Chocolate Box Wars Campaign Game #1

Saturday I played the first of what should be a series of five games in Ed M's Chocolate Box Wars Tournament. I'm looking at the tournament more as a way to play with a bunch of new opponents and less as a competition. I expect the others are as well. 

This first game came on the heels of me hosting a game at our Club's monthly game night, so I begged Ed to host our game as I wasn't sure what condition my game room would be in with an upcoming convention preparations and the tear-down of my game night game taking up space. The battle pitted my only completed CBW army, my 1859 Austrians vs. Ed's Hungarians with their multitude of different line uniforms - very beautiful, very CBW. The photo above shows the armies after deployment during turn one's marches. I anchored my right flank on the town and shifted some line units left with thoughts that if Ed defended, I needed flank pressure on that large hill he was occupying. More on that to come.

Ed stole a march on turn two (won the initiative roll) and surprised me by jumping forward with his class D line (militia) flanked by two of his class C line (regulars). I saw clearly his plan, to get in the plain between our hills and take up enough space that he could use his artillery to support his class D line while simultaneously preventing me from doing the same. I was planning on doing exactly the same. Ed's plan worked and he got the precious middle ground and started very effectively pounding my infantry. Just when I thought General Dice had abandoned me I got a clutch 3-casualty rally on my pressured infantry, extending their life....for a turn. They would later on succumb to the relentless pressure of Ed's combined class D infantry and artillery. 

Ed demonstrated against the town on my right, but chose caution over engaging my advanced rifles that were defending it. This allowed me to press my class B Grenzers into the center to put more pressure there. This forced Ed's left flank to engage the plucky border patrollmen. Ed pounded them for multiple turns racking up three casualties (one from flaking a stand) several times. With their B class morale, support from the CinC and General Dice, they were able weather the storm with multiple rallies of 3 and 2 casualties. I believe in the second to last turn I used seven of my 22 command tokens on rallies and at least FOUR of these were to support the Grenzers. At some point in there Ed did flake a full stand off them reducing them to a single stand. This was at a great cost in command initiative points. In the center things seemed to be holding on as a stand-off with my line infantry taking the worst of it eventually losing a full battalion.

With Ed's expenditure of initiative to wear down my Grenzers, it was time for his cavalry to engage my left flank. It was what he had left for the job, and it was a fine tool. Ed executed a wonderful cavalry maneuver, withstood my light cavalry's counter-charge and got off two solid attacks on my leftmost line infantry. Unfortunately these attacks yielded no casualties and Ed was nearly out of command points. With me holding a reserve of several command points my infantry and light cavalry were able to counter-attack to great effect, eliminating Ed's cavalry unit. With a few remaining command points my center was able to focus fire on one of Ed's class D infantry in the center eliminating it as well. Ed's final turn attacks were all excellently planned and executed. On the right I got effective rally rolls when I needed them and on the left it was all a matter of chance. I felt out-played most of the game, but was able to steal a victory. 

Below, a note on army size for Chocolate Box Wars. Here is my over-sized Austrian army in it's storage and travel containers, labeled and ready to play. This includes additional line infantry and all 'options' for cavalry ranging from Hussars through Curiassers, easily enough for two players per side. A large army in two medium-sized stackable boxes. I can literally carry the army under one arm.

28mm 1859 Austrian Artillery - Also First Finished Chocolate Box Wars Army

Followers of my blog may have noticed after a very active spring and summer, I was AWOL for the late summer and fall. I've been dealing with a significant health issue with my back that has unfortunately significantly hampered my ability to sit up at the painting table. As 2024 comes to a close, things are starting to improve and the physical therapy has been helping. Proof is here in this two-stands of artillery for my 1859 Austrian army for Chocolate box wars. The crews are figures from Piran's Warriors (https://piranswarriors.co.uk) contract painted by the owner, Terry Birmingham (piranswarriors@gmail.com) who I contracted paint a sizeable number of figures for this army. I can highly recommend both his figures and him as a contract painting service. 

The guns are from Perry Miniatures and were painted by me. Basing is per Ed M's basing specifications for Chocolate Box wars. On the rear of the stands I put some magnetic sheet to allow for labels to be swapped in as necessary.
 

Here is a photograph of a 'standard' Austrian army for Chocolate box Wars. Left to right front row: Grenadiers (posing as guard), Jagers fulfilling the lights with Advanced Weapons slot, four line infantry, and Grenzers filling out the light infantry slot. Back row an officer, artillery battery and light cavalry, in this case lancers. This is part of the total force that I've collected. My plan is to have two armies large enough for two-player teams for group play - Austrians and Garabaldists.

