JWI Green Royal Guard

You can inspect the previous paint job here. This was done in enamels, while not particularly bad I felt the need to improve as these figures deserve the effort.

 Have painted all 19 of them but here are only half a dozen representing the whole lot.

Instead of Umber shade I used a Vallejo black wash this time, have to work on the dilution (a lot more thinned version was applied to the Samurai I'm currently painting). 

JWI Besberg Uhlans

18x Zvezda figs, originally to be Napoleonic Polish uhlans. The previous painting was with enamels and one of the first when I applied washes effectively (made some vain attempts before with oils). 

The figures are neat and paint up rather well. The same can be told about horses. I painted all a brown-ish color (still not entirely clear on the terminology of horse colours).

JWI Blue Clans line infantry (Revell Nap. Prussian infantry)

New things around, first of all a new, entirely black backdrop. Some movement trays too - more is to come. These trays are for my homebrew ruleset A Risk to Take and can hold a d6 and up to 8 troopers.

There are 40-some figures in the box, I did not paint the mounted commander. Instead of a quickshade I used the Vallejo Sepia wash. Quick and dirty but it seems to be working. The figures were really bad to work with (something PSR doesn't consider very often): the plastic did not take the undercoat well, bent and there were a lot of flash and mould lines. This is the situation with many old moulds. Still the pack of soldiers cost a half of a Zvezda box (because they are apparently worth as much as large their container is).

Finished green Guard Grenadier regiment

These 24 figs were finished on Sunday. This means the whole lot of Zvezda's Napoleonic Russian Grenadiers set is painted and based. 

A little bit darker than the previous one, or a little bit more war-torn.

Operation Killing Ground

I wanted to test my Guard Grenadiers in the bloodiest combat. Freshly painted units brought victory to the Jackewlinese in the Battle of Leqte Manor, now let us see if the Guard would stand the might of Dorrosean.

Prequel for the battle so the thumbnail on your blogs will be more interesting:

Sketched map of the battlefield:

Finished Green Guard Grenadiers

18 figs of the 42 completed and based. These were the last ones to finish before I managed to flick up my acrylic varnish. Don't know when it will come to the rest as I'm not really in the mood for painting more. 

Light infantry on the flanks as they should be. I'll combine two more sets later, one line infantry (white breeches, no plumes) and one light infantry (green shako ornaments, green breeches). The Zvezda figs are always great and this box is one of their most excellent work.

Here's a welcome to Headologist from 'Do You Have A Flag?', thanks for dropping by!

The battle of Leqte Manor

Finally figured how to represent bigger units on a smaller table. I halfed my standard battalions (from 12 to 6), this means they shoot one volley per turn (2 if they are seasoned and have the chance for secondary counter-fire). This way a 3-battalion regiment consists of 18 figs plus command, and a cavalry squadron is 5/6 figs as well. Bigger place for maneuvers and this way the units shall cooperate more.
The terrain and goals of the game were determined using the Strategy Game rules. I've added a few dice to the 'enemy' e.g. the Dorroseani to decide its battlefield role.

Rolled 1d6 for general directives - resulted in 4, 'Passive agressive, slowly pushing forward'

Then 1d4 on placing units in width and 1d10 in depth. Numbers above on the map represent width, depth is in centimetres.

(Click on 'Read more' for the rest of the report with pics)

More guys in red

These fellas from the Italeri set fare both as red clansmen in my JCW/JWI setting or mostly accurate Napoleonic era Highlanders. First half of the box here. I have an almost complete and painted set of Airfix Highlanders too which should get some rebasing and maybe shading soon (no group shot of them along with these ones). The one set I really miss is the newer Italeri one, PSR link here. These are very nice figs but I can't find them anywhere.

Oh my I actually left the bagpiper out. Hope morale won't fall.

These make up three units (companies or battalions, depending on what scale I'm playing) of 12 men, NCOs plus reserve. Sadly no officer in this set.

Finished - Jackewline yellow dragoons + 10k hits!

Fitting both for the earlier civil war and war of independence era. The Jackewlinese name 'Vraqsul' originates from 'vraquyr / vrakech', dragon. With these lot from Zvezda my yellow clan army is almost complete (it lacks volunteers, skirmishers, a freshly raised regiment in white coats and a cuirassier regiment) and already fields a considerable amount of force (an artillery battery, a foot, a dragoon and a heavy dragoon regiment).

The box contains 18 figs and horses. 3 are dismounted. These are very good skirmishers and can 'mount' in a game if necessary. The other 15 are mostly depicted with swords drawn.

Command and first rank.

And yeah, ten thousand hits... Very nice. Thank you all. I found no way to actually celebrate this, so my advice is for you to keep on reading and I will keep on posting.

Finished Fricklander FNG + 50 followers!

The Fricklander FNG regiment (or battalion as you wish) is finished; all forty figures are based and shaded. Changed the background to an all-white one.

This was actually the last sunny day here. Next day it started raining, so an opportunity well used. They look good from this angle don't they.

Aaaaand the big news (of course I could see it coming), 50 followers! The 50th being Erwin from Soldados Viejos, thank you very much!

Finished - Fricklander Dragoons

These are, again, from the Italeri Scot Greys re-issued set finished quite a long time after I bought it. 18 horsemen with good poses, but they had some trouble with the acrylic varnish I bought.

