Whats on the work bench? – Page 14 – ARCANE Scenery and Models

The 32nd (Cornwall) Regiment of Foot

My next project will be to complete the British 8th Brigade as it appeared at Waterloo. Just to get things into perspective, I wont be making an accurate scale model but a representation of the Brigade for gaming purposes. I’ve put that sentence in as I know from the chatter on facebook and other forums that some ‘hobbyists’ can get quite animated over the detail when it comes to painting Napoleonic’s, or for that matter any military subject. It often seems that most of the ‘chatter’ comes from people who rarely lift a brush themselves. It’s hardly surprising though, they are too busy critiquing other peoples models to get on with their own. But lets not go down that rant road! I hope that by publishing my progress with my army I may encourage others to have a go. If nothing else, publishing my blog helps to keep me on track with my army.

So the British 8th Brigade at Waterloo comprised of the 28th North Gloucesters, a Light regiment in stove pipe shakos, facings in yellow. The 32nd Cornwall, a standard line regiment, facings in white, the 79th Cameron Highlanders, dark green facings but Tartan kilts and finally 6 company’s of the 95th rifles. Also attached at Divisional level were two Foot Artillery Batteries, so I’ll probably add one of these in as well!

32nd Line Infantry (Centre Companies)

I think that it is an interesting Brigade to model as it contains a good variety of troops and it will also push me into finally taking up the challenge of painting tartan! However, I’m going to start with the easy option, the 32nd Cornwall, and see if I can churn these out fairly quickly using my batch painting technique, with a new twist for me!

As always, I do a bit of research before starting to paint and my three favourite references are the Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkin, British Napoleonic Uniforms by C.E. Franklin and the superb web site

Mont St Jean.

If you are new to Napoleonic’s, you really will find it hard to find three more accessible and useful sources. I will be using the Warlord Games Waterloo line infantry for the troops. I grabbed a box of these as soon as they were released, so the version shown still has 36 troops in it. This has now changed to a set of 24 – the usual number of models used in Black powder, so I will have a few spares for another project. The boxed set is a mixture of Plastic and metal models – plastic for the rank & file, metal for the officers & ensigns. Incidentally, there is a very good colour leaflet to help with painting included with the warlord boxed set.

The Warlord figures are nice sculpts, particularly the metal figures, which have plenty of character. The plastic infantry are in just three pieces, Body, head and back pack. You do just get a marching pose, with none of the figures firing but I am happy with this for wargaming purposes. If you prefer a firing line, the Perry Boxed set is for you. If you would like to mix it up, try Victrix! Assembly is quite straight forward, with little flash to remove. As I mentioned previously, I intend to build a unit of 24 models and so I assembled the 18 infantry men first.

Warlord WATERLOO BRITISH-LINE INFANTRY 28mm

This time I did not attach the back packs, I decided to test a technique used by others which involves priming the main body in grey but leaving the packs on the sprues and priming them in black.

Rear of Box

The theory being, that I will save time painting by not painting over the primer. So on the bodies, the trousers will be left in the neutral grey primer and on the equipment, I just have to paint the water bottles, blanket & straps. Batch painting 18 figures in one go is more than I would usually attempt but I am under no pressure to get these on the table for a game at the moment, so it will be interesting to see if I can keep to the plan. The other advantage in doing things in this way is that it is easy to paint in short bursts. So if I just have 5 minutes spare, I can paint say, a couple of the water bottles without having to figure out where I got to on my last session. Well, we’ll see how it works out. Here’s the progress so far, showing you the primed figures & separate equipment and the first colour painted on, Vallejo Flesh 70815. The picture will perhaps help to make sense of the above…

warlord figures, assembled & primed

One by One – Done, done, it’s on to the next one!

11th Light Dragoons – prepare to Charge!

I’m not sure the Foo Fighters are really relevant to Napoleonic war gaming but it was playing in the background as I came to write this blog post and it did seem appropriate. Another unit is completed and I’m on to the next one! A question that I am often asked is how many units are you going to paint? Well, I do have a vague idea and it revolves around completing some (not all) of the brigades that were present at Waterloo. The plan is to complete the first British Cavalry Brigade ( Household), The 2nd British Cavalry brigade ( Union), 4th British Cavalry Brigade (Light Dragoons) 6th British Cavalry Brigade (Hussars). As well as these cavalry brigades, I intend to have the 6th Infantry Division (I’ve completed this), The 1st infantry (Guards) division, the 8th British Brigade, The 2nd KGL brigade, and finally, a representation of both the Brunswick Contingent and the Nassau Reserve Contingent. Of course, I’ll also need the relevant Artillery, support and Command troops to go with these units. So it’s safe to say that I will be working on this project for a few years to come.

