Work in Progress ... or Projected

Just to keep this blog spot ticking over for the time being. I'm hoping to gat at least one battle in over the long weekend. It has been a long while. Meanwhile, I have been catching up upon some backlog of long standing - particularly in the 'War of the Imperial Succession' project. 

Cavalry. Last century I bought several packs of Revell 7YW horse. Some have been painted up - Khevenhuller Dragoons and Nadasti Hussars in the service of the Empire, and I began the White (Puttkamer) Hussars in the service of Altmark-Uberheim. The Imperial Kalnoky Hussars were begun, but never quite finished.

On the tray pictured Are two further Imperial Dragoon units (one understrength with just 15 figures), an Uberheim Dragoon unit, and, in the middle of them all, two stands of 15mm 'barbarian' spearmen for the Byzantiad project (mainly to use up surplus paint...).

Then there is this box of oddments, mostly horse. I have wondered what to do with those Hussar drummers. They'll probably fetch up attached to Altmark-Uberheim Army HQ.

A fair amount of flocking (or othe rkind of base decoration) required here. Right to left: Khevenhuller Dragoons, Nadasti Hussars, a squadron of chevau-leger/ light dragoons, and, half obscured, the 'new' Batthyany Dragoons. 

A word on the light dragoons. They are assembled from Airfix Napoleonic artillery battery commanders, and some surplus Revell hussar mounts. The surplus was actually due to deficiency of troopers, mangled for reasons best known to their previous owner. I found I couldn't resurrect them so into the bin they went. 

But those battery commanders I long had it in mind to form them into some sort of unit. So they have become a 9-figure squadron of light horse. Probably in Imperial service.

On a whole different topic: I still have churning away on the back burner, my Napoleonic 'War of the Nations' project. Recently I picked up in the local 2-Dollar shop a bunch of coloured pin-markers. I figured on making a campaign map mounted on some pin-permeable surface.  Most of the pins had cubic heads, the rest some sort of 14-faced polyhedron.  The former became Army Corps or large garrisons; the latter cavalry formations or small garrisons.

Napoleon's Army (above pic) comprises nine Army Corps, the Imperial Guard and two Cavalry Corps; and has provision for two large and four small garrisons. The Army Corps VII - IX are Allies. As I have almost no Allied figures, these will actually be formed from a French-looking army. At that, they are all three of them quite small formations - the three together about the equivalent of one and a half Austrian army corps. 


Above are the other armies:
Blue = Prussian: 3 Army and one cavalry corps, with a provision for 4 garrisons;
Orange = Austrian: 5 Army Corps, one Reserve Corps Infantry and one Reserve Corps Cavalry formations, plus provision for 5 garrisons,
Green = Russian (these ones I had to paint): Left, Centre and Right, plus detached cavalry Division;
and four garrisons.

I have yet to settle upon a map - or at least, how the map is to be represented. I have several A4 pages of Central Europe mapped out, from memory stretching east-west from Posen to Erfurt, and north-south from somewhere above Berlin to Bohemia south of Prague. That seems to me a pretty reasonably sized theatre of war for the forces involved. 

The premise is that, having wintered about Smolensk, Napoleon abandoned his Russian campaign early in 1813 still with a good half of his army. Actually, the narrative won't present it in quite that light. It was a disaster - well, he lost half his army - and had to struggle to rebuild it against the rising tide of Germanic nationalism. The Austrians begin the campaign, as historically, sitting on the fence but the Russians and a corps of Prussians drive out of Poland the Corps of Marshal Davout (III) and Prince Poniatowski (V). This will probably form a 'First Chapter' of the whole War of the Nations - whenever I get around to it!

 

Armies in Boxes - Napoleonic Austrians

Whilst the Sengoku narrative is in the pipeline, and having done most of the 'finishing work' (flocking bases mainly) for my Napoleonic Austrians, methought it meet that (a) I house the troops properly and in a more accessible fashion, (b) take some pictures, and (c) fill the 'blank air' space with this posting. This is my Austrian Army for my projected - I was going to say 'planned', but that would be an exaggeration - War of the Nations.

In the following the figures and artillery are Minifigs except where otherwise stated. 

Minifigs: Horse, Foot and Guns.

I Army Corps:

• Corps Commander with 1 figure
• Staff/ Aide-de-camp with 1 figure
• 3 Fusilier Divisions @ 24 figures = 72 figures (14,400)
• 1 Jager Formation with 24 figures (4800)
• 1 Light Horse (Uhlan) Brigade with 12 figures (2400)
• Artillery Park of 2 pieces (64 cannon) and 8 figures (1600)

Total strength 118 figures (including command), 2 cannon (23,200 men and 64 cannon)

Hinchliffe Grenadiers (I think) but can't 
place the line infantry. The rest are Minifigs.
The extra guns (with limbers) belong to IV and V Corps

II (Hungarian) Army Corps:

• Corps Commander with 1 figure
• Staff/ Aide-de-camp with 1 figure
• 1 Grenadier Division with 24 figures (4800) (Hinchliffe)
• 2 Fusilier Divisions @ 24 figures = 48 figures (9600) (Provenance unknown)
• 1 Semi-Regular Freikorps Formation with 18 figures (3600) (Minifigs)
• 1 Light Horse (Hussar) Brigade with 12 figures (2400) (Minifigs)
• Artillery Park of 2 pieces (64 cannon) and 8 figures (1600) (Minifigs)

