More Snappy Nappy Figures Finished!

Got around to finally finishing my 'unit' of French Hussars today and I'm really pleased with them. I painted these figures up to represent the 7th Hussars and even though the uniform isn't 100% accurate (according to some on TMP!) I'm very happy with them... See what you think...

May not be historically correct but they look suitably 'Napoleonic' to me!

So, that's another set of figures down... What to do next?...More painting... Perhaps some scratch built buildings....

Also I'd like to welcome 'Millsy', my 130th follower!

Steve

French 7th Hussars (Work in progress)

Here's my attempt at painting up a few Italeri French Hussars as the 7th....

... Still quite a bit of tidying up to do and their mounts to finish. I'm still not 100% sure on the colour of their plumes. The plate 'm working off shows them as grey .... but I'm not sure. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know! A colourful bunch and I'm sure they'll make a fine addition to the already existing French cavalry I've put together for my Snappy Nap games.

UPDATE  There's been a few comments on TMP  regarding the actual uniform shown here and recommending the removal of the epaulettes and possibly the colpack's which were apparently only worn by officers. I considered making these alterations for all of ten minutes before deciding not to bother. I appreciate that some gamers take great care in researching their uniforms and making any necessary alterations etc but I'm afraid I'm not one of them... Life's too short to count buttons!  So long as the figures resemble what they are intended to represent and the paint job is tidy then I'm happy.

Just as a footnote, here are the early Austrians I painted up as Hungarian fusiliers last week all finished with their flocked bases...

Hopefully I'll have the Hussars completely finished in the next day or so and I'll pop a few more pics up then.

Steve

Hungarian Paint Conversion ... The Result

In my previous post I spoke about the possibility of converting early Austrian infantry figures (wearing the helmet and gaiters as opposed to the later Shako) into Hungarian infantry by purely using a paint conversion. The figures are now finished and awaiting their flocking but I'm reasonably pleased with the affect. Though not completely accurate I think the figures will pass for Hungarian once on the table...

Although the Snappy Nap rule system recommends two bases per 'unit' I have decided to use 'half' bases to better represent unit formations on the tabletop, but more about that in a later post. Anyway that's another unit to add to the collection and now back to painting !

Hungarian Infantry?

While looking through my endless boxes of figures recently I came across the Italeri Russian and Austrian Command set. This set is actually quite disappointing as there are only a few actual 'Command' pieces in it and the rest of the box is made up of Russian grenadiers and early Austrian infantry figures.
I painted up the Russian Grenadier figures last year for use as Pavlov Grenadiers.....
(Click images to enlarge)

But this still left quite a few of the early (helmeted) Austrians. Having searched around on the web for a little while I came across some illustrations of Austro-Hungarian Fusiliers wearing much the same uniform...

 so I decided to do a quick paint job on one just to see how it turned out..

A VERY quick paint job just to see how these Italeri figures look.

Though nowhere near 100% historically accurate (The Hungarian troops wore ankle length boots rather than the gaiters on the figures) I'm certainly not going to start converting models in this scale for the sake of one unit but I think they look ok and from 'wargames view' I think they'll pass... Anyway it's my army so they're in!

Apologies for the crap photo's, I'm having a bad camera day.

So, I'll crack on with these and hopefully have them ready soon to join my expanding Snappy Nap forces.

Steve

Russian Artillery for Snappy Naps

As promised here are a few pics of the 3 Russian artillery 'batteries' for use with the excellent Snappy Nap rules. (Zvezda crew and HaT guns!)....

This is the first time I've painted Zvezda figures and very nice they are too!

The guns have been left loose on their respective bases so that they can be shown as 'limbered / unlimbered' during play.

Please feel free to leave a comment!

Steve

Snappy Nap: Taking stock

So today I thought I would see just how much of a force I could put together using my newly chosen rule set.  One of the reasons I was drawn to SN was the use of smaller units to represent larger formations and even with my small collection I can still field enough for a decent game ... I think!

The actual number of units can be found by clicking the 'My Snappy Nappy Forces So Far' tab at the top of the page but here's a few snaps ('snaps'....see what I did there?) I took while I was sorting out...

French!

Russian & Austrian

Another view of those Frenchies.

Not a bad start to be going on with but there's still a big pile of plastic to be painted before I'll be satisfied!

January 2013 Progress

Well, sticking to my plan of painting in very small batches in my spare time (around 4-6 figures a week) I'm very pleased to say that I've managed to complete two 12 figure units of French Grenadiers. Nothing to shout about I know but for me this is progress indeed compared to the second half of last year when my painting and gaming mojo's both decided to take a holiday!

Italeri French Grenadiers

So far so good then. Plans for February? ... Hopefully some French heavy cavalry and more Russian line infantry..... Fingers crossed that the painting urge stays with me!

Steve

Italeri French Grenadiers

Finally got around to completing the painting of my first unit of French Grenadiers today. Still got the bases to flock as you can see .. (Click on images to enlarge)

Someone who commented on one of my TMP postings recently wrote that he was planning to paint his figures in very small numbers but on a very regular basis, something along the lines of between 4 and 8 figures per week, .....every week. I like this approach and will hopefully be doing the same as I tend to get really bogged down if I attempt to paint in any great numbers in one go. As I'm using small numbers of figures per unit (around 12 infantry and 4 cavalry figures per unit for V&B) I'll also get the satisfaction of generating at least one new unit quite quickly..... I can also chop and change exactly what I'm painting too, so I could have a batch of Austrian, French or Russian troops on the go at the same time... Even these small planned amounts will add up throughout the year and at least outstrip the pathetic amount I managed to complete last year! ....
As you've probably guessed by now I find painting a complete chore I'm afraid.... hence my 'simplistic' painting style..

