Presentation of Colours

I got a couple of batches of the Hät figures completed recently. 

A 2 group Formation of Grenadiers with 2 Big Men which made their tabletop debut last weekend.

Can also be a Converged Grenadier battalion in Black Powder or General d'Armee

2 stands of colour parties and a group of Fusiliers plus 3 Big Men. 

Added to existing groups. Can also be two battalions for Black Powder or General d'Armee

The Colour Party stands will join existing groups, so I've essentially produced a third 2 Group Formation of fusiliers.

The Hät junkers come with lovely molded on flags which would be a right bugger to try and paint. 

So I cut them off. Drilled out the hands and added wire flag poles. Fortunately having the hands as separate pieces facilitated the conversion. 

Elements of Colour Party; Junker with flag, drummer and Sapper

The flags were downloaded and printed from www.warflag.com. To get the details and resolution the flags are quite big, and you have to reduce them before printing. I opted for 80%. I should probably have reduced the flags to 75% or possibly even 70%, but I'm not going to lie, I like big flags. Flags are a huge part of the appeal of horse and musket games after all. 

Bavarian Army Reference

I have just received this fantastic book as a gift, because I have pretty awesome friends.

The Bavarian Army 1806-1813 by Peter Bunde. Originally in German, translated by Richard Sanders. This book is obviously more expensive than the Osprey, but definitely worth it. I had had my finger hovering over the order button actually, and then Scott said he'd gotten it for me. So good timing.

Full of colour plates and lots of uniform details. Up until this weekend I had been getting Twitter connections to photograph pages for me for reference. 

Now I can give it a good thorough read and find out all the stuff I've gotten wrong! For example, Chevauleger Regiments had specific horse colours for NCOs and Trumpeters (not necessarily greys). But I'm sticking with the rationale that those niceties disappeared on campaign as remount services struggled to keep the squadrons mounted on anything.

But if you're painting Bavarians in anything larger than 6mm you really should get this book.

In my little corner of gaming Twitter we are having a #Bavarians painting challenge now. My constant WIP posts had gotten others talking about their own Bavarian figures in their lead piles, and the challenge was suggested to motivate everyone to get them done. Of course I've noticed quite a few people ordering figures specifically for the challenge, so Hat, Front Rank and Perry have gotten a little bump in sales thanks to me.

Games, Donuts and Beer!

Now that people are getting fully vaccinated, I have had a slow return to pre-pandemic hobby socializing. 

The Mad Padre looks on as Scott activates some of his Austrians

This weekend the Mad Padre and his son, John, visiting from BC, came for some long anticipated, much needed face to face gaming therapy. 

I had prepared and quickly set up a small game of Bag the Hun to introduce the rules. Because it's August, a Battle of Britain scenario seemed appropriate. 2 flights of Spitfires intercepting a schwarm of 4 Me109s and 2 Me110s. Fun was had. John shot down one of my Me110s. 

Then Scott arrived with some of his French and Austrians. They joined my Bavarians and Russians for a big 4 player game of Sharp Practice. I ran my Bavarians, facing off against the Mad Padre running my Russians, while Scott led his Austrians against John playing the French. Each command was identical for ease of set up and instructional purposes. 

My shiny new Chevauxleger take a hit from Russian artillery

Brand new Formation of Grenadiers march onto the table

A few of Scott's Austrians

I don't have any Russian cavalry (yet), so they got my Prussian dragoons who charged into my advancing Bavarians. Bavarians lost by 2 and evaporated. But we rolled low on Bad Things Happen.

An early run of cards got me and Scott on, then the cards shifted so the Bavarians and Russians settled into exchanging long range musketry while the French and Austrians tore into each other! When we called it, the Franco-Bavarian force was still ahead on Force Morale, but the French had lost a couple of Big Men and were going to collapse soon.

The next morning at Second Breakfast (a few liters of tea and donuts) we had our traditional Big Dragon Rampant/Lord of the Rings game. 115 points per side divided into 3 commands. Mike and I played Evil with a mix of his and mine figures. John played Good using his dad's Elves, Rohirrim and Men of Gondor. 

