Festive Mobilising

Here is my promised update, the (nearly) finished Baden Brigade from Legrand's 1er Division of Massena's IV Corps d'Armée.  IR Nr 1 'Grossherzog' and IR Nr 2 'Erbgrossherzog', aided and abetted by the Lingg Jaeger Battalion and a Baden Foot Artillery Battery.  Casualty markers and accompanying officer as standard.  Oh and a couple of extra regiments of Cuirassiers.  Sadly I don't have my paints on me to do the edges of the bases at the moment, and I could have sworn that I had Baden infantry flags ready to go but it appears I can't find them or I am mistaken.  I beg your indulgence on these points.  I'm quite fond of the Baden contingent and they have the privilege of being the first infantry figures from my entire collection to ever be based.  I hope you enjoy them, and a Merry Christmas to you all.

 The Baden Brigade. 

Lingg Jaeger Battalion. 

Line Infantry.

 IR Nr 2 'Erbgrossherzog'.

IR Nr 1 'Grossherzog'. 

Foot Artillery. 

Yet more French heavies join the ranks.  Carabiniers to come.  

AB Napoleonics - Another Basing Spree

Mostly Austrians, but a few other odds and ends as well.  I noticed that none of the Austrian cavalry had had their horses painted, which was fairly demoralising.  For the purposes of basing them up I have at least put their base colours on. 

Rear L - R: 6pdr Position, 12pdr Position, Front L - R: 3pdr Brigade, 6pdr Brigade

Saxon Foot Artillery 

 One of the two supporting vignettes to the main Napoleon & Staff command base that is in the pipeline.  The only thing not completed here is the officer's mount. 

Various Austrian mounted officers and casualties.  

More Austrian casualties.  Alongside some French Chasseurs and Cuirassiers these are some of the first ABs I painted, for some reason they have ended up based on pennies.  

 Some Austrian commanders.  The horses in the middle have at least been started, the outer one haven't even got their base colours on.

Another Austrian commander.  Nothing doing on the horses!  Also photographed in such a way as to obscure much of the other base details. 

Austrian Chevaulegers finally get lifted out of their dull black bases after years of waiting.  The horses have also had a begrudging start made on them.

Another unit that has waited years to get based, this time the Erzherzog Ferdinand Hussars.

Finally a couple of units of Austrian Kurassiers.  Again, horses to be finished at some unknown future date.  Like most of the Austrians painted before this year they have been painted with proper shades of white as opposed to the current generation with their adjusted uniform shade. 

AB Napoleonics - From the Workbench

Some more French Line Infantry in greatcoats.  This time I elected to do all of them in brown shades, no grey this time.  I've now moved on to the Baden Brigade.

 You'd think plain coats would take less time than their full uniforms to paint - not so. 

To speed the process up I sacrificed the top layer of highlights, they still look fine. 

Just finished - Lingg Jaeger Battalion, alongside WIP casualty marker and mounted officer.  Four line battalions to come, IRs 1 & 3.

WIP skirmishers for 1st and 3rd Baden Infantry Regiments

18mm Napoleonic Basing Spree

Bowing to the requests for me to base a few things and acknowledging that I haven't based a single AB figure in the 5+ years I've been painting them, I went a bit crazy.  Lessons learned though; less is more. I knew this, but went a bit berserk and used everything in my collection of basing materials and had to tone a few back.  But actually some that I thought were too much have since grown on me.  The only major delay was discovering the number of horses that I couldn't be bothered to paint at the time.  Painting dozens of varied horses in retrospect is not all that fun!  So I've got a bit lazy with highlights, it should be fairly evident which.  Hope everyone is enjoying a relaxed Christmas and New Year.

Various command bases, a few skirmishers, and foot & horse artillery.

French and Saxon infantry casualties, and French cavalry casualties. 

Corps commander and three divisional commanders.

Two of the divisional commanders.

Heavy and light cavalry commanders. 

Horse artillery battery.

Foot artillery batteries. 

French cavalry casualties. 

Saxon infantry casualties. 

French infantry casualties. 

1809 Napoleonics - Grinding Progress

Gradually getting through more and more white-coated infantry.  Usually I only do a battalion at a time, but I ended up doing two German battalions at the same time, and actually it didn't feel like it took that much longer.  It was also more satisfying at the end because I'd double the output! 

 Work in progress...

The most time consuming element - applying copious amounts of white.

Not pictured here, but they've now joined their compatriots in this box.  Numbers completed are filling out nicely over time!  All the other Austrians completed before now are in another box. 

Austrian command stand.  The horses did get another highlight after this. 

French light cavalry command in the uniform of the 4e and 5e Hussars.  Horses hadn't had details added yet. 

 Same detail on these casualty markers, few details added after this to the horses. 

 French heavy cavalry command, generic cuirassier model on the left with some NCOs stripes added for variation.  The horse colours haven't come out very well in this photo. 

Additional highlight to the horses, but the light is too bright!  Need to work on photography skills.  And maybe start basing some miniatures at some point this decade.