Things Get Rather Jane Austen Around Here

These Napoleonic civilians were the entire reason I ordered from Front Rank in the first place. The generals, artillerists and schutzen that I've painted up over the summer were entirely a secondary thought.

Honest.

As I've mentioned before I like having civilian characters populating my table to give it some depth and richness. I always have big ideas that they can act like NPCs and have in game effects, but more often than not they are just there to look pretty and help with the immersive qualities of a well laid table.

This gentleman on horseback may be an objective to capture in the next Sharp Practice game. A diplomat who is key to the German nationalist revolt against French occupation perhaps? He has documents vital to keeping Bavaria loyal to the Empire?

I quite enjoyed playing with the browns and I'm especially pleased with how the horse turned out.

The ladies can be a distraction to various Big Men I suppose. I had some fun consulting with Mrs. Rabbitman about their dresses and hats.

I got this pack thinking about staffing a coaching inn or large farm. The pump and horse trough will be useful for clearing assorted Random Events in Sharp Practice. Plus I like the serving women in their caps and aprons. They look like they are well armed with pointed sarcasm.

I used some hot glue for the stream of water and then poured a couple of layers of Woodland Scenics water effects resin into the trough after painting. Hans is obviously getting water for Gretchen on a windy day. But unlike Scrivs I don't have the patience to build up the water stream with successive drops of PVA glue.

This Warlord mule train is the last of the purchases' from Mikey's stash. But a mule train is a support option for SP, so it will have an in-game effect. It could also be an objective in it's own right as well, I suppose. Peddlers moving around the campaign area could be very useful for cavalry patrols to question as a source of intelligence or perhaps he's a spy in his own right. But roving troops would be happy to divest him of anything edible. I was quite surprised with how quickly he painted up once I got down to it.

For the basing I am trying to hint at a track by keeping most of the flocking to the edges of the bases. This was something I did for my Samurai pack horses last year which I thought worked pretty good.

This tinker/peddler with his wheel barrow of goods is a very old figure that I've had for ages. To be honest I have no idea where I got him. He was stuck in my Medieval baggage box, but I thought with his Tyrolean hat and smock he would look better in early 19th century Germany. I just touched up his paint a bit. I have no idea what manufacture he is. I got him second hand. I'm pretty sure I painted him with enamels he's that old.

How I Paint Things*

I was reading a painting article in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue #116 the other day and was just gobsmacked by the author using 5 (that's right FIVE) layers on the trousers of a 15mm panzergrenadier. I commented to the effect of "honestly, is anyone going to notice?" which got some interesting responses.

Some were in agreement. Some were "that's how I do it, it's relaxing." Some admitted that yes the 5th highlight layer may just be a tiny dot.

And really, to each their own. If that's what you like then carry on. I'm not going to "yuck your yum" as they say in the world of kink.

One can always learn something new from such articles even if you don't follow them exactly. But I've also noticed a certain amount of "you aren't painting them right!" or worse "you're using  the  wrong technique" especially in the 40k fringes of the hobby.

I also see a lot of folks getting stuck on correct shades of paint and tiny uniform details to the point of paralysis. Add in fear of criticism from Social Media trolls shouting "you painted them wrong!" and it can be pretty debilitating. This is what had my Napoleonics stuck in the leadpile for years.

To those people I'd like to offer this sage advice

I didn't coin this phrase. That honour goes to Ken Reilly, "The Yarkshire Gamer". He has a blog and a podcast and a YouTube channel. The quote is at 1 hr 24 minutes.

My happy corner of Gaming Twitter has taken to this and started making memes.

To elaborate this straightforward philosophy:

Don't sweat correct shades because colours fade. Don't obsess over tiny details that you can't see from 3 feet away. No one is going to notice if you haven't highlighted the haversack on the 3rd guy in 2nd squad.

That being said it is good to stretch yourself if a miniature really inspires you. That's what happened with Scharf's Schützen this summer. But even so I let my brown undercoat (I find black just too dark to see what I'm doing), ink washes and dry brushing do a lot of the work for me. Heads, bases, flags, and shields attract attention so put the effort into those areas. Modestly painted armies on decent terrain in combination look far better than a few superbly painted miniatures leading grey plastic battalions on cheap terrain. 

It's good to keep pushing yourself in your craft. But keep an eye on the goal too. Are you painting to win a Golden Demon Award or are you painting to get a project on the table? 

The other thing is work flow organization.  I've discovered this year that smaller batches actually help speed me up. The constant sense of completion helps with the motivation. I used to do big groups of 24-36 infantry or 12 cavalry. That's too much. Now I do 12-16 infantry and 6-8 cavalry (handy that those are my common unit sizes). Even individual character figures I'll paint as a small batch. I also always try to have the next thing assembled and primed, then while I'm waiting for something like glue or an ink wash to dry I will undercoat them so they're ready to start painting as the previous group is going into the flocking. 

Plus a little bit every day adds up over a week too. You've only 15 minutes tonight? Assemble a  musketeer, or just do one bit on the current batch.  Command figures with their unique details are good for this. You're 15 minutes further along than if you didn't. 

If you've gotten some figures on the table and you're happy with the results, then you've done it right.

So don't fuck about, just paint it. 

*I've deliberately used the same title as Sonic Sledgehammer's YouTube channel. He's a decent bloke and talented painter with the same philosophy that there is no 'right way' except whichever way works for you.

