Leadership

It seems I seldom post my painted work now. Most of my posts are more towards the wargaming related activities rather then painting. I still paint though but really it is much more directed to need then previous. My recent foray into the General Bonaparte meets Chain of Command revealed a need for more mounted colonels. I have lots of Prussians but had to order some Austrians and Brunswickers from Perry. I also needed some Dark Age cavalry leaders for my Men of the North. These are from Footsure Miniatures and are quite nice.

Four colonels from Calpe. I am not sure why most of their leaders look left!

Most of my Prussian force are modeled around the 100 Days Campaign

From R to L: Oberst von Reckow IR21-4th Pomeranian, Oberst von Bismark 1st Landwehr of Elbe, Oberstleutnant von Wienskowski IR23-2nd Upper Silesian,  Major von Koschkull IR18-3rd West Prussian

The Champion Cyneric and Legatus Antoninus

The photos were taken overexposed, which I must say is harder to correct then those taken underexposed. Well I am doing my somewhat regular review of my Napoleonic troops, I have become quite curious on how many I have actually painted. I am laying them all out on table, hopefully have some new photos soon.

IR18, the 3rd West Prussian Regiment

Well the basing is all done and finally I can move on.

I have had 2 battalions of Prussian Fusiliers on the table for almost 2 months, so I will present them first.

The F/IR18 completes my second complete Prussian regiment for the 1815 OB, the 3rd West Prussian or IR18. These are Perry figures, mostly plastics, but with the metal Prussian Fusilier set of command figures as well as knapsacks with the correct sword. I must of learned how to glue plastic to metal as this was a bit smoother then the Hanoverians.

The Prussians

As an aside from painting and learning a new ruleset, I thought I would try to learn a little more about the Prussians. I have also been going through the lead pile and the biscuit tin that holds the Prussians is particularly heavy. I have already painted 11 battalions and am on my 12th of infantry, 11 squadrons of cavalry and 6 artillery stands as well as lots of command pieces. So well on my way.

I am particularly interested in the 1815 period, but really it is easy to extend my units back to the 1813 period, just a bit of a change in the brigade structure. I like to paint coherent historical units, and decided to try do this at the brigade level (divisional) rather the corps level. I already had some units painted from my Walmoden project, so I that somewhat effected my subsequent choices.

I like a variety of figures and the brigades I have selected support this. When looking at the 1815 OB, the units that stick out are the black coated IR25, the grey reserve coated IR 23 and the British uniformed IR 21. I could have also gone with the Russian uniformed IR30/31, as well as the white coated IR28/29, but as usual I have to control myself. I am also quite interested in the Battle for Placenoit, so that affected my choice. Having had a careful study of what I have done, I decided to eventually plan of three brigades, that is 27 infantry battalions so is still quite a lot of work....... a long term project shall we say. I did feel better though with a clear vision of the future!

So here is the clear vision:

The highlighted units are done, still lots to do, but it fits with what I have on hand, I believe this will exhaust the lead pile with the only extra figures another unit of Lutzow's Freicorp (2/IR25). I am getting all done with plastics I like the Perry plastics, although I will probably never paint another Victrix figure again. But even with the Perry's I am snapping off bayonets, I am rough with the figures, and they are always getting loaded on planes or cars for trips. The only bit to which I may have some resistance, is the 6 battalions of Silesian Landwehr, may get bored there, who knows maybe I will substitute in some of those sky blue faced Berg.

So that was the easy part, next up was how to organize the command structure, clearly a Prussian brigade is similar to a division in other armies. That is not to difficult as most of my games feature 1-2 divisions aside, but the number of sub commanders to assign to each brigade (division) gave me some pause for thought. Using a sub commander for each 3 regiments from a gaming perspective seemed a little excessive; 3 battalions is a small subcommand, even if I attach a battery of artillery or a couple of squadrons of horse.

What to do, what to do? Well the Miniatures Page is always an interesting adventure so I said why not post my enquiry there. You really can get some excellent advice there, but at the same time you really have to be ready for those who really want to see their knowledge (biases) in print. I really got quite a lot of responses and two posters were really quite helpful. Of course, Stephen Summerfield is all things Prussian (I have all his books) and I found Michael Collins very helpful. Michael has his own ruleset called Grand Manoevre, look at his website very impressive.

Anyway the message string was quite interesting and I got the information I wanted in order to make a decision, I also learned quite a lot as well. Both the 1813 and 1815 Prussian brigades were mixed arms tactical units which really were made up on an ad hoc basis as needed for the tactical situation.

So for wargaming purposes, I felt I would go with the nine battalion infantry brigade with an attached artillery battery and 2-3 cavalry squadrons. I really liked the following tactical formation that I found with the Fusilers out front with Jaegers with the musketeers in a second line and the Landwehr regiment in reserve in a third line.  












