Convention Gaming and Works in Progress

Last weekend we had our local miniature wargaming convention, Nashcon, after a year's hiatus due to Covid. It was great to be back with friends I had not seen in a long time!  The convention was in a new location that worked well and the organizers of the event did a masterful job.  Due to Delta, many of us were still in masks just as an extra precaution on top of vaccinations.  While most folks felt safe enough to game without the masks, there were a number of folks wearing them and everyone was very considerate of each others choices.  

Getting a a game of Triumph in with Carson Greene under the helpful gaze of Brian Caskey, who helped walk us through some of the nuances of Triumph

Here my Romano-British tried to hold the hill against Carson's horse archers, while on the opposite flank, I had lured his elephants into some bad going.

 

https://www.wgcwar.com/

Triumph is a DBA variant with the addition of a point based army system, that adds a nice layer of complexity to the 12 on 12 model of DBA.  The combat tables are a bit more easily navigated than DBA 3.0, with situational modifiers being more readily assessed.

Rod Cain with the help of William Hupp and Brian Caskey, hosted a wonderful Grand Triumph battle of Hydaspes.  I played Poros and my elephants were roundly spanked.  Clearly I still have a lot to learn!

Here you can see Poros on his elephant all alone, his elephant riding compadres having all been dispatched by the Macedonians or by a confused retreat into more elephants.  It really was ugly for the Indians!

Beautifully painted armies!

In addition to playing Triumph I have been enjoying L'art de la Guerre.  This game ramps up the complexity level by the addition of more troop types and variations among troop classes, as well as the addition of shooting and evasion on horseback.  A great set of rules once you get the hang of it, but more complex to set up and build armies for.

http://www.artdelaguerre.fr/adlg/v3/?/en/overview

My game with Chris Greene convinced me it was time to invest in the latest edition of the rulebook.

After Nashcon it was time to clear my desk of some projects that have been hanging on and to get started on the next addition to my shiny Napoleonic armies. 

The units on deck and ready to be painted are already piling up.  Chomping at the bit are the French Imperial Guard Grenadiers and Marines, a Spanish artillery battery, a Bavarian artillery battery, additional figures for the French 13th Cuirassiers, and a skirmish unit of Bavarian jagers.

I am also working on the Legion du Midi who were brigaded with the Legion Hanovrienne.  More on this unit later, but here is a quick teaser.  These illustrations were sent to me by none other than Phillip Haythornthwaite in answer to a question I had posed to him regarding the shakos worn by the legion.

When phillip Haythornthwaite tells you there is no evidence of shako cords having been worn by the rank and file, it behooves you to get out the clippers and files.  Also note the addition of epaulets, shako plates and carrot shapped pompoms.

Just a few more little tweeks and this battalion will be ready for priming and painting.

As you can see, lots of painting is in my future.  Thanks to everyone who helped with and attended Nashcon, with a special thank you to all those who ran games.  Was great to see everyone again!

Completed British Division in Review - Plus a Manly Surprise

 At long last I have completed refurbishing and remounting an entire British division.  This is just one of what is essentially four divisions in the original Tennant collection, so there is still much work yet to be done.  Below is a sobering excel sheet showing the refurbished figures in the red box, and a daunting number of regiments yet to be given the shiny treatment.  A few bits and pieces from other divisions are done as well, such as some artillery, cavalry and skirmishers, but just a smattering at present.  At least most are already expertly painted by Mr. Tennant; only the three KGL regiments will have to be painted from scratch.

The last of the division's line infantry to be finished  is the 18th Portuguese Regiment commanded by Lt. Col. Sebastião Pinto de Araújo Correia.

Just enough room inside the regimental square for the two commanders.

Attack columns in echelon.

So happy these hand painted flags survived the journey across the Atlantic!

I did add the finial and crevat just to complete the beautifully painted standard.

The Portuguese battalions were in great shape and came together very quickly.  I only hope the French battalions are in as good a condition, as they will be next up.

For those of you with a strong stomach, you can try watching my attempt at a fly by over the division.  It is kind of like Sergei Bondarchuk meets Dollywood, as the camera appears to have been mounted on the world's most rickety wooden roller coaster.  I did at least learn how to make and embed a video into the blog, so I guess there is that at least...