Simple Deployment Points for Sharp Practice

During my last game I found my cuff kept catching General Barclay de Tolly and trying to knock him off the table so I eventually had to move him, which pointed to a problem with using divisional or corps command stands as Deployment Points. I spent a certain amount of time, treasure and talent on my command figures, so having them smash on the floor because they are hovering around the table edges would be heart-breaking. I also don't have any potential secondary DPs.

I decided upon this solution to solve both problems. I have lots of extra flags printed out so it was easy enough to prime and paint some heavy washers and glue flags on to them for simple, graphically pleasing and less cuff snagging DPs. Two for my Bavarians and two for the Allies (one Prussian and one Russian flag).

Once I've painted more Prussian infantry and have an idea how many flags are left over, I may do a second DP for each allied army. 

"Vorwarts Meine Kinder! On to Paris!"

 I have finished my first unit of Prussian musketeers. These are entirely Perry plastic figures. I kept 1 command figure out to be a Big Man in Sharp Practice. I purchased extra command sprues so that every 4 stands will include a command stand and flag, because flags are important in a horse and musket era game.

With their red collars and cuffs these are either a West Prussian or Brandenburg regiment. So I gave them the flag for the 2nd battalion of IR Nr.8 (1st Brandenburg) because I liked it.

I have 5 more battalions, so I'll do another red cuffed Brandenburg/West Prussian and 2 each of Silesians with yellow collars and cuffs and Pomeranians with white.

But I'm not obsessing over the shoulder strap colours for each battalion or the different coloured sword knots for each company.

Cars for Pottersville

 Until recently my Pulp Gangster town for The Chicago Way games has been sadly lacking in cars. Die cast trucks are pretty easy and cheap to find, but period cars are quite rare. I almost bought some resin and metal from Great Escape Games so I could have more than the odd selection of roadsters, coupes and jallopies that I currently possessed.

But my good friend Don has taken to 3D printing like a fiend and found a fellow doing 20s period car designs for printing and ran me off a baker's dozen. The interiors are printed as a separate piece to make painting easier and then just push fit inside.

Here are the first three.

Here is the truck beside a recondition matchbox toy. 

The cars scale quite well with the figures I think.

Offensive Orcs for Orctober

Finishing some orcs seemed appropriate for Hallowe'en. The 2nd dozen of my order of 3d printed Orcs from Spain are done and ready to bash on the Mad Padre's elves. Being equipped with assorted polearms I'm classing these boys as "Offensive Heavy Foot" for Dragon Rampant.

Again they painted up fast as I let the ink wash do a lot of the work for me.

As I painted these I was again struck by the level of detail and the natural poses, which are both a strength and a curse.

Better angle on some shields

With this second mob I used a burnt umber brown ink wash to give me a darker skin tone. I also splashed it over their grey tunics, so the brown ink pulled a mossy greenish tone out of the grey which I think is kinda cool and helps with the grungy look.

2nd group on L. 1st group of R.

Here they all are together ready to bring down the world of Men.

The tufts are self adhesive and from the nice folks at Shadow's Edge Miniatures. They have quite a good range and quality. Packs are enormous so good value too.

Prost! Bavarians Done!

Scharfshützen skirmish with Cossacks, for no other reason than it's a cool picture I found on the internet.

I have completed the last of my Hät Bavarians which gave me 6 battalions of line infantry and a battalion of lights, plus extra Big Men.

 How it started 

How it's going

This completes all of my Bavarians so far. If I use 4 stands of Scharf's Schützen to make another light battalion I can field 2 understrength brigades, 4 batteries of artillery and a weak, 1 regiment brigade of cavalry. 

1st Brigade and heavy artillery 

Division Command stand and artillery

2nd Brigade with Front Rank Schützen as the Light Battalion

Chevaux Leger

Big Men and extra groups for Sharp Practice

I think I have enough to run some learning games of General d'Armee. Although my Bavarians actually outnumber the Russians.

I have agonized over expanding the cavalry, but the superb Bavarian cavalry brigades never marched with their parent corps in 1812, having been detached by Napoleon to join the main army and then be wasted at Borodino. So there weren't very many of them for 1813 or even 1814. I am still pondering getting some dragoons for 1809 games against Scott's Austrians, but for 1812 and later they would be more likely to have French cavalry in support.

Because I am lazy and I was focused on the smaller scale Sharp Practice, I did everyone with the red facings that the majority of Bavarian infantry used. Now that I have more than enough for even big games of Sharp Practice, any expansions will fix that and use other facing colours.

1st Brigade. All Hät Figures

2nd Brigade and Cavalry behind

1st Brigade

Perry artillery

2nd Brigade

Front Rank 6 pound battery

Cheveaux Leger

Big Men and extra groups for Sharp Practice games

Of course I have 2 more battalions to complete the brigades, a limber and a caisson on order from the Perry's. I'm going to get them a supply wagon (or two?) from Warbases too.

But I'll hold off getting a third brigade until after I do some Prussians. Irony being a cosmic constant, Victrix have just announced their set of Bavarians, of course. It has some interesting options. But I'd need one and a half boxes to get that third brigade, or just maybe just buy three boxes of Hät for less money and assembly headaches. That however, is a decision for another day. In the meantime, a toast to my new army!

Prost!