Saxon Invasion and the Birth of a New Project!

Before embarking upon a new adventure I have been trying to close out a few small projects that have cluttered my painting desk for far too long.  First up is a finished camp for a Romano-British army complete with Saxon allies and a Saxon/British longship.  The longship is of course the ubiquitous Essex 15mm Viking longship, but it should work just as well as a small early Saxon or Romano British ship built in the Scandinavian fashion.

 Two Litko plywood bases form the bottom of the scene, with insulation foam shaped and cut with a hot wire to make the bank of the inlet.

 The oars are too close to the bank, but it was a compromise between reality and the required base size for a camp element.  I think of it as the final stroke of the oars before driving the ship onto the bank of a small river inlet.

 The water is made from Sculptamold paper mache.  The rough paper mache texture works very well mimicking the rolling current of water I thought.  The Sculptamold was then painted and gloss coated with acrylic future floor polish.

 Shield decals are by Little Big Man.

 

 The final touch was the scrub and flowering bushes on the bank which are readily available from a number of modelling companies, especially for HO scale model train enthusiasts.

Another Project Nearing Completion

 Here we have some 40mm Mindstalker figures with minor conversions for use in the new release of the Fantasy Trip, Melee and Wizard role playing game.

 The figures are perhaps a bit delicate for gaming, especially the swords, but I'm willing to risk the occasional casualty.

 This was such a fine line of figures which are unfortunately no longer in production.  I was able to get a boatload of them very inexpensively from a collector/or family member who bought out the line.  I think they were the family of the sculptor, but I wouldn't swear to it.

 Great detail all throughout the figures.  The mounted figures are truly amazing!

Bavarians - Regiment Von Kinkel

 I promised a fellow Old School Napoleonics enthusiast, Wellington Man, that I would not let a recent acquisition prevent me from continuing to work on my own Hinton Hunt/Der Kriegspieler 1/72 collection of shiny toy soldiers, so this photo is just to prove that I am still continuing to make progress on my next Battalion.

They will be a battalion from the Regiment Von Kinkel with Black facings piped red.  The Battalion is taking some time and has been delayed getting started, the reason for which you can see below.

And Finally a Massive New Project Begins 

 In these boxes is fifty years worth of devotion to the hobby.  An entire corp of both French and British 1/72 scale miniatures from the dawn of our hobby.  The trip overseas was rough on them and I have spent the last month unpacking and putting them back into top notch condition, though a little detail work yet remains to finish that task, mostly on the delicate and intricately painted foil flags.

 Though I won't have pictures of these for some time, In my next blog post I intend to share a bit of history about the creator of this amazing collection as well as some of his display photos.  Now it is my turn to honor his work by furthering the collection through the inclusion of the French Old Guard, and then on to Russia!

New Spring Time Projects - Bavarians and Saxons !

In what seems like my modus operandi - I can't ever just work on one project, so for the next couple of months will be working on painting a Napoleonic Bavarian battalion for my old school 1/72 collection, and a 15mm early British army made of Saxons and Post Roman occupation British forces as an L'Art de la Guerre army.

1st Up - The Bavarians 

I purchased these on an ebay auction thinking they might be Hinton Hunt figures, but turned out to be custom modified Airfix French Old Guard figures with a head transplant to Bavarian helmets and then cast in metal.  The casting was very well done with the exception of the muskets, which were so poorly done I had to find an alternative solution.  Enter Matt Golding from the UK who sent enough muskets from one of his own projects, to outfit the whole battalion.  Thanks Matt!  I have finished the removal of the old muskets (which were held in the right hand) and replaced with Matt's muskets (cut down very slightly) and held on the left hand side.  I am confident that with a little paint, the remaining removal scars will be well disguised.

We have a local fellow who makes printed flags and sells at the local conventions.  I saw this flag last year and picked it up to save me from having to paint what has to be one of the most intricate Napoleonic flags in use!

Really excited about getting some paint on these fellas.

 The officers are Hinton Hunt figures, but I believe are actually Austrians.  The uniform is so close though, that with a little paint, I think they will make an adequate proxy.

Now on to the Saxons!

