Napoleonic Lithuanian Uhlan Conversion

A long (long) term project is to put together an 15mm Napoleonic French army representing Davout's XIII Corps in northern Germany around Hamburg in 1813-14. This will also include the Danish Auxiliary Corps.

I have almost a full FoGN army (unpainted) with all the relevant 18mm AB Figures (available from Eureka Miniatures). Painting wise I think I'll start with the cavalry, in particular the 17th Lithuanian Chevau-léger (Uhlan) Lancers.

Their uniform looks like this:

And years ago I bought the relevant Grand Duchy of Warsaw line lancer troopers:

But I only bought eight (I think as the original rule set I had in mind was either Lasalle or Shako II), so a few weeks ago I bought the other four needed for a unit... except I bought these Vistula Legion lancer troopers:

Notice the different saddle cloth? Yeah. Bless the internet though, as I quickly found these images with sheepskin throws:

In under 15 minutes I transformed the Vistula Legion lancers to look like this:

They have been undercoated and basecoated with raw umber and a white/raw umber dry brush (what I usually do with all my miniatures). Next, painting.

Painted Bits and Pieces Over Christmas

Had a few bits and pieces I wanted to paint over the quiet days and all were selected as they would have a similar colour palette, which helped in getting them done in a couple of sittings.

The first batch are some AB Figures WWII British dispatch riders to use as motorbikes in Car Wars / Gaslands type games.

The second batch is some Eureka Miniatures female peasants and chickens. They aren't available from the online store yet, but emailing Eureka or dropping into the store will allow you to get some. They are cute as hell, but I could only give them a very basic paint job as they are tiny.

And finally the last batch is of Peter Pig's USS Sandusky a Marietta-class monitor that I based a display piece for Hammerin' Iron.

Not my best painting (or photography) on these (too much food and drink in the system), but I'm glad I got these on and off my painting queue relatively quickly (well the Sandusky has been in its brown undercoat for a long while...).

Last Game I played - Field of Glory Napoleonic 2 Training Game

Richard and fellow wargamers had spent the last couple of years rewriting the Field of Glory Napoleonics rule set and he was keen to walk me through a training game of the new rules. It was fun, with the new rules definitely being more intuitive, not slow in the pace and things felt as a reflection of the period.

I fielded a list that was based on my unpainted French and Danes (Davout's XIII Corps 1813) against an 1809(?) Austrian list.

Set up was myself defending with Probe as my strategy, allowing me to deploy one division, while one was in reserve and the other would come on in the first turn, while Richard deployed his whole army:

This left flank was a couple of unit of conscript French infantry reinforced with combined arms (light infantry and artillery):

The Austrians unit primarily facing this flank was 'uge... and supported by grenadiers(!):

Only a little reshuffling mid-game was needed, but on the whole my deployment was sound:

Soon my Danes and cavalry division arrived, and were able to check the Austrian advance:

Richard charged my left flank a few times, not of them successful (on the whole I pushed the Austrians back instead):

The cavalry I had amassed on the right flank were more successful (in hindsight way too much), routing a unit (but taking a bit of damage in the process):

As it was a training game, we played slower then normal and didn't have the time to play out to a conclusion. Nonetheless, a fun game and the rule set was better than I remember it (so version 2 definitely is an improvement). I definitely plan to play more games in the coming months.