Welcome

Welcome to my wargaming blog,
I'm Dave and live in Morpeth, Northumberland in the UK.
This may or may not be a regular thing, we'll just have to see how it goes.

I am a painter/collector of figures first and a wargamer second. My thrill in this great hobby of ours is to place that final well researched & painted unit into the cabinet. The actual gaming with the figures is an important but secondary experience, we all like to win, but it isn't the be all and end all of it, being with good friends and having fun is.
Hope you will enjoy reading this blog as much as I will writing in it.
Just to remind the visitor to scroll down the various pages and click on 'older posts' to see more.
Dave.

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Austrian Chevaulegers part 2

Finally, finally finished them. Looking back I think I should have split the painting in two lots of twelve but I wanted to get them finished so I bashed on. Frankly by the end I was sick of the sight of the buggers but it has to be said that they've turned out well and I'm quite pleased.
The Eureka figures are well proportioned and have painted up easily, they're a cross between the more formal Front Rank look and the more animated Elite type so other than the cost (which I was prepared to pay to get the Austrian cavalry brigade compleated) I'm happy enough.
I decided that I didn't want to paint the red facings of the first two green coated Chevauleger regiments, the only other regiment with green coats at this time 1794-5 (other than the Latour regiment who wore cocked hats) was the 4th with blue facings.
So onto the pics

First off a general view of the 4th (Baron Vincent) regiment:


A closer shot:



Various individual pictures,







Officer and standard bearer (this was a trooper with the sword removed, hand drilled through and staff added. Eureka don't supply one as rightly they say that the flag was generally left at the depot for light cavalry regiments, but I wasn't having that!):




At least the Austrians now have a suitable cavalry brigade to oppose the four (rather crappy) French cavalry regiments on the other side of the table.
More 15mm ACW, then re-basing the 15mm FPW French.
Ta Ta for now,
Dave

Sunday 5 August 2012

Eureka 28mm Chevaulegers

I finally got started with the 28mm Eureka Austrian Chevaulegers for the Revolutionary wars collection, They arrived about a month ago but other things took priority. When finished the Austrians will have two regiments (one Hussar, one Chevauleger) to oppose the French four regiments (two Dragoons, one Hussar and one Chasseurs).
Firstly these figures are expensive, there's no getting away from that no matter that the manufacturers say that its the exchange rate, postage etc, boy do they cost (it doesn't help that I had to pay import tax but that's down to bad luck).
I got them as no one else does Austrian Chevaulegers for this period and the fact that they look pretty good on line and frankly from that perspective I wasn't disappointed, 24 figures, four different poses for horse and rider (a few arm bends give even more) plus one trumpeter, one officer and one wounded figure. One thing though there was no figure carrying the standard bearer, I couldn't see one in the Eureka catalogue so I presume they either don't do one or this type of Chevaulegers at this time didn't have one. I looked in books, on line etc and there's no mention that I can find pointing out a lack of standard bearer but I stand to be corrected. As no regiment that I put on the table goes into a fight without a flag I soon decided to lop the sword off one of the riders and and stick a flag staff in his mit!
There was very little flash so they cleaned up fine. The castings themselves look good, everything sculpted well and correctly proportioned. I like Elite/Old Glory type figures with plenty of movement and these are about halfway between those and (at the other extreme) Front Rank. The faces are a bit bland, but not the worst I've seen, so all in all a pretty decent set of figures which should paint up well.
So on with the pics:

All 24 figures trimmed up, undercoated and on their stands:


A couple of close ups:



Some pictures with the horses done:




For the horses a simple base coat then a wash of Devlin Mud or black.
24 figures take a while to paint so I'll put the next post on when their done.
Dave.

Friday 3 August 2012

Italy 1795

A few pictures of a club game set in Piedmot pre Napoleon in 1795 based round the time of the battle of Loano.
The French had pretty much double the number of squadrons/battalions compared to the Austrians but they were of very dubious quality. French commanded by Scotty (a newcomer to the rules) had the infantry while Mick took the French cavalry, on the Austrian side Tom had their infantry and Carl the single Hussar rgt.
The Austrian center awaiting the French attack:






With their Grenzers occupying the town on the Austrian left:





The Kaiser Franz Hussars on their right:





A French Demi Brigade ready to advance with a skirmish screen to the front:





The French cavalry, Chasseurs and Hussars:





After numerous charges the French cavalry were chased from the field by their Austrian opponents:





Using General de Brigade I classed the Austrian cavalry as veteran with superior mounts while the French were conscript, inferior mounts and it told in the end!

The right hand French Demi Brigade attacked the town but were repulsed by the Grenzers with sterling support from a couple of battalion guns (Tom unsurprisingly threw a double six with the gun model, while Scotty had the usual crappy dice of a visitor to the club):





The French center steamed through the vineyard but again were thrown back by disciplined Austrian volley fire:




An Austrian victory. We concluded that to succeed the French must weaken the Austrian battalions with skirmish/Grand Band fire and then assault the line with their reserves in column.
Good game, good game.
Dave.