15mm Second War of Italian Independence Project: On the painting table are two battalions of Austrian line infantry. Each battalion is 18 figures strong. These two battalions will join the already fielded grenadier battalion of the IR #7. When these are finished, I will have exhausted my inventory of Austrian line. For now, I'm holding my order in anticipation of Scott's forthcoming 19th Century Battle Honors ACW order. If we order together, we can likely get 40% discount and free shipping. Next on the painting table will be the 1st Kaiser Hussar Regiment and will represent my first horse unit for this project. lthough I've painted a couple of battalions of Bersaglieri using Piedmontese line, I'm still searching for proper figures. Both Freikorps and Mirliton produce the figures in 15mm with Freikorps being true 15mm. The figures from Mirliton look nice but shipping from Italy is quite expensive. That is, 24 Euros of figs cost 12 Euros to ship. Mirliton produces personalities from the war that would be very useful. I may still place a very small order to sample the figures. Below is a portion of a painting from the Risorgimento Museo in Milan taken in 2009 showing a Piedmontese gun, crew and assorted horse. Note that the downed Austrian horseman's white, dress gloves must have been stored inside the his shako.
A second photo from the museum renders the Battle of Arcola in miniature. The diorama depicts the point in the battle where the French storm the Arcola bridge defended by lines of Austrians.
18mm 1799 Italian Project: Two battalions of Austrian IR Preiss are complete and awaiting flocking. 18mm SYW Project: The first squadron (six figures) of Prussian Hussar Regiment #2 is finished.
Gamed at Terry's on the 13th replaying the Little Round Top scenario from RFF. We used Terry's old N-gauge Scruby based three figures per stand. Terry's basing actually suits RFF better than it does for BOFF. The problem with the shallow bases reared its head again. Figures tend to topple over when based on shallow bases with figures only one rank deep. The laws of physics continue to hold. For the game, Terry commanded the Federals and I commanded the Confederates. The Confederates had no on-board artillery so would have to attack without close artillery support. Splitting the Confederate line were Berdan's Sharpshooters embedded within Devil's Den. Robertson's brigade was also split by Devil's Den and 4TX and 5TX were out of his command. My plan was to demonstrate with Law and attack with Robertson and Benning. The attack was slow in developing but Benning eventually destroyed Smith's guns and held the southern end of Houck's Ridge. 4TX and 5TX and Law's Brigade was torn to pieces as it crossed into the rough ground along Plum Run. Hazlett's guns pounded the Rebs continuously. The 15AL and 47AL made one assault against the Union breastworks on LRT and were narrowly repulsed. Robertson and Law's commands became worn with light casualties and any hope of pressing the attack vanished. The Federals declared victory as the remaining Rebs slipped back into the woods. 18mm 1799 Italian Project: Two battalions of Austrians are on the painting table after recently finishing two battalions of French line. A recent resupply from Eureka included early Russians as well. Two Russian grenadier battalions have been primed and are awaiting in the queue. The six grenadiers from these two battalions will join the half completed combined grenadier battalion. All figures are AB. 15mm Napoleonic Project: Cavalry rebasing project is on hold until I receive a resupply from Scale Creep and Litko. As I mentioned earlier, the Russians were next in queue. The Russian heavy cavalry and hussars have been rebased with the cossacks undergoing the process once more bases arrive. Sold! Even though the Vietnam collection saw action on the tabletop in 2010, I decided to liquidate the collection. Hopefully, they found a good home where they will see more action than I was able to provide. I have a few more orphan projects that are under consideration for culling: 15mm medievals and 28mm SpAm War Spanish come to mind. The Spanish haven't seen action on the table in about ten years.
A number of wargaming related books have arrived in-house over the last several weeks. Rulebooks include:
Weigle's 1866 and 1870
Gray's Age of Eagles and Age of Honor. Somehow, I managed to pick up two copies of AoE.
Penn's Napoleonic Principles of War
Mustafa's Grande Armee
Hasenauer's Regimental Fire and Fury
Wargaming/Uniforms:
Featherstone's Wargaming Pike and Shot
Zannoni's L'Esercito Austriaco nel 1859
Young's The Wargame
History:
Lynn's The French Wars 1667-1714
Burne's Battlefields of England
Gates' The Spanish Ulcer
Haythornthwaite's The Peninsula War
Gill's 1809 Thunder on the Danube Vol III
I recently went on a search for replacement paint brushes. After several recommendations on TMP, I placed an order for a couple of Winsor & Newton brushes from Dick Blick. The brushes arrived in well-packaged and in excellent condition. The brushes were at a hefty discount too. Then one afternoon on a White Elephant run for Dullcote, I stopped at Spokane Art Supply and looked around. Many of their brushes were extremely inexpensive and I picked up a Jack Richeson Sable #3 for about $3. I've been using this brush for slapping paint on bases and this brush is simply awesome. Nice round with heavy brush for loading lots of paint and the point remains intact after multiple uses. I must go back for more.
Republique+: After modifying movement to account for skirmish capable units, I've been wondering if units with higher skirmish ratings ought to also slow movement for opposing forces that move through the skirmishers' ZOC. This notion requires much thought. One other activity this month is the complete rebasing of the Napoleonic horse. Yeah, I know that I've gone through one iteration of this activity once before. This time, each cavalry base with contain four horsemen on a 1.5 inch square, four abreast. Before the figures were based two by two on a 1.5 x 2.5 base. One benefit is that the cavalry footprint takes up much less space in the storage boxes! All French/French Allies, Austrian, British, Spanish horse have been rebased and the Russians are next. Rather than order Litko bases directly from Litko (and contend with exorbitant shipping charges), I saw that Scale Creep had a few packages of the required bases in stock so I placed an order. The order arrived quickly but one of the bags was opened and contained only 75 rather than 100 bases. A quick email to Mark at Scale Creep and he agreed to send the missing bases. Shipping was $6 for two large packs of bases. Scale Creep will be the first stop for Litko bases.
18mm SYW Project: I have been successfully restocked from Eureka and have piles of cavalry and a few foot and artillery to paint. In October, one Prussian cuirassier regiment and two allied foot battalions joined the muster table. To me, these Eureka figures are really relaxing to paint. The recently completed second battalion of Bavarian Leib Garde regiment will show up in November's painting tally. Painting Totals for October. October was a very productive painting month despite being out of town for the last week of October and ongoing work and classes. The Eureka SYW project captured the bulk of the painting attention with a mix of other periods added for variety. In a weak effort to keep the AWI and ECW projects from flipping over to a Project Complete status, I added one unit of each. In November, I will have the 62nd British foot following closely on the heels of the 47th. On the painting table now are two battalions of French infantry for the 1799 project.
