Napoleonic Austrians, logistics and the Reality of Waging War in Miniature

 

EDIT: These have all been put up FOR SALE click here for details

Whilst searching though my boxes I came across some primed up Napoleonic Austrian "German" Infantry in 20mm from Newline Designs. I quite fancied a change of era so painted up another unit and based up the Grenzers. Then with the fleece mat and camera phone I wanted some better pictures for my Austrians as a whole. 

The older German Infantry have a more grubby look in compared to the newest finished unit, who look decidedly fresh and crisp. One veteran and one conscript unit I thought, being some of the choices for  the Austrians under Sam Mustafa's Blucher rules, that being the potential ruleset for the project. Also involved where some Styrian Landwehr, I always loved the look of this militia in their oberocks and floppy hats! It was great seeing the army so far. 

However there are still loads to get through for the Austrians and then there are their opponents to do! I am struggling to get regular battles set up for my main ancients project so what chance does my Napoleonics project (and the myriad of others) have? The logistics of the whole thing was quite overwhelming, it was time to accept reality. Aside from painting the odd unit I fancy, I realistically will not manage to use these miniatures in a wargame, so why keep them? 

I'm still thinking on this, I don't like parting with miniatures but they won't get used here so watch this space if you are inclined to procure painted miniatures.

Styrian Lanwehr

Veteran Infantry

Grenzers

Conscipts

Austrian Grenzers

EDIT: Since bases and now FOR SALE click here for details

Finally an update to the blog! Real life has been interfering in the hobby for both good and bad reasons, but little by little I have managed to do small bursts at the work bench. This time its a few of the new Newline Designs 20mm Grenzers from the Napoleonic Austrian range. As ever nicely detailed miniatures which lend themselves very well to my usual painting method of blocking, washing then highlighting.

There are a few codes, illustrated below, two advance poses, two firing poses and one loading pose. The command set is great and I love the NCO encouraging his men! Mixing the codes you can create a good looking irregular firing line. I am not an expert in Napoleonic era uniforms but these look close enough to what I have seen. I used a few plates from around the web and the Hat 1/72 Grenzer art work for reference. I still need to get a flag and base them but I will do that at a later date. 

I hope to press straight on with the ancients of which I have undercoated a good few units of light infantry and Punic citizens. The main focus on ancients is due to the realisation that I am fast running out of space for painted miniatures, so I am hoping to at least get the Macedonian and Punic war covered before that happens!   

AU15:

AU15/1:

AU15/2:

AU15/3:

Third Time Lucky and Industrial Strategy

EDIT: Now FOR SALE click here for details

This poor unit of Napoleonic Austrian infantry was rebased for the third and final time, roughly the same time as the Landwehr. I was at that point still not happy with my photography, but since then I have managed to get some good photos of the unit. The combination of discovering the HDR function on my camera phone and the built in editor has given me a boost on the photography aspect of the blog. I felt it was worth a third post on this particular unit to show both the basing and photographic improvements. Also because I have had my hands full I wanted to post something on here and money for old rope is the order of the day.

I have been wanting a game of Lost Battles Trebia scenario for some time now but I'm not sure when the opportunity will present itself. However I have been slowly working here and there on the painting side of the hobby. I have just finished the Elymian levy light infantry and I have been wanting to spruce up a few Carthaginian horsemen that need rebased which are just about there.

Once these are done I have an ambitious list of all Newline Designs 20mm units to get through and I would like to prep them on an industrial scale. The following list will all need mould lines checked and scraped off and all except the Napoleonics will be painted in roughly the same manner that is base sprayed with Barbarian Flesh:

• Few Austrian grenzers samples.
• 8 bases (at least) unarmoured Etruscans. These will be used as levy light infantry featuring both new and old sculpts for that code.
• 8 bases (at least) Greek javelinmen. Features a new pose recently added to the code.
• 2 bases of Numidian light infantry (Zama).
• 4 bases of Velites tunics and helmets with Gallic shields as generic heavy infantry or Ligurians (Zama).
• 4 bases Carthaginian or Libyan levy spearmen. (Zama).

Once they are at the base coated stage I will hopefully crack through them a unit at a time. Once they are all done I will only need to do one more African elephant for Zama to have the opposing armies finished. Once the units for Zama are complete I will try to focus back on Magnesia.

Austrian Landwehr

EDIT: Now FOR SALE click for details

Over the Christmas and New Year I was slowly but surely working on these 20mm Austrian Landwehr from Newline Designs. It took a lot longer than I hoped but that is always the case with painting in general. It was a bright day so I took advantage of it and got the snaps. I again used my phone which is quicker and more convenient but I don't think the pics are as good as what the Nikon can take.

The colour scheme is from a plate in an Osprey on Austrian Infantry of the Napoleonic wars which identifies these as Styrian Landwehr in emergency uniforms. All based on 40mm square bases and the flag is from an ebay store 'Flags and Patches'. I am not sure if it is the correct flag but I am happy with the result.

I have also been working on some 6mm British for the American Revolutionary War and flitting between the two its dragged each one out. So probably those next but I am probably going to work on some more Austrian and Hungarian Line Infantry. Of course that's not set in stone!

Italeri Austrians

The drummer, officer and the standard bearer are recently painted whilst the marching figures have been done a while however I highlighted them with lighter colours so the details would stand out better. The Italeri set does not contain a standard bearer so I cut away one fusilier's musket, replaced it with a bristle and used one of the flag stickers. The officer, originally a Hungarian Grenadier a has had a head swap with the 'German' officer on horseback as I wanted them all on foot. I used the same technique I did with the Newline Austrians which was mainly based on a brown wash over the base colours then highlighted.

I painted these at the same time as the metal Austrians of the previous post, of which I used the same hodge-podge basing method. I have received a nice tip to improve the stones on the base by adding some wash to add depth to them, but not yet acted on it.
 

 

 

Austrians Rebased

This is more of an update of an older post. After looking into various rulesets from various eras I have come to prefer one base equals one unit sets. After a bit of experimentation I found that a 60mm square base suits my tastes. Also had a quick going over and highlighted them as with my older paint jobs I left them after a Delvan Mud wash, which I think was too dark looking at a distance.

I also updated the flag. I ordered some flags from ebay seller 'Flagsandpatches172', they are printed on sticky paper and just need cut out and stuck on. I found that the Newline Austrian colour bearer's staff was a bit short originally I used a cavalry flag but decided to change to a larger flag. I snipped the old flag off chopped the pole and put a section off a metal spear to artificially increase the length.

The basing was winged. It was initially just the green scatter grass but felt that was a bit bland. Then I squished some grey stones to try and break the grass up, still not happy with that I added some light straw coloured grass. I'm still not sure about the basing but just left it at that.

 

 

     

Napoleonic Austrian Line

Finally the Austrians arrive! These figures work very well with the Citadel washes, because of this I tried it on a unit of Balearic Slingers but it did not work as well as you will see once I have posted the pictures of that unit in the near future. These Newline Austrians, once I got used to painting them were quite enjoyable to paint. Future Austrian Line units will now be a less daunting prospect and hopefully other Napoleonic units I have in the pile.