From GregB: 10mm Prussian Artillery for FPW

10mm Prussian artillery, ready for battle - models and figures from Pendraken.

Some more FPW progress that I'm happy to share - a bunch of 10mm Prussian artillery pieces and crews.  There are two Krupp "4 pounder" guns, and six Krupp "6 pounder" guns. The guns and figures are all from the excellent Pendraken.

Divisional guns - Krupp "4 pounders" - there were four batteries equipping each Prussian division.

The steel breech-loading artillery of the Prussian army hit very hard during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The artillery was far from the only reason the French lost, but it was a major difference on the battlefield and, as you might expect, accounted for a significant proportion of French battlefield losses. I use air quotes around the "poundage" of the guns as I believe this rating was a theoretical one, the size of rounshot that might fit in the barrel. The actual shells were heavier, had a much better range and hit harder than the equivalent roundshot. Bruce Weigle has an excellent overview of the artillery and firearms from the war in his rulebooks, which are 150% worth buying even if you never intend to play the games...

The BIG GUNS...Krupp "6 pounders", six batteries in a Prussian corps' artillery reserve.

It will be a tough thing for the French player if/when this lot deploys on the table...

The "4 pounders" were divisional guns for the Prussians, with four batteries equipping each division. The "6 pounders" were corps-level reserve guns, with six batteries available to each corps.

Another view showing the great details on the models and castings - Pendraken is fantastic.

Painting artillery is always tricky. Curt summed it up well for me with two words - "spoked wheels".  He is right, that is probably the worst part, but just in general I struggle to paint artillery and crews from any "black powder" era. I'm just not very confident about what the guns themselves "looked" like, or any of the equipment that went with them.  These were no exception, so it's great to have them out of the way!
  

I don't enjoy painting artillery, so it's great to get this bunch of it finished!

This lot will round out the artillery contingent for the Prussian side of the Wissembourg OOB - the German allies will have 18 batteries of artillery they can bring to bear on the poor French! My brushes now must turn to Prussian infantry and a few more command models in order for me to finally reach my goal of completing all of the models necessary for the battle in 10mm. I suspect, however, that there may be a diversion to different subjects along the way before progress on my 10mm FPW project resumes...

From TeemuL: Cavalry Charge! (92 points)

Now I return to my last post on Challenge X, where I posted my first ever Napoleonics. I have now finished the whole Italeri box of 20mm Prussian Cavalry. From Italeri web site:

"On October 16th, 1813, general Yorck led his Prussian Dragoons in a desperate charge against the positions defended by Marshal Marmont's French troops during the assault of Mockern, a village near Leipzig. It's one of the main phases of the famous “battle of the nations” that radically changed the alliances and boundaries in Napoleonic Europe. The Prussian light horsemen are represented with their headgear protected by oilcloth, as customarily worn during military campaigns"

Most of the horses are running, some walking. I didn't mix them on the bases, and it might not look nice, if mixed in a unit.

I painted them by paying attention to the painting guide on the box, black boots and hat, grey trousers and bright blue jacket with white gloves, belts etc. I have no idea if they are historically accurate or not or do they represent some real unit or not. The flag has yellow borders and something blue on the white field.

I started the basing, but after finishing the three small bases I run out of the stuff and had to change to different one for the big base.

There are five different types of horses and riders (plus command), so I used three different colors on horses to create some variety.

Close up of the small flag and horn blower

I have a bit mixed feeling on these. They are superbly quick and easy to paint compared to current GW range for example and they are very cheap (17 mounted figures for less than 10 euros). But I still might want even smaller miniatures to create even bigger forces and battles. So even though these are painted to tabletop level, they might end up spending rest of their lives in cabinet. Anyway, I guess I'll buy some more Prussian Cavalry in this scale in the future, just to create a bigger force (and have separate units for walking and running horses).

One of the horses charged very fast and dropped a rider. Or did he took a bullet? Vacuum cleaning might be related to disappearance as well...

12 mounted 20mm is 96 points, but since one of the riders is missing, the total is 92 points. These are Fresh miniatures bought this year and they Reinforce (and complete, for now) my Prussian "army", which I started at the end of Challenge X.

U: 0 (total 3)
N: 0 (total 1)
W: 0 (total 1)

N: 12 (total 12)

R: 12 (total 12)
Points:
92 points for miniatures (total 142)

From Minion Teemu:
I'm sorry to hear about your vacuum accident and problems with basing material, but the bright blue colors should cheer you up!

From GregB: 10mm Bavarians and Prussians for Franco-Prussian War

10mm Bavarians and Prussians for the Franco-Prussian War. Figures from Pendraken.

In this entry I return to a project that was the subject of one of my final entries to AHPC X - some more 10mm castings for the Franco-Prussian War.  Here we have an assortment of Bavarians - infantry, officers and artillery, and some Prussian Dragoons.  These 10mm figures are all from Pendraken, purveyor of the finest 10mm figures I have ever come across!

Bavarian infantry regiment - I went with yellow facings on these fellows.

Pendraken sculpts are fun to paint.

View from the rear of the line...

When I love a period or a setting, I am apt to start painting it in multiple scales. Yes, I know this is bonkers...but what can I say? I love the 28mm figures because you can enjoy the many fine details on the lovely uniforms of the period.  But there are limits to 28mm when it comes to playing out the battles of the period - they were large, corps-level battles and I'll never have enough 28mm figures, table space or time to run something like Spicheren, Froschwiller or Gravelotte-St. Privat in large scales. To play even portions of those engagements, I'll need smaller figures.

Bavarian artillery - Krupp 4-pounders, steel breech-loading pieces that greatly outgunned the French artillery.

Another view of the gunners.

Different rules can give you different options in terms of table representation. For the "1871" rules, this would be equal one regiment of Bavarian infantry (with each stand representing a battalion), four batteries of Bavarian Krupp 4-pound guns, a Bavarian brigade commander (single mounted officer on a base), a Bavarian division commander (two mounted offers on single base) and a Prussian dragoon regiment (each base representing about two squadrons of cavalry).

Prussian dragoons.

Even in 10mm, the Hussars are the glamour-boys of the cavalry arm, with their lovely finery and silk-bagged head gear.

I struggle with artillery in any scale, it's always a big stumbling block for me, so it's particularly great to get this group of batteries out of the way.  These four batteries will provide a divisions' worth of guns to my initial Bavarian contingent.

Bavarian command bases.

The single officer will lead a brigade, while the stand with two figures will serve as a division commander.

I started messing around with Pendraken's 10mm range a couple of years ago, and I was blown away by the quality and completeness of their offering.  I've been puttering away at a 10mm collection ever since! I have one specific battle in mind to start - the Battle of Wissembourg.  Using the level of representation described above, I have calculated I will need 88 different bases all in, including all of the infantry, cavalry, artillery and officers.  This is for one of the smallest battles of the war (at least for the "Imperial Phase") - and still that's a fair amount of kit to get painted.

I just need to paint these figures, and I can run my first 10mm battle...hoping to get through these during the Quarantine Challenge.

Those kinds of goals can seem so far away. And yet...progress has been made over time! In fact, I'm almost sort-of within striking distance - when Curt told us he was going to do the "Quarantine Challenge" I thought completing the necessary 10mm figures would be a worthy goal. So I am going to try to do just that...as you can see, I'll be my own worst enemy as I will suddenly feel like painting Titans or panzers or FPW stuff in another scale or who-knows-what else at any given moment...but hopefully I'll be able to stage the Battle of Wissembourg in 10mm by June.

Thanks for looking and visiting - hope you are having a good, safe and healthy day, wherever you are!