My wolf riders

3 packs of Wolves running through the forest

Lots of wolf riders! Mike's chunkier Oathmark wolf riders are heavy cavalry. My Vendel are classed as light.

Mike tries out his new Nazgul on Fell Beast, which is about to destroy the elves on the road

Wargs in an epic fight with the Great Bear!

After a slow start the tide of Darkness got going. Mike's scarey Nazgûl on a Fell Beast destroyed a unit of elves in one attack. My right wing composed entirely of wolves (Lesser Warbeasts), wolf riders (light and heavy riders) and wargs (Greater Warbeast) swarmed John's flank, eventually pulling down his giant bear, driving off his ent and tearing apart two companies of the Men of Gondor. 

"Let's just play one more turn" says John, dice in hand, thinking he might pull something off. Rolls a '2' on his first activation. "Ok, how about lunch?" I suggested.

So lead was pushed. Dice were rolled. Beers quaffed and donuts munched. Three games in two days. A good way to hide form the heat wave.

Challenging Bavarian Cheveauxleger

This group of 8 Cheveauxleger have really slowed me down, taking over two weeks to finish. Add in two Big Men and that's a batch of 10 horsemen to work through with back ache, hand cramps, headaches and vaccine side effects, plus life starting to get in the way. Plus they confronted me with several challenges. The Perry figures have all their kit on, so lots of belts and straps and things. Also a few uniform changes to negotiate. I finally decided to go post-Russian Campaign, with dark green coveralls and green tunics, thinking I'd be fighting my Prussians with them. But the Bavarian cavalry were utterly destroyed during the Russian campaign and didn't take the field until the fall of 1813. At the Battle of Hanau, Bavarian General Wrede thought he was cutting off the retreat of an isolated French detachment. Due to poor scouting he found himself with his back to a river, facing Napoleon and his Imperial Guard and artillery! The newly rebuilt, hardly broken in, Bavarian cavalry charged boldly but crossed swords with the Guard Cavalry. You can imagine the result.

During the Russian Campaign the Bavarian cavalry were so splendid, so well mounted and equipped and trained, that they were taken away to join Napoleon's main army. They were present at Smolensk and Borodino where they performed superbly but took massive casualties. The tattered remains of all three brigades evaporated in October and November during the retreat. The Bavarian Corps was left without any scouting or pickets capabilities and Wrede had to hijack a French cavalry brigade to get some organic cavalry capability for his Corps fighting around Polotsk guarding Napoleon's northern flank.

Other challenges were getting the green right. Not to mention the red shabraques. I originally went with too bold a a contrast between the undertone and highlights chosen and had to add some washes and other layers to bring them together. Eventually I got where I was happy but it took a while. The edging on the shabraques is white with blue lozenges as well. Plus in the corner is the Royal Cypher. For both tiny lozenges and ornate Royal embroidery I went with an impressionistic, "how will it look from 3 feet?" approach just to save my sanity. The trumpeter also has false sleeves hanging off the back of his tunic and trying to figure out what colour they should be was also interesting (they're in the facing colour apparently). I almost copped out and did the officer's shabraque in the plain red service order, but decided "in for a penny, in for a pound" and painted the gold Royal Cypher surrounded by a laurel wreath that they had for gala occassions (like charging the Guard Cavalry). As a bit of wish fulfillment, I had a random figure in a bearskin which I painted as a Grenadier a Cheval of the Imperial Guard Cavalry and put the bearskin (removed form the head) under his charging hooves.

But here they are at last. Sergeant, trumpeter and six troopers in the group. The Officer mounted as a Big Man.

Sergeant and Trumpeter

There is also a mounted infantry Big Man to be a Force Commander. I've done the rank on his collar to be a senior officer.

As you no doubt noticed I finished a 6 pounder right after the Schützen before my game last weekend too. Here are some other shots of it.

I do like that Perry artillery crew are posed logically, unlike the Old Glory crew who all seem to be doing different parts of the gun drill.

So that's Wave 2 done! Time to assemble and prime some more!