11th Light Dragoons

As you can see, the unit representing the 11th Dragoons is now complete and ready for battle. I was tempted to continue and paint the other two Regiments that would complete the Brigade. But a change is as good as a rest and so I have started the next Infantry Battalion in my grand plan. I think that mixing in it up a bit does help to keep me painting. I know that there are some hobbyists out there that are focused enough to start a brigade by buying all of the figures in one go, assembling them all and then paint them as one project. My butterfly mind wont allow this, so I like to chop and change things a bit. It also means that I can get on with other periods or subjects, so I may take a short break from Napoleonics and paint some Wars of The Roses figures, for example.

As well as mixing up the subjects a bit, I am also happy to mix up different manufacturers. I think that there is very little difference between Perry Miniatures, Warlord Games and Victrix – they all mix happily. I’m also happy to include Front Rank, their figures are generally excellent, albeit a bit bigger than the others. Of course, Foundry are also useful, although a bit on the small side – if you add a bit of height to the basing, no one will notice the difference. However, both these manufacturers can be used to create separate units that look fine on the war games table.

The final tip that keeps me painting, is to try new techniques. And so it will be with my next unit. I usually completely assemble my infantry figures before painting them but on the next unit I’m going to try something that one of my gaming buddies does, that is, painting the equipment whilst it is still on the sprue. However, I’ll show that in the next blog for now, The 11th Light Dragoons are finished and it’s on to the next one!

Regiment ready for battle!

Trouble with Cavalry

The Charge of the Scots greys… or not!

It’s strange how a narrative can develop over a series of otherwise unconnected games. I play Black powder regularly with a group of friends on a Thursday night and one of the themes that has developed has been the poor performance of my Cavalry regiments. Now they are subject to the same whims of fate inflicted on my dice throws for as for all my other units but time and again, it is the Cavalry that refuse to do as they are told!

The Blues are not for moving.

We tend to use a rather generous fixed leadership value of 8 and so you would expect the orders for these units to be passed more times than they are failed. Not with my beauties! I have lost count of the number of times that my nicely painted regiments of Scots Greys and ‘Blues’ have sat at the back of the table refusing to budge or even worse, blundering and withdrawing from the action, playing little or no part in the battle.

Charge to the rear Boys!

Things came to a head at last weeks club battle. To be fair, because we were a bit short of participants the mix of opponents was rather strange. A combined Austrian and British force was facing a combined British and French force – the French force being made up of a number of units of Lombardy Legion and Polish battalions. I suspect the purists out there will be reaching for their caps lock on the keyboard just at the thought… Anyway, I digress, back to the battle. My opponent, Pete, had rather misjudged his advance and had left his guns limbered within charge distance of my cavalry. I was about to order the charge when Wayne, who was spectating said “are you going to do a ‘follow me’ order?” Well, Pete wasn’t too impressed by this coaching from the side-lines but it was sound advice. By passing this order I would get three moves and the charge would be pressed home. And to my surprise, it was! A glorious victory for the British Cavalry right at the start of the game and the opposition Artillery routed and off the table, Huzzah!

Follow me boys!

So far, so good. Except that was the end of my good fortune. I proceeded to throw six blunders during the course of the game, constantly throwing away any advantage that had developed. On top of this, at one point in the game, my light Cavalry were presented with a flank to charge by a rather enthusiastic enemy infantry unit. Hah! I thought, I’ve got him now, I’ll do another follow me order and rip the centre out of his army. I rolled eleven… order failed. Despite this, my luck held. Even though Pete was now aware of the danger, his units failed their orders and were still vulnerable to a flank charge. Brilliant! ‘Follow me boys’ charge! Again, the dice roll was eleven. Good grief, my infantry units looked on in disbelief as the Cavalry just sat there and the game was gradually lost in the continuing blunderfest! Ah well, there’s always next week…

11th Light Dragoons on the workbench

Mind you, this poor performance on the Battlefield isn’t exactly inspiring me to get on and finish my 11th Light Dragoons. To be fair, I have been somewhat distracted in other ways, the arrival of a new Granddaughter, Eleanor, and a spot of decorating in the house have curtailed my painting time. Progress has been made though. The Horses are finished, with a grey for the trumpeter and the officer will have a nice Black mount. The main colours are now on the troopers with just the detail to do. It’s surprising how much difference a coat of Quick shade will make to how they look and of course once the basing is finished they will be ready for the table. Perhaps this Regiment will move when ordered to!

