Napoleonic Prussian Artillery - 3D Print Models

These 3D resin models were picked up off of ebay. The set comes with 3 cannon (with howitzer options), and 4 crewmen per gun, as well as mounted and foot officers and drummer. Note: the mounted figure leaning over to his left is a Perry figure.

These will be part of my 1813 Campaign game - which I hope to run with either Black Powder or Valour and Fortitude. Something light, and easily picked up for an evening game with multiple players.

Interestingly, all the crewmen have uncovered shakos, which would've been unusual on campaign. In any case, I got to paint the top bands of the shakos to make them look more colorful. The NCO's shakos have gold bands, as well as gold trim on their colors and cuffs.

They're mounted on 85mm x 55mm bases - something I've used for most of my Napoleonic artillery.

Here are the command figures, along with the Perry Gneisenau figure.

They match up well with the Perry figure.

Below, a comparison with a Victrix French cannon and crew on the left. They're proportioned pretty similarly, IMO.

Here's the set prior to painting. The sprue trees in the back have extra equipment pieces, but I found them a bit too fragile to cut away - so didn't use them.

Well, glad to have these done, as now the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians all have artillery support to face the French. Thanks for checking out the blog, and hoping you all are having a safe and good summer.

3D Printed Napoleonic Austrian Artillery

The sculpts aren't as well-defined as traditional figures, and some of the features are a bit exaggerated like their slightly, overly large hands and faces. However, for gaming purposes, they fit the bill nicely. I should add that the resin used appears to be very durable for gaming. 

They come with buttoned gaiters and pig tails for the rank and file for the earlier Napoleonic period. These were snipped off to represent the 1813 Campaign.

The sculpting being a bit "shallow", I ended up black-lining areas like the crossbelts since they weren't defined by the Minwax stain.

The photo below has them flanking Perry figures, which they size up nicely with.

In other news, I just received an email today from Warlord Games letting me know that my order of the Pike & Shotte "Death and the Landsknecht" supplement is soon to be dispatched. Next up on the painting table will be either the 1/16th Mycenaean warrior or the Empire Knights Panther unit.

Perry Napoleonic Prussian High Command - Minus

Minus one of the figures as the pack I picked up from an ebay seller was packaged by North Star and had a duplicate figure instead of three different ones. The seller said he only had that one pack and gave me a partial refund :)  Luckily one of the figures was the old man himself, Marschall Vorwärts, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Missing was the guy holding a spy glass, Major General Georg von Pirch. The duplicate figure is Lieutenant General August von Gneisenau.

The Perry site has all of the figures in grey coats, but painted Gneisenau's coat in blue for variety.

Once again, I appreciate the simple Prussian uniforms, even for generals, as they make for a quick paint job and still look very nice.

Did a quick Google search for the marshal's pipe, and found that it is preserved in the National Army Museum in the UK. The pipe was lost, and later recovered, at the Battle of Ligny when the marshal's horse was shot from under him.

Well, this should be about it for now with Napoleonics. Will need to finally do a playtest for the Siege of Ulsan Imjin War game. Until next time, thanks for stopping by and wishing you all the best.

Perry and Wargames Atlantic Prussian Infantry - 1813-15

The Perry figures are two units of regular line - 2nd West Prussian and 1st Silesian. The three units of Reserve are Wargames Atlantic figures with Perry commands. They are supposed to belong to the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 1st West Prussian, and 3rd Battalion, 1st East Prussian. The flags for the Reserve units are from the Warlord Games Landwehr set. EDIT: I just noticed I have the 2nd West Prussian flag (the blue one) upside down. Luckily, I scanned the flags just in case!

The Prussian (and Russian) infantry uniforms are nice - plain cuffs without piping, and no exposed lapels. There are gaiter buttons, but they are sculpted well and easy, if not tedius, to paint up.

Along with the Landwehr unit, there are now six units of Prussian foot, which should be enough for now.

