General de Brigade D'Heroique

With most of my preparations for Historicon finished (yea!), I realized I only had enough French officers for two brigades! Since the scenario calls for three brigades plus a C-in-C for the French, this could have posed a problem... especially since I have run out of unpainted mounted officers... yes, I need to let that sink in for a few minutes. I have had piles of unpainted Napoleonics around for more than a decade and I've never gone to the bits box and come up empty. During my work on REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE, I managed to paint almost every metal Foundry French infantry model I had. I still have boxes of plastic Victrix and Perry models, but since all of my French models are Foundry, I wanted a Foundry officer.

Back to the bits box... I found a Foundry (remember I said almost) Young Guard Officer on foot that was part of a pack of skirmishers and inspiration struck. Further searching found a Victrix horse and I started painting. Presenting my alter ego on the game table (note the pony tail, added with a bit of green stuff), General de Brigade Henri D'Heroique:

I might manage another post before Historicon, but if not I will try to post a couple of updates from the field if I get the chance.

Perry Dragoons

Yesterday I arrived home to find a package on my doorstep from Nottingham - two boxes of Perry Brothers Dragoons! The first thing I noticed is these kits are packed! There are enough sprues to build 13 mounted dragoons, 8 dragoons on foot, and 6 casualty figures (3 French and 3 British)...

There are enough spare heads to make a six model elite squadron in helmets or fur caps. Of course there are enough bits to make an officer, eagle bearer, and musician. The separate heads and right arms will make assembly slightly slower than some of their kits, but will give you a wide variety of poses to make a very dynamic unit. The foot dragoons come with three different sets of arms - with the combination of two different bodies and again separate heads, you should be able to make eight unique models that would be perfect for those Sharpe-style skirmishes.

These are great models. I am a huge fan of multi-part plastic minis and have been very happy with the releases from both the Perrys and Victrix. My only gripe with this kit is that the models are in 1812 uniforms and it's doubtful many of these new uniforms found their way to my favorite theater in the Peninsula. Now, since I'm the guy who used Victrix early French to make a couple of  'close enough for me' Spanish battalions for my collection, that's not going to stop me from adding a couple of regiments to my 1810 French army. If I have the time to paint them, I plan to add a couple of squadrons of these models for my game at Historicon.

More terrain stuff is on the way in a couple of days...

A Method to My Madness

I wrote a post a few months back on modeling your Napoleonic forces without the crutch of using army lists (No Army Lists? No Problem!) and I felt like it was time to look at the concept again, this time using a slightly different approach. Sticking with my 'Combat on the Coa' theme, let's look at my French wargames army for REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE based on the 6th Corps under the command of my favorite French Marshal, Michael Ney.

My list is drawn from Donald Featherstone's book Campaigning With the Duke of Wellington & Featherstone. This is one of those treasured volumes that I have returned to over and over for wargame info on the Peninsula theater. Again, I don't have detailed brigade strengths for the Combat on the Coa, but other sources show the French battalions to be quite small. If I stick with my 1:30 ratio that I used for the Light Division, I would end up with units or 16-20 models! That's not really what I want, so my solution is to reduce the number of battalions on the historical order of battle and increase the number of models per unit. Below is my ultimate goal, with the units I have finished in red.

Loison's 3rd Division

Brigade Simon

26th Ligne (2 battalions of 36 models each)

Legion du Midi (24 models)

Legion Hanoverienne (2 battalions of 30 models each)

Brigade Ferey

32nd Leger (24 models)

66th Ligne (2 battalions of 36 models each)

82nd Ligne (36 models)

Loison's Divison did the brunt of the fighting at the Combat on the Coa battle. All of the line regiments were made up of 4th, 5th, and 6th battalions and should probably be rated as Recruits, but it's hard to play a game a fielding an entire division of such troops. When I amass more troops, I would field them that way, but for now they get to be elevated to Drilled, with only my poor allied units - the Legion du Midi and the Legion Hanoverienne - suffering the yoke of the Recruit rating. Just for the sake of balance, I've rated the 32nd Leger as Veteran for no reason other than the e'spirit de corps such units tend to display. The 32nd was also severely understrength (or maybe present as a half battalion?) but I added a few models to bring it in the line with the rest of my Division. The 82nd Ligne is on the painting table...