 

Our son the electrical engineer was in town recently and brought along his soldering iron to install an LED lighting kit into my display cabinet.  The lighting upgrade was just in time.  The British Division will need to be housed here once again while I begin construction on the battlefield terrain for Vimiero.  I do need to get a couple of extra shelves though!

 And for a completely different manly surprise, I finally finished painting Conan the Barbarian!  The figure was a gift from my daughter which has taken me far too long to get painted.  I love to balance the Napoleonic painting with little side adventures like this just to keep things fresh and fun.

Staring down some skellies.  If they weren't undead, they would know better than to attack Conan!

At first his skin was painted over in a matt finish, but in consultation with my daughter, we decided he needed to glisten with sweat.

I wanted him to have a slight forward lean as if balancing on the balls of his toes, but from this angle he is a bit like the leaning tower of Piza!

Remind me to brush off my figures really well before varnishing.  Despite my best efforts I still ended up with some static grass stuck to his butt!

This is that forward aggressive lean I was going for.  I'm looking forward to getting him into a dungeon full of monsters and evil critters!

Thanks as always for visiting and hope you have enjoyed my journey into the world of miniatures.  Comments are greatly appreciated so if you made it this far, by all means drop me a line using the comment box.  Next up will be a few projects that have been on my desk for far too long; a 28mm camp for my Napoleonic DBN armies, and a few elements for a Russian contingent at the battle of Grunwald in the 15th century.

Bavarian 5th Chevauleger Regiment (Leiningen) and a Unique Little Find

You've come a long way baby!  From start to finish the Bavarian 5th Chevauleger Regiment (Leiningen) was a challenging regiment to refine and paint.  They started life as three Hinton Hunt original castings (BVN / 44) which were customized into the Oberstkommandant, Trumpeter and Major, as well as ten lesser quality Der Kriegspieler castings (216).  The DK castings were particularly challenging because they appear to have not copied the HH BVN / 44 figure, but that of a British cavalryman with a head transplant!  To transform them into Bavarians, the distinctive British canteen and Sabretache had to be painstakingly removed and the sword beneath re-shaped.  Forage bags were also added to disguise some of the surgery.  The swords on the DK castings were also particularly short and rather than have them look like gladius wielding Roman wanna-bes, I replaced the swords with flattened pins that were given a slight curve and filed to shape.  A lot of work, but the end result I hope speaks for itself.

I thought it would ad some visual interest to angle the swords rather than the more traditional straight up and down.

All of the blue diamonds on the shabraque was quite the task, but I just settled in and over the course of three evenings added those with a micron ink pen.

Here you can see the addition of the forage bag.  I added this primarily to match the Hinton Hunt figure design.  The method of holding the carbine I suspect is more British than Bavarian, so I painted in the metal hook for the carbine on the bottom of the crossbelt, which I believe was the more common way of carrying it.  The painted hook also helps to visually break up an area where detail was lacking and cover up some of the rough texture from some trimming I had to do on that side of the figure.

I realized after basing these that I had cut the bases to the wrong width.  Thus these bases will be recycled shortly and trimmed down to use on a Portuguese infantry battalion currently getting the glossy treatment.  I'll have to cut some new bases for the Bavarians that give them a tad more room side to side.

Oberstkommandant Johann Nepomuk Baron von Viereck commanded the Leiningen regiment from October 29, 1809 to April 15, 1812.  The original Hinton Hunt figure was weilding his sword so the scabbard was empty.  I have added a sword hilt from a Zvezda plastic cuirassier set to fill the gap.

The original Hinton Hunt castings really are so much nicer and of course a tad more robust than their Der Kriegspieler copies.  To modify the trooper into the Oberstkommandant (Colonel), I removed the carbine and covered the scar with the tail end of the command sash.  The scar was rough enough that I don't think I even added any green stuff epoxy putty, just painted it on.

The Major has retained his sword and carbine and is essentially the standard trooper with the crossbelt just painted as a command sash.

