Another Weekend of DBA Fun and a Magnificent Bonus!

 This weekend my dear wife of 35 years was off enjoying a girl's weekend to celebrate birthdays, so I had a built in excuse to get in some gaming.  While the troops looked good, as usual, my handling of them left something to be desired.

Aslan at the Stone Table with Susan and Lucy.  How could I lose with this mighty lion looking over the battlefield along with the fated queens of Narnia?

King Peter sounds the mighty war horn of Narnia.

But Jadis, the Ice Queen, has other plans.

Beasts of all sorts clash in the middle...

And the Narnians pull out a crushing victory over the center of the wicked Queens army! 

But in the end, the magic of Jadis was too strong and the good people of Narnia will have to wait for another day to feel the return of Spring - Kinda reminds me of US politics come to think of it...

To make up for his treatment of my Narnian army, Terry presented me with an extraordinary gift.  A beautifully based and customized, painted figure of a 54mm Charles Stadden original, here altered to depict a Fusilier in Spanish service of the Cordoba regiment 1810-1812.

Here is how he started life.

Modifications to the front and back in preparation for  converting to a Spanish Fusilier, and also some general improvements to the casting of the figure.

The list of modifications was extensive: Removed the chinscales, cords and shako plate, and reduced the pom pom to a cockade. Made a new shako plate in the shape of the city seal for Cordoba. Added mutton chop style sideburns and a thin pointed moustache typical of the Spanish at the time. Distressed the coat, trousers and shako with patches and tears (saber cut in the shako). Added a new flap cover for the cartouche, and removed the fatigue cap below it. Did some undercutting and refinement to the casting.

Finally, I present the Completed Figure for your Enjoyment

The old campaigner

Even the pot was hand carved and researched for authentic Spanish motifs!

He looks like he stepped right out of the Peninsular war after much hardship!

Even the back is detailed!

My sincerest thanks to Terry for this extraordinary gift which he approached with skill, dedication and an occasional bit of humor at my expense!

Recharging My Batteries

 The German Division is inching forward, so I thought it would be fun to show some WIP pictures on the next unit up for renewal, a battery of Baden artillery.

The 2nd Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment of Baden is done.  These are just a quick rebasing and sprucing up of Dick Tennant's original work.  In truth they would not have worn the helmets, as those were discarded by all units except the artillery very soon after arriving in Spain.

Baden Battery Work

For a single battery of artillery, seven bases are required; one for the deployed battery base, one for the limber, one for the artillerists in march order, and four for the artillerists serving the guns.  Seen here are all seven basses after a gray primer coat on both sides and the first coat of Testor's green enamel.  The bases are elevated off the cardboard backing with some sticky tack, to prevent the bases sticking to the carboard and also to prevent the spray paint running under the bases.

Here are all of the bits and pieces that will come together for the battery; twelve artillerists, four draft horses, two riders, a limber, and in my madness, I have added another gun to the plan, so that each battery will have two guns, one deployed for firing and one limbered (only one will be used in an actual game, with the second only used during display). 

Hopefully it won't be long now that all of the pieces are ready to be shaded and shinnied...

Addendum - Gift Artillery!

My buddy Alastair sent a few cannons he no longer needed, from which I was able to pull out at least 4 British Hinchliffe 20mm canons and what I think are some French 25mm 4 pdr canons, that I just may be able to convert to 20mm 6 pdrs!  This will aid tremendously in my quest to have each battery contain two guns.  Below are two of them nicely finished as British 9 pdrs.

The Spring Break Trifecta!

The Perfect Trifecta: Wargaming, Hiking and Painting

Photos from a great afternoon playing an introductory game of L'art de la Guerre with good bud Mike Lee. It has been far too long since I had pushed some soldiers around on a wargames table! We will not discuss the outcome of the game however...

Mike surveys the devastation he has wrought!

Yes, that's my cavalry surrounded on two sides with a line of pikes to the rear

The takabara were at least trying to hold back the advance of the pikemen.

Unsuccesfully...

The Persian heavy cavalry on the right flank fared much better.

So many long pointy things!

Spring Break

We turned off the electric devices Wednesday and hiked 10.5 miles in Montgomery Bell State Park. Ended the day at the park restaurant overlooking the lake. Nyra was so tired she fell asleep against the leg of my chair. I was a bit tired myself...

