The latest HäT testshots were of pre- and post 1812 (Bardin regulations) French line infantry. The pre-1812 soldiers have already been showcased here so now their post-1812 comrades are up. For these I wanted to do something different. As it happens I get the Images des Soldats newsletter and one of the featured uniformplates depicted Kingdom of Holland line infantry regiments. As I also have a Dutch book on these troops, I decided to go with a regiment de ligne from the Kingdom of Holland. The choice of particular regiment fell on the 7th because for this regiment I had more reference with both a regular soldier and pioneer in colour. It appears to have become a bit of a tradition for me to forget about the mounted officer, I paint the unit and the horse, but forget the officer himself. The unit shown here is made up out of figures from 3 different sets (pre 1812 command, post 1812 infantry and flank companies in greatcoat).
As promised, here are some HaT testshots. For those of you who do not know what this means: testshots are sprues of pre-production figures they are made by the factory to show the manufacturers if the moulds turned out as they wanted or not. There are several of these sprues made available to a select few people and I am lucky to get some from time to time.
The sprues currently pre-released are of pre 1812 French Infantry marching and command sets as well as a post 1812 marching set. I have obtained two sprues worth of each and so have nearly enough figures to create two wargames units between them. At this moment I have painted the pre 1812 marching figures and part of one command sprue.
Here are the pre 1812 marching figures:
Some of the command figures (excluding the mounted officer):
I have added 4 white metal pre 1812 figures sent to me by Hagen miniatures to the unit to round them out.
The Hagen figures:
The entire unit:
The set contains separate head options for early Napoleonic light infantry tarleton helmets, shako's and bicornes. I chose to depict the soldiers as they come in the box.
Yesterday the final duo of regular posts for the AHPC have gone online. I decided to go out with a bang and post two point-bombs in order to gain my 1500 points target. One could use the links below to see these.
Equally happy with finishing all of these mini's, painted over a longer stretch of time, I can now conclude the Challenge. I am contemplating whether I would like to enter the last bonus round theme or not since the deadline is due tomorrow already... perhaps I will.
A more complete round-up of this year's Challenge will follow later, since I am pretty much convinced that Curt will ask us to write up a "all miniatures painted during the Challenge post" after the final conclusion of the event itself.
In the meantime, the latest batch of miniatures for my Dark Ages Dux Britanniarum project arrived from the Beast yesterday so I am over my head in Anglo-Saxons, Norsemen and Carolingians more on those later as well!
After reading a period diary, written by a Dutch Red Lancer Captain, I thought it time to include this illustrious regiment for the Garde Imperiale.
The figures, of course are Zvezda's Polish lancers of the Guard, but they can double as the Dutch Red Lancers anyway. This is the 3rd regiment I'm depicting using these figures and they are a delight to paint.
Here's a post to show that I will make excursions into other more obscure subjects from time to time but will always return to my faithful historics and more specifically Napoleonics.
Before I started to use Renedra plastic bases and when just starting out with Black Powder as main rule set, I didn't have a clear image of what to base my artillery units on. This prompted me to put some of Zvezda's very nice French Artillery teams together on one large bases.
Problem with this is that it takes up quite a lot of space on the table, the mini's are inaccessible during painting and you can not manoeuvre them freely while doing battle. That said the vignette looks brilliant and will be used in battle anyway!
To show that I am not neglecting my beloved Napoleonics, here's a post on some white metal Aides for the French General Staff. The Aide painted in blue is a regular ADC, the green uniformed rider is a staff officer. The horses are plastic Italeri Napoleon's Staff figures.
Not a big unit or even something very special but a nice little addition to my French forces. Next up will be a unit of Bavarian light infantry which I painted but have not flocked yet.
For quite some time a model in white metal of Murat has been lying in my "unpainted lead pile". It was when browsing through Hourtoulle's brilliant Napoleonic Uniforms book that I came upon a very nice plate of Murat charging with the cavalry at Eylau.
Even though his uniform is different then the one the figure is wearing, I chose to try and depict this scene and went on the look for two ADC figures to match.
I found these in the form of the ADC figure from the Zvezda French HQ set and a regular chasseur of the Garde from the Revell set.
So without further ado here are some pictures:
Cheers Sander
Listening to: "The Hobbit" an Audiobook read by Ian Holmes
No true Napoleonic enthusiast will escape modelling at least one unit of Napoleon's Guard Grenadiers. Since I have heaps of the old Revell Grenadiers lying around and a box of Zvezda's excellent set I decided it was time to put paint to brush and get one regiment at least finished. In the works are some Light troops of the Guard as well but let's have a look at these first:
The Command figures are converted HäT light infantry figures.
Huzzah the Holidays have arrived, 2 weeks off from work. Well I need to correct some tests, but other than that I'm free as a bird. So Sunday evening I have managed to finish my regiment of Napoleonic French Dragoons. Since they are Italeri figures, and the paint doesn't adhere to their plastic as well as to HäT's or Ceasar's, I wanted to give them a spray-coat of matt varnish. My spray-can was empty so I took the lad along and went to the local GW retailer. Funnily enough this shares it's premisses with a flower-shop and is run by two twin-sisters which I have come to know fairly well over the years. While the rants against GW policy has been going on for years the ladies have always been pretty positive and have had a very large offering of the assortment for sale.So when I went on the look for the varnish cans, one of them appeared at my shoulder and said: "take anything you want it all has 50% off". A bit flabbergasted I asked why the huge sale. "Oh we've had enough of GW's antics, we're closing the GW section of the shop down." And voila another one bites the dust!
This shop, located in the heart of a thriving neighbourhood organising and participating in diverse conventions and tournaments is finally forced to close down. They are thinking of still offering a table or two for youngsters to come and play on but all good things must come to an end I guess...
Si due to the sale, no varnish in the house alas, I went away with December's WD (got it for €4,- but that's still too steep a price imho) and some paints, and a very nasty gut feeling!
Still tonight is Christmas Eve and while the rain is positively hammering the windows and I'm a bit queasily anticipating tonight's over-copious diner, I thought, let's put up a post with some nice pictures of the newest regiment of dragoons. They depict the 13th regiment, which was faced yellow if I'm not mistaken. Since they still have not been varnished no flock has been added yet but otherwise they're all ready to go.
Many people I know, think I'm a big fan of Napoleon since I'm interested in the Napoleonic Wars: well I am NOT! I am a staunch Wellingtonian. That said I can not escape making a command stand for all of my Napoleonic Armies in time. Therefore I also need a stand depicting Napoleon and his staff, final stimulation to do just that was the release of the great Zvezda set of the French general staff. The set itself doesn't include a figure of Napoleon but I had an Italeri spare figure lying around. Here are the pictures I took from the completed stand.
Front view:
Side views:
back view:
The uniform the Emperor wears here is not that spectacular since it's mostly covered by his greatcoat, but it's the Grenadier's of the Guard Colonel's coat I tried to depict.
Some close ups:
My camera died on me and ever since I have been using my wife's camera. Somehow all the pics I take with it end up over exposed, can't seem to find the right settings.
Well I am overjoyed this monstrous little project is finished and in the showcase, on to the next one!
