Painting Challenge Submission 17 - 28mm Bavarians for FPW

Watch out! Here come the Bavarians! 28mm figures from "Eagles of Empire".

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 is one of my favourite settings for gaming, and when I enjoy a project in this hobby, I tend to paint figures for it in multiple scales. So while I have been cranking out a fair of amount of 10mm Franco Prussian War work during this edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I also have some 28mm figures to add. 

One of the Challenge participants, MartinN (a world-class painter and super-nice guy) is a big fan of Bavarians - which makes sense, given that he is a Bavarian himself. In one of my recent 10mm FPW submissions, he lamented the "obvious lack of Bavarians" in my recent FPW painting output. I duly promised I would redress that oversight before this edition of the AHPC was finished - and thus we have this group of figures and flag - are all from the excellent "Eagles of Empire" figure range.

"Eagles of Empire" have some beautiful sculpts, just lovely.

Nice mix of poses.

A look at some of the kit the soldiers carried.

There are so many cool uniforms in the Franco-Prussian War. While those of the French often steal the show, the uniforms of the Bavarian army from the period are very cool, with their unique "cornflower blue" and Napoleonic-throwback helmets. Trying to get this share of blue done properly - or, I should say, in a shade that I subjectively believe to be done "properly" - was a struggle, and you don't need to look too closely to see there is variation here and there as I experimented. Some were too bright, and some were too dark. Fiddling around is not ideal, but I am still really pleased with them, and even with the variations, in a group, I think they look pretty good overall, ready to take on the French!

I must also credit "Eagles of Empire" for beautiful sculpts. They are taller and thinner, but oh man, are they nice! So much animation and character, with nice proportions. I just love painting their stuff.

NCO encouraging the lads!

The Bavarian army made a major contribution to the fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, both in the early battles in and around Alsace, and in the later fighting against the dogged resistance of the French Republican regime. 

Another view of the base with the NCO. These three-figure bases are 40mm rounds.

These figures are based for skirmish gaming with the "Eagles of Empire" rules. I am generally wary of group basing in 28mm when crewed weapons are not involved (one of many odd hobby hangups which afflict my brain), but I thought I would finally try the specific basing suggested in EoE rules. That is what you see here - a command base (with the officer, flag and musician) and two "squads", each of seven models. Each "squad" contains one base with three figures, and two bases with two figures each.  

These guys are on 30mm bases.

I just love these sculpts - who wouldn't follow that standard bearer forward???

The drummer looks a little blurry (sorry), but again, great character in the sculpt - he looks like he is playing the hell out of that drum! Charge!!

I should note the EoE rules are agnostic when it comes to basing - this approach is recommended, but hardly mandatory, and the rules themselves are fairly light and fun, so just about any basing approach will legitimately work. That said, now that I have tried it, I really like the look, and will probably be doing several more units in this way.

My kitchen is stormed by Bavarian infantry - I had better secure the beer!

Of course, one can never have just ONE unit of infantry like this, so don't be surprised if more appear at some point in the future. Thanks for reading everyone, and be sure to enjoy all of the "beat-the-deadline" submissions this week from the various Conscripts participating in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge! Stay safe and stay sane folks!

10mm Bavarian Infantry for FPW

Here come the Bavarians! 10mm castings and flag from Pendraken.

More 10mm Franco-Prussian war figures have come off of the painting desk recently.  This post shows five bases of Bavarian infantry - the castings are all from Pendraken. Not much to say beyond repeating what I have said before - 10mm is great, and Pendraken provides the best 10mm stuff I have come across.

Close up of the Jagers.

Another view of the Jagers...great castings.

There are four bases of regular Bavarian infantry, and one base of Jagers.  The Pendraken castings are all outstanding, but I was particularly blown away from the Jagers, which somehow managed to have the marksmanship cords and plume on the helmets on 10mm castings. My brush skills were not the strongest in terms of picking out those details, but wow - just great stuff.

For my initial attempt at "1871", each base will represent a battalion. But of course you can scale things up and down, depending on the scenario, and what rules are in use.

View of the regular infantry from the rear.

As with all of my recent 10mm FPW work, these figures are part of the build up to do the Battle of Wissembourg - some day when we can get together to have a game.  A division of Bavarians took part in that engagement, and with this lot completed I have now finished painting the initial Bavarian contingent in the OOB for that scenario.

The final bits of the Bavarian contingent for the battle of Wissembourg.

The entire Bavarian division awaits orders while massed on my shelf...

The French are already completed, and now that the Bavarians are finished, it is time to focus on finishing the rest of the Prussian contingent for the game. That will involve another eight batteries of artillery, a few more command bases, and another 12 or so infantry bases.  This will take some time to finish, particularly as I still get distracted by other projects and scales, but the Quarantine Challenge is helping me to focus, that's for sure!

Thanks for looking everyone - I hope you are safe and healthy, wherever you are.

Some More 10mm Bavarians and Prussians for FPW

10mm Bavarians and Prussians for the Franco-Prussian War. Figures from Pendraken.

After a round of science fiction painting, my brushes have gone back to historical subjects.  Here are more 10mm castings for the Franco-Prussian War.  There are an assortment of Bavarians - infantry, officers and artillery, and some Prussian Dragoons.  These 10mm figures are all from Pendraken, purveyor of the finest 10mm figures I have ever come across!

Bavarian infantry regiment - I went with yellow facings on these fellows.

Pendraken sculpts are fun to paint.

View from the rear of the line...

