Waggin' the Blog

Having just featured my new Blue Moon 28mmWagons earlier this month, some of the older versions of my Transport Corps deserve some brief exposure here as well.

This is a pair of fairly militarized appearing transport wagons.

I'm pretty sure these are "new" Minifigs, 25mm. 

Note the Limber like arrangement of the teams, and the corresponding small front wheels.

The drivers are once again absent, but this does allow use on the tabletop across a wide timespan!

Next up is a forage wagon. Once again, I am fairly sure this one is "new' minifigs. 

I must have had this cart for at least 20 years before finally getting around to adding the "hay" this month!

Sliced up fibers from a natural Fiber doormat were used to make the "hay", which was then coated liberally with watered down white "PVA" glue ("Elmer's" in the US). 

In the pre-industrial era, surely transport logistics were very challenging, as horses consume and enormous amount of fodder, and yet must also haul at least part of it as well. When you add the horses of the supply trains, artillery, cavalry, officers, etc,, it must have been a wonder for any grass to be left after an army passed through an area!

Finally, we have the service de santé des armées; the Army Medical service. This is one of the "Flying Ambulances" designed by Baron Larrey.

The French Napoleonic armies probably had the best organized medical services of any army up until that time, including physicians, surgeons, and even pharmacy officers. It was doubtless still woefully inadequate to the task at times, as well as suffering from the very poor understanding of disease, hygiene, etc., that plagued Medicine at that time. 

It looks like the Corpsmen have a client!

The ambulance was painted back when I was still in High School, years before I had any serious intent of pursuing Medicine as a career.

The Ambulance was painted to commemorate an incident in our very first Warplan 5/5 Campaign in the early 1970's. The climactic battle of that campaign was the Battle of Wheeling. That battle was huge, requiring and 18 foot long table, and notable for many incidents, including the presence of a Fortress on the tabletop (Fort Wheeling), and the arrival of an enemy Siege train opposite it, followed by a Guard Infantry Division to assault it. Elsewhere on the battlefield, the Sovereign of one of the two countries (the Yellow faction, in this case) opposed to my own two country alliance also arrived, at the head of his newly painted troops (Westphalians). His (also newly painted) personal command figure placed himself at the head of his troops and charged at the enemy. The first blast of cannon fire inflicted heavy losses on the new troops, and their commander was hit. A die roll determined that he was Seriously Wounded, and had to be taken from the field, damaging the morale of his men. Thus the figure on the stretcher is Prince Charles the Grey, painted in the uniform of the command figure and with the general features of the player! "Prince" Charles would later become my college roommate my last year of college, and then also have one of the rooms in the 4 bedroom Condo I shared with 3 others my last 3 years of medical school. We actually didn't do much gaming while we were at school, but he did design and build the two shooting Catapults that I still have (and use). . 

Her's a train made up of these older horse drawn vehicles. 

Supplies, Fodder, and Medical care on the way!

Maybe these will see use in our upcoming Winter 1807 Snappy Nappy campaign?

Limbering Up

I like the looks of limbers from the Horse and Musket eras... I really do. And yet, they seldom appear on my tabletop. There are a number of reasons for this. First, they take up a lot of space on the tabletop. In some ways, that is an advantage as it better reflects the actual footprint of artillery units in the field (and perhaps even more so, on the march). They also take up quite a bit of space in storage, which has no advantages at all that I can think of!  They are also rather expensive to buy, and something I don't enjoy painting very much, especially the draft horses to pull them. Providing a 1:1 supply of Limbers to artillery units becomes especially demanding of painting time, space, and money as one's collection grows. Some wargamers really especially seem to enjoy collecting these pieces (I'm thinking of you in particular, Joe!).

   In any event, as I was completing my new Wagons (se the previous post) and looking for my od wheeled transport, I re discovered some French Napoleonic limber units that I had largely forgotten about.

A couple of my very old modified Limber units after a stay in Rehab, and with basing upgraded

Here's the rather unloved starting material. Even these pics are a partial upgrade, as I have just painted the edges of their artist's matting board bases a dull green, to eliminate the white edges that show up much more in pictures than they do in actual use. 

 IIRC these are "old" (Pre 1972) Minifigs. To decrease the cost and painting, I had taken the four horse teams and broke them up to form 2 horse teams (Not correct, no gun teams used less than 4 horses, but I think they look fine to me aesthetically), and used some French Chasseur a Cheval castings as limber riders (never mind the lack of proper horse tack on them!). A single one of the set is "new" Minifigs, with the correct horse and rider but still reduced to a pair of horses for the team. Many are just a pair of courses, with plans to add separate limbers to them. However, I could never find any manufacturer that sells limbers without the teams (of 4 or even 6 horses. I have toyed with the idea of scratch building some limbers for them, but always wind up stymied by the wheels. So these limbers have lugubriously languished in limbo for long decades.

