Prepping for Aspern Essling & Eggmuhl

We're hoping to do Aspern Essling and Eggmuhl next month, which has meant that I've been doing some quick work bringing the Austrian collection up to speed and some work on the terrain.  I have fairly extensive kit suitable for Spain, but not so much for Bavaria. 

Eggmuhl requires some artillery positions, so I set to working out what I could do with what I have. 

What I needed were positions built out of gabions and possibly with some form of duck boards for the cannon to recoil on.  I used a mixture of 3d printed bits from my pal Du Gourmand and some bits and pieces from Italeri artillery sets. Given that we will be playing using Command & Colours Napoleonics, these will need to cover specific sides of a hex. 

I started off by laying out some 3d printed pieces on a five inch MDF hex. This approach was growing on me when I realised that all three positions that I would need for the game were located on hills.  Therefore they would need to be smaller to fit on top of my hills. 

So I started messing about again.  Once I had something that I was happy with, I slipped a piece of paper underneath and used a pencil to sketch in the shape I was looking for. I then cut that out and used the stencil to transfer the shape to plasticard. 

I was toying with the idea of using this part of an Italeri plastic bridge to add duckboards to this, but decided against it because it's actually an infantry position and I couldn't get one of my units to sit on it neatly.  This is no doubt, unrealistic, but it just didn't look right to me and interfered with the function of the playing piece, so I scrapped the idea.  

Once I had a outline that I was happy with, I cut the shapes out of plastic card with a scissors and trimmed the edges with a knife.  All the pieces were glued down with super glue and the base itself was bulked out with pre mixed wall filler. 

The artillery position and the infantry position side by side. 

The final product.  I am debating giving these a watered down coat of PVA to make them more solid, which given that they are wargaming pieces and will see some handling, I think will be the right thing to do before I prime them. 

In the mean time, I came up with the insane idea that I would have separate named figures for the all the Austrian commanders.  This proved to be a bigger job than I anticipated, so I'm going to bodge it somewhat.   Where I have figures that represent named individuals,  I will have a round base with the commanders name on it. More generic figures (i.e. the chaps who don't stand out like Picton, Ney, Bonaparte, etc) will be fitted with a section of steel paper.  I will make name tags on magnetic material that can then be swapped out to individualise the commanders for individual battles. That's the plan at least. 

These are from the Italeri Austrian and Russian staff set.  I didn't like the pose on the grenadier officer, so I cut his arm and super glued it in place so that he is holding his sword by his side instead of waving it over his head.  I am generally terrible at conversions, but having been inspired by the superb JP Wargaming Blog and YouTube channel, I decided I should give it a go. 

My pal RB has very generously offered to paint up the Austrian leaders for the game while get weaving on bringing the Austrian troops and the terrain up to the snuff. 

This figure will be representing Colonel Frimont here.

I went rooting through the Osprey on Austrian Commanders of the Napoleonic Wars, looking for fellas who looked like the figures I had for Austrian generals. I have a box of Italeri commanders and a really lovely box of Strelets Allied Staff which should make for some decent figures.  Given that some of them are pretty similar, I'm hoping to get brave and try some head swaps. 

It remains to be seen whether this will be a success.  RB is painting up the Austrian commanders and I will be transferring my Frenchmen to round bases and adding name tags.  Du Gourmand is 3d printing the Granary for me, so the plan as Hannibal says, is coming together. 

 

Finished Austrian Artillery

The Battery

I finished off the Austrian battery during a spare hour.  It's a simple paintjob, but it does the business.  The guns were painted by Krisztian Takacs. 

  

Look over there!

Now that these fellas are done, I only have to sort out the horse artillery to have the artillery arm completely finished. 

 

Gun crew number 1

If we're going to play some Overlord games, I may need to recruit some more.  But for the time being, these are plenty.  I have the remainder of the set laid away. The basing was done in the usual style and while it does put brown with brown, it looks rather better when placed with other figures. 

Class Photo

Because I use figures from a variety of sources,  I keep to one house style for basing which I find ties disparate figures together regardless of manufacturer or painting style. 

Class Photo Number Two

Things are pretty busy here between assignments due, work and Christmas, but Mrs. Kinch is doing her best Elizabeth Montgomery impression and things are firmly in hand. To be honest, I can't wait until the 19th when school closes for a glorious two weeks.  I have been able to take some leave for that period, so Mrs. Kinch and I should be work and school free for a couple of days. It's going to be heavenly

Mrs. Kinch's best helper - plum tuckered out after a hard evenings wrapping. 

