Russian's and Prussian's Oh My

Wow, it’s been a long time.  After taking about a year off I finally picked up a paint brush again.  It’s amazing how quickly I lost my limited painting skills.  In any event, below are the results of the last two and a half months.  I apologize up front for the quality of the pictures, (and the painting for that matter).  

My Russian Dragoons have become somewhat of a local joke.  While I was very pleased with the quality of the paint job on them, their tabletop performance left everything to be desired.  Those big Front Rank figures didn’t finish a single battle still on the table for the first year or year and half.  So, naturally, I decided to paint another unit.  You can really tell the effects of almost a year without touching a paint brush on these guys, not all that great of a paint job, hopefully that means they’ll kick ass on the table.

As always, click the photos to enlarge.

Siberian Dragoons, figures are Front Rank

Oops!  Looks like someone reversed the two command stands in the photo, flag barer should be next to the officer... My bad

And if you’re painting any Napoleonic Russian’s, you’re required to paint at least one artillery battery at the same time.  (Yes, it is an actual requirement, because Russian, and because Peter keeps on painting more $%&^ French Artillery)

I paint all of my Russian Artillery batteries as 3 stands to reflect the larger number of guns.  The above is a 'medium' battery denoted by only having 3 gunners per stand, a 12# heavy battery would have 4 gunners per stand.

To me, Prussians are a good ally to paint.  Depending on the year, they can be allied with the glorious, righteous forces of the Czar, or with the vile, despicable forces of Napoleon.

Blue?  Yep, a Prussian foot battery. 

Perry Figures, as I recall this is the pack with the gunners running back the gun.  A little blurry picture, but maybe that's a good thing.  Looks like the gun tubes need a touch of smoke in the muzzle before they get packed up. 

Peter talked me into painting 3 Prussian Line Infantry units for Historicon this year.  Clearly he was paying attention in his psych classes.  All the Prussian Infantry below are Calpe figures.  I really like their figures, they were fun to paint  (would have been more fun if I could paint better).  Price and figure size wise they're compatible with Front Rank.

First unit

Second unit

Third unit

And finally, Landwehr cavalry, almost Cossacks, but with much snappier uniforms.

I hope to see some of you later this week at Historicon.

So much lead, so little time.

ROME FALLS!

On August 24th, 410 A.D. Rome was overrun by the Visigoths, resulting in the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Just how much did the  political corruption and the apathy of her citizens really lead to the Rome's fall?

But… on a much lighter note - I painted something!

Not my best work, (either painting or photo) but at least it had me picking up a brush again.  First up, the latest addition to the French Cavalry.

The 7th Regiment, Chasseurs a cheval

Looks Like I need to replace my photo backstop

With the completion of this unit it brings my French Cavalry to one Dragoon Regiment and three Chasseur a Cheval Regiments.  The 2 Chasseur a Cheval Regiments were part of my original goal for this year.  I still need to complete one more Duchy of Warsaw Uhlan Regiment, but… I seem to have gotten distracted and started another Russian Dragoon Regiment.  We'll see what happens by the end of  the year.

And the last bit of painting.

Looks like I need to touch up a little where the epoxy is showing by the wheels.

I picked this up at Cold Wars 2012, and finally found the motivation to paint it.  This angle seems to make the horse look undersized compared to the wagon, but it doesn't look that bad in the lead/resin.

Hopefully the next post won't be as long a wait as this one was.

So much lead, so little time.