Trumpeter & officer of the 11th dragoons await the final details to be painted.

To Battle with the 11th Light Dragoons.

Perry Light Dragoons – the first 6 troopers are finished.

To be honest, the blog post title is a bit of a tease. As you can see, I have finished the first 6 troopers in the regiment and they did indeed see service on the wargames table this weekend. However, time constraints this week prevent me from writing up either a full battle report or a comprehensive guide to painting the troopers. Just to say that I followed my usual process for troops, of block painting the main colours onto the figures, painting them with Army Painter Strong tone ( the black) quick shade, and then once they were dry, spraying them with antishine matt varnish. The final stage is the most important though, I give all of the lighter colours and metallics, a highlight, particularly the white as this makes these areas really stand out. I also used a new trick to help me to get the lines on the troopers overalls. The main buff stripe was first painted and then I painted a grey line down the middle to separate the two stripes. However, rather than thin the paint with water, I used Vallejo thinning Medium, 70524 to thin the paint. It gives a slower drying time but more importantly, allows the paint to flow from the brush, making it easier to paint a long line. You still need a fairly steady hand ( No Jack Daniels for me when painting!) but there’s no doubt it makes a real difference when using a fine brush.

A detachment of the 11th Light Dragoons

The basing was done to my usual process, although I treated myself to a pot of Vallejo Dark Earth textured paste to speed things up. So with the first six troopers done, they were deployed in the latest of our war gaming groups’ mega Battles, the retreat from Bitteberg. As is often the case with new units, they attracted quite a lot of attention. In this case, most of it of the wrong sort. Their first task was to defend the flank of an errant foot battery that had advanced without support, the rest of the brigade refusing it’s orders. My opponent, Pete couldn’t believe his luck and proceeded to shoot the unit to bits! Fortunately, it was able to rally but played very little part in the rest of the battle.

The Light Dragoons are a bit exposed!

I’ll perhaps add a few more pictures to my next blog, along with an outline of the battle. That’s all for now though – time has run out!

British Light Dragoons – Perry Miniatures Plastic Boxed Set

The next project on my work bench is the fairly new set of British Light Dragoons, produced in plastic by the Perry Brothers. Those familiar with this blog will know that I am a bit of a fan boy when it comes to Perry products. I think that they produce some of the best figures available, and the breadth of their ranges are huge. Their plastics are routinely of a high standard and in this set they have surpassed themselves. It is not just the quality of the sculpts that I am impressed with. The value for money is unbeatable. The box says that you get 14 figures, which is technically correct. What it doesn’t tell you is that there are actually 28 figures, 14 horses and an additional 14 spare heads – all for just £20!

The reason for the extras is that the set allows you to build either the early version of the Light dragoons in Dolman and Tarleton helmet, covering the period 1808 – 1813 or you can choose to build the later version of the uniform, with the ‘French style’ coat and Shako used in the Waterloo campaign. The extra heads are to allow you to produce a third option of the type of uniform used in the tropics, where a light tin helmet was worn. So which ever version you choose to build, you will be left with plenty of spares for future projects. Of course, you could buy some extra horses and build all 28 riders, creating two regiments of Dragoons, albeit from slightly different periods.

As my army is based around the Waterloo period, I have gone for the later uniforms with the shakos. As I build my regiments of cavalry in 12’s I will have two spare models for the next regiment – the plan is to start with the 11th Dragoons but I will eventually build the full 4th British Cavalry Brigade as it was at Waterloo. The Brigade consisted of 3 regiments of Light Dragoons, the 11th, 12th and 16th Regiments and was commanded by Sir John Vandeleur, who went on to take command of all of the British cavalry at Waterloo after Uxbridge was wounded in the evening. The Brigade saw quite a bit of action during the battle and was used to cover the withdrawal of the remnants of the Union Brigade after their famous charge, and then later in the battle was busy against the French rearguard as they retreated. The brigade suffered 319 casualties through the day, some 23% of their strength.

