Alberken Staff Set and Shake up in Command

I recently saw this Alberken staff set on eBay going for a reasonable price so I picked them up, mostly out of curiosity, because I knew I could only use the French staff set.  I believe we have Napoleon, Murat, Ney and Eugene.  For the British it appears to be Old Nosey himself, with Picton, Uxbridge and Hill.  I don't really have a use for the British staff set, so let me know if you could use them.  Also included were these odd SAE figures, which will get melted down unless someone tells me otherwise.  There is a certain simplistic charm in these old figures, but some of the paint is chipped, so I am debating whether to try and touch them up, or just start over again.

Not to long ago I received a splendid lot of Hinton recasts from J.C., and he included the figure of Murat as a freebie.  Was a fun surprise to realize I had both a vintage painted figure and a pristine unpainted figure as well.

 Also included in this lot were these Union of South Africa figures.

These were made by the Swedish African Engineering Company I believe (SAE), which I assume are not of any real value, but let me know if anyone wants them.  The paint is in rough shape.

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Now on to my biggest conundrum.  I really need to be more thoughtful about my figure choices, and what I thought would be a good figure for representing Major Vrigny of the Fusilier Chasseurs, turned out to be a Colonel of the Garde Chasseurs, Baron Charles-Andre Meda.  It was only after painting his jacket French Blue, that I realized he had a cavalry saddle and cavalry trousers.  I'll paint him up appropriately, but now am at a loss for Major Vrigny.

Art Miniaturen Colonel Baron Charles-Andre Meda

Here is a portrait of Major Vrigny of the Fusilier-Chasseurs.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Vrigny.jpg/280px-Vrigny.jpg

What do you all think of the figure below for his representation?  Is this a reasonable figure if I loose the mustache but keep the mutton chops?  Should I leave him in the bicorne, or do a head swap and put him in a shako like his troops? 

Speaking of, here are the fusilier Chasseurs - coming along, but slowly.

New Battalion - Fusilier-Chasseurs of the Middle Guard

For some time I have been debating how to paint a battalion of DK-16s, and have finally arrived at my decision and the painting has begun.  The sculpting on the DK16s is appropriate for the Fusilier-Chasseurs, with epaulets and gaiters as well as the obligatory plume.  For command I have a selection from the French command pack, as well as an authorized recast of a sappeur by Jon Cunnigham.  Unfortunately, due to an earlier error on my part, the poor gentleman has been through two head transplants, and finally found himself with the head of my one and only spare Dutch Grenadier.  I have also discovered, thanks to the inspiration and excellent work of Wellington Man on his battalion of young guard Voltigeurs, that the flags of the young and middle guard did not bear an eagle. 

http://thehintonspieler.blogspot.com/2015/03/young-guard-voltigeurs-update-3.html

 Only the Grenadier regiments were given that honor, so I replaced the cast on flag with a plain spear as the pole, and will add a paper flag as the final step.  No fizzy can flags for me - I will leave that to the experts!

The commander of the Fusilier-Chasseurs during the 1812 campaign was Major Pierre-Francois Vrigny, who died in January of 1813.  I have decided to represent him with a modern figure by Art-Miniaturen.  It is a lovely sculpt and seems appropriate for a commander in the Imperial Garde.

In addition to the Fusilier-Chasseurs, I was fortunate enough, thanks to WM, to be part of an auction that included 16 original Hinton Hunt elite Voltigeur firing.  I can't begin to express my thanks for the chance to get these exquisite figures.  I am torn as to whether I want to hold on to them until such a time as I can find a few more to finish the battalion, or to mix them with some very nice elite Voltigeur charging DK figures.  While the DKs are quite nice, next to the Hinton Hunts they are petite.  I will say the idea of mixing poses for Voltigeurs has some appeal, and I am considering flanking a DK figure with two firing Hinton Hunts on each stand of three, perhaps with the addition of added height to the base to minimize the size difference.  I would love to hear from folks with opinions on the matter.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and hope you enjoyed.  Look forward to your comments as the project progresses.

Alberken Craziness

Found these on ebay recently and thanks to a trade, may swap a box of Russians for the Austrians to bolster my Russian forces.  Unfortunately they come in boxes of twenty, and I am unlikely to ever find unpainted Alberken miniatures to fill them out to a full battalion of 24.  I think I have some DK figures that I could convert into standard bearers and NCOs, but of course the challenge will be to mimic the painting style and aged finish of the originals.