The following day we took another electronics free hiking day at Edgar Evans State Park.  Nyra saved the day by refusing the climb up to an exposed ridge during our morning hike.  It was steep and difficult, so we thought she was just tired from the previous day's exertions, but it turned out she was warning us about a pop up thunderstorm!  We think she sensed it coming before we even heard the thunder, but five minutes after we turned around the sky opened up and the thunder rolled!  Later in the day we were hiking again on a really stunning section near the visitor's center.  It's a short 2 mile but quite challenging trail, and halfway along the loop we got hammered by another storm, this time with lots of pea sized hail!  Fortunately, Nyra's thick fur must have softened the impact, because she never complained and was just a champion.  Her new nickname is Brave Nyreen after a favorite children's book of ours.  Before the rains, I did get lots of wildflower pictures, but nothing during the storms as we were a bit pre-occupied!

Bloodroot

Cutleaf Toothwart

Trout lillies

Jefferson Twinleaf

Harbinger of Spring

Trillium or Toadshade

And finally I got some time off my feet for painting toy soldiers.

The German division's command; General de Division Jean Darmagnac with a Staff Major (center) and an Aide de Camp from the Nassau regiment (right), along with a Brigadier General, Neuenstein of Baden (left).

1st Battalion of the Baden 4th Regiment of Infantry.  These are based four to a company base like the Nassau battalions.

Now that the 1st Battalion is done, the second is already on the painting desk for prep work.  Dick Tennant did a wonderful job painting these originally, so my job was greatly simplified.

Next up; Baden Infantry, Artillery, and Battalion Command.

Ode to Quarrie and Bavarian Cream

 A New Twist on an Old Favorite

As many of you know, the Tennant Collection of miniatures features many that were used in the pages of the Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming by Bruce Quarrie.  Dick Tennant and Donald Featherstone worked together to make the images that were used in the guide, by photographing parts of Dick Tennant's collection in painstakingly arranged scenic vignettes.  I have been working to bring that collection back up into top notch condition, repairing chipped paint or broken ankles and bayonets, adding some shading and highlighting, as well as rebasing and giving all a hard protective shiny coat.  In some cases I have added new figures to bring them up to a full wargaming compliment.  Recently I finished painting a scenic backdrop of my own (or at least got it close enough to finished for a debut), so I decided to recreate one of my favorite photos from the Quarrie guide - The Vistula Lancers.

Originally only twelve figures of the fourteen were shown, as the officer and trumpeter were not included in the selected image.  As part of the upgrade of this unit, I pulled out the Colonel to be mounted singly, added a standard bearer and four new troopers, bringing the total to 18 and a Colonel. The end result can be seen above.

Here they are in a setting and angle more similar to the original photo.

This is the original colour photo used in the Quarrie guide which Dick Tennant kindly included in his notes for the collection.  You can see that originally, Dick had painted the plumes yellow over blue, but at some point he had corrected it to blue over black.

As seen in the page of the Airfix Guide

My take on the original

Here is one of the original photos that was unused showing the Colonel and trumpeter.

The Bavarians

Now that I have taken ownership of the collection, I have tried to expand it into the Tennant/Crenshaw collection.  The Bavarians have all been painted by me in a sympathetic style to the original figures in the collection.  Dick was not above mixing manufacturers, and while mostly Hinton Hunt, and Alberken figures, some SHQ, Les Higgins and a lot of Dave Clayton HH castings are included.  The Bavarians feature mostly Der Kriegspieler copies of the original Hinton Hunt figures, as well as a highly modified metal casting of some Airfix figures that are as far as I know, unique.  The wagons, artillery and command are all beautifully cast and sculpted modern Franznap figures (with the exception of the Colonel of the Chvaulegers, which is a slightly modified Hinton Hunt trooper - https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2021/07/bavarian-5th-chevauleger-regiment.html).

General Major Franz Xaver Graf von Minucci has ordered an inspection of the completed Artillery train and has ordered the rest of the contingent to turn out for inspection as well.

The Artillery train preparing to unlimber.

Sighting the guns

The Ammunition wagon prepares to loop around to the rear before the guns open up.

Here are the afore mentioned homecasts of Airfix plastics.  I have no idea of their origin story, nor did I realize at the time they were recast from Airfix plastics.  The muskets were horribly cast so each was replaced by had in a painstaking and tedious process!  https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2019/09/bavarian-infantry-regiment-kinkel.html

The second battalion was made with Der Kriegspieler miniatures.

The Whole Bavarian Contingent; 2 battalions of infantry, a detachment of Light Infantry, a small regiment of Chevauleger and the artillery including the limber horses and ammunition wagon.

The Franznap figures are such a pleasure to work with.

Everyone is in position.  Time to fire the guns!

Just for fun, the Bavarians in their own picture perfect moment harkening back to the 1970s!

Up next time - Refurbishing the Baden infantry battalions and artillery.