Baccus Goodness

Another two hundred or so 6mm figures join the collection (I honestly don't know how many is there in total). The Baccus packs are the following: WSS line infantry (much superior to the GNW sets, I'll probably replace them at some point), WSS dismounted dragoons (to be used both as mounted and foot Freikorps), and SYW 'Hungarian' grenadiers, for everything bearskin related.

6mm Freikorps

With a running 'virtual' campaign, my focus turned on the various irregular elements of 18th century armies. To keep up with the topic, I quickly made up two 10-figure horse Freikorps units from the spares I had. This also served as practice as I had not painted 6mm troopers for a good while now!

I used British dragoons for the first (Freikorps Bauschmertzen) and French hussards for the second (Freikorps Puttenfrott) group.

6mm SYW French / Glambrian army

This is the sixth complete 6mm force in my collection. I think I have well over two thousand Baccus and H&R figures now, and could therefore organize a six-player Maurice campaign using only those.

With 192 infantry, 72 cavalry, three officer markers and four guns, this army is on the small side along with the British. 

Some figures were shown earlier: the fresh parts of the army are the hussars, the infantry in blue turnbacks and the cannon.

Redcoats

These are the figures for the "half" army of the Albionic Monarchy, whom will only be used as redcoats, and not as Böhnstadter redcoats. The cavalry is Baccus light dragoons, the infantry is H&R Prussian infantry, but seeing how detailed they are, they pass for British as well.

The idea is to swell up the ranks by using the Baccus Prussian foot in red, the guns and heavy horse, plus the three Highlander units, to create a complete army.

These units will play a prominent part in an 'Over the Hills' RPG campaign, in which the players are regimental commanders, so the facings of two of the three units match their owner's choice. Smaller battles will be conducted with Easy Tricorne, and larger ones with Maurice.

Here's a premade army composition for the latter:
NA Lethal Volleys (12) 12
NA Steady Lads (9) 21
4x ART (10) 31
6x RI Trained (36) 67
+upgrade 3 to Elite (9) 76
4x RC Trained (24) 100
+1 RI Trained when attacking
Army Morale 10

Actually, with cannons borrowed from another army (the French, Swedes or Austrians), the Brits would only need one unit of horse transferred from the Böhnstadter side to be quite autonomous in a Succession Wars campaign. There's also that little trouble that I bought the "SYW Prussian Artillery" pack fom Heroics and Ros, but there were no cannon in it. Perhaps if I could scratchbuild some guns, and use the crews for those...

The Complete Ottoman Army

"OK, at this point he's really showing off", readers might say looking at the picture above, but don't forget that 1) there were already two posts that included some of the material above, 2) I'm never going to field all of these in one battle.

Let's make a final tally:

• 4 elephants (H&R)
• 8 guns with 32 crew (Baccus)
• 8+1 officers (including Cleric marker) (Baccus)
• 192 infantry (Baccus)
• 96 cavalry (H&R)
• 84 irregular infantry (H&R),

425 figures and models in total, maybe a bit larger than some European chunks of the collection, but not that huge, especially considering how fast I painted the H&R figures up. 

Ottomans for Maurice

When one gets bored with European armies in funny hats, one usually looks to the East, where, although its former glory is lost, its armies beaten back first from the walls of Vienna, then out of Hungary, the Ottoman Empire still stands.

Theatrical intro aside, I wanted to paint something new, and more importantly, have an army different in playing style than the usual ones for Maurice. These fellows then could be part of any imaginary Colonial campaign, from the Barbary coast to India (and for that reason I'm painting up an elephant unit as well), in which the European powers either beat them again or fall to the ravenous hordes.

The Glambrian Royal Army

96 infantry, three commanders and 36 cavalry to form the core of the Glambrian ImagiNation army. They are SYW French from the Baccus 6mm range, mounted as tradition dictates on 1"x1" bases.

6mm Militia & Mercenaries

192 Baccus figures organized to six units, three of militia and three Highlanders. Both are from the AWI range and will be used with my existing 6mm armies. As I requested, there are only three command strips per pack. 

I used a very simple painting method, a white primer after cleaning the figures, a dark brown shade on the militia and red on the Highlanders. The brown is hobby store acrylic and is close to a chocolate brown hue. Then I drybrushed the militia people with saddle brown, picked out the details and painted a few figures in brighter colors for less uniformity among the ranks. The Highlanders I just blocked in as I saw fit, then dabbed both in a black glaze, followed by adding highlights to the uniforms in their respective colors. It is a practical principle to highlight only the larger parts of the figures.

The bases, on the other hand, are something new. I used tea filter material for flocking, wet brushing it on a few places with green. It has the advantage of removing the difference in elevation between the plasticard base and the bases of the metal figure strips. On the other hand it has to be painted somehow, which is rather difficult if one does not want to add some green to the figures also. I think I will return to using static grass on the Frenchmen I'm about to paint up.

Complete Swedes

With these seven units, my 6mm Great Northern War Swedish army for Maurice is ready to fight on its own. If the esteemed reader takes a look at the Schultze-Böhnstadt blog, it will become clear that some blue-and-yellow contingents had indeed fought in various battles, but never without support from the other armies.

There are four cavalry wedges in the lot with ten figures each, and three infantry units, this time in karpus. I have cheated a little bit and added the Närke-Värmlands regiment with karpus on their heads and not tricornes. The red of this unit and the white of the Västerbotten regiment will add some variety to the rest - they are rather too uniform for a tricorne army. 