As the painting was pretty basic, dating back to my early years in the hobby, I gave them a coat of acrylic varnish followed by a heavy application of acrylic "magic Wash", followed by some touch up of some of the straps, etc, and black lining of some of the white horse tack, followed by an overcoat of acrylic spray varnish. Certainly an improvement over the original paint jobs!

  I then flocked the bases in a fashion similar to that which I had just used on my new wagons - very fine "earth" flock down the center, and fine "soil" flock for the ruts. 

For the edges of the "roads", this time I used my beloved "Alpine Meadow" flocking mix instead of the tufts and grass blend flock that I used on the wagons, mostly because it was cheaper and faster. 

So, here's the lot of the refurbished Limber units - all eight of them. After I took this picture I realized that I hadn't painted the wheel rims brown on any of the limbers, and I liked the look on the sole limber where I had done so years ago, so I went back and painted the remaining rims.

Two of the "limber" units still lack actual Limbers, although your eye misses that pretty easily.  I still like the reduced horse team look... and the reduction in horses to buy and paint! As the "new" Minifigs limber's base was already flocked, I didn't update it; I may rethink that. That's my effort at "Rehabilitating the Past" as Jake calls it on his own blog. 

I will have to see what I can do about finding or scratch building a couple more limbers to complete the unhitched teams. I also have a brand new, unpainted  (4-horse) Limber form Sash and Saber that could be added to these. Regardless, "Wheels" seems to be the theme for the Month of January here on the blog... and I am not nearly finished with it yet!

Paint your Wagon(s)!

About 3 years ago while browsing at Historicon, I came across these impressive Blue Moon 28mm wagons (available form Old Glory) and just HAD to have some. I started assembling them this summer, and finally finished them this month.

First up is this flat bed supply wagon. The wagons come with either solid wheels like this one, or spoked wheels (your choice); I wound up going with a 50/50 mix. 

I painted the wood work with a base Coat of Delta CC Bambi Brown, which was then dry brushed with CC Cadet Grey, which has no blue tone to it at all.

I painted the assorted boxes in various dull colors:  CC Wedgewood Blue, Goldenrod, Light Chocolate, Timberline Green, and Cafe au Lait

The various tarps were painted with Folk Art Bayberry or CC Hippo Grey. The tall sacks are painted  Maple Sugar Tan. The entire model got a heavy coat of Magic Wash" after it was painted and sprayed with clear acrylic varnish. 

Next up is a wicker sided supply wagon. 

This one has spoked wheels, as you can see. 

I painted the wicker work with CC Old Parchment, stained with burnt Umber. 

Next up is this nifty cart -carry watering, or perhaps wine of even brandy!  Have to keep the "spirits" of the lads up right?!

The cargo for these wagons  is cast in resin, but the rest of the models are white metal. 

All of the assorted barrels were painted with CC Burnt Sienna.

The ropes are painted with CC Light Buttermilk, and the bands were done using Vallejo Oily Steel. 

Next is a wagon carrying bulk flour. Even during the Napoleonic Wars, Field bakeries were established to help feed the hundreds of thousands of men. 

I added the free traces for the teams using black thread, and used suture-type knots to tie the thread to the swingle bars of the wagon. I brushed some flat black paint onto the thread afterwards to thicken and stiffen it as well. The free end of the thread was glued to the harness of the horses using quick drying Duco cement. 

The flour sacks are painted CC Light Buttermilk, and washed with Burn Umber. 

I terrained the bases of the wagons to match my roads as closely as I could. The central part of the base was flocked with Woodlands Scenics Fine Turf  "Earth", using thinned white PVA (Elmer's) glue. The wheel ruts were flocked using Scenic Express Soil Brown Fine (considerably coarser than the lighter colored "Earth" flock). After each of those dried in its turn, I applied a line of glue to the long edges of the bases and attached Tufts in three different colors, followed by an application of Scenic Express Grass Turf Blend. 

Here's a Wagon Train of all 4 models together. 

"A way out here, they've got a name, for rain and wind and fire..."

I have quite a few uses in mind for these wagons, including the 1809 Klagenfurt scenario, Peninsular guerrilla raids, and as supply/line of communications markers for our upcoming Snappy Nappy Winter 1807 Campaign in a Day. 

I'm happy with how the basing effect came out, especially with seen with my felt roads. While basing these, I also refurbished some other wheeled models I have that needed some upgrading; we'll see those before long.