Shades of Grey-Prussian Reservists

While painting the Grenadiers I had the happy thought to make a battalion of Reserve Infantry. Reservists were an important part of the Prussian scheme to rebuild after the debacle of 1806 and the limits to the size of the Army imposed by the treaty with Napoleon. The Reserves and Landwehr were a significant portion of the army from 1813 to 15, providing approximately one quarter to one third of the strength.

The uniform was simple and a welcome break from unending ranks of dark blue. The biggest difference was a lack of coat tails and turnbacks and simple cuffs. I found that with careful positioning I could make sure the cartridge box and small pack hid the offending coat tails and all I had to do was trim off the sword that the Reservists weren't issued with (despite the graphic above). I chose to just paint over the cuff placket instead of trying to trim it down. The cartridge boxes also shouldn't have any brass plate, but instead of trying to trim that off I just painted it out. Fortunately I hadn't assembled all of the plastic jaegers, so I still had some heads with the peaked cap to give me a nice irregular mix of peaked caps, fatigue caps and shakos. I pondered having a command group, since officers and NCOs wore the uniforms from their regular regiments, but the drummers wore the short Reservist jacket. The Perry figure has very obvious coat tails and I didn't want to have a stray drummer without a unit.

With 16 figures I could make them a small 2 group formation for Sharp Practice as well. The attached Big Men wouldn't be any different in their blue coats.

Painting was pretty straightforward, dark grey, then a lot of mid grey highlights. I opted to further lighten the bedroll some more to help it pop and give a bit of visual interest.

The backdrop is a free download from Jon Hodgson. I've noticed that figures appear brighter against the mountainous backdrop than the misty one. 

One battalion of Fusiliers to paint and I'll have a complete brigade of 9 battalions plus Grenadiers done.

Schützen Vor!

Each sprue of Perry Plastic Prussians has a Volunteer Jaeger figure as well, so you end up with quite group of them after you've assembled a few boxes. But each regiment had a company sized detachment of them, so they were fairly ubiquitous. And they do make a nice skirmish line for General d'Armee, giving me almost enough stands for all my planned Prussian battalions..

When I was gluing these together, I was thinking I needed shako heads to convert French Middle Guards into Lutzow's Freikorps at the time, so I used a lot of the peaked cap heads, instead of more shakos. Then I decided shaving epaulettes would be tedious and abandoned Lutzow's Freikorps and immediately wished I had saved more heads in caps for some Reservists. 

Oh well.

A friend gifted me this nice metal Fusilier and another plastic Jaeger (the one wearing a shako in the top picture) at the Lard Eh event in May.

So they're added to the skirmish line. Can't have oddball figures left lying about when I can put them to use!

 

Speedy Silesians

After finishing the Grenadiers I tested positive for Covid and spent the August Long Weekend in isolation feeling very sick. Having had my booster shot, my symptoms didn't last long and I emerged from my room yesterday, sick of watching television and ready to bang out another battalion of Prussian musketeers.

I did these as second battalion of yellow cuffed Silesians. Both battalions of IR No.10 (1st Silesians) used the same flag, so these fellows are using another copy of the flag from the Perry information insert that comes in the box. I printed off a blue flag for IR No.11, but sized it wrong, so it's a bit small and I thought would look off.

One day to paint and then base the next is a record for me I think. It is certainly keeping the momentum going on the Prussian army despite Covid. Not being able to do anything else while I finish isolation certainly helps free up the time.

While recuperating I figured out how to convert some figures into a Reserve Battalion, so those and a few stands of skirmishers are up next as a break from blue jackets.

Fast Grenadiers

With the addition of 2 more boxes of infantry I decided that I could add a battalion of grenadiers to my Prussian infantry. 

In 1813 the grenadiers were in the infantry divisions and not concentrated in a strategic reserve so a battalion or two is entirely appropriate. 

The only thing marking them as grenadiers are the tiny mustaches and different coloured shoulder straps. Maybe I should give them tufts too.

I thought the officer in his feldmutz was unique so I based him as a single to give me another Big Man.

I got these stalwart fellows painted in one week plus another day for basing. Hopefully I can keep that pace up.

Looking Good Even in Defeat

Scott has loaned me With Eagles to Glory by John H. Gill, which is proving to be a very good read. Gill's book sets out to correct the poor rating that the German troops always get in other histories and by extension wargames rules. He digs into regimental diaries and examines obscure actions which get overlooked as people rush off to Aspern and Wagram, to show that given their chance, the German troops fought as well and as hard as the French. The chapter on the Bavarians, covering in exquisite detail the Bavarian army's activities during 1809 has provided a lot of  scenario ideas and further encouragement to me to build some 1809 appropriate Austrians to fight them. 