I have over drawn the red lines, looks impressive does it not. Usually from what I understand the foot artillery would be in the front line with horse artillery and cavalry in the rear. I plan to use 2 sub-commanders with the Brigade Commander. Probably with the reserve and horse under the direct command of the Brigadier.

I have my Prussians stored away, otherwise I would have put out a brigade on the table and made some photographs, I am looking forward to seeing them on the table. Well back to learning a new set of rules.

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Calpe Landwehr: New and Old

In my recent push to get figures painted for Vorwärts Montreal, the last unit painted was a Landwehr battalion.....2nd battalion/1st Regiment of the Elbe. I have yet to present them.

What is interesting about this unit though is that they are mostly comprised of what I believe are first generation sculpting by Peter Fitzgerald of Prussian Landwehr. I bought these units about 6 months ago, and initially I was a little disturbed that they were significantly different than the Calpe landwehr figures I had on hand. They looked like Calpe, but were clearly different. I confirmed on TMP that they were indeed Calpe. The more I looked at the figures though the more I liked them, so it was with pleasure that I started to paint them. Unfortunately time was at a premium so they were a little rushed, but I am good with how they eventually came out. I thought it would be interesting to look at the differences and the evolution of Peter's sculpting style.

RIR 9

It has been almost a month since I posted to the blog, time goes by! I have been quite busy with painting, but just have not had time to take a lot of photos.

I have been preparing for a trip to Montreal this coming weekend, and all though I am not the Prussian Commander, I had been tasked with bringing a Prussian brigade (division for the unaware). I had 48 infantry to paint and several command figures as well as some casualty markers to do, so I have been busy. Still have 12 infantry to go, but I suspect I will have them done in time. 

1/1 Landwehr Regiment of the Elbe

Some further additions to the 1815 Prussian Army. I have had a bit of a painting hiatus recently, life got in the way etc etc.

Recently received my final shipment directly from Calpe in the UK. Received in 8 days from the day that the order was placed, excellent service. With the exchange I save, I suspect 25% from the amount the US distributer would have charged. Well worth it.

What should I do with these beautiful figures?

I recently received these Prussian Medic figures from Schrumpfkopf in Germany. He had commissioned these figures and had a limited number cast. I was lucky to get a set. More about them and a uniform guide on his blog. 

Prussian 6th Neumark Dragoons & 4th Kurmark Landwehr Cavalry

Mockern 1813

Next up is 2 units of Prussian cavalry. These are Calpe figures, and really they are the nicest figures I have painted to date. I may try some Perry Prussian cavalry as well, but these figures are first class, and it would have to think about it before I tried another manufacturer.

Prussian Command Stands

Blücher

No, I do not have a Blucher yet, but I have recently painted up some command stands for my Prussians. I used a couple of the Calpe command sets and then added corp commanding two officers from their latest set PC9. These are absolutely lovely sets, all tell a story and are very nice to paint. They are sold as brigade command sets. I always find this a little confusing until I remember that a Prussian brigade is essentially similar in size to a French or British division. 

Death's Head Hussars

Prussian Hussars

I have had these figures for a while and I was unsure whether I was going to paint them or not, as they are not in the Prussian OB for the Waterloo campaign. I then found out that 2-3 squadrons of the Prussian 1st Lieb Hussars were actually seconded to the I Corps. That was enough, I had also told myself that I have to push on with the Calpe figures I have on hand so here we are.

Prussian Artillery

Richard Knotel

Slowly but surely whittling down the Calpe Prussian metal pile. Next up we have two artillery batteries from the IV Corps at Waterloo. I am getting completely confused now by all the rulesets I have been using, but I think I will probably add a cannon to each battery in the future. I have been primarily playing Black Powder and the one peculiarity about the ruleset is that it requires only one stand to make a battery, which I quite dislike. ( does anyone play Black Powder with 4 stand artillery, does it change the game?) Lasalle and most rule sets, I believe, have one stand representing two guns. I like this so for most nations this is 4 stands to an unit aside from Britain and it some it's allies where there would be 3. I do not have nor plan to have Russians, but I believe they would be an exception. Generally most nations had a fixed ratio of howitzers to cannon, I usually like to put one howitzer to each battery. I also plan to have a caisson or limber for each battery. It would be way to expensive to have one for each gun, and one will suffice to represent a limbered battery.

IR21/4th Pomeranian Regiment

Next off the table is IR21. Again, I have used the Mont St Jean site as the guide and some nice Calpe figures. I included IR21 in my Prussian Army as they still wore their British supplied uniform at Waterloo. The unit was brigaded in the II Corps.