Here the complete force adding a second unit of Jagers, two more line infantry, the second of the two batteries shown above, two sub-commanders and the full compliment of 9 stands of cavalry, three each of Kuriassers, Hussars and Uhlan lancers. Of these the units painted by me were the Grenadiers, Grenzers, pennants for the Uhlans and the artillery pieces. The balance was painted by Terry from Piran's Warriors. Basing was done per the Chocolate Box rules using my standard basing recipe. Considering my health hiccups in the second part of the year, I'm happy to have a completed army to show for the year's work, even if my primary contribution was basing the whole thing up and contracting to have it painted. As the project continues, next up on the painting table are three units of line infantry for my Piedmont army. I started them this past spring, so hopefully I'll finish them before the snow melts this upcoming spring!

May you all have a healthy, happy and enjoyable 2025!

28mm Austrian Grenzers

This is another unit for my Austrian army for the Italian Risorgimento project. These are Keelmen miniatures. My friend Ed gave me the tip that if I painted these up in pink facings they could also represent one of the few Grenzer units that fought for the Hungarians during the Hungarian revolution. Not wanting to pass up the extra utility I took Ed's excellent suggestion. There's also the bonus that you don't get to use pink facings and piping often when painting figures. You can read more about Ed's Grenzer shuffle on his blog.

I'm happy that Chocolate Box Wars allows you to paint units with only six figures. Any more and the piping on these might have been too much for me to handle. Even at 28mm scale, it's quite fiddly to paint accurately. I am happy with the final result, although there was some profanity involved in the process. For the pink I used a base of Pro Acryl bold titanium white with Vallejo red added to taste. The coverage of this mix was fantastic. Even over the medium brown I got full coverage in a single coat. I continue to be impressed with the Pro Acryl bold titanium white. 

 

Next up on the painting table some Piedmont Bersaglieri from Gringo40 miniatures.

28mm Austrian 1849 Grenadiers

Here are the first figures that I've painted up for my Risorgimento project. These are 1849 Austrian Grenadiers with their awesome bearskin hats. Similar to Ed's Austrian Grenadiers, I'll not hesitate to also use these for the Hungarian revolt if I choose to do that conflict with this army. As Ed says, "Everything is OK in Chocolate Box Wars!"

These are Keelmen Miniatures from their Hungarian revolt line. They're a touch larger than Perry and Foundry, but not enough to bother with. They seem quite compatible with the Gringo40 and Pirans Warriors figures that I'm using with the rest of this army. In any case, with a less popular period like this, it's catch-as-catch-can for figures. When someone makes the exact figure you need, it's a lot easier to use it than to go the figure conversion route. I'll be doing plenty of that for this project though, I'm sure.

I've used a mix of 'contrast' and traditional paints on these figures. The fur packs just cried out for some 'Gore Grunta Fur' contrast paint and the white uniforms I used Vallejo Xpress Color 'Templar White'. After that it's mostly standard acrylics including highlighting the leather belts with some Monument Hobbies Pro Acyl 'Bold Titanium White'. This was my first job for this highly acclaimed white paint and it did not disappoint with great coverage in one coat. Granted, that was applying it over an already off-white surface. 

Next up on the painting table are, some 1949 Grenzers for the Austrians.

Update: Thanks to my friend Ed seeing these in person, he noticed that I inadvertently forgot to paint the badges on the front of the bearskins on these. This has now been corrected as seen to the left.  Thanks Ed!

Beginning work for the Italian Risorgimento (Italian Wars of Independence) - 1849-1860 Austrian Line Infantry

For a while my friend Ed from Ed M's Wargame Meanderings has been working on a post-Napoleonic 19th century wargame rule set called Chocolate Box Wars. The premise is for armies to be made with a smaller figure count, so an army can fit inside a 'chocolate box'. Each army consists of 12-16 stands of troops and an officer or two. 

I've always been enthralled with the Italian Wars of Independence, or as they call it the Risorgimento. The story of the daring Garibaldi and his thousand men kicking off a revolution in their red shirts, French-backed forces, Austrians, Papal forces and all in a myriad of uniforms. This period is beyond approachable in any large figure count rule set, but in Chocolate Box Wars, it's a much more approachable task to attempt to amass armies for each of the combatant forces. I had suggested to Ed, should he get the rule set off the ground, I'd start making armies for the Risorgimento based on his rules. 

I had intended to start with Garibaldi's rebel army as my first force, but these 1849-1860 Austrian Line infantry somehow appeared on Ebay and called out to me. To say painted figures for this period listed on Ebay is a rarity is an understatement. In fact, these were in the USA, originally purchased from a figure reseller in the United Kingdom. So I snatched them up, re-painted some facings and touched up some wear-and-tear and re-based them for Chocolate Box Wars. Four line infantry units done. This is the Core of my Austrian army!

 

I contacted the original seller from Ebay and inquired as to if he painted the figures and he told me the history of the figures. I looked into the original figure manufacturer, Pirans Warriors, and I noticed that the painting style looked quite similar to the sample photos on their site. Pirans also does commission painting, and after some back-and-forth emails, the owner confirmed that yes, he did paint these figures and yes, he was willing to accept a commission from me to paint more! I ordered up some additional units for the army that I hope to receive sometime late summer, early fall.

