No those aren’t aeronefs flying high over the countryside. Baccus 6mm French Napoleonic limbers.
Pity the poor limber model. In larger scales you don’t always see them on the gaming table because they’re expensive to buy, take time to paint, and take up space on the tabletop. I’ve seen many games where players, myself included, move their artillery with the gun barrel pointed at their starting line, and then show the guns are deployed by turning the gun to face the enemy.
In the really small scales, like 6mm, my reasoning was that there should be room on the table for limbers to properly move the guns around, and for caissons to keep them in supply and for everything to look proper and military. So I’m happy to say that with these four limbers, I’ve finished the original Baccus order from two years ago, which is a mildly depressing thought that it’s taking so long, but anyway.
Here’s the uniform I was aiming for, a soldier of the Train of Artillery, one of Gnotel’s wonderful colour paintings. G.R. Elting’s commentary on the plate notes that the Train uniform coat was gris de fer, (iron gray). It looks darker in the plate than the very pale blue that I ended up painting on these figures, and lighter than the blue I used for the caisson drivers from a year ago. Variations in dye lots and issues, I suppose.
Here’s the artillery all together. Rather impressive, I think.
I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some of the new Baccus French sculpts, but for now I still have a lot of French figures from the collection I bought this winter.
Onwards and upwards. Hopefully I’ll be able to put enough French and Austrian troops on the table that I can start playing with the Polemos rules.
Vive l’Empereur!
These figures bring my 2014 totals to:
28mm Mounted: 13, 28mm Foot: 25, 28mm Artillery: 1
20mm Foot: 33, 20mm Artillery: 2, 20mm Vehicles: 2, 20mm Terrain Pieces: 2
15mm Vehicles: 5, 15mm Foot: 26, 15mm Terrain Pieces: 3
6mm Foot: 120, 6mm vehicles: 4, 6mm Terrain Pieces: 2
Kilometres Run: 808
I don't use limbers for most things, even in 6mm, but I do use 6mm figures for Battle Cry sometimes, and in that I use a limber as the third figure on an artillery unit (which makes it two guns and a limber - not logical, but still looks good)
ReplyDeleteClever idea. Useful way of keeping track of unit strengths, and of adding some variety to the table top.
DeleteVery nice artillery and train. These will look great on the gaming table and you will be happy you knocked these out. I do not enjoy painting limbers either but I field them for most of my 15mm armies and the 28mm Napoleonics. The 28mm limbers and teams are expensive but you only buy them once (as a vendor once told me!).
ReplyDeleteO my gosh... Those are so dinky and they look great!
ReplyDeleteWhen I played Napoleonics in 15mm, I distinctly remember we used limbers for our arti'. I also remember I never painted mine because they were too intimidating for a 17-year-old-Dai to paint!
Terrific tiny train Mike. I envy your skill at dealing with this scale mate.
ReplyDeleteThose do look splendid Michael.
ReplyDeleteQuite nice indeed. I skip the limbers on my 1/72s because they're too fiddly!
ReplyDeleteI use 2 horse limbers with my 15mm ACW Fire and Fury armies and four horse limbers with my 15mm Napoleon's Battles armies (but only to show march column - I think it is important to show the distance an artillery train took up on a road with all its extra baggage etc). On the table top the depth of the standard base is probably well within the actual space covered by a battery at a guess.
ReplyDelete6mm gives you more options in displaying troop formations on a base. Those Baccus figures look great, excellent job, Padre.
Great work on these wee fellas Michael!
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with you re limbers: one feels there ought to be something such on the table. And your own gun teams and caissons will set your5 armies off very nicely.
ReplyDeleteBut I find my own good intentions don't always yield the desired result. I have quite a large collection of unemployed limbers, as it happens, but not as large as my collection of cannon. The vast majority are plastics, and most of them ACW or Airfix British RHA. However, I do use a convention whereby not only are limbered guns point the trail in the direction of travel, but the crew figures are lined up in single file from the point of the trail to represent the traction teams.
But I did acquire some time ago some HaT caissons which will be used to represent the logistics element in some of my French Army Corps (this being for my BB4ST rule set). My Airfix 'Wagon Train' models, being fairly anonymous, will be used for a similar purpose in my ACW armies and Napoleonics as well. Even though my Napoleonics are mainly lead, at a slightly larger scale, I'm figuring the differences won't be so very noticeable.
Well done sir. Those limbers look really good.
ReplyDeleteLovely Limbers.
ReplyDeleteVery nice work and indeed one doesn't see such stuff on the tables very often. A shame indeed.
ReplyDeleteGreat work, Michael. The limbers look excellent - terrific work. 6mm is perfect for depicting these chaps. Well done
ReplyDelete