Need some info here if anyone can help. The guy in the rear rank, 2nd on the right is holding an axe and wearing some kind of what looks like an apron. Any idea what colour this should be?

So that's it for now, my next Grenadier figures are prepped and ready to go (I plan another 2 of these units at the moment) so I'll crack on..... All comments welcome so please feel free.

All the best,

Steve

The Painting Drought Is Broken...

Well after many months of lethargy I've finally got round to painting my Napoleonics again. I still have a mountain of unpainted plastic to go at so I decided to paint up a unit of Italeri French Grenadiers. Done in my usual simple style so the paint job is nothing to shout about but I'm just really glad that my painting 'dry spell' is finally over... A couple more colours to add and then the basing to do.

Still a bit to do on these but it's good to break the brushes out again at last. 

Well this is another unit to put into the V&B project (don't you love small units!) Next up I'm planning on painting up some French Heavy cavalry .... I'm on a roll!

French Mounted Officers (Italeri)

More Command figures from the bench. This time the French...

Primed up and ready to go in the background is my next batch of figs, French Grenadiers.

Italeri Pavlov Grenadiers

I know ... two posts in one day .. it's unheard of!

Managed to get my unit of Russian Pavlov Grenadiers based and flocked all ready to hit the table... Hope you like!

If anyone happens to have any of these figures lying around as spares please get in touch.

Click the pic to enlarge and please feel free to leave a comment.

Cheers,

Steve

Italeri Austrian & Russian Command Figures

After a really lazy (and boring) Easter Bank Holiday I've managed to get a couple of Austrian and one Russian Command figures finished up... Over all I'm quite pleased with them...

In the background you can probably see the Russian Pavlov Grenadiers which are waiting for their scatter to be added to finish them off.

Next up I need to paint a couple of Austrian cannon and some French command figures. Originally I'd planned on making the Austrian army the 'main' force of the combined Austro/Russian force but I'm now leaning toward building up the Russian force in bulk to be supported by a smaller Austrian arm. ... but we'll see.

Russian Pavlov Grenadiers (Italeri) WIP

Having decided to finally paint a few Command figures up I picked the Austrian & Russian Allied General Staff set out of my plastics pile to see what goodies were contained therein.... The Italeri set seems a bit of a cop out to me as half the set contains figures from their other Austrian Infantry and Russian Grenadier sets. Even so, I was very taken by the Russian figures so decided to paint a small unit up ... Apologies for the crappy pictures...

I'm no figure painter but overall I'm quite pleased with the figures so far .... even though they are a complete pain in the backside to paint ..... 

Still a bit to do on these figures and the Command figures (1 x Russian and 2 x Austrian mounted Officers) but all being well they'll be on the tabletop very soon.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

Steve

Italeri French Hussars Completed!

Tonight I managed to finish off the last 6 French Hussar figures to make up my French 4th Hussar unit ...

A colourful bunch I'm sure you'll agree!

The set also includes this bugler who wears the 'reverse colours' of his unit.... This gave me the chance to have my first attempt at a white horse.... Not too bad for a first attempt I suppose.

You may notice the base colours differ in shade slightly. This is due to the fact that some of them haven't had chance to dry out properly yet.....

Well, that's 4 x cavalry units completed now and I'm glad to see the back of them!... Time to get back to the foot-sloggers. It will be good to get back to doing line infantry after all this fiddly work...... Hope you all like them and please feel free to leave a comment.

Cheers!

HaT Russian Cuirassier completed!

I'm pleased to say that my latest addition of a 12 figure Russian Cuirassier regiment is complete....

The HaT figures are not too bad in quality bit I do prefer the Italeri cavalry figures some of which are next on my 'to do' list (more French Hussars!)

Overall I'm very pleased with how these turned out and even though my paint job is still very basic compared to some I do feel that my painting is improving..... Can you hear that?...That's me blowing my own trumpet!

Anyway, that's another unit that will eventually make it onto my table  (work starts on the wargaming attic soon!) and yet another batch of figures I need to store somewhere until I'm ready to get gaming!
All comments welcomed as per usual.

HaT Austrian Grenadiers

Here's my first 12 Austrian Grenadier figures ready for basing.... (Click on images to enlarge)

Although I wasn't overly impressed with the quality of the figures, especially the faces which are really not well defined, the figures do look pretty good (to me anyway!) painted up.

I did have a problem gathering info on what the top of the bearskins looked like. After several differing opinions  from folk on TMP and looking at painted versions of these figures on the HaT website I eventually settled on this ......

I don't know if this is the correct design but it looks ok to me. 

The French Grenadier figures (again from HaT) which I was also planning on painting up have been put to the bottom of the plastics pile as I really don't like them. HaT obviously employed a different sculptor for the French Grenadiers, they are way taller and 'dumpier' than the usual HaT figures. I'll be replacing these shortly with either Italeri or Zvezda figures.

Anyway, here's the Grenadiers in action...

Up next will be French Hussars.... Stay tuned!

French line infantry (Italeri)

A few pics of the Italeri French line infantry Brigade ( 3 x 12 figure Batallions)

Ready for basing ......

Not too sure on my rule set yet but I'm leaning toward Le Fau Sacre by TFL. .... Or my own tweaked version of it .... Come on, we all have a tweak now and again!

Italeri Russian infantry; a first stab!

I've just completed my first 12 figure Russian infantry unit .....

The figures are from the Italeri range and although I wasn't initially impressed with the uniform detail (the figures barely resemble the figures on the box artwork) I am pleased with them now that they're painted up.

At least it's made a nice change to paint something different for a change ............... Oh well, back to the French line infantry.....