From Curt: 28mm Napoleonic French Battalion, 2/67e Regiment de Ligne (20 points)

Work's a little crazy and with keeping on top of the blog I find it's been challenging to keep my own projects moving along.  Useless whinging aside, I have a few things coming to fruition and this group is the first out of the gate.

Though this looks like a large entry its actually pretty small. I bought the majority of the figures for this unit on Ebay over a year ago and they've been sitting on the 'to-do' part of my workbench ever since. I remember it being a cracking good deal, but once I received them I found that the painting was a little...meh. It was a bit of a slog reworking them, as I hate fixing other's people's stuff, but slowly I got through them all. 

The majority of these models are from Wargames Foundry.

The original figures were block-painted so I tweaked them with some highlights, cleaned up transitions, hit a few with washes and rebased the lot. I also added a few of my own figures to help the unit better blend-in with my other stuff. My 'new guys' are a mounted commander and two junior officers on foot. The battalion colour is from 'Flag Dude'.

Anyway, these fellows depict the 2nd Battalion of the 67e Regiment de Ligne. They had the unique distinction of serving as marines at the Battle of Trafalgar, many of which were aboard the L'Aigle (where ironically they lost their eagle, but saved their colours). 

Later, in 1809, they were part of Massena's IV Corps and were heavily committed to the hard fighting both at  Aspern-Essling and Wagram.

The mounted commanding officer and his junior below are both Perry models.

The other dismounted officer pointing forward is a Sash and Saber casting which I always seem to enjoy as I find them quite characterful.

These three will give me... 20 points(!). Yes, my head practically snaps back from the lunge ahead... God's Holy Trousers, I've got to get some other stuff done...


Next up: French Dragoons.

From ChristoperS: 28mm ACW 4th Alabama Regiment (100 points)

Christopher sends in this beautiful American Civil War regiment which depicts the 4th Alabama.

The 4th Alabama was part of Laws Brigade in Hood's Division. They saw heavy action in the Eastern theatre throughout the war.

These are 28mm Sash and Saber castings. I've worked with these as well and I agree with Christopher in that they are very characterful and a lot of fun to paint. Speaking of which, Christopher used Army Painter Quickshade with these and then went over them again for the final highlight (with very nice results). Great groundwork as well. Flag by GMB.

This fine unit will give Christopher 100 points to add to his total. Great work!

New Entry from Greg: 28mm Foundry Austrian 6pdr Artillery

Shifting from the steppes of Russia to the Austrian Marchfeld, here we have Greg presenting us with two Austrian 6 pound artillery pieces with their crews, ready to help blast the French back into the Danube (or announce the opening of Oktoberfest). Beautiful work, Greg! You just need one more section and you'll have the battery done. (You see, Greg hates, HATES painting artillery...).

Greg has already built a gorgeous 15mm Austrian force, but has recently decided to take the plunge and do it all again in 28mm, organized around the 'Grande Manner' scale.

These two artillery bases will give Greg 11 points for his opening gambit in the Painting Challenge.

Even though they were completed not long before the Challenge contest parameters I thought I'd include below a few shots (gratefully poached from the Fawcett Ave Conscripts) of some his beefy 40-man infantry battalions. Yes, very nice indeed - bravo, Greg!

Two battalions of German infantry with Command

...and a Grenzer battalion.

28mm Napoleonic Pioneer Assault Teams

I completed these three pioneer combat stands for the 'When Things go Boom' scenario that I put on for the guys recently. Two are French and one is British with a mish-mash of figures from Foundry, Victrix, Perry and Sash and Saber.

In 'Republic to Empire' a brigade's pioneers can be commandeered together to form specialized assault teams to aid in defending or seizing built-up objectives. These hard nuts are quite the terror in close combat but the downside, of course, is that they are amongst the first to take casualties in a pitched fight. 'Lasalle' also features Engineer bases so these boys will serve for future games in that system as well. I quite like the inclusion of these elements to a game as it builds the excitement when players have to 'ante up' their forces for close combat.

As you can see I didn't have enough pioneer castings to fill all the stands so I included a selection of grenadiers to back them up. This seemed reasonable as I would think grenadiers would be a common choice for leading these kind of assaults. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get these done for the game I would have modeled them on cobblestone bases with some of the figures carrying ladders, pickaxes, etc. - well, maybe for the next group.

These brawlers will count for 12 points in the Spring-Thaw Painting Challenge.