Just a word on how I build my regiments and battalions for our Black powder games. I know that the question of unit size can be a vexing issue for many Napoleonic gamers and the subject can get quite heated, if comments on forums and facebook are anything to go by! My preferred method is to build Cavalry in regiments of 12 and infantry in battalions of 24. This allows me to split them easily for the more frequent club night battles that we fight, which invariably are on smaller tables. The smaller units of 6 Cavalry and 12 Infantry allow you to deploy more ‘brigades’ on the smaller table, making the battle more interesting. Purists will point out that a unit of 12 cavalry in a regiment doesn’t really do justice to the fact that the Regiment consisted of 3 squadrons and that 18 figures would be a better representation, as would 36 infantry figures give a 1:20 representation of the average battalion strength. It really is a matter of taste, practicality and of course dependant on the rule set that you choose to play and finally, of course, who you choose to play against.

So having decided which regiment I would start with I then did my usual research to check on uniforms. With the Perry Boxed set, you don’t have to look too far. There is a beautifully illustrated painting guide included in the set and this together with the box art is really all that you need. That said I always like to consult my favourite web site Mont St Jean and the book by Carl Franklin ‘ British Uniforms of the Napoleonic wars’. This allows me to absorb the colours of the uniform and equipment and plan my painting routine whilst dreaming of how they will look when finished!

Research completed, it was time to assemble the figures and horses. The parts all went together very nicely with the minimum of flash and moulding lines to clean up. Just two minor problems – the Shako’s had a bit of a sink hole in the tops – easily filled with a dab of Vallejo plastic putty. The horses seemed to go together better if you cut off one of the ‘retaining lugs’. I always use polystyrene glue when assembling plastics, the bonding process helps to fill any joints. I know that some modellers use super glue – heresy, as far as I am concerned! Don’t do it!

Light Dragoon assembled, ready for priming.

Models assembled, I primed the horse with Black primer and then painted them using a dry brush technique. This isn’t quite so effective as painting them carefully and highlighting them but it is quicker! I used three dry brush coats for the first six horses. The base was Vallejo Camouflage Black Brown, next a coat of flat brown and then a final highlight. I don’t worry too much about washing my brush out between coats, it allows the paints to blend and means that there is a bit of colour variation between the batch of horses that I am painting.

Colour palette for first batch of horses

The first horse in the batch will tend to be darker than the last one! This process also means that the paint will go over some of the straps and other parts of the horse but this is all corrected once the detail is painted. Once the basic colour is on the horses , I then add some white or black ‘socks’ to the horses legs, repaint the manes & tails in black where necessary and finish off by painting the equipment. So, Six horses finished so far!

Three of the first six horses done!

As always, I will revisit the models and add any further highlights that I feel will add to the finish. The process of photographing the models for the blog is a big help in this respect as it enables me to look again at the model with a different perspective. I think that a coat of ink on the leather strapping and the hooves, and a slight light grey highlight on the blankets will help to give these rather flat areas of paint a bit of life.

Napoleons Coach – Finished?

This project has certainly turned out to be even more of a challenge than I originally thought. It has been as much of a test of my patience as my modelling and painting skills. Indeed, I think that if it wasn’t for the fact that there is no other project that is really pressing, I would have shelved this one and moved on. However, I have found a bit of time through the Holiday season to work on the coach and I’ve made steady progress.

As often is the case with this sort of project, I have changed my mind somewhat in how it will be finished. I had originally envisaged the coach being captured by the Prussians after Waterloo. Two things changed my mind. One, being the amount of additional time and resource to complete this diorama ( I hadn’t even got any spare Prussians to add to the diorama) and two, the more I looked at the model of Napoleon, the more I wanted to include him in the piece. There was also the issue of the size of the base required. Just basing the carriage and figures was going to need a fairly big area. So, I decided to finish the model as shown in the Warlord box art, albeit with the door of the carriage open.

As regards the base, I decided to use a laser cut Movement tray measuring 9cms by 21cms. It’s actually designed for 4 x 10 20mm infantry bases but it looks about the right size. I glued on the frame and then lined the tray with cling film. I then filled in the tray with standard milliput. The reason for doing this is to produce a infill slab that will not warp the base when I start to ‘landscape’ it. It’s a trick that I learnt from the military modellers. So once the milliput had dried, I removed it from the tray, peeled off the cling film and then super glued the ‘slab’ back into the tray.

