A Big Bloody Napoleonic Battle

UPDATE: Since this was originally posted, I have added a bunch more photos provided by another player.

Last Sunday be played a big Napoleonic battle. There were nine players, four French divisions against two Prussian, one Bavarian and a British division, at some point a Russian force joined the Coalition forces. By my count there were 49 infantry battalions, 10 cavalry regiments and 9 batteries on the Coalition side. I assume that there were roughly the same on the French side - I was on the Coalition side and didn't see their order of battle.

The objective was the control of the roads exiting the French side of the table.

Above and below, the Prussian masses form for the attack

The British division

The full length of the table

The Prussian cavalry prepare to attack

In the centre the Prussian attack is building up a head of steam (above and below)

The British form up

The Prussian cavalry charge

And the infantry presses home the attack

A view of the French lines

The British end of the field

After initial success the Prussian central attack has stalled

To their left the other Prussian force is struggling to make headway

Here come the landwher...

The French prepare for the onslaught (above and below)

 A view along the table mid-action

The Bavarians arrive...

...and set the farm on fire!

The battle ended around 3:30 and was ruled in favour of the Coalition...although in my view the Coalition was soundly beaten...but who am I to argue...I was playing a Prussian.

UPDATE: These photos (added randomly) are provided by John L who played on the French side.

 

Half Year Count

Hobby productivity for the first half of the year is possibly the lowest since I began keeping records, but that is not unexpected. Afterall I declared a deliberate painting slow down and an intention to only complete existing projects, with the caveat that I may add the occasional unit to existing armies...but no new armies.

And I have stuck to that plan. I have only worked on three projects:

• The Napoleonic Austrian heavy cavalry - completed
• The Franco-Prussian French and Prussian commanders,  and Bavarian infantry - in progress
• Scratch built buildings - in progress (and ongoing)

The percentage breakdown is pretty simple: 77% scratch building, 16% Franco-Prussian War and 7% Austrian Napoleonic. 

The figure count is 103 foot figures, 13 mounted figures and 15 buildings.

Where there is a substantial change is in the number of games played with a count of 22 so far this year...equal to the total for all 12 months last year. The count might have been higher because ten of these were solo games that took advantage of my retirement in January. However, when her indoors lost her job in April access to the garage more restricted so the solo gaming has gone in hold for a while.

And the rest of the year? Well there will be a LOT more scratch building. The FPW Bavarian collection will have another nine battalions added, plus some cavalry, artillery and generals. The FPW French will have some more cavalry added when the Perrys get around to making them. There may be some more Ottomans to round out that collection. There are also a few ACW items coming along.

The Railway Station

The last planned item in the winter Russian set is a railway station.

Research for this model was restricted to a series of internet searches under titles "Russian rural railway stations", "Russian rural railway stations 1940s" and "Russian rural railway stations 19th century". This turned up several thousand images, many of which were repeats, that had a common theme: they were all substantial and well maintained buildings, often with odd tower like features and were more often than not pained green. At first I thought the towers night have been signal boxes, but many did not have windows so that shot that idea down.

I worked through quite a few design sketches and settled on a structure that is 180mm wide, 80mm deep and 90mm high, with a structure that sits atop the building, in the centre, that rises another 50mm to the overall height of 130mm. The building would have a weatherboard cladding and a corrugated iron roof...to use up a sheet of plasticard that had been lying around since I made the buildings for  WWI in East Africa.

The weatherboards and doors were made using 4mm strips of 0.6mm balsa wood. Since balsa is soft and prone to damage, when it was finished I painted it with a thinned down coat of PVA, allowing it to soak into the wood. Then I painted two full strength coats of PVA to further harden the surface and to strengthen the bond between weatherboard layers.

The roof structure was more complex than I had originally planned thanks to the raised central section and as a result I chose not to make this with a removable roof.

Finally a stone base with steps on the street side entrance and on the ends of the platform were added. The whole model was painted and added some signage (I wasn't game to try writing a station name in Cyrillic so I'll leave that to its owner). 

I have to admit when I first painted it, it didn't come out the way I wanted...something just didn't look right. I had done the window frames with an off white because I didn't want them to be too stark against the green, but it looked off. A highlight of a whiter tone gave the lift to where I wanted them to be.

Next it was based...

...and then it snowed.

So that concludes the scheduled work on the winter buildings for now, although a few ruins structures may be done at some point.

Some more FPW Bavarians are set to join the lead / plastic pile in the next week or so and they will probably take centre stage for a while.

Scratchbuilt Winter Buildings Number Four and Five

Having been delayed three weeks by the arrival of a stock of epoxy putty, I have finally been able to complete the work on the thatched roofs and completed the basing on Winter Buildings Four and Five.

Building Four: the house...

...with its alternate roof option from Building One.

Building Five: the barn...

...with its alternate roof option from Building Two.

Still to come with this batch of buildings is a railway station which is a more complex build, but progressing well and should be completed over the weekend.