March of the Austrians (3)

Its been a month exactly since my last post; the blame for this can be fairly and squarely placed on the fine weather we have been having recently. It seems wrong to sit inside hunched over the painting desk when the sun is shining and there are barbecues to go to, so progress on the Austrians stalled slightly. Then the rain came back, I got back to work and have made lots of progress, in fact I have finished painting the little blighters! So.......

Step 7: Now all the white is done I can do all the fiddly bits. First up are the cuffs, collars and turnbacks. Turn backs are easy, cuffs are ok but those collars can be quite tricky. The trick as with all steps is to find the right angle of approach so you hit the area you want. These have been done in the regimental colours for Reuss-Greitz's regiment no 55 and Czatoryski's no 9 as below:


Step 8: Next up is the musket which I do with Mahogany Sand/Brown 846 and GW Mithril Silver.

Step 9: Then its the back pack with Flat Earth 983 and Neutral Grey 992 for the rolled up great coat which is just done by dotting the raised areas.


Step 10: The brass plate on the helmet is done with Gold 996. These details which can be quite tricky are made so much easier to paint thanks to the excellent way these guys are sculpted allowing you to just run your brush along the detail to pick it out.

Step 11: The crests on the helmet are done with Flat Yellow 953, followed by black to give a nice neat stripe. This is the final step for the basic infantry and for me makes them look really smart.

Step 12: Next up I do all the last little fiddly bits like the drums, Officer's mounts, blood and hair colours on the casualty figures which makes a nice change from the production line approach.

The horses are the only stage at which I do more than one layer. I've used GW Devlan Mud wash which seems to work well.

Well that's, that. Quite a hefty amount of painting and from now on I think I will only take on single regiments rather than brigades at a time. However now these are done I have all the regulars I need for a division, so I can enjoy doing more interesting bits and pieces like cavalry, artillery, skirmishers and commanders. As ever if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Happy painting,

T.

March of the Austrians (2)

Step 6: Just a quick update to let you know that I have painted all the white on the Austrians, as you can imagine that's a lot of white! Now this colour is done they are well on their way to completion. I won't give a step by step for this bit as its pretty obvious what I have done from the pictures. However I will suggest to anyone thinking of doing big batches of 6mm is to break the painting down into separate stages and bruch strokes, then just focus on getting these done one at a time as it can be quite daunting to paint 216 figures in one go. However the knowledge that once these are done I will have 12 battalions completed; enough for a reasonable game keeps me going.


Next I will do the cuffs, collars and turnbacks in the colours of Reuss-Greitz's regiment no 55 and Czatoryski's no 9. These are light blue and green. Next update soon (hopefully).

T.

March of the Austrians (1)

As I mentioned at the end of my last post my next painting endeavour would be to complete 2 regiments/6 battalions/216 figures worth of Austrians to bring them up to strength with the French. Well this post will be the first of a few following my progress and also be a simple guide to how I paint Adler Napoleonics. It will hopefully encourage me to keep going as there are a lot of painting hours going into this but once complete my Napoleonic project should be well on its way to two table worthy forces.

Step 1: I clean the casts; getting rid of flash, mould lines and wash them in soapy water to get rid of casting residue. I think this step is especially important with 6mm as any faults in the casting won't be so easily hidden by a paint job at this scale. Adler figures do tend to have a lot of flash and the occasional casting flaw but do tend to clean up quickly and well.

Step 2: I use PVA glue to attach the strips of 4 or singles if command/casualty figures to lolly sticks, then undercoat them black using several thin coats making sure I get all the nooks and crannies.

Step 3: I then paint the earth round the feet as this will help with the basing later. As you can see in the picture I have cheated a bit as I had 4 fully painted Austrians left over from my other 2 Regiments so all I have to do is change the colour of their facings and their done (every little helps).

Step 4: I always like to start with the flesh no matter what scale I am painting as it helps to bring the figure alive and encourages me to finish it (can't resist their little faces staring up at me pleading .....paint me..... paint me.... ahem! anyway...). With 6mm figures (especially when you are painting lots of them) it helps to break it down into stages with as few brush strokes as possible and go along the line of figures on your strip and repeat the strokes on each. First I do one cheek with a single 'blob'.

Then the other......


I then join the two cheeks up with a single stroke across the chin

A light dot on the nose, just enough to show its there and a short line underneath for the top lip.

I then 'tighten' in the cheeks around the nose and 'dot' the hands to finish

Step 5: Next comes the white trousers. I break this down into a number of strokes that will enable me to get to all the areas that show. This is probably one of the most boring bits to do, no where near as fun as all the straps and things : (.

This is as far as I am now, I will endeavour to get as many other steps done and post an update next weekend.

The Impetuous Project

On a separate note, I have had a couple of 500 point games of Impetus now and have to say it is currently my most favourite rule set being both fun, exciting, tactical and historical. As such I am now very keen to collect some 6mm armies for the Punic Wars and have been playing around with ideas on how I want to do my armies. I've now decided to go with the 15mm scale bases giving me a 80mm by 30/40mm base size for heavy infantry. This should give me units of 60 Roman Hastatii/Principe looking a bit like this:

The rule set and base sizes seem ideal for 6mm Mass armies. After ordering some Romans from Baccus I am very pleased with the sculpts. They aren't as detailed as Adler figures but this is actually a strength when I will be having 60 of them to a base. They paint up very will, quite quickly and should look amazing on mass.