6mm GNW Swedish artillery

In the form of a WSS 'battalion guns' artillery set from Baccus, the Swedish army receives some support. They had borrowed from the other bellingerents earlier.

6mm Update

First off, four units of Swedish cavalry. A Baccus pack contains 45 and I have before made 12-men units, but this time, to be more sparse with the figures, there are ten riders on four bases in a 2-3-3-2 setup. And the formation is not a strict line as known of the GNW Swedish horse. Probably a bit anachronistic for the timeline of Schultze-Böhnstadt, too.

As usual, I've painted the figures using a dark grey primer, a high contrast brown shade and highlights on the yellow and blue uniforms and the horses. The picture above is not the best to show detail but the mass effect comes through I think.

6mm GNW Swedish infantry

Four units of Varangians/Swedes for Maurice, in my standard 32-men composition. What I changed was the layout of figures per base as I included grenadiers on the flanks and split the command strip between two bases to have the flag more to the centre of the unit.

So while a standard ImagiNation infantry unit looks like this:

M M M M   M M M M   M M M M   M M M M

M M M M   M M M M   C  C  C  C   M M M M

the Swedes look like this:

G G M M   M M M M   M M M M   M M G G 

G G M M   M M C  C    C C  M M    M M G G 

(Grenadiers, Musketeers and Command, respectively). The Baccus GNW Grenadier pack is half strength, 12 strips = 48 figures compared to the 24 strips = 96 figures of the musketeers; I've cut up one strip for each flank of the main body. These grenadier figures were problematic, though, because they bend and break way too easily, something I rarely experienced with Baccus stuff before.

Anyway, painting was just the usual: grey primer, a very quick run with the basic colors, a dark brown shade made of black glaze and burnt umber, then a highlight on the blues. A single highlight of the main color (with a much brighter tone) improves the look of the units vastly.

The flags were taken from this site, printed then painted over.

I think the next units will have karpus hats but I'm not sure about pikes. Maurice has rules for them, well, some won't hurt.

6mm Varangian/GNW Swedish beginnings & star fort

The figs are actually the remainders of the previous Baccus SYW lot. I've had a lot of spare dragoons/cuirassiers as the standard pack has 45 and I only need 39 (12 riders on four bases +1 disruption marker). Some figures are from the SYW generals lot. I decided they would be the Drabant Corps for the GNW and fulfill a similar role in the imaginary Varangian army. 

The skirmishers could be just that or dismounted dragoons depending on the scenario.

The commanders are also from the SYW lot, the standard one CIC + two notables setup. 

I used a highlight over the shaded coat, which looks better than just leaving it so. I would like to do a touching-up on the complete armies as well, but highlighting 900 figures could take some time.

The fort is made of balsa wood pieces in a very simple way. It's based on a large plasticard piece and can hold two units if they are crammed in, and I believe some cannon could be placed to the corners even then.

More 6mm SYW figures and scenery

These are the last units of what took the Schultze-Böhnsdadt and Union an dem Flosse forces to reach full strength. There will be 1-1 more light infantry units (or those just will be added to some other army) painted, there are 48 figures in a pack. 

The Böhnstadter already had a 'notable' marker so they only needed one, in this case the heroic Dietrich von Spülge. The Flossians were given two notables, so two of these + 1 CIC per side can be added to any game.

The Flossians lacked heavy cavalry, so their mounted units are cuirassiers (no difference in Maurice terms) while the Böhnstadter received three units of dragoons.

6mm Ancients(?)

About 250 Baccus figures in this lot: 1 set of Hittite infanry (I think), 1 of peltasts, 1 archers, 3 chariots. The infantry boxes contain 96, the archers 48, the chariots 4. This was sort of an impulse buy two or three months ago and the painted figures had been lying around waiting to be based for quite a long time, and when I started completing the process I figured out some enhancement on the paintjobs was needed too...

I think the theme requires a little explanation as I have, in the grand scheme, about 0 Ancients figures. I'm running a Mythical RPG (it's been stalling for a while) using Swords&Wizardry. We created the world with Dawn of Worlds and in my games we focus on the human Riverland cultures and the Nomads of the Steppe. It is a shameless act for writing material. Once everything is fleshed out I will translate the rough 'script' to a novel and for this end we record every session. The characters started at level 5 and avoided real harm (even performed greatly when they were fighting the sole boss they come through so far) for a while now. 

The figures are for two armies. The kingdoms of the Riverland are at war with the invading city state of Hatti, the ones in the white/light grey are the good guys (e.g. the players are allied with them).

Showcasing the 6mm Imagi-Nation armies

I still owe my readers, despite presenting a battle report earlier, some close-ups on the finished 6mm troops of Schultze-Böhnstadt and the Flossian Union. Well, here they are; first the Böhnstadter, in a linear arrangement above.

6mm Schultze-Böhnstadt

I have finished four battalions and a command stand for Schultze-Böhnstadt out of the freshly arrived Baccus 6mm figures.

The command stand is Princeps Erhard Berthold and his chancellor Erik von Südflosse.

The infantry is based for Maurice, a base width came out to be perfect at 1 inch so that simplifies measuring a lot!

They are very easy to do, actually I think the basing took longer than the painting. Black undercoat, very dark grey drybrush for the uniforms; crossbelts, hats, then the reds, a medium grey on the gaiters, silver on the weapons and flesh on the hands and faces - all done in less than 2 hours.