Austrian Uhlans

These are AB figures and they depict the 3rd regiment which had red Czapkas or hats, the 1st regiment had yellow and the 2nd green. I understand there were four regiments of Uhlans but have no information on the 4th. The rest of the uniform is much what you'd expect as most of the European armies modeled their lancers on the Polish version. Like all AB figures they were easy to paint having raised details for the most part and are beautifully sculpted. I based them with my new mix of brown scatter mixed with sand and small yellow grit, finished off with hairy grass and tufts with some flowers.

If I paint another regiment of Uhlans I may go for the AB charging pose which looks quite dramatic - of course basing them without breaking the lances or poking their pals in the front rank  in the back may be a challenge!

Austrian Infantry #2

These are the old glory road march figures again, this time painted with green facings making them appropriate for IR 9, 10, 13,  26, 28 and 54. The Austrians did have a lot of pretty facing colours! see this link.... Again, I replaced the flag poles with metal spears and the flags are by Maverick Models.

BlueMoon Russian Grenadiers

These are the St Petersburg grenadiers, who saw action at Borodino and several other places in the Napoleonic wars notably during 1814 campaign. Flags by are by Maverick models and this time I remembered to paint the edges, also by a 50/50 piece of luck I think I got the  flags the right way around. 

Although the Russians have a very basic uniform that is more or less the same for all line regiments they have the prettiest flags I think. All are various combinations of colours of crosses. I have another 3 of these Bluemoon units to paint.

Bluemoon Austrian Grenadiers

Hungarian grenadiers to be precise. Again, the original flagpoles were removed and a new 28mm spear added. I couldn't tell from the web what the drum colour ought to be so I gave it the same colour as their facings. Now it appears that grenadiers battalions were formed by taking the grenadiers from three line infantry regiments so they could have up to three different facing colours! I gave these Hungarians a orangy/yellow colour so that makes them the Hann battalion. I didnt bother painting the two other facings which would be red and blue. The flag is by Maverick models and to make the grenadiers more distinctive I gave it the white (liebfanne) flag. This has the Austrian eagle on one side and the virgin Mary on the other. I also painted the back of the bearskin in the facing colour, I understand that this was changed to yellow for all units.

Blue Moon Pavlovs

I bought a load of Blue Moon Russian Grenadiers and of course the most famous of the Grenadiers were the Pavlov's with their distinctive Mitre headgear. These painted up easily enough, my only criticism is that the scuplting of the legs is not so good. Their legs appear to blend together, had I been a bit more skilled with the brush I could have painted in some lines. I've also got two units of Blue Moon Hungarian grenadiers, so perhaps these may be next. I intend alternating Austrian units with other nationalities to avoid 'snow blindness'! NOTE: I had to cut off all the flag staffs of the Blue Moon figures - not so much the thickness of the poles was at fault but rather they were a bit short for the flags (by Maverick models) and replaced them with 28mm metal spears from North Star.

2014 recap

Happy New Year to you all!

I never achieved my goal of re-fighting the 1814 campaign, however I will endeavor to do so this year. I did manage one battle, namely Brienne around June and after that I sought of lost my mojo. The next battle will be La Rothiere assuming I can get enough Austrians painted up! Although I did manage to complete one Austrian infantry unit in December.I have a mix of helmet and shako infantry for variety. Of course this will lead to the 1809 campaign and the numerous battles fought that year!

If all goes to plan I will visit the Vapnartak wargames show at York in early February hopefully the weather will behave itself and there is the big game at Ayton (Scarborough, Yorkshire) in early May. For that game I will paint up some more Mexicans (circa 1860-1880s). I really look forward to Ayton every year now as I meetup with the LAW guys (Loose Association of Wargamers). They are a really decent bunch of gentlemen to game and socialise with.