand.

Well, except for the Bavarian gun. Suppose I could have put it in with the French.

I've set them up more to show possible setups - for example, how a battalion square works with this arrangement.

One thing that is obvious from these pictures - the French need more battalions.

Starting British Napoleonics

Finished the second gun and started on the first infantry battalion.

I've settled on a four man crew, putting the officer in one crew and the 'spare' man in the other.

Although going with the DBX element idea I've put the guns on 60mm bases rather than the 80mm bases artillery in DBX use.

I've also started the first infantry battalion. No officer or crew, so I'm using the artillery officer and have also 'converted' the artilleryman with ramrod by the simple expedient of removing the ramrod, drilling a hole in the hand, and adding a brass spear to act as a flagstaff. Still not sure how I'll set them up - 24 man battalion including officer/standard bearer, or 24 man battalion with an external command group for show only?

1897 The Battle of the Bridge

Battle fought, won and lost. Quite a quick and bloody affair!

Move 1 saw a general advance by the Alliance forces as the artillery shot at each other to no effect.

The French advancing up the road take heavy casualties

While Move 2 saw the British artillery decimate the Russian battery.

The French may be taking casualties but so are the Highlanders. British cavalry rush to the flanks to sort out threats there.

Only to find it was a wasted journey - the French cavalry are being neutralised quite effectively.

End of Move 2 one French line regiment has been reduced to a single figure and routing whilst a Zouave Regiment is also retreating.

The Alliance forces have reached the river and can now find some cover from the British firepower.

The result being being that the British take heavy casualties and two Regiments decide to retreat.

On the other hand, the French on the bridge halt while their supports also start walking back to their start point!

And... the Highlanders and Irish Free Brigade have had enough, leaving the Lowlanders and two cavalry squadrons holding that flank... as the French cavalry are also distinctly unhappy.

So at the end of Move 3 the French were basically all retreating except for the ones at the bridge. This bemused the Russians who could see the British centre in retreat - well, apart from the Russian artillerymen who were basically dead.

Casualties. French 22 dead, Russians 9 (mostly artillery crew), Free Irish Brigade 3, total 34. Anglo-Scots 19. If you assume that attackers need a 3:1 superiority, the Franco-Russians did well with their roughly 2:1 superiority - they really just needed a couple more regiments in reserve and I think they would have won! However, the bridge was still in British hands so it's a British victory.

Thoughts on the game. Shooting is bloody but seems to give reasonable results. Artillery and morale could do with a few tweaks. Movement fine. Still need to worry about melees - need to have a few melees!  So over all things seem to be working out OK.

25mm Napoleonic British

At the moment I'm getting bogged down painting-wise with the 'quick Chinese soldiers'! This can only be described as ridiculous, stupid or both...

Anyway, back to the old days and Garrison catalogues.

Garrison produced about 5 variations of Napoleonic figures - which also comes across as ridiculous. However, these are photos from quite a while ago of various later issue British figures, including some of the Garrison painted figures that came with the company....

I did think about adding IDs for these but decided that it was making my brain hurt...