Some Prussians

Adolf Northen

Finally got around to painting some troops, getting them photographed and uploaded them to the blog. The last Napoleonics I painted were some French Carabiniers back in March. Now back though and have painted several battalions over the last couple of months. I am planning to do the Warhammer twelve scenario Waterloo campaign over the next two and half years, hoping to finish by June 2015. Not sure about the ruleset yet, but I liked what I have seen so far with the Warhammer Waterloo rules. 

I/RIR11 Prussian Reserve Infantry

Here I hope is the start of my next army: The Prussians. I had dabbled with the Prussians a couple of years ago when painted up a few small (12 figure) units of Wallmoden's Korps. This was my first introduction to Calpe figures and I have been looking forward to getting back to them.

As readers of my blog will have noted, I have recently developed an interest in Les Cent Jours. I suppose when you have built a large British force, it is hard to abandon it. So with a good few French done, I felt Prussians would be a good idea. Lots of mini scenarios germinating in the old grey cells involving the Prussians at Placenoit, Wavre and Ligny. My recent success with the Lasalle rules in an asymmetric scenario have also encouraged me to press on. 

I had a look through the Prussian forces in the Waterloo campaign and was fascinated to see that many of the units that were in Wallmoden's Korps had been folded into the 1815 Prussian OB. Even more cool was the fact that it seemed that most of these units were still uniformed as they were in 1813. I wanted to start with a Prussian brigade with 9-10 infantry battalions and some artillery and cavalry support. It felt it was a little boring to stick with the actual OB for a brigade, but rather to have any 3-4 units each from the original 1813 line infantry, reserve infantry and landwehr OB. I suspect, since I have some of the units partially painted for Walmoden's Korps , we will see IR25 (von Lutzow's Freikorps), IR30 (Russian German Legion) and III/IR27 (von Reiches) in my Prussian brigade. Might even try to jam in IR28 (Berg in French Uniform). Certainly Lutzow's Hussars will also appear as the 6th Prussian Uhlans. Steven Summerfield's books as well as Les Cent Jours website were quite invaluable in my research. As most of you know, I try to build my units around the Lasalle army lists, I will start with the core list and slowly add infantry and light cavalry abteilung organic brigades. 

No Print of a Silesian Reserve unit available I am afraid 

Well that is all very exciting and it is easy to get carried away. But back to the current post. Here we have I/RIR11 or I/IR23 in 1815. By 1815 this unit would have still had their grey reservist uniforms, aside from the officers. They should be in regulation shako, but I had these figures on hand with the peaked reservist cap, so they must of lost their shakos. The figures were primed white, followed by Citadel Fortress Grey for the uniform and Astronomican Grey (more blue tinge) for the overcoat rolled over the shoulder. Usual other colours, followed by AP Darktone (very thinned-thank you Roger), and a quick drybrush with the Fortress Grey. The yellow collars identify their Silesian origin. The flag is wrong  (it is for a Landwehr unit), but it does look nice. I believe I may change over to Flag Dude, it is just so much easier to have the flag all set to go.

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What's Next? The Prussians are coming: Prussian OOB

With the completion of the French VI Corps, it is time to move on to something completely different. I was planning to start 1809 Austrians, but with Victrix coming out with Austrians sometime in the future, I felt I should wait before committing myself to the force composition. I am also still trying to figure out how to paint white and have ordered some Front Rank Austrians to get in some practice.

I am presently working on some Perry Hanoverians for my Walmoden's Korps project, hopefully completing Division Lyon (British-Hanoverian) in the next month or so. This project though has always been a piece of historical research, rather than something with which I plan to game.

The lure of Calpe figures has always been irresistible to me and I had been awaiting Martin Kelly's article in Wargames Illustrated on Prussian Army organization for some months and it finally came last week. With this excellent information and the Army Builder in Lasalle, I just could not resist any further.

Using this excellent site which gives the brigade organisation for the Prussian Army in the summer of 1813, I was able to pick the following unit.

The army builder in Lasalle is great and I believe is quite accurate historically, but I can not be excited about painting a generic unit. What I plan to do henceforth is to take an historical unit and paint it as I have been doing in the past, but at the same time construct a Lasalle core unit. It just happens that the Prussian list exists as a free download on the Honour website, and as you can see this historical unit is very close to the core Prussian unit when it is the attacker. There are two too many infantry battalions, the cavalry should be landwehr and I had to add some skirmisher bases. The excess infantry of course will contribute to some future Organic Prussian brigade and who could resist the famous "Death's Head Hussars" or a few Schuetzen. The one problem is that Calpe does not appear to have grenadier figures (I do not believe they are significantly different, but I need to do a little more research), so I substituted a Fusilier battalion.

More to come.........Befreiungskriege indeed.

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