The Perry set is quite old now, but still very nice figures.

The Perry and Wargames Atlantic figures match up well in both style and poses.

Have a set of Perry Prussian High Command on the way to complete the force. I'll likely have to start on the Perry Duchy of Warsaw command set with Poniatowski next. Thanks for checking out the blog, and wishing you all the best!

Perry Napoleonic Allied (Russian and Prussian) Cavalry Completed

Finally finished up these small units of 8 figures each. Had slight bug the last few days which had me mostly in bed. Nothing serious, but stayed in bed a couple days resting. Anyway, these are supposed be the Prussian Regiment No. 3 Dragoons in light blue litewka, Russian St. Petersburg and Kargopol Dragoons in pink and orange facings, respectively; Russian Tchougoulev Uhlans; and Prussian Silesian Landwehr Uhlans.

Based a few as singles for possible skirmish games.

Although 12 (or more) figure cavalry units do look more impressive, I've used 8 figure units in the past well enough.

Since I plan on trying out Valour and Fortitude, more units should work better for the game.

No sooner was I finishing up these figures, the long-awaited Perry order of Prussian infantry finally arrived. It was indeed mailed out on December 12th, but only arrived on January 7th. So, the Prussian Reserve units can finally be completed with their commands - and then on to two Prussian Line units. Hope you all are doing well - although there's been a lot of serious stuff going on these past few week, not the least those devastating fires in Southern California.

Warlord Games Prussian Landwehr

 

These are supposed to be with the  4th Silesian Landwehr Regiment. Not sure if they wore the stovepipe shakos, but added a few for variety. 

Picked this box up mainly for the flags to use with a box of Wargames Atlantic Prussian Reservists, but these figures are pretty nice. They're a bit different from the Warlord set I painted up back in 2013. These have separate heads and come with just two metal command figures - a drummer and officer. The older set came with a flag bearer; I went ahead and clipped off the musket from one of the figures and added a flag pole (plastic broom bristle).

The Wargames Atlantic Prussian Reservists shouuld be arriving in the mail today. They should be a quick job as I plan to spray them gray for the basic uniform - and then a Minwax stain after the other stuff is block painted.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Verlindend 120mm Resin Leib Hussar

Added the plastic parts from the 1/16th ICM kit. The sabre blade is a bit flimsy, but good enough for a quick fix.

Painted the sabretache as plain black leather which appears to be common on campaign - and saved me some trouble to boot.

Glad to have finally completed this figure after so many years being "short-handed."

Battle of Abensberg, 1809 - Using Rebels and Patriots Modified

My buddy hosted another great Napoleonic game - Abensberg, 1809 - this time using a slightly modified version of Rebels and Patriots. He's run this scenario before using Black Powder, but wanted to try it out with Rebels and Patriots as the gaming group he meets with regularly prefers these rules. For this game he had most of the line infantry in units of 18 and 24 figures - 24 is more than what is in the rule book, but this basically makes units last a lot longer. We also had cavalry in units of 12; double what the rules have. There were several artillery batteries with more than the usual 4 figure crew on both sides too. Finally, another modification was having commanders as separate entities on their own - that is, not part of units like the main rules. All of the mods seemed to work well and the game played out nicely for about 7 or 8 turns. I ran an Austrian brigade of mostly infantry on the right flank. My other buddy who ran the Austrian left had a couple of cavalry units - one each lancer (heavy cavalry) and hussars (light cavalry). I managed to hold off the Bavarian advance on my side and my buddy did a lot of damage to the Bavarians opposite him. His lancers in particular destroyed several of the enemy units, including cavalry, as well as reaching their end of the table and coming back again.

My side of the table (Austrian right) at the start of the game.

Austrian left with lancers and light infantry advancing on the Bavarian right.

Bavarian left - the units my brigade faced. I ended up destroying the unit of heavy cavalry by constant fire from my infantry.

Austrian left at the start of the game.

