Sarah's People

My daughter Sarah wanted to send in her pictures of her people.These are 1/72 scale figures, when I was into 1/72 napoleonics the kids wanted to paint also.I bought them some American pionneers and some English settlers from the late 1600s.Only my youngest daughter continued to paint them, and has been painting them for two years. My son has helped to paint the plastic napoleonics especially the 95th rifles, which he painted these all by his self which is pretty good ( he was nine at the time ).

Enjoy.

6lb French Line Horse Artillery

As a small diversion I've painted and based up a battery of AB horse artillery. Four cannons each with four crewmen. The flock is still wet! Anyway, this time I've placed them 50x40 bases - this fits in with the Lasalle scheme where a base width (BW) should be the same for infantry, cavalry and artillery. Of course several months ago when I based the Prussian foot battery I based then on 40x30 bases - trying to cram in as many cannons in a small space as possible. I can see the logic behind the Lasalle system, given the frontages of the repsective units. However, even with the larger bases, in reality these guys would be moments away from getting crushed by the recoil of the cannon!

Ken

Chassuers a' Cheval completed

The Chasseurs took a bit longer than expected, partly because I'm a slow painter and the urge to paint left me for a few days. Well, here they are. They are based five to a 60x40 base purchased from ERM, I use "no-more nails" to stick them and the flock (sand mixed with fine talus) into position. I then painted the bases with a watered down light earth colour and then after it dried dry brushed with lighter colours. The grass tufts were added last. Finally, I cut out the self-adhesive magnetic material and placed it on the bottom of the bases. This allows the figures to be placed on metallic/ferric surfaces and makes for safe storage and transport.

Although I make four bases per unit (20 riders), I always have a second command stand to enable two units to be made as I'm trying to make a regimental version of Grande Armee rules. For Chasseurs, Dragoons it is not a problem as several regiments had similar facing colours and so can easily make for generic units.The French hussars present a problem since they had unique uniforms, so I must build up a 20 man unit but only use a couple of bases for the higher level grand tactical games.

I often have second thoughts about the basing style I use. I think its to do with the larger depth versus smaller width of the bases. However, two bases placed side by side look fine. I do like the double row of troopers and the base itself has a nice heavy feel to it. For charging poses this is great, as you can stagger them for realistic charges as the riders would  get slightly disordered.

...and of course takes less effort to move them,rather than if they had been based three to a stand. Of course I cant make the long lines (abreast) which was a common tactic they used.

After the light cavalry I will build up a couple of bridgades of cuirassiers but will experiment with placing six riders to a base - to give