Prussian Jaeger – Bingham Napoleonic days

After my diversion with the wolf enclosure last week, it was back to the projects on my work bench. With storm Dennis causing mayhem across the country, it was a good weekend to spend safely indoors painting model soldiers. I had two items that I wanted to complete. The priority was painting a couple of models of Richard III emerging from his tomb under a Leicester car park! I’ve already posted a picture of one the completed models on our Face book page – I’ll detail how I went about painting and converting him in next weeks blog. Here’s a picture of the original version.

Richard Triumphant!

Richard Triumphant!

The other project that I wanted to complete was a batch of 6 Warlord games Prussian Jaegers, who would be bolstering my force at our demo game at the Bingham Napoleonic days in March. To be honest, I didn’t really need to paint them but I had a spare pack at work and it would give me an extra unit of Jaegers to use in the game, either as a small unit or as Skirmishers in front of a battalion attack column.

Bingham Napoleonic days

Bingham Napoleonic days

The Bingham Napoleonic days, now in their fourth year, take place on the 6/7 March at Longacre Studios in Bingham. As usual I will be with my gaming buddies, the NG13 gamers and we will be running a series of Demo games based loosely on General Lecourbes campaign against the Austrian army after the battle of Waterloo in 1815. There is a link to the Bicorne site in my Commercial section below giving more details but it’s worth pointing out that if you are at a loose end, entrance to the event, including the lectures, is free. It’s not the biggest show that you are likely to attend – possibly the smallest and definitely the least commercial, but if you fancy a drive out to the Nottinghamshire countryside and a pub meal, it’s a nice way to pass the day.

Prussiajn Jaegers - primed and ready for painting

Prussiajn Jaegers – primed and ready for painting

Back to the jaegers – I should point out that the Prussians weren’t involved in the original campaign but we have included them to add some colour to the table and give me an excuse top dust off my Prussian contingent! I followed my usual painting method for churning out units for my Napoleonic army – Prime, block paint, Quick shade and base.

Block paint started - first colours on

Block paint started – first colours on

I’m not going to detail the colours for the simple reason that I was a bit lazy when it came to researching them. I usually spend a bit of time finding the correct colours but on this occasion although I consulted both my Osprey books and the Mont St John web site, Pinterest and of course, the painting sheet that comes with the Perry Miniatures Prussians, the details seemed to be confused. I sort of lost patience in trying to work out the correct facing colours and exact uniform and just decided to copy the painted models on Warlords web site.

Prussian Jaegers - detail added

Prussian Jaegers – detail added prior to quick shade

This means that they wont technically fit in with my Silesian Prussian regiment but I quite liked the red facings for a change! So they will appear on the wargames table with the Silesians, regardless!

Jaegers based

Jaegers based

Once they were painted with quick shade and matt varnished, I started the basing process. I spread Vallejo dark earth mud texture paste on to 20mm square MDF bases and ‘plonked’ the figures into the paste, using a sculpting tool ( a cocktail stick would have been fine!) to draw the paste around the figures bases and blend them in. There is no need to glue the figures to the bases, the paste will hold them securely. It was then just a question of tidying up the edges, painting the bases and adding some scatter and tufts and another six figures are ready for the wargames table.

All based up - just waiting for the tufts!

All based up – just waiting for the tufts!

Not the most ‘loved’ of projects that I have done but sometimes it’s nice just to get another unit off the painting bench, even if that means dropping standards a bit!

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

To get full details of the Bingham Napoleonic days, including a list of speakers, click here:

BINGHAM NAPOLEONIC DAYS

If you want to join us for the wargame, we are there on Saturday only but you are welcome to find us out in the back room and have a chat, may be roll some dice and of course discuss why a batch of Jaeger are in the wrong facings!

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available POST FREE from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY

Our range of Warlord Napoleonics can be seen here:

WARLORD NAPOLEONOIC RANGE

You can find the Vallejo texture paste here:

VALLEJO DARK EARTH TEXTURE

You can find all the Vallejo Model colour paints here. If you don’t want to browse, just enter the paint number or name into the shop search bar;

VALLEJO PAINTS

Happy modelling!