Milliput slab cast!

slab glued into tray

The next stage was to carefully drill into the back wheels of the coach and insert two pins that would secure the coach to the base. Now if I had thought about it, I should have done this before painting the coach but I managed to get the pins into place without causing any damage. Using these as a guide, I then drilled two holes through the milliput so that I could fix the carriage to the base. Before this was done, the whole base was coated liberally in Vallejo Sandy Paste. This allowed me to sculpt some wheel marks into the base as well as hoof prints and generally texture the ground work. I then pressed the coach into the base, using the pins to locate the carriage and carefully added the horses whilst the paste was still wet. There is enough adhesion in the paste to affix the horses but the slow drying time gave me the chance to adjust everything. Finally, I used the two figures of Napoleon and his guard to press out an indent for the bases. Again, the slow drying time gave me the chance to move things until I was happy with the layout.

Once that was dry, I gave the base a coat of Vallejo Chocolate brown and then turned my attention to finish painting the horses and figures. Incidentally, before I talk about the figures, I ought to mention that prior to fixing the coach down I had repainted the coach itself. I noticed that I had painted the top of the coach green where it should be black. I was also not happy with the various greens that I had managed to get. Just to add to my dissatisfaction, I tried to copy the style of shading shown on the warlord box art and that hadn’t worked for me either. So I repainted the black bits black & highlighted them with sea grey. The green was repainted with Vallejo Reflective green (70890), shaded with a light brown wash and then I decided that I wanted a slightly gloss finish to the paint work so I gave the panels a coat of satin varnish. The final touches were to add the gold lining and detail to the coach body, springs and the lamps and to paint the box on the back of the coach brown with brass details.

To finish off the coach, I used some thin clear plasticard to glaze the windows. I also painted the wheel rims with steel but then dulled this down with a black wash. The final thing was to add some light weathering to the wheels, springs and bottom of the coach itself using various shades of brown. I didn’t want to overdo this as I had left the horses in a near pristine finish but I felt a bit of mud would help the overall look!

Napoleons Berlin Coach gets a base!

The picture above shows the coach on it’s base before the weathering and with most of the figures in place. As far as painting the figures, I pretty much tried to copy the art work and the superb painting by Andres Amian Fernandez. A bit of a lazy approach as I didn’t do my own research as I would usually do. However, my excuse is that I am unlikely to be painting many French in the future…

Art work from the Warlord website

The coach outriders when finished looked a bit darker than I had intended and Napoleons coat a bit lighter but I was happy enough with the overall effect. I wont detail all the paints used for the figures but I used my basic technique of block painting the main colours, washing with a black ink and then re-highlighting. The other addition to my technique was to give the figures a couple of coats of anti shine varnish in between paint layers. It seems to help protect the paint as you are working and somehow adds depth.

Napoleon & his Guard

The final job was to complete the base. First of all I added some extra material around the bases of the figures and horse to blend them into the base. Everything was then painted chocolate brown and then highlighted with various mixes of Flat earth & Iraqui sand. Once dry, I added the green scatter, The static grass and my usual mix of grass tufts and flowers. So that’s it for now. I do like to contemplate my work before it is finally finished and I will go back and tweak a few bits. For example, I know that I need to repaint the sides of the base to tidy this up and I may add a few more details to the base – but for now the model is finished and it’s on to the next project!

Napoleon visits Little Bingham

‘Tis The Season To Be Jolly!

Unfortunately, being jolly and the serious work of painting miniatures don’t always go together. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m not cheerful or happy when I’m painting – far from it! It’s just that after a couple of Jack Daniels or a glass of beer, my concentration seems to go along with any ability to paint between the lines! So if the socialising at this time of year gets in the way, so does the logistics of getting ready for Christmas. It seems that we have been on the Christmas countdown since October and things are now reaching crisis point. ‘Oh my God, it’s the 10th of December and we haven’t got our tree yet’ is the latest distraction and it’s difficult to slide off to the garage to do some painting when quite clearly there are more important things to do. Personally, I’d prefer to fit this Christmas malarkey around my hobby rather than the other way around but being a wargaming Grinch isn’t really an option, especially when the wife plays the Granddaughter card!