This will be a small project as the army itself is already complete, with two exceptions.  I need to make a camp, which in this case will be those pesky Saxons rowing across the channel to beach their ship on the shores of Britain.  Lastly I need a couple elements of those now famous Sarmations who may have served with the Romans in Britain. 

 This is a 15mm Essex viking ship sitting in some colored Sculpta-mold paper mache.  My hope is that when finished it will look like a coastal inlet.  The blue will be toned down with greens and browns and then a little highlighting added.  I would love to figure out how to mold a slate pebble beach as I have seen in Wales.  I imagine the Saxons would have landed on the East coast however.  What would be appropriate for that coastline?

The shields are detailed with Little Big Man decals.

Donnington Sarmations in progress.  I got several pounds of these figures for about $10 long ago.  I passed on most of them to other gamers, but have just enough left for a Sarmation DBA army.

And Finally Spring has Arrived in Nashville!

I spent the day yesterday outside trying to clear brush and get the back yard in order.  Still tons to do, but by the end of the day was able to relax by an outdoor fire and take a load off knowing I had put in a good day's work.

 

 Here are some of the wildflowers blooming out back:

Trout lilies just starting to come up

Native Phlox

 Wild Ginger

 Trillium

 Cut Leaf Tooth Wart (now that is a great name!)

 

 Bloodroot - the native Americans used the dark orange root as a fabric dye.

 

Blood Root blossom just opening up in the morning.

Fusilier-Chasseurs Finally Make an Appearance

The Fusilier-Chasseurs de la Garde Imperiale have been confined to barracks due to an unprecedented two weeks of near constant rain, but thankfully the skies cleared and I was finally able to photograph these fine looking fellows.

 The Battalion of  of Fusilier-Chasseurs turn out under the gaze of Pierre Vrigny, who became colonel major of the regiment of fusiliers on 07/09/1811 at the age of 41.  Unfortunately he would not survive the rigors of the 1812 campaign, and died in Poland during the retreat, unable to travel and captured by the relentless Cossack attacks in 1813.

 The Fusilier-Chasseurs are Der Kriegspieler 16s, with DK command and a Hinton Hunt copy of the Sappeur by JC.  The flag is a hand painted paper flag.  Colonel-Major Pierre Vrigny, I believe is an early Minfigs casting of unknown number.

 Forming line

 Faire volte-face!  At least I hope so.  I don't really speak French, but that is what google tells me.

The 17e Regiment d'Infanterie de Ligne passes by for the review of their senior colleagues, led by Colonel Louis Vasserot.

 As a final added dash, the heavy Cuirassiers gallop past with swords drawn.

 With all of these hungry mouths about, the local animals are looking a little worried....

The French forces for the invasion of Russia are small, but their numbers will grow.  I'm working on expanding the guard as they are just so fun to paint, but also some allied contingents.  I am almost through with the musket conversions for the Bavarians, so will have two Bavarian battalions, two Italian battalions, and one Saxon battalion.  For the Imperial Guard I have the Fusilier-Grenadiers, the Flanker-Chasseurs, the 3rd Dutch Grenadiers and a battalion of Seaman of the Guard.  Lots of painting to do! 

Clearance Continues - Let's Make a Deal!

 All inquiries to David.L.Crenshaw@gmail.com

 

Very Rare Citadel Historic 25mm Collection

Citadel historical collection of Carolingians. These are extraordinarily hard to find!

6x3 Heavy Cavalry + 1 extra figure
1x2 Light Cavalry Javelin
3x1 Mounted Generals
2x2Light Infantry Javelin
1x2 Light Bow
1x3 Bowmen
5x8 Heavy spear/swordsmen (Swordsmen are easily converted into spearmen)
1x54mm Citadel Carolingian swordsman as zone of control marker

Total of 49 Infantry and 24 Mounted $300  REDUCED $225

 

Fusilier Chasseurs Nearing Completion

 As always seems to happen, whenever one project is nearing completion, I get sucked into another.  The Der Kriegspieler French Napoleonic Fusilier Chasseurs of the Middle Guard are coming along nicely, so of course something had to come along and delay their final completion - namely an army of 15mm late Prussians for my DBN collection. 

 Well, this ship/camp scene has been coming along as well, but in all fairness, I think I started it before the Fusilier Chasseurs.

