Another of those peanut butter and jam posts I keep reading about!
I’ve made solid progress with painting my French. I reckon I’m about half way through them now. It’s taken me somewhere in the region of 13-14 hours. I still have the following steps to take:
Artillery cuffs & turnbacks
Cavalry cuffs & some saddlecloths
Cavalry breast plates & swords
Horses - main coat colour where not black, blazes etc
Infantry cross belts
Infantry barrels and bayonets
Some grenadier bearskin bags*
Flags (have to be painted!)
Basing and texturing
Touching up
General staff - 14 figures undercoated but otherwise untouched
Half brigade of cavalry - 10 figures, ditto
I might be ready to get them in the table for a game by the first weekend of August.
This will give me 11.5 brigades of infantry, 8.5 of cavalry, 6 of artillery and 5 stands of staff. Each horse/foot/gun brigade is two bases. I’m half a brigade short of what I need for Rossbach due to a miscalculation. I prefer to order the shortfall when I place the next order rather than ordering them on their own. So I will slip a base of Austrians in.
The good news for me is that I’m not massively short of the additional figures needed for Minden and Fontenoy. I received the figures I need from Irregular that I can’t get from H&R (dismounted dragoons for the French and horse grenadiers in mitres for the Brits/Hanoverians). A point to note here is that I am not being totally faithful to the uniforms of units in the respective orbats though. I’ll have roughly the right proportions of white, blue and red-coats in the French armies, but what will be Irish and Gardes Suisses in one battle will be Swiss line in another (Red); and Gardes Francaises at Fontenoy will be German regiments in the SYW (blue). Gives me a conundrum with the flags though.
Sorry I forgot to take any snaps of the WIP. I’ll try to remember tomorrow.
* I’ve gone for the partially anachronistic choice of bearskin capped grenadiers. These didn’t become common until 1759, but I like em. Prior to that, they were nearly all in tricorns. I mean, make an effort to look like proper grenadiers Frenchies! The other reason I’m doing them in bearskins is because of the Blandford SYW book that we consulted in our school wargame group. That showed a moustachioed grenadier of the Swiss Regiment de Diesbach in bearskin in the section on Rossbach. One of our number drew the understandable conclusion that it was a whole regiment of grenadiers, rather than it just being the flank company. So it is in his honour I have rejected the more historical tricorn.
It seems that there’s a fair amount of scepticism about progress, especially coming from some of the other 5i partner countries 😉. So I present here for your eyes, some evidence of peanut butter and, if not jelly, st least the promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ (to mix the metaphors).
A general view of 7 brigades’ worth of infantry. 3 French; 1 German; 3 Swiss/Irish. They’ll look better when the black from the sprayed undercoat on the bases is covered up.
Next up the cavalry, guns and remaining infantry.
Anyone seen a field gun lying around? Somehow one has broken free of its PVA bonding and has gone wheel about. I need to lighten up some of those horses. |
You make impressive progress, Chris! Halfway finished in only a week? Very impressive. Of course, with no pictures, my kids say, "it didn't happen!"
ReplyDeleteThis all sounds good to me and personally I tend to take a rather lax approach to historical uniforms for my games, going with units I like the look of (so grenadiers in bearskins as in your example) as it works for me. Purists my be frothing at the mouth as they read this!
ReplyDeleteHa ha! You got me there. I can see that I will have to prove to the international community that I DO have a high state of war readiness.
ReplyDeleteChris
Oh bugger, someone else powering their way through an army build. Be nice to see them when you get a mo. I’ve managed 12 10mm elizabethans in the time it’s taken you to do half of your force (hangs head in shame).
ReplyDeleteMaybe you’ve actually got a life JBM.
DeleteChris
Agree on both counts Jon - my smart alec comment was going to be "A PB&J post without the eye candy is like PB&J minus all the ingredients - that is two slices of dry bread!" And your kids have a point too....!
ReplyDeletePerhaps Stew would label this as a “white bread” post?
DeleteI’m becoming my own meme these days. 😀
DeleteFame has its costs.
DeleteExcellent progress. I look forward to seeing the whole force in action.
ReplyDeleteSounds like good progress and look forward to the pretty pics ‘eventually’. Keep plodding on with the painting. 😀
ReplyDeleteMoving forward very nicely indeed!
ReplyDeleteWell they look good to me and I'd be more than happy for them to grace my table any day:).
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve.
DeleteChris/Nundanket
I never doubted you for minute.
ReplyDelete😁
DeleteThat's a lot of French to do, and spectacular progress on getting the job done!
ReplyDeleteThanks, but it’s a case of quantity not quality.
DeleteGreat looking progress, very impressive!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks Iain. I’m at the base texturing stage now.
DeleteChris