Napoleons Coach – brass trim added

So the opening paragraph is really my apology for making very little progress with modelling and painting in general and Napoleons coach in particular. You can see from the shaky picture above that I have added the gold trim, painted the lights and the trunk at the rear of the coach. I’ve also repainted the green using Vallejo Reflective green although something has gone wrong with the wheels. Whether it is the different under coat or I’ve just picked up the wrong paint ( Jack Daniels effect), the rear wheels definitely look different to the rest of the coach.

Napoleons coach close up

So it’s back to the paint table and another coat of green. I’m also very tempted to paint the wooden Chassis green, just leaving the springs and metal work in black. Of course the real difference will come when I start the shading and highlighting. A dry brush over the main colours followed by a light ink wash will help. However, I think that what is really needed, is a good solid session of at least half a day working on the coach rather than the odd 15minutes here and there. On that basis, I cant see Napoleon in his coach this side of Christmas, so the good news is that it may be sometime before the next Coach blog article….

Slow Coach…

With all the time preparing and fighting the Battle of Bitteburg, my painting time has been somewhat curtailed. It’s also that time of year when the pressure is on to get ready for Christmas a month in advance of the actual event! To be fair, some of this is driven by family get togethers, when presents are exchanged early, whilst socialising and catching up. The net result is that very little progress has been made with my various modelling projects.

Horses for Napoleons Coach

I have made some progress, though. The horses are nearly finished and I’ve started to paint the coach itself. I’ve decided to paint pure white horses for the coach, rather than greys. Just to make life difficult for myself, I’ve been layering the paint on to build depth of colour and highlights rather than my usual technique of ‘paint & wash’. So the horses were undercoated in Black, painted Light Grey, then Sky Grey and then Off White. I have used a Vallejo Light Grey wash over the mane and tail to bring out the texture. I then touched up the horses tack in Black, painted their eyes and decided that I had enough of painting them for the time being!

Off Side Horses

There is still much to do though. The hooves are black at the moment and these need to be painted either in a light brown or beige. The metal parts of the tack need to be picked out and the tack will need highlighting with a black grey to show the detail. I also need to do some more work on the faces, to add detail to the muzzles, nostrils & ears. Finally, I might add a bright white highlight to the horses. I’m deliberately going for a very bright stark look to the horses. I realise that they would in reality have muddy hooves & legs and I may yet add this but I wanted the horses to look over exaggerated in their pristine appearance, as though they were specially chosen to pull the Emperors coach.

The coach itself

As for the coach itself, I’ve started to paint this but I’m not happy with the shade of green. I’m using Vallejo flat Green but it looks too bright. I think that I will go back and repaint it in the darker Reflective Green shade. I’ve picked out the interior seats with a Red Black and used Saddle brown for the coach mans seat. The wheels are also painted green although I’ve experimented with a darker green for the front wheels. All this messing around has meant that I’m still a long way from finishing this project. I think that given a good long painting session rather than the odd half hour here and there I could get this done but with even more commitments looming for the Festive season, it will be a couple of weeks before I can even think about basing this project.

Napoleons Carriage on the Workbench.

Napoleons Berlin Carriage

It was some time ago that I mentioned that I was about to start work on Warlord Games version of Napoleons Carriage – see my blog entry ‘A Confession’ . I was hesitating to start the project for two reasons. One, I was struggling to find the information that I needed regarding colour scheme etc and two, I had decided that I wanted the door to the coach in an open position for reasons that I will explain later.

Well, I’ve tracked down a brief account of the famous carriage. I didn’t have to look too far – on page 419 of the book ‘Waterloo Companion’, by Mark Adkin is a short description of the coach and how it was used. Incidentally, Mark Adkins book is a must have item for any Napoleonic Wargamer. If you haven’t already got it, then put it on your Christmas list now!

Waterloo Companion

The carriage is described as ‘ a large green carriage’ used by Napoleon as a mobile command post. It had strength, stability and manoeuvrability and was weather-proofed. It must have been quite a large affair, as one seat across the back was partially partitioned so that two persons could work, without being thrown around. Opposite was a lockable cabinet that could be converted into a writing desk. There were other cupboards containing everything that Napoleon might need. A silver chronometer hung on one wall and Napoleons seat could be transformed into a bed!