The varnish can't be mixed - it's a matte one which means it's white when it is applied and when adding black to it the two become blue together? I mean, what? So these ones had a black wash, then a layer of plain varnish which then didn't really dry the way I wanted, some repairs again and it would do then...

WIP - Fricklander Dragoner (Almost there!)

Almost at the end of the painting stack - something that hasn't occured in a year since I started this business. These 18 fellas are of the Fricklander expeditionary forces sent to aid the Jackewlinese cause. - Set is Italeri Scot Greys (reissued).

They have the standard Fricklander colors (grey breeches, blue jackets, black straps and belts, red ornaments).

Thin red line

Italeri Napoleonic Highlander infantry - one of the oldest Italeri plastic sets re-done with the same mould (which means bucketloads of flash and mould marks and lines). The 25 Highlanders based and ready for action, which they saw later on Sunday and performed well but had been decimated.

Went with the lighter shade on the bases; now these might be not historically accurate, but the figs at least are lovely and quite easy to paint. Italeri's done a better set of Scots already but I can't find it anywhere.

Finished units - Dorroseani Chasseurs

Second part of the Italeri Austrian infantry set, these (originally line infantry) figs are painted for Dorroseani light infantry.

Two and a half battalions when organized. I'll add the ones from the Austrian&Russian staff set so they'll make a complete three.

Welcome to Lee Hadley from BigLee's Miniature Adventures!

(I'm not adding this to any post, but when a blog entry contains more than 3 pics I include a 'Read more' link  [it's easier to browse on the home page this way], so please click and enjoy the pics! Also, open the slideshow with clicking on one of the photos!)

Battle day

There was a bit of a scenario here, a morning attack by the Jackewlinese. 

Jackewline with initiative: 2 cavalry and 2 foot rgts., 1 field cannon, 1 guard company

Dorrosean: 3 foot rgts., 2 individual battalions, 1 field gun, 1 guard company

The Dorroseani side of the map was more crowded as there was a river with a bridge on it and a small village where a line regiment was stationed. For most of the time, Dorroseani had to roll to organize the foot battalions in the village and the two guard battalions settled in the camp.

After successfully noticing the enemy, the Crontaineviller light infantry had no other chance but to stand ground and wait for the storm to begin.

Finished units - Besberg chasseurs

Well the second batch is ready, making a full 4 battalions (60 figs, 33 painted this round).

Basing is the usual and I found out that the overdone dip isn't that bad at all.

Again, these are the HäT Austrian Landwehr figs, the plastic is soft and bends too easily (or I've just got used to the Zvezda hard plastic is it) and there's a lot of flash but at least it takes enamel paint good, not sure with anything else (I've just started switching to acrylics as the previous containers become empty, I'm pretty sure that I'll still basecoat with enamel, simply because there are less problems with it). Extending my blue clans' army will be a right pain because I'm planning to do the lest with similar hats so not many choices. 

I'd also like to welcome Sam from Sam's Minis World between the readers of the blog, thanks for joining.

Finished units- Jackewlinese green Mounted Chasseurss

Well these were finished a week ago but as I already mentioned I forgot the photos. Second batch of the Italeri Prussian Garde du Corps - the green clans' Mounted Chasseurs are considered as heavy cavalry.

Definitely less shading on these, still need to find the correct amount to use.

Ruletest #3

This time I could play it all along!

Dorrosean had initiative.

Dorrosean: 1x line foot regiment, class 2 (3 battalions); 1x Guard chasseur battalion, class 3; 1x medium (field) gun, 1x light howitzer; 1x light dragoon regiment (2 squadrons), class 2

Jackewline: 1x green Guard Grenadier regiment (3 battalions), class 4 (for fun), 1x Fricklander 8th Light Regiment 1st (Grenz) battalion, class 4; 1 medium howitzer, 1 light gun (manned with blue clansmen); 1x red Fesselsorwilon heavy cavalry regiment (2 squadrons), class 3.

Scenario: a hill is in the middle of the 'table', a fence and a building to the north - the building provides LoS, the fence can be crossed by infantry/cavalry. The south-eastern slope of the hill is wooded.

A bit later after the setup (sparing photos), the situation is the following: the Dorroseani chasseurs occupy one side of the fence supported by artillery: one line of the battalion goes skirmishing. Their allied foot lines up parallel to the wall and remains that way until the left flank sees the Dragoons backing up on sight of the enemy heavy cavalry and forms square around their command. 

After a quick mess the Jackewlinese decide that the strategical point is the wooded hill and march there with a greater force. One Grenadier battalion starts to get around the building while the other one, supported by both guns stands against the main enemy line.

Finished - Dorroseani Guard Chasseurs

And a quick thanks again for all my readers after reaching three thousand hits!

First half (more like third) of the Italeri Austrian infantry box, sixteen figs, they're originally grenadiers but I use them as Chasseurs. Sixteen, it's a lot (my units are usually 12/14 stands strong), and because of the different style of paint they don't really match the ones I'd done earlier in the Austrian&Russian general staff set.

Well a fourteen man battalion, command+escort? Or I'll just leave them or add them to the members of staff.

Finished - Jackewlinese yellow/blue artillery crew

The only problem is... I ran out of coins for bases, so these are cardboard circles cut out with a knife. When mounted on the base of the gun it's not that horrible though.

Yellow first, three per gun, 15 in total.