Total strength 112 figures (including command), 2 cannon (22,000 men and 64 cannon)

All Minifigs

III Army Corps:

• Corps Commander with 1 figure
• Staff/ Aide-de-camp with 1 figure
• 3 Fusilier Divisions @ 24 figures = 72 figures (14,400)
• 1 Grenze Formation with 24 figures (4800)
• 1 Light Horse (Hussar) Brigade with 16 figures (2400)
• Artillery Park of 2 pieces (64 cannon) and 8 figures (1600)

Total strength 122 figures (including command), 2 cannon (24,000 men and 64 cannon)

IV and V Army Corps: 
As smaller formations, these have been accommodated in one tray, minus their cannon. All these were obtained long ago when one could eke out Minifigs figures reasonably cheaply with figures of other manufacture. I don't know all of these.

An eclectic collection of Warrior and (I think)
Hinton-Hunt knock-offs, and Italieri and HaT 
plastics. I don't know what manufacture is the 
line of metal chevauxlegers on the right

IV Army Corps:

• Corps commander with 1 figure (Plastic - Italieri, I think)
• Aide de camp/ Staff with 1 figure (Ditto)
• 1 Grenadier Formation with 16 figures (3200) (Warrior)
• 1 Fusilier Formation with 18 figures (3600) (Warrior)
  
• 1 Fusilier Formation with 20 figures (4000) (Warrior)
• 1 Grenzer Formation with 24 figures (4800) (HaT plastics)
• 1 Chevauleger Brigade with 8 figures (1600) (Unknown, metals)
• 1 Artillery Park with 1 piece (32 cannon) and 4 figures (800) (Minifigs)

Total strength: 92 figures including command, 1 cannon (18,000 men and 32 cannon)

The Warrior figures don't really 'go' with the Minifigs, being smaller, and stylistically different in appearance. But they do make a fine formation of their own. One problem with them, though, is that their muskets are very fragile.

V Army Corps:

• Corps Commander with 1 figure (Plastic, probably Italieri)
• Aide-de-camp/ Staff with 1 figure (Ditto)
• 2 Fusilier Divisions @ 24 figures = 48 figures (9600) (Hinton-Hunt - mostly very badly pirated, bought cheap, but some work actually made them into vaguely presentable figures)
• 1 Grenzer Formation with 24 figures (4800) (HaT plastics)
  
• 1 Hussar Brigade with 16 figures (3200) (Italieri plastic)
• Artillery Park with 1 piece (32 cannon) and 4 figures (800) (Minifigs)

Total Strength: 94 figures including command, 1 cannon (18,400 men and 32 cannon)

I admit to planning to retire the plastic Hessen-Homburg Hussars, replacing them with metal Hessen-Homberg Hussars, but, come the sticking point, didn't have the heart. There is no real point, I have decided, to replace the plastics with metals, as they are fairly compatible in appearance with the metal figures - 'Hinton Hunts' especially. So the metal Hussars were painted as other units. The same could be said of the plastic grenzers. As this box is pretty crowded, the IV and V Corps artillery parks are in the II Corps box.

I Reserve Corps:

• Corps Commander with 1 figure
• Aide-de-camp with 1 figure
• 2 Grenadier Divisions @ 24 figures = 48 figures (9600)
• 2 Cuirassier Brigades @ 12 figures = 24 figures (4800)
• 1 Dragoon Brigade (attached) with 12 figures (2400)
• 1 Chevauxleger Brigade (attached) with 12 figures (2400)
• Artillery Park of 2 heavy pieces (64 cannon) and 8 figures (1600)

Total Strength: 106 figures including command, 2 cannon (20,800 men with 64 cannon)

The Dragoons and Chevauxlegers are not organic to this formation, but are liable to be attached to other Corps where they might have need for extra horsed troops. The grenadiers and cuirassiers are, as you can imagine, elite formations. In this box the Army Commander in Chief, Archduke Charles might be discernable on the left behind the guns. The guns themselves are scratch-builds, as I wanted a couple of 12pr pieces, which Minifigs don't do for Austrians. The guns themselves are metal, as are the wheels on one of the guns. The gun carriage itself is balsa wood, with a skewer or matchstick axle tree; the balance achieved by gluing a steel nut under the end of the trial to offset the weight of the metal gun.

Army totals: 

• 14 Command and staffs
• 112 Horse (22,400)
• 480 Foot (96,000)
• 40 Gunners (8000) with 10 guns (320 cannon)
• 646 Total (126,400 with 320 cannon)

The cavalry are rather over-represented in this army, and the artillery rather under-represented. But I'm not too fussed. The cavalry are over-represented in my French and Prussian armies as well. I find that with some rule sets, the armies are rather dominated by artillery, if not in practical strength on the table, at least in numbers. If I have a quibble about the Age of Eagles rule set, it is in that regard. I prefer the artillery to have a powerful presence in themselves, but not in numbers such as to dominate the entire battlefield.  I have seen that happen!