In the future, when I go to add more troops, I will draw from the following units from the 6th corps, building one brigade at a time, with strengths again built on numbers near the battle rather than those actually present on the day: 

Mermet's 2nd Division

Brigade Bardet
26th Leger (36 models)
27th Ligne (2 battalions of 36 models each)

Brigade Labassee
50th Ligne (2 battalions of 36 models each)
59th Ligne (2 battalions of 30 models each)

Marchand's 1st Division

Brigade Maucune
8th Leger (36 models)
69th Ligne (3 battalions of 24 models each)

Brigade Marcognet
39th Ligne (2 battalions of 30 models each)
76ht Ligne (2 battalions of 36 models each)

Cavalry

Lamotte's Brigade

3rd Hussars (12 models)

15th Chasseurs (12 models)

Gardanne's Brigade
15th Dragoons (12 models)
20th Dragoons (12 models)

The cavalry strengths are based purely on what works best on my small game table. I have two boxes of the Perry Dragoons on order and they will be added to my army soon, possibly appearing at Historicon in support of my French!

I'll more on the subject of army lists in a few days...

Orders of the Day

Last week I finally got my hands on some of the cool Order Markers for REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE. Each set comes with 14 counters, two of each Brigade Order. They are available in five different national sets, each with their own distinct shape.

The small tokens shown above with the Order Markers are Manoeuver Point chips and are available separately in bags of 30. Every game turn players will accrue a number of Manoeuver Points (MPs). These will vary from turn to turn. They will have to be allocated to brigades and units in order to make them obey orders. These chips can be placed behind each unit or brigade to keep track of your MP spending!

In addition to both of these, there are also Condition Markers to denote various Resolve and Disorder status...

You can get your own sets of these great game aids at the League of Augsburg shop! I should point out that none of these items are required to play REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE, but they may enhance your game.

Speaking of something that is not required, I am never one to leave well enough alone. For me wargaming is as much about aesthetics as the rules. I want my games to look as good as possible! The Order Markers seemed to stand out a little too much on the table so I sat down and gave my French set the Quindia Studios treatment...

Basically, I assembled my counters - I recommend super glue as the super shiny plastic seemed slightly resistant to my first attempts with plastic model glue. Then I sprayed the models with black primer - I think it would be hard to brush on a case coat, again because of the glass-like smooth surface of the counters. I painted the entire counter with the same colors I use for my French coats: Foundry Deep Blue Shade (20A). Then I simply drybrushed the counters with Foundry Deep Blue (20B), leaving the original color on the bottom third to create a gradient. Finally I drybrushed the top third of the counter with Foundry Deep Blue Light (20C) and outlined the indented lettering with the same color (not necessary as they were perfectly legible without it, but I already mentioned my inability to leave well enough alone). Still not satisfied, I decided to add mud spatter in the same manner I use on some of my units and finished of the bases in the same manner as my troops!

It may sound like it was a lot of work, but I actually painted these seven counters in about an hour. The second half are on my painting table and they have provided a nice distraction from painting buttons and crossbelts while still keeping me on track with Napoleonics. My British counters will get the same treatment with Foundry Terracotta (37A-C) in the coming weeks to break up the monotony of a 36 model unit of the French 82nd Line which is on deck...

Stay tuned!

Terrain Boards

I went to the hardware store this week and dropped $200 on materials to build the battlefield for Historicon! The basic plan calls for a 6x8' table that we can use for two different scenarios. This will be six 2x4' framed MDF boards that will be designed to fit together in several different configurations. I already have a detailed tutorial of my process on the Articles page of my main website, so I won't be duplicating that here. However, I will post WIP pics and cover anything that I do differently and I will be happy to answer questions as things progress.

We will be running two or three games a day every day at Historicon, featuring two different scenarios for two different games (yes, we are crazy). Half of the games will feature my Napoleonic collection and will of course use REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE, while the second game will be pike and shot featuring the upcoming second edition of BENEATH THE LILY BANNERS (hopefully available this Spring). Details are still be worked out, but both scenarios feature a river crossing.

On the painting front, I am currently working on a unit of the 32nd Leger, expanding a unit I painted for skirmish games to a small battalion of 24 models...

New Camera

I just purchased a Canon EOS Rebel Xsi. I decided it was time to upgrade my photography equipment. For years I've used a Canon Power Shot S30 and I've had good results (All of my photos from Republic to Empire were taken with the S30). Recently I've noticed my old camera's auto focus function seems to be having trouble and I started looking around for a replacement. After a pile of research online, I picked the XSi.

Right out of the box, I got this shot among my first attempt:

The only post production on the computer was a 5% increase in brightness to bring out the brushwork in the fur bonnets. I'll post more about my photography in the future with details of my set up and camera settings, but for now let me say I am ecstatic with my choice.

Vive L'Empereur!

Just a quick post to get a pic of a couple of my French battalions on the blog (and get 'French' listed in the sidebar). These are Foundry models and the flags are my own. This photo is one of many featured in REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE. For those unfamiliar with the rule set, you can see a preview of the book here.