 The Prussian army was a bargain find at the Siege of Augusta, and came with enough pre-painted figures for almost a complete army, and enough unpainted lead to fill in any blanks.  Most are older Naismith figures. 

 As you can see the army contained not only a couple of elements worth of artillery, but also enough to make a camp scene with a limber and some destroyed artillery.  Once I paint a few elements of cavalry the entire force will be ready for basing.  Fortunately the purchase came with all of the figures necessary.  Now I just have to decide which type of cavalry I want to paint.

Won't be much longer before these are done.  Mostly just need buttons, lapel and cartridge box badges, as well as sword knots and they should be good to go.  Well that and a little highlighting, especially on the coats.

 Thanks to the generosity of one of our fellow enthusiasts, I received enough rifles to begin the upgrade of the Bavarians I mentioned in an earlier post, that turned out to be modified Airfix Old Guard Grenadiers.  On the left is the original figure I received, now cleaned of all the old paint.  You can see the rather clumsy attempt at a musket.

 I've tried a couple of different positions for the replacement musket.  The figure in the middle has the musket held in the extended left arm, which has the effect of minimizing the height of the musket above the head.  The figure on the right, has the musket in the bent right arm, which masks the scar from where the old musket was removed.

The Perry brothers sculpted their Bavarians with the muskets held in the left arm, so I am inclined to think this is more correct, but I have not tried to research the military drill of Bavarian Napoleonic soldiers.  I'm inclined to put the musket in the left hand, as I think that is a more normal placement and position of shouldered arms in this period, but would love to hear from any of my readers who might be more knowledgeable on the subject.

Xmas Fun and the The Perils of Collecting!

As is my usual habit, much to the amusement of my family, there were a couple of presents under the tree from me, to me.  I knew I was taking a chance, but am having to learn the hard way about buyer beware.  I'm sure there was no intentional misrepresentation on the seller's part, but sometimes what you get can be a bit, well, surprising.  My first present to myself was a unit of Bavarians that I suspected to be Hinton Hunt.  There are a couple of Austrian Grenadier officers masquerading as Bavarians, but enough line figures to accommodate a simple head swap, so no problem I thought.  The problem turned out to be the muskets, which appear to be childishly executed, so I suspect these are either recasts with added muskets or conversions of some sort.  Does anyone know a good source for 1/72 scale muskets?  They really will have to be replaced to be use-able, otherwise the figures are quite nice.

 This next unit was advertised as 1/72 by the eBay seller and I was curious as to their provenance, but really didn't know what they might be.  Upon inspection of the bases, they turned out to be Hinchliffe miniatures without a doubt, but earlier smaller sculpts apparently done by Peter Gilder himself in the early 70s if the web is to be believed.  While smaller than the later Hinchliffes, the style is similar, but much more slender.  Indeed I thought these might be GHQ miniatures, but once I got them it was clear they are much taller - closer to 30mm.

Definitely not 1/72!

A couple of months ago while trolling around on eBay I also found some GHQ miniatures.  I would like to do a unit of these but would need to arrange a trade with someone else who has a few, as two boxes of the same type would be needed (though one box could be elites of that type.)  I have a box of 1808-12 marching French Fusiliers, and probably marching French Legere from the same period, but the plume is at the side of the shako instead of in front, so I thought perhaps they could be Swiss, as I have seen that plume arrangements in some illustrated plates - does anyone know if the French did a similar plume arrangement on occasion? 

And now for Something completely Different

And now from collecting perils to a little bit of goofy fun.  I finished the dungeon room for an evening of The Fantasy Trip and Death Test with good friends.  It has been thirty-five or more years since I ran a role-playing game and it showed.  We were all essentially new to the game, so we only made it through a couple of rooms before the party met its demise, but that was largely my fault for a mis-read that gave the monsters twice as many attacks as they should have had.  Oh well, dinner was eaten, alcohol consumed and fun was had with good friends, so no matter.  Here are a few pictures of the dungeon - a combination of plaster floor tiles and blue insulation foam that was etched and painted.  The miniatures are 40mm Mindstalker miniatures for the most part, with a few VV miniatures and some LotR plastic combat hex pre-painted figure for expediencies sake.