The Austrian right - run by yours truly. I had several large (18-24 man) infantry units, including two grenadier (Shock infantry) units.

My buddy's pooch - a possible Bavarian sympathizer by the looks of it.

Midway through the game. As always there was plenty of refreshments to keep players sustained.

A shot of my buddy's study with various military regalia - including tribal shields and Napoleonic headgear and swords - all authentic and picked up during his time overseas with the Army.

The "smoke" indicates disorder. The red and black balls represent individual casualties as most of the figures are multi-based. We called the game after turn 7 or 8; deciding the Austrian left victorious over their opposite, and my right flank pretty much deadlocked with multiple units still in the game.

It was a nice game and made me appreciate the rules even more. Looking forward to trying it out with the La Haye Sainte scenario which should work well for it. Thanks again for stopping by!

Battle of Gorodetschna - Black Powder Gaming

Hosted another Black Powder Napoleonic game today - this time using the Russians and Austrians I painted up earlier this year - and still needing to get them bloodied. This battle was during the Russian Campaign and one of few times Austrians and Russians traded blows in the Napoleonic era. The battle included Saxons, but since I don't have any at the time, used some French, Polish and Neuchatel as proxies.

Prior to the battle - Russians on the left and Austro-Saxons one the right. Austrian artillery yet to arrive as they were provided from my buddy's collection.

Russian left - a cavalry brigade of lancers, hussars (armed with lances) and skirmishing jaegers; an infantry brigade with 3 regiments to their left. I did use a unit of French hussars and Polish lancers as proxies here as well.

Russian center - the high ground with 3 gun batteries in earthworks; a brigade of 3 grenadier regiments and army general. The victory conditions were for the Russians to hold onto the hill with more unshaken Russian units than the enemy. The Austro-Saxons would win if they captured the hill with more unshaken Austro-Saxon units than the Russians. Alternative victory would be destroying over half of the enemy forces.

Russian left - a brigade of 4 infantry regiments.

Austrian left and center (prior to arrival of artillery batteries) - a cavalry brigade with Austrian dragoons and cuirassiers, and Saxon Garde du Corps and chevau-leger (the last two actually Spanish dragoons and French chasseurs respectively, as proxies). On their right two brigades of Austrian infantry with 3 regiments each.

Saxon infantry brigade with 4 regiments on the right flank - again using proxies. Maybe someday I'll use some Perry French and paint them up as Saxons...maybe.

As for the game itself; well, it didn't go down historically - the Austro-Saxon army failed to dislodge the Russians from their high ground. In fact, due to brash tactics the Austrian dragoons and two Saxon infantry brigades were destroyed by turn 3. The Austrian cavalry made the mistake of charging the Russian right without infantry or artillery support. They were stopped by not only the Russian lancers and hussars, but also from the Russian jaegers taking shots at them from the marsh around the river. Cavalry could not enter the marsh area.

The Saxons were decimated in hand to hand fighting on their own right. More from unlucky die rolls than tactical errors.

Artillery on both sides were not shooting very well and didn't play too much of an actual factor in the game, but the Austrians were ever-conscious of their presence atop the high ground.

We only played 4 turns, but felt the Austro-Saxon army would continue to get mauled as the Russians still have most of their army intact - including the 3 gun batteries supported by the brigade of grenadier regiments. As the taking of the high ground was the victory condition - or destroying over half of the enemy army, this seemed like an uphill battle (pun intended).

I should add that we used 2/3rds movement and musket range reduced to 16 inches and artillery to 24 and 36 inches for light and heavy respectively. We only allowed firing after one basic movement - which we did like. It was suggested afterwards that we might've kept movement and ranges as per the basic rules - but still limit firing to one move.  Increasing the movement distances might've worked out better - at least for the Austro-Saxons. That said, the Austro-Saxons consistently had worse die rolls than the Russians. Anyway, I was glad to finally get the figures into a game and getting more familiar with Black Powder. Thanks for stopping by and best wishes to you all!