When I love a period or a setting, I am apt to start painting it in multiple scales. Yes, I know this is bonkers...but what can I say? I love the 28mm figures because you can enjoy the many fine details on the lovely uniforms of the period.  But there are limits to 28mm when it comes to playing out the battles of the period - they were large, corps-level battles and I'll never have enough 28mm figures, table space or time to run something like Spicheren, Froschwiller or Gravelotte-St. Privat. To play even portions of those engagements, I'll need a collection of smaller figures so the gang can try out some of these bigger scraps.

Bavarian artillery - Krupp 4-pounders, steel breech-loading pieces that greatly outgunned the French artillery.

Another view of the gunners.

Different rules can give you different options in terms of table representation with these smaller figures.  I really want to try the "1871" rules by Bruce Weigle, and these rules have some flexibility in terms of unit scale/representation, but for the basic level, the figures you see in the photos here would provide one regiment of Bavarian infantry (with each stand representing a battalion), four batteries of Bavarian Krupp 4-pound guns, a Bavarian brigade commander (single mounted officer on a base), a Bavarian division commander (two mounted offers on single base) and a Prussian dragoon regiment (each base representing about two squadrons of cavalry).

These figures could be used for rules systems too of course - certainly "Black Powder" is almost infinitely flexible, and could be used for figures at this scale. These figures could also work for "Polemos", the rules from 6mm figure manufacturer Baccus. 

Prussian dragoons.

Even in 10mm, the Hussars are the glamour-boys of the cavalry arm, with their lovely finery and silk-bagged head gear.

I struggle to paint artillery in any scale, it's always a big stumbling block for me, so it's particularly great to get this group of batteries out of the way.  These four batteries will provide a divisions' worth of guns to my initial Bavarian contingent.

Bavarian command bases.

The single officer will lead a brigade, while the stand with two figures will serve as a division commander.

I started messing around with Pendraken's 10mm range a couple of years ago, and I was blown away by the quality and completeness of their offering.  I've been puttering away at a 10mm collection ever since! I have one specific battle in mind to start - the Battle of Wissembourg.  Using the level of representation described above for the , I have calculated I will need 88 different bases all in, including all of the infantry, cavalry, artillery and officers.  This is for one of the smallest battles of the war (at least for the "Imperial Phase") - and still that's a fair amount of kit to get painted.

I just need to paint these figures, and I can run my first 10mm battle...hoping to get through these during the Quarantine Challenge.

Those kinds of goals can seem so far away. And yet...progress has been made over time! In fact, I'm almost sort-of within striking distance, so I am going to try to do that during our quarantine period of the next few weeks. Of course, I'll be my own worst enemy as I will suddenly feel like painting more Titans or panzers or FPW stuff in another scale or who-knows-what else at any given moment...but hopefully I'll be able to stage the Battle of Wissembourg in 10mm by June. And, of course, I hope we could actually get together for a game in June...

Thanks for looking and visiting - hope you are having a good, safe and healthy day, wherever you are!

Final Painting Challenge Submission - 10mm FPW Bavarians

10mm Bavarians for the Franco-Prussian War. Figures from Pendraken.

The tenth edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has concluded. I had big plans to finish AHPC X with a bang, some big-time entries but world events have not cooperated, as work has been a bit of a scramble running into the final hours of the Painting Challenge (it ended at midnight last Friday).  But I did manage to finish these little fellows - these are 10mm Bavarians for the Franco-Prussian War.  The figures (and flag) are all from the excellent Pendraken.

The sculpts from Pendraken are really incredible...I just can say enough good things about them - I wish I had ordered more before the government "shut" the borders...

Infantry in cornflower blue tunics. You can't miss the Bavarians!

When war broke out between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870, the Kingdom of Bavaria sent a major contingent to join the forces of Prussia and the North German Confederation.  From the initial battle at Wissembourg through the seige of Paris and many battles against the stubborn French Republican regime which replaced the fallen government of Napoleon III, the Bavarians played a major role in the Franco-Prussian War.

Command group in the middle...depending on the system, each base could represent one battalion from the regiment...or the three bases together could represent one battalion...all depends on the rules.

In terms of approaching ways to game this period in any scale, I would like to start out "small". The Battle Wissembourg fits that bill, in the sense that it was one of the smaller encounters in the War.  It was also one of the first battles. A division (and more) of Bavarians were part of that engagement. These figures are meant to represent part of that force, representing a regiment of infantry and a regiment of cheveauxleger cavalry.  There are two individually-based mounted officers as well to represent relevant layers of command, depending on the rules system being used.

Chevauxlegers - Bavarian "light" cavalry.

The Battle of Wissembourg saw an understrength French division hold off elements of one Bavarian and two Prussian corps for the better part of a day.  Had any of the nearby French forces come marching to the sound of the guns, the engagement may have turned out differently, but the lethargy shown by the French command would turn out be the rule, not the exception, in the summer of 1870...

Again, these could represent one regiment, two regiments...it all depends on the rules being used.

There are several different sets of rules for gaming the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 at larger scales.  I am hoping to use the "1871" rules, and will probably also try "Black Powder", and maybe even "Polemos".  It will still be some time before we get to the table, as even the "small" Battle of Wissembourg still calls for something like 44 bases of infantry, nine bases of cavalry and 21 bases of artillery...the war in 1870 was short, but the battles were big!

Mounted officers to serve as command markers.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge was a lot of fun - I should not here that moth Mike F and Byron M also participated, painting lots of really cool stuff.  I encourage everyone to head over to the AHPC Blog and scroll through the entries to check out their work!

Certainly current events may now allow for more time to paint, even though the crippled economy may not allow for much money to buy paints or figures (not that I "need" any more figures)...I'm fortunate enough that my job is still holding up for now.  But I know Thousands and thousands of others are not so lucky, so I hope everyone out there can stay healthy and safe, and I hope our collective governments get their sh*t together in time.

Cheers, and stay tuned for more "social distancing" painting efforts...