I was thinking it would be interesting to try an unbalanced scenario, with my Bavarian division covering the withdrawal of their baggage against larger numbers of Austrians. Hillier's counterattack at Neumarkt or something like that. Probably would make a better Sharp Practice game, but Scott doesn't have any separate Big Men, so we went with General d'Armee.

Bavarian deployment. 1st brigade will fall back covered by 2nd brigade and then take up secondary position in village on the right.

Hordes of Hapsburgs

Hans and Franz anchor 1st brigades left flank in a village

2nd brigade artillery and cavalry cover the gap

2nd brigade

I'm winning the skirmish firefight

1st brigade artillery. First shots put a bunch of hits on an Austrian fusilier battalion, they fail their Discipline Test and take more hits and retreat.

Austrian cavalry arrive!

Things were going fine. I was going to limber my guns, give the white coats a volley from my fusiliers and then start retiring to the secondary fall back position. Scott's 12 pounder battery is given "Artillery Assault" orders, adding 2 Casualty Dice (on a 4, 5 or 6 they add an extra casualty to whatever the result is on the firing chart) to their roll. Scott rolls:

Ouch baby... very ouch.

So I've taken 5 hits on the battery in one turn! The double 6s causes a Destiny Test. Scott rolls. An explosion has killed my Brigadier causing the Brigade to Falter. So I have to send one of my 2 available ADCs to the brigade to rally them at the start of the next turn. I roll a 1. "Sauve Qui Peut!" goes up across the ridge. My skirmish line disperses. Every unit takes 2 hits and retires. So my battery is now over the limit and disperses as well. Plus I permanently lose 1 of my 3possible ADCs.

Well bugger.

"Beer?"

My baggage got away, but recovering the wreck of 1st brigade and extricating everyone over the bridge before the Austrian cavalry arrives would be bloody.

A very short game. But it looked good.

Prussian Fusiliers

Those two boxes of Perry plastic Prussians that I was gifted have generated 2x 16 figure battalions of Musketeers with command, and 3x 16 figure battalions without command groups who will be painted as Fusilier battalions. Each Prussian line infantry regiment had 2 battalions of Musketeers and 1 battalion of Fusiliers with black belting and given some skirmish training. My Bavarians and Russians have a few battalions without command groups and they aren't that annoying on the tabletop. Painting these as Fusiliers, who as far as I can ascertain, didn't carry flags anyway, fills a gap in my Prussian Order of Battle.

While working on the Fusiliers I also did this trio of Perry metal senior officers which were part of the original birthday present from Scott that kicked off the whole expansion of my "simple little Sharp Practice project."

They are all one piece castings, which surprised me. But I don't mind one piece mounted models. Makes assembly easy at any rate.

I quite like this fellow.

This one too.

This chap is OK, but filled in gap between shako and sabre had to be thought about. Too thick to carve out. I tried and damaged the tip of the sabre a bit.

So more mounted Big Men of Sharp Practice, or I can have lots of brigades for General d'Armee, once I finish painting all of them at any rate.

So This Happened....

 A few weeks ago an old friend, who had moved out of Province and lost touch 14 or 15 year ago, called out of the blue.

"I'm getting out of Wargaming. I'm going to send you a box."

A couple of weeks later, this arrives.

Oh dear.

Scott added in the Austrian cavalry set. So now I have a pretty good sized army of Austrians, less artillery.

If my back of an envelope math is correct I'd have 14 or 15 battalions of assorted infantry and two units of cavalry. The Victrix boxes come with 2 mounted commanders each, so there's brigade and army command sorted. Just need artillery, and limbers, and a caisson.

And hussars.

The rational part of my brain says "just do enough for Sharp Practice, you fool!"

16 Grenadiers, 16-24 line infantry, 16-24 Landwehr, 12 skirmishers, 8 dragoons some Big Men. 

Simple, right?

Right.

Perhaps I'll start with a Sharp Practice force for 1809 to fight my Bavarians and see how I get on. Fortunately both the Perry and Victrix sets have lots of command, so getting enough Big Men won't be an issue.

The observant will notice to the right some French Middle Guard in greatcoats and two boxes of Perry Prussians, plus a partial set of Perry British flank company without it's box. I've already started on the Prussians, these extras will provide much needed Fusilier battalions. I had, for a few days, thought of converting the French in greatcoats to Lutzow's Freikorps with extra Prussian heads, but shaving off epaulets would be tedious, so I shan't bother. I'll donate the French and British to the Hot Lead Bring & Buy.

This is Phase 5, or maybe Phase 4B, of my Big Plan now I guess.

Wagram, anyone?