The trumpet and gauntlet was scavenged from a set of plastic cuirassiers and simply replaced the sword hand.  I really should have taken the time to file down the buttons on the opposite arm and build up the gauntlet with epoxy putty, but without the aid of magnification, you really don't need all that for the paint to read as a guantlet.

This is a before picture of the DK castings.  Note the giant pit under his extended arm which was a casting flaw on all of the DKs that had to be removed and filed smooth.  Also of note is the gladius instead of a proper saber.

Here you can see the chief sin of the DKs, which is the British style canteen over a square shoulder bag, as well as the Sabretache covering the sword.  I got lots of practice with my snippers and x-acto knife to get those modifications looking reasonable.

On a completely unrelated note, I saw these and thought they might be Hintons, so on a lark just picked them up off eBay.  They turned out to be Phoenix Miniature Design's (PMD) extension to the Les Higgins Napoleonic line.

The figures are true 25mm scale, so a tad big to mix with DKs, but if I ever find some original Hinton Hunt French Old Guard horse gunners, they could add some nice variety

A Miscellany of Colonels, a New Mom, and the 6th Cacadores

 Anticipating a need for some more Colonels to lead the Portuguese Brigade, and another battalion of Dutch Grenadiers, I decided to knock out their Colonels so they could busy themselves recruiting the rank and file while I work on other projects.

 

From left to right are:  Colonel Ralph Dundas Tindall of the 3rd Dutch Grenadiers of the Imperial Old Guard, a Vivandiere who follows him to battle, Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Pamplona and his subordinate, a British Lt. Colonel for the 18th Portuguese 2nd battalion.

Colonel Pampolona - possibly to be renamed as Lt. Col. Sebastião Pinto de Araújo Correia (both commanded the 18th so it is just a matter of who commanded at the most appropriate time), started life as an SHQ British Colonel.  A head swap and a little tinkering with the position of the arm and viola - a Portuguese Lieutenant Colonel.  I'm hoping the head came from a Dave Clayton recast, otherwise the gods of all thing Hinton Hunt may never forgive me.

Colonel Tindal started life as a Franznap Old Guard Colonel in campaign uniform.  Another head swap with an SHQ Old Guard Grenadier gave him some more formal attire for his sandy locks, and some judicious trimming with an x-acto knife got rid of the greatcoat over his shoulder.

He turned out to be a suitably haughty regal fellow.

Another Franznap sculpt to keep Colonol Tindal Company is this rather lovely Vivandiere with a newborn.

And here we have a rather heretical addition for a supposedly Old School collection.  This rather smashing looking chap is actually a soft plastic command figure from the Waterloo 1815 toy soldier company.  I wanted to add a little variety to the British Lieutenant Colonels so I decided to branch out a bit.

I quite like the figure and once all glossed up he still could pass muster as a good old school toy soldier.

Here we have the 6th Cacadores painted by Richard Tennant.   I have done minimal work to these, just a little highlighting on the browns, yellows and greens to brighten them up a wee bit, as well as a bit of shading for the faces and hands.  These were still in great condition, so other than one replacement plume, they required very little work to touch up.

The battalion is lead by Major Tiago Pedro Martins.  The figures are Hinton Hunt PTN 14 Portuguese Cacadore charging, PTN 6 Portuguese officer marching, BN 96 British light infantry at trail, and BN 20 Rifleman Bugler.

I decided to base these with the reserve and headquarter companies on one 6 figure base, which leaves two 9 figure skirmish companies to throw out in front of the Portuguese Brigade.  As the British army in the Tennant Collection is a bit light infantry heavy, I will not mourn the loss of a few potential skirmishers, besides, I just received a few more riflemen so I can now model a few companies of the 2nd/95th.

As a teaser here is what is on deck:  an absolutely stunning Franznap 6 horse Bavarian limber and 6 lb gun with all of the associated gunners and command, a battalion of Les Higgins Old Guard Grenadiers with command all primed and ready, and finally a battalion of French Marines of the Old Guard, the last twelve of which are on the painting table getting a final trim before priming.  The Bavarian Chevau-Leger are on the painting table, and now that all of these figures are almost prepped, I can forge ahead getting some paint on them!