Napoleons Coach assembled.

The Warlord Games version is clearly not a scale model of this actual coach but is a very good representation as far as a wargaming piece goes. Which leads me to remind myself that I am neither interested or capable of making a detailed scale model of this subject, merely a passable representation that will look good on my wargames table as an objective or conversation piece. In this respect the Warlord Games model is an excellent model.

Napoleons Coach under coated – dare I take a scalpel to it?

The real coach was captured and plundered in the chaos and confusion after the battle of Waterloo. Indeed on the 19th June 1815, Commissariat officer Tupper Carey passed it, still surrounded by Prussians ‘scraping and sifting the ground, in consequence of a report that some diamonds had fallen from their settings in the night scramble’. Although the Prussians stripped and plundered what ever treasures were aboard the coach that day, the coach itself was returned to England where it eventually ended up in Madame Tussauds in London but was destroyed by fire in 1925.

So having decided that I would like to build the model, I decided that I would depict it as being captured after the Battle of Waterloo. In my minds eye, this would simply involve the Carriage being halted by the Prussians and the start of the search for plunder. It is quite an ambitious diorama for me to build and I suspect that it will take some time. The first task was to see if I could safely remove the door of the coach. Using a new, sharp scalpel blade, I carefully cut around the frame of the door, both inside and out. Fortunately, Warlord Games use a good quality resin, rather than the cheap & nasty brittle sort used by some manufacturers, so after about 20 minutes of patient cutting, the door was safely removed!

Napoleons Coach – door removed

And that’s about as far as I have progressed with this particular project. I think that it will take me some time before it is actually completed. I intend to paint it in stages and the horses are the first on the painting table. Having undercoated them, I’ve given them a coat of light grey, the idea being to gradually highlight them up to white. I’ll post updates as I progress with the painting.

The horses get their first coat of paint.

Hello Sailor!

Royal Marine officers

Perhaps a subtitle of ‘Where’s Wally’ would also have been appropriate – you will see why later. This weeks blog will be a bit of a short one. I’ve been diverted from the painting table by a number of distractions, from family weddings to a nasty cold and I have been working on a set of Black Powder campaign rules for the club. However, I have made some progress with my shore party of marines. Having completed 16 Royal Marines, my next task was to start on the Foundry Shore party and Boarding party sets. The Former contains two Royal Marine officers as well as some well armed sailors, the later pack, just some mean looking sailors. Finishing these would complete my raiding party.

Sailors join the action!

As you can see the first batch of officers and sailors are just about completed with the basing to finish. I also have 4 more sailors at the ‘Dip’ stage- although I actually paint the quick shade on. That leaves another 4 to paint in the coming week and then it is on to my next project. I have been a bit lazy when it came to researching the sailors ‘uniforms’ and just copied the painted versions on the Foundry web site. To be fair, although sailors were issued with some sort of basic kit, from what I have read they made their own clothes and wore what was available. There was a bit more of a relaxed attitude taken to their appearance than to the Royal Marines on board. So when it came to painting the soft hats of the sailors, I went for a nice stripey design which in hindsight does look a bit like a night cap or a ‘where’s wally’ hat! Sometimes things dont turn out quite as I planned but I don’t plan to repaint these. It will no doubt amuse my friends when these figures do appear in battle…

Where did you get that hat?

For the time being, these figures will go straight to the cabinet, although there is a chance of an appearance on the table later in the month. For now though, they are part of my growing Caribbean/Naval force.

The last of the shore party to be painted.

Making the mountain into a molehill.

The Lead Mountain is sorted!

I’ve been banging on about my lead mountain for some time now but after some steady progress, I thought it was time to sort it out once and for all! So a rainy afternoon was spent going through my collection of figures and putting it into some sort of order. Thankfully, there wasn’t quite as much there as I thought. The first job was to get rid of all the figures that I had acquired that ‘might come in useful’ or although broken, could be repaired. These went into the spares box or the bin. No point in them hanging around.

The next category was the free figures given out at shows or exclusives given out with purchases. I am a real magpie when it comes to these figure but they dont always fit into the period that I am interested in and I have kept them because they are ‘collectors’ items. Some of them aren’t even very good figures! Well, they all went into a box marked appropriately ‘exclusives’. I cant see me painting any of these in the near future but at least I now know what is there.

Sorted by Category – Napoleonics win!