In the meantime, I've ordered up a few more units that I will be painting up myself. Look for more of those coming soon!

Note: Previously I posted that I was abandoning this blog in favor for Instagram. Although I will likely be posting more content on Instagram than I do here, I find this blog a fantastic diary of my wargaming projects and once I started this one I realized that I value that highly. So, I will continue to post here, particularly for this project, but also for other projects.

Even MORE Napoleonic Re-Basing

Here's the other group of Napoleonics that I promised to post earlier this month. These are another two groups that I picked up on Ebay already painted. I just needed to re-base them to fit my favorite rule sets, Napoleon's Rules of War and Electronic Brigadier. 

These very nicely painted Bavarian jagers will represent a small two-battalion regiment of light infantry.

These Austrian line infantry are quite sharp with their purple facings. That's the primary reason I picked them up. I didn't really NEED another large three-battalion regiment, but the purple facings sold me on grabbing this unit. Also it was a good value for the quality of the paint job.

Further losing pace on my purchased vs. self-painted figures. These represent another 56 figures in the purchased column.

Big Austrian Re-Basing Project

After my recent Napoleonic play test of Electronic Brigadier with Ed, I decided I should get off my duff and finally get to re-basing all of the Austrian Napoleonic figures I've purchased from Ebay over the past three years. While I was at it I tossed in a couple French dragoon officers Ed sold me and a German WWII 88mm AA gun. To the left is the group shot of the total project. This is a total of 36 stands re-based.

First up the two Perry plastic Dragoon officers Ed sold me. These are beautifully painted and were based when I got them. Unfortunately Ed's lovely oval officer bases don't match my slotted system which makes re-labeling for Electronic Brigadier much easier so I re-based these to match my other officers. The trooper combat stands I left on Ed's original bases as they're easier to adopt to my labeling system.

Next up a nicely airbrushed 88 factory fresh from Collector's Battlefield. These pre-painted figures came out about a decade ago? I'm not sure the company is still in business. Google searches didn't net me any good links to them any more. Still this was a STEAL on Ebay. It came un-assembled, and it was a touch tricky to get the gun shield onto the model in a way that made me feel comfortable. The irregularly shaped base that came with it was OK but the gun carriage hung off it. I ditched it for a square 3mm plywood base.

The cream of the crop for the Austrian figures are the two of the officers on the right. These were originally on a two-figure stand, but like Ed's not compatible with my labeling system. Since I have enough two-figure command stands I split these two up. the third figure came with the bulk of the infantry and is normal tabletop quality. He'll do fine for larger games.

Eight stands of Hussars I bought in a separate auction. Lead figures of unknown manufacturer. Tabletop quality. This brings my Hussars to twelve bases (squadrons in Electronic Brigadier). More than enough for even large games.

Infantry regiment number one. This one is lead figures of an older vintage. The castings are soft, and the original painter made up for this with some effort with shading and painting. When freshly painted I bet these were quite nice for the time. Now they're a bit worn. I did some touch-ups where the paint was chipped off and based this in three battalions of four stands each and a three-stand battalion of grenadiers.

The last unit was the worst to deal with. These are more modern plastic figures, painted to an OK tabletop standard. The big issue was they were mounted on MDF bases glued down with superglue. This was a NIGHTMARE to un-do. I had to soak the MDF for 3 days and eventually peel it apart layer by layer to get it thin enough to finally carve off the figures. After that I had to re-paint all the bases of the figures before re-basing. Even then the final two battalions aren't all that great. These will eventually be replaced by something a bit nicer to match the rest of my collection. Still for now, serviceable tabletop troops to bulk out larger games.

Finally some group photos and a short video of my complete Austrian collection so far. This is more for me to refer to in the future than for any other reason. Still satisfying seeing a full shelf. On the long-term to-do list is to have my French collection match the Austrians in size.

28mm Austrian Napoleonics - Ebay Buy

These are three units of 28mm Austrian Napoleonic infantry I picked up on Ebay. They were nicely painted, but suffered a bit from the American Tourister Gorillas at the post office. Here they're seen after a re-basing, touching up and with the addition of a flag. They will fill the ranks of my Austrian army nicely. My 28mm figures bought numbers are pulling away from my 28mm painted numbers. Time to return to the painting table and correct the deficit.

28mm Austrian Grenzers

These are two units of Austrian grenzers. They're an entire bag of Old Glory figures which comes with two of each command, officer and standard bearer figures and 24 regular figures. I've since ordered and received six more of the specialty figures to be able to use these figures as four three-stand units, appropriate for both Charlies Napoleon's Rules of War rules as well as my Electronic Brigadier rules.