HAT Austrian Artillery

HAT Austrian Artillery

Mrs. Kinch and I had a rare day off together today. We ate leftovers and sat on the couch and watched films and it was glorious. In between another project, I decided that I might do a job on some Austrian gunners as I thought that this might be a job that I could finish at a sitting.  

I found these images on the HAT website and they serve pretty well. I don't think I'll mess about too much with the detail of the cockade or the shoulder boards, but I managed to get the broad strokes done in a single sitting. I only need three gun crews for my Austrian army, so nine figures is plenty. 

Group shot

I sprayed these fellas with Army Painter brown spray and then threw a quick wash of Devlan mud over them. After that it was pretty much painting by numbers, the trick was just to make sure I was careful in applying my colour so I didn't have too many corrections to do. 

Man with stick

I have some 1848 Austrian gun crews that Krisztian did for me, based on Hat Swedish figures, but the uniform changes between 1815 and 1848, but I can use the guns interchangeably.   These fellows are almost done, needing I think one movies worth of time to finish them off. 

Man with other stick

None of these are going to win any beauty pageants, but they are perfectly workmanlike figures with a perfectly workmanlike paint job.  I wanted to pick something small as with another four  assignments due by the 14th, I won't have time to devote to anything more complicated. 

Man with yet another stick (aka a rammer)

I'll post pictures once I've finished them off as I've made a hole in another painting project that is slowly going ahead. And more on that anon. 

Austrian Infantry by Mike Embree

Austrian Infantry (artist unknown)

I was writing yesterday about the need to learn more about the Austrian army. I had a few idle moments last night and had a look at the information that was available on my phone, which was when I found this, an admirably clear introduction to Austrian Regular Infantry.

I also noticed that it was written by a friend of mine, Mike Embree. This of course begs the question what else Mike has been hiding under a bushell.

Mike doesn't interest himself in Napoleonics these days which is a pity, but it does mean that he can devote his time to writing books about his new period, the mid 19th century. He's an active member of the Continental Wars Society. His last book, Bismarck's First War explored the Danish-Prussian War of 1864 in great detail. The conflict is an unusual one in that the methods with which it was fought are comparable with the Franco-Prussian or American Civil War, but the Casus Belli and the general air of the thing retain the whiff of the 18th century.

Mike's strength is the clarity of his prose* and his tenacity in pursuit of original sources. If the book has a weakness, it's that the publisher did not see fit to give sufficient space to the plethora of maps, etching and illustrations that Mike managed to track down. Mike has a new book in the pipeline, but more on that anon.



*I finally understood the Schleswig-Holstein question - though I'm still at a loss as to why one would go to so much trouble over two buckets of paint and a duck.

Kaiserlicks

Austrian Johnnies off to fight the French

One of the perils of gaming with 1/72 figures is that they are damnably cheap - the problem for impulsive types like your correspondent is the habit of buying several boxes on a whim. I know very little about the Austrian army during the Napoleonic wars, just what I've picked up in the course of things. Therefore, I am still at a loss as to what I was thinking of when I bought six boxes of HAT Austrian infantry. Similar motives were no doubt behind my purchasing of several boxes of Zvesda Black Hussars, beautiful figures for a period I don't play and an army I don't field.

However, I was in the mood to do a little work the other day while on leave and the Austrians were the only figures that I hadn't packed. The officers and drummers are from SHQ miniatures, whch are a good fit. I've organised them as per the regulations laid down in Charge!, but I think I shall have to do some reading before I work out how I shall have them painted. I generally choose what regiments to field using a simple, but foolproof method...

British Regiments
1. Do I need the unit to fill out a particular order of battle?
2. Does the unit have a snazzy uniform?
3. Do I know anyone currently in a successor regiment?
4. Are they Irish?
5. Is there an amusing fictional regiment that I could use?

French Regiments
1. Do I need the unit to fill out a particular order of battle?
2. Has the unit lost its Eagle or taken a severe whipping? (The French are the baddies in my games and naturally it cheers me immensely when they lose)
3. Does it have a snazzy uniform?

I don't have the knowledge of the Austrian army that I do of the French and the British, nor do I have the same emotional attachment, so it may be some time before I settle on an appropriate regiment.

Now to get to the ensigns..