As I was going through all the odd figures, I sorted everything into rough periods. They were either ‘Ancients & Medieval’, Black powder era or World War Two. I only have a few bits & pieces for World WarTwo so it was fairly easy to box most of these up and they were the first back onto the shelf. The next category was the ancients and medieval figures. I’ve got a few Roman figures for that Legion that I will paint one day, some Dark Age Warriors that will expand my Saga Band when I get around to it and some War of The Roses Infantry to enlarge my Lion Rampant Retinue into a full army. None of which is going to happen in the next six month, so it was all carefully boxed and added back onto the shelf!

Finally, my Black Powder & Napoleonic figures. As this is my main point of interest at the moment, I sorted them out into Battalions where possible and boxed or bagged them as such. I have it in mind to paint the British 5th Infantry Division at Waterloo. It consists of The 28th North Gloucestershires (yellow Facings), The 32nd Cornwall ( White facings) , the 79th Cameron Highlanders (Dark Green Kilts!) and a detatchment of 6 companies of 95th Rifles. That said, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, so these figures can go back on the shelf! And so it went, until everything was tidied away, in some sort of order and with some idea as to what I was going to do with each batch of figures.

Somehow, the process of sorting and tidying everything clarified what I need to do next to extend my painted army and of course reduce the unpainted stock to a manageable level. I dont expect to just keep ploughing through the pile in a set order but at least there will be some direction to my painting now. I’ve also resolved that all units will be finished using my ‘batch painting’ system. At least this way I will be able to complete 8 – 12 figures a week to table top standard, so about 2 to 3 weeks for a battalion.

However, for my ‘personality’ figures, I will try to develop highlighting and shading through the more traditional method of blending, ink washes etc. Perhaps, with practice I can raise the standard and speed of both methods.

Royal marines nearly ready for duty!

In the meantime, just to show that I haven’t spent the last week dreaming of future projects, my next batch of Royal Marines are nearly complete, I’ve started on my last batch of civilians and lurking on the back of the paint station is my Shore party, primed and ready for painting.

In fact, I was so pleased with my progress and the organised state of my collection that I decided to treat myself to some new Front Rank figures. Their latest releases includes some lovely civilians that had caught my eye and while I was looking through the web store, I thought that I would have a few of their British Commanders. After all, my lead mountain isn’t that big after all…

The Marines are coming – Part 2 – first batch arrived!

Royal Marines Shore Party

What! Two blog posts in one week! After the excitement of completing the Moai I thought that I would round up my progress elsewhere. As you can see my first eight Royal marines are complete and ready to take to the table. Fortunately, my gaming buddies are very easy going and they wont object if I deploy a unit of Royal Marines along side the rest of my British Army. As I have previously mentioned they will be part of my Caribbean force although they will also see service as part of a detachment in my Peninsular army – when I get around to starting it!

I’ve photographed the final stages of these figures being completed as part of my batch painting process. Once they were block painted, I gave them a coat of Army Painter Quick Shade.

Quick shade Dark Tone applied

The next stage is to give them a spray of Army Painter anti shine.

Anti Shine applied sparingly

Once the Anti Shine matt varnish is dry, I add highlights to the figures. This often just entails repainting the lighter colours – white in particular, the red on the jackets and retouching the metallics with Gold & silver as they can look too dull in places. On this occasion I also attempted to paint in the eyes and added some highlights to the faces – not something that I normally worry about with rank & file troops. Looking closely at the picture, you can see why I tend to leave the eye’s… A couple will need retouching.

Highlights added & basing is started

The final touch is to finish the bases. I used my usual ‘recipe’ of Vallejo Desert Sand to cover the bases. Then painted them with Vallejo Chocolate Brown, highlighted and dry brushed them with Flat earth & increasing amounts of Iraqi Sand added. I then added some green scatter & some of the new Gamers grass tufts and they are done.

Basing completed

The final process of repainting sounds as though it is a bit of a chore but in reality it is quite a quick job. I think that it is worth the time as it also gives you the chance to correct any obvious painting errors. For some troops, it is just as easy to leave this part out and go straight to the basing. After all, these are rank and file troops to be used on the table, not painting competition entries. It all comes down to a matter of taste and of course, time. If you would like to read my blog giving details of all the colours used in the early stages of painting, click here.

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Category Archives: Whats on the work bench?