Saturday Painting Bench: Lots of 6mm Napoleonics

Hello and welcome to April!   The temperature has dropped about 12C today so sitting beside the gas fire writing this post sees like a splendid use of time.

Almost finished today on the painting bench are these four strips of 6mm Napoleonic Polish Uhlans, who will soon I hope be crossing lances with Russian Cossacks in one of the opening battles of the 1812 invasion.

The figures are from MC Miniatures, the brainchild of Marco Campagna of Genoa, Italy.  Marco’s 6mm strips are ideal for mass-producing units, and is my go-to for my current rules interest, LaSalle2, which requires four bases for each unit.  They have just enough detail to satisfy, but are simple enough to paint en masse.  I printed these on an Elegoo Mars 2 machine.   Hopefully done before I go to bed, and then they can report to the Basing Depot.

 Also recently hot off the Mars printer are these strips of Austrian grenadiers, also MC Minis prints.  These fellows will be getting blue trousers, just because the blue and white Hungarian uniform is such a classic look and should pop on the table.  It may be another week before these chaps are finished.

 

What’s on your painting desk?

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+

Resisting (?) The Allure of Big Napoleonics

Hello and Happy New Year.

One of the last two games of 2022 for me was a game of Sharp Practice with my friend and podcast partner James at his place.   Besides the pleasure of spending time with an old friend, there was the thrill of playing with James’ 28mm kit, which he has been assiduously assembling and painting for the last two years along with our mutual friend Scott.   While Scott has been focusing on the French, James has done Bavarians, Russians, and is now working on Austrians and Prussians.

Here is the force of invading Bavarians that we assembled for this skirmish on the steppes of Russia.  The figures are a mix of metal (including Front Rank) and various plastics including HAT.

And the defending Russians, which I took.

It’s hard not to be tempted by how attractive these units are. James is a decent, workmanlike painter who has a knack for turning out figures that are wargaming standard, in large numbers, and in fairly short time.   When he wants to he can kick it up a notch, as with the Russian officer in the centre, on his prancing horse waving his expensive hat.  The overall effect is very impressive.

On the tabletop, these figures are paired with some fine scenery.   As with the figures, James aims for a wargaming standard with his scenics, but the overall effect, as with these Russian houses, is quite pleasant.   

 

Likewise this MDF church (Our Lady of Cabbages) is nicely presented with a scratch built fence, and the unfortunate billiard ball dome will be replaced by a nice 3D printed spire for future battles.

Here’s one shot of the battle, which went badly for me.   We advanced from the long ends of the table, and spilt the village, where my light infantry was slowly evicted by the better fire of the Bavarian rifle-armed jaegers.   I foolishly led with my weakest infantry formation (bottom left) which were ripped apart by James’ grenadiers.   James has an intuitive grasp of Sharp Practice and used the order cards to best effect, seizing several extra moves/volleys for his grenadiers.  The only real success I had was a cavalry victory as our light horse basically cancelled each other’s out of the game.

As readers of this blog now, I made the decision a decade ago to do Napoleonics in 6mm and I have not regretted that decision.  However, all this is building up to the confession that this period in 25/28mm is hopelessly infectious.  The figures are just so much more dramatic in the larger scales, which reward painting and uniform details in ways that 6mm can’t.  It’s like comparing an impressionist painting (6mm) with a romantic but realist painting such as Lady Butler (28mm).  The big scale wins in the close ups.    That being said, I am firmly convinced that 28mm for Napoleonics works best with larger skirmish games.    For battles of a brigade on up, I’ll take 6mm any day.   

But, I still feel the need to paint a force in 28mm!    So here’s the likely solution.   Piano Wargames, a very clever fellow named Lucas, has been labouring away for some years now on the troops of minor German states, and has just wrapped up a very successful Kickstarter focusing on the Tyrolean Revolt, which will feature rebels, Bavarians, and Austrians.   The KS offers .STL files as well as metal figures, and I’ve decided that it will be a good opportunity to use my limited 3D printing prowess to do some of these rarer figures for James (and I get to play with them from time to time, so win win).  

Since my experience with printing 28mm figures is minor, I thought I’d practice by ordering some of Lucas’ files already on his webstore, in this case, six light infantry figures from the Duchy of Wurttemberg, which would themselves be the basis of a nice little Sharp Practice force, since they can fight as French against Russians or Austrians until, as invariably happened, they turn coats and fight against the French towards the end of the Napoleonic period.

I had a devil of a time getting the pre-supported files to print, for some reason known only to my Elegoo Mars2 printer, but when I decided to print the unsupported figures, I was fairly successful, though there are some minor flaws in some prints.   Still, I now have enough to print and to see if 28mm is as seductive as it appears to be.  Wish me luck.

#Terrain Tuesday: Visiting Old Russia

I saw this photo recently on Twitter, courtesy of one @nickfshort, and found it slightly haunting as a glimpse of a lost world, though the houses aren’t much different from some of the humble buildings seen on the front lines of the current Ukraine war.  

The caption reads:

"The village of Pokrovskoe in Siberia. An original colour photograph from, astonishingly, 1912. When Nicholas II was on the throne, and one year before the Romanov tercentenary.” Pokrovskoe was the birthplace of Rasputin, which is cool, but what interests me most here is the white painted church.

I’m wondering if it should be a guide for this lovely little 6mm model, which I bought as an .STL file from a German published called 3D Print Terrain. I have to say that this gave me fits, and it took multiple attempts on my Elegoo Mars printer before I had a successful print. Much trial and error with angling the building, adding supports, cursing and praying.

A Google search, “Rural Russian churches”, produced varying results, such as this one. 

 I suppose I could paint it a heavily weathered brown if it was some tiny village on the way to Borodino, with perhaps a bronze onion dome, but it could also be a white one if it’s a more impressive and prosperous town.   Hmmm, good thing I printed two.

Finally, on the terrain and scenery front, tonight I finished the three tree stands featured in last week’s post.  Two for 28mm gaming and one for 6mm.

Blessings to your hobby endeavours!

M+ 

More 6mm Napoleonics: Baccus French

On the heels of my last post about 3D printed 6mm figures, here are some “old school” (do we call them that now?) cast metal 6mm Napoleonic French from Baccus that marched off the painting desk just before New Years.

 

The figures are Baccus code NFR02 French Elite Infantry 1806-1812.   I’ve painted them all with red hat plumes, cords, and epaulettes to make them easily distinguishable on the table top as an elite or veteran unit.  Flags are likewise from Baccus.

This is my standard base for 6mm foot or horse figures, and is the Base Width that I use for measuring if using Sam Mustafa’s LaSalle or Blucher rules.

I have a considerable stash of Baccus figures yet to paint - Bavarians as well as Revolutionary era French in bicornes, so I have lots to work on while I get the teething issues with my Elegoo Mars 3 printer sorted out.  Elegoo thinks the machine shipped with a defective LCD panel, which means the light came out everywhere and the print pattern was impossible.   They’re sending me a replacement part from China, so I may order a second machine to play with while I wait.

Cheers, and blessings you your brushes,

MP