20mm Scots Greys

It's about 5 years since I was looking at the 20mm Napoleonic ranges, so in my current tidying up mood it seemed reasonable to finish painting these Scots Greys.

The colours aren't quite right because I followed the picture in Funken rather than look up several sources... also, I can't paint greys very well... Also, think you can buy a copy of Funken cheaper than £109.

Still had the 25mm 7YW Hussars lying around so thought it would be nice to do a size comparison. As I have said in the past, the '20mm' ranges are really 25mm and I only call them 20mm to distinguish them from the later, much larger, 25mm ranges. Perhaps I should really call the larger figures 28mm?

Unfinished business...

 Not all the armies I started got very far....

Russian Dragoons. I use Russian cavalry as Prussians as well - the heavies seem to be just about identical to each other.

 

A battalion of Bavarians...

... includes officer and standard bearer

And a piece of artillery.

Plus an Austrian gun

I painted two guns but I've only got one crew. The various artillery crews feature a lot of head swap conversions.

I cast and assembled quite a few artillery pieces in anticipation of doing more and bigger armies!

20mm British Napoleonic army Review

Another army that is a battalion light... note I don't have the 'official' codes for some of these - they don't appear in any of my catalogues - I simply found the originals lying around mixed in with other figures and masters!

Life Guards

BN3 Grenadiers marching

British artillery with a Rose gun.

BN8 Line infantry marching with BN4 officer

Dragoons

20mm French Napoleonic army Review

I think it's worth pointing out that this lot weren't described as 20mm originally - I just call them 20mm because they are a bit smaller than the later ones that were described as 25mm. 

FNC11 Carabinier.

FN3 Old Guard Grenadiers marching

I gave the Grenadiers 2 flags!

Generals and/or senior officers. I've got it down as BNC1 Horse Guard...

French artillery - crews are originals, not conversions... Gun is the Rose Napoleonic French cannon.

FN8 Fusilier marching

They only get 1 flag.

FNC8 Light Horse Lancer

FNC7 Chasseur a Cheval

Still need a load more of these. I can see myself abandoning the 7 Years War armies and getting back to these!

25mm Napoleonic Horse Guards

When the Queen died I was actually at Centre Parcs on a week's holiday. Getting home, I decided to see what I could put together as a reasonable parade or two for the funeral. A squadron of Guard cavalry in dress uniform seemed like a good idea - except, didn't have any figures. So I settled for a squadron of Napoleonic Horse Guards.

Just didn't realise how long they would take, especially considering the other units I needed to do. So they didn't get finished in time.

A pity really. The poses really lend themselves to parades!

Didn't realise until it was too late that I was painting an extra officer figure... but it still looks OK.

I'm the first to accept some of the colours are liable to be wrong, especially on the horse furniture, but overall the figures have turned out OK. Unless I do more figures as 'They'll do' stand ins for late Colonial cavalry this will probably be the only 25mm Garrison Napoleonic cavalry unit I do!

Generic generals

 Already had a couple of generic generals in blue coats, thought I'd finish the ones in red!

I don't usually paint eyes on these, but the facial definition was so poor I felt I had to do something!

I'll use these as generic generals for all the Garrison 20mm Napoleonics and Colonials  and later 25mm Colonials. For Rose 20mm figures I'll use Wellington!

I should probably go through the Garrison 25mm listings to see if there is a 25mm senior officer figure I can use, just not yet.

Somewhere in Europe - the battle

 

Everything just about in position. Except for the French artillery - they arrived late. Mainly because I forgot about them...

The Guard attempted to attack the Prussian troops in the cornfield flanked by the Bavarians.

Meanwhile the other French infantry regiment attempted to attack the troops in the churchyard while they also tried to use their superiority in cavalry to outflank the Prussian army.

The guns finally arrived and started an artilley duel with the Prussian guns. They completely failed to have any impact on each other throughout the battle. Incidentally, the horse teams are the Rose teams I did for my Rose ACW armies.

Forcing the right flank, the French took a lot of casualties - not helped when the Prussian cavalry charged into the Bavarians!

Things weren't really going well for the French on the left. The cavalry couldn't break through and the infantry  bounced.

Things were no better on the right. Especially as the Prussian cavalry were starting to make an impact! So the French decided on a tactical withdrawal at this point.

Which makes a lot of sense when you look at the respective casualties! Quite simply, attacking troops behind walls while in column without outnumbering them by quite a bit doesn't work. Likewise, having to cross a fence into withering fire is a bad idea, especially when the enemy has cavalry on that flank and you don't! I made a deliberate decision to split the Prussian cavalry but keep the French cavalry together - I thought that the French would benefit most by having theirs together - wrong, it was the Prussians who gained the most!

So an interesting battle that I completed in one day. Perhaps this will help me kickstart the Napoleonic side again? Need a lot more infantry regiments for meaningful battles!

Somewhere in Europe - the armies arrive

 

The Prussians start arriving first

 

The Prussian heavy cavalry are basically Russians, though this particular unit is painted as Prussians!

 

The army starts to take up positions...

 

Nearly there...

 

As the French start to arrive.

 

And start to take their positions ready to attack the Prussian line.

 

 

The Prussians split their cavalry equally to each flank whereas the French kept theirs together.

 

Only having 2 French infantry regiments I've assumed that Bavaria in this battle is still on the French side.

A skirmish at the crossroads

 Not sure when I'll get this game finished - visit to the hospital on Wednesday and it involves being rendered unconcious! So not sure when I'll be recovered. (Don't ask. It's a Urology thing...) Meanwhile, Blogger being a pain and I've started to have issues replying to blogs again - keeps asking me to sign into Goggle, (I am), then click on the link and it does nothing!

Anyway. The game. The game will have a provisional title of 'Somewhere in Europe' but I thought I'd start with scouting parties meeting up first.

The Russian church doesn't mean this is happening in Russia. The game is between France and Prussia!

Chasseurs a Cheval versus Hussars. Straightforward encounter between equal forces to see who gets to initially control the battlefield!

Well, that was short and sweet!

So took it as first rank of Chasseurs dead, rest make a tactical withdrawal in route mode.

So I'm giving the Prussians a couple of free moves to get their forces set up.