The photo on top is of 2 mint condition boxes of Austrians and Russian Grenadiers (the excessive yellowing is a product of bad photography - though I will say the white paint has yellowed somewhat).  With luck I'll swap the Austrians for the Russian line battalion in the second photo (really having no use for Austrians in my army at present).  Have to love trying to make use of these old veterans!

40mm Role Playing with Melee and Wizard - TFT Kickstarter

I loved playing The Fantasy Trip (TFT) when I was a wee tike in high school (actually I was pretty big and sported a daunting beard back then, but no matter, you get the point).  Recently Steve Jackson re-acquired the rights to the game and has re-released it in a new shiny version through Kickstarter.  In preparation I am hastily painting 40mm Lord of the Rings plastic hex combat figures, as well as 40mm pewter Mindstalker miniatures, to be ready for a dungeon adventure this Christmas with the family.  Nothing says Christmas like Death Test II!  Here are some work in progress pictures of the figures:

 "Not Galadriel" preparing to hurl a fireball.

 I never like this sculpt in 28mm and it was even worse in 40mm, so I just chopped off the extended left arm and added a shield.  Better, but still not my favorite.

 Pewter Mindstalker figures, unfortunately out of print

Ancient German 15mm DBA Army

While Normally I pride myself on painting my own armies, recently I realized I simply have more lead than I could ever hope to paint, so I farmed some out to the talented paint brush of Paul Potter for painting.  I asked Paul to leave them un-based so I could match my own style.  Besides basing, I decided I wanted to pretty up some of the shields with Little Big Man shield transfers, so there is a nice mix of original painting and transfers in the army.  So without further ado, here is the result:

Rohan, the Men of Snowbourne

In the Peter Jackson film version of the Lord of the Rings, the men of Snowbourne are late to the rallying point before the Rohirrim head out to assault the orcs of Morder besieging Minas Tirith.  The only excuse I could see is that they must be from the outer reaches of Rohan.  When I received this selection of soldiers, painted by none other than Sue (Hurklecat).  I thought immediately that they could be fashioned into Rohirrim with just a little bit of extra love.  I added just one or two figures, customized some shields and added some banners, replaced old lead spaghetti spears and then based them to match my collection.  Thus my second army of Rohan was born, this time featuring more reds than greens, a consequence of their distance from the main plains of Rohan, and also why there are more infantry, as they live in the foothills of the mountains bordering Rohan (at least that's my story and I'm sticking with it.)  The magician is meant to represent Radagast the Brown, who has emerged from seclusion to lend a hand against the evils of Isengard and Morder.

Radagast was on of the few figures I painted from scratch and is from a Ral Partha half-elf collection I believe.  I thought his armor/coat was reminiscent of feather, hence he is based with an owl and eagle.

There were two of these included in the selection and they were a bit too Roman to serve as rohirrim, particularly this on on the armored horse, so I sculpted a horsehair crest for the helmet and added a sword to help disguise his Roman heritage.

Italian Condotta 25mm Venetian Reinforcements by Ral Partha

I added another few elements to my Venetian army for DBR using 25mm Ral Partha sculpts by Tom Meier.  These are fantastic old school miniatures from back in the 1980's, but also really show Mr. Meier at the top of his game!

Here is a link to another Post with the rest of the army, though I have apparently failed to ever photograph my Romaniole pikemen, resplendent in the red and white outfits typical of the landsknechte.

http://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2011/01/venetian-italian-condottieri-dba-army.html

A much needed additional element of heavy knights for the Venetians.

I added a few VVV decals to the horse barding to give it a little extra umph.

As far as I know Ral Partha only ever produced two variations of heavy knights for the Renaissance period.  I have incorporated a modest variety by varying the horses they are mounted on.

I Believe this heavy horse barding was designed to represent a metal exterior, but I have also seen period paintings of this type of armor with a close fitting tabard, so I think I could also paint this horse as if the barding were almost tapestry-like.

Crossbows were still in use, though getting rapidly replaced by hand gunners.

The simple and muted color combination of this unit I found surprisingly appealing.

The Venetians loved their eastern mercenaries, and here we have a unit of Dellis, stolen from the Ottoman line, also sculpted by Tom Meier.  Apparently they really did like to tack bird wings to their shields.

I'm looking forward to my next game with Terry, so that I will have a better chance of teaching his vile Milanese their place in the Italian states pecking order.