That's it for now. Hopefully more updates from Joe or me soon.

T.

Pointless pontification

A long overdue update by me but I thought I should drop in and outline what I'm currently doing hobby-wise and pontificate pointlessly.
The less said about my painting the better I think. I haven't don't too much since my last update, although I have completed a few of my Blood Bowl team. I am having a bit of a crisis of confidence at the moment though because I'm finding it hard to judge when a figure is finished. A part of me will look at a figure and think about adding just one more highlight or just one more glaze, etc. This usually happens when I have spent too long around one project (this BB team has been on the go for about seven or eight months) and I find you lose a bit of perspective.
Despite this, I feel I'm nearing the end on a project that, in the hands of any normal painter, would've been finished months ago! Anyway, must go an browse the Baccus website for my next project...

J

Painting Report

Haven't posted for a while so I thought I would post some pics of the fruits of my labour from last weekend. First up is a British Riflemen for the Zulu wars from Empress Miniatures. This was a commission given to me by one of the guys at the club (Loughton Strike Force). He is doing Rorke's Drift 1:1 and will be sending this figure off with hundreds of his unpainted comrades to one of those painting companies in Sri Lanka to act as a painting guide.


I also based up another French regiment. However they still require some flock, I am waiting for the new small scale flock to arrive from Baccus so I can try this out rather than the longer stuff I normally use. This regiment brings me up to a total of 12 battalions of line, with only three battalions of Legere, a few brigade and divisional commanders, a couple of artillery batteries, skirmishers and a light cavalry regiment to go before my division is complete.


So whats on the painting mat now? Lots and lots of Austrians. I have set myself a bit of a challenge to get a whole brigade of six battalions done in one to catch up with the French. The handy thing with the Austrians however is that apart from command figures they are all identical allowing me to do some speed painting. I will be posting regular updates to keep myself motivated and also to act as step by step guide to how I do my Adlers as requested by David. Heres a pic of all 204 of them ready to go.


Also look out for a 500 point Impetus battle report in the near future.

T.

Impetus battle report

Today we played the first game of Impetus using miniatures. Tom managed to make a bit of a killing on eBay and so we decided to recreate the Battle of Bosworth of 1487 - the final battle of the War of the Roses - using the 10mm miniatures he had bought. The outcome, as you will see, was slightly different though. Although we used fairly accurate armies it was by no means a serious recreation and was primarily a chance to 'test-drive' Tom's new minis.

Using the Basic Impetus rules we arranged some scenery on the table (two areas of boggy (difficult) ground, a forest and a hill). I was playing the House of Lancaster and Tom the House of York.

The green dice represented the VBU, or for those unfamiliar with the rules, essentially the remaining strength of the unit, while the red dice, irrespective of their value, represented whether a unit was 'disordered' thereby making them less effective than those that are 'fresh'.

By the time the scenery had been placed the army of the House of York was mostly arrayed on the hill with the forest on my left flank and two large areas of difficult ground separating us. This seemed to play into my hands as I had far more firepower than Tom and so decided to sit back and watch as his force slogged it across the bogs. Initially at least.

Here's how I set up...

And here's Tom's deployment. The hill was made by placing some appropriately-shaped sheets of corkboard under the mat.

Early on in the battle I decided to throw my original plan out and start marching towards Tom's army using my faster-moving ranged troops as a screen. Tom's Nobles and Light Cavalry units were making a flanking maneuver around the forest on my left and so, instead of giving them something to charge at, I decided to try something riskier and cross the bogs...

First blood to the House of Lancaster! Tom's Men-at-Arms take a hit from my Crossbowmen.

My army start the long trek across the difficult ground.

Tom's sneaky Light Cavalry unit biding it's time.

The armies meet...

An aerial view.

Charge!

My charge is repelled...

In the centre my troops are quickly warn down.

Tom's Nobles charge into mine and proceed to teach them a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat...

This picture tells pretty much the whole story. Tom's battleline has suffered no significant damage with all his units still on the board.

At the far end of the battle line my Men-at Arms await the charge of the Tom's Nobles whilst mine are looking vulnerable to a charge from Tom's Light Cavalry, the very unit and maneuver I'd been trying to avoid.

And the view from the Light Cavalry unit that, although not making it into combat, played a role in the battle and would have charged in had the game not ended.

So that was our first miniature-based game of Basic Impetus. It was certainly fun and looked fantastic and made a welcome change from just playing with pieces of card.
The game was basically decided on my choice to cross the bogs instead of waiting for Tom's army to come to me. I won't be making that mistake again! I think I should've been more preoccupied with trying to get my Men-at-Arms and Nobles into better positions. The Nobles basically botched their one charge of the game and the Men-at-Arms spent most of the game getting in the Nobles' way and ended up taking some damage when they retreated through them. My missile troops performed pretty well despite destroying none of Tom's units, they served to 'soften them up' somewhat.

J

An Impetuous project

Well I had intended to make my first project for my new favourite ruleset Impetus a 6mm one and bought some War of the Roses figures from Baccus at Salute accordingly. However when I spotted a very nice and large WotR 10mm army with suitable basing I couldn't resist, so I bid and won them for a very reasonable price. They arrived yesterday and I am very pleased with them:




There are 63 bases not including the two camps and command bases giving me over 1200pts worth of units allowing me to field two large armies with options. So I will hopefully be posting some battle reports in the near future, starting with Basic Impetus games, then 300 point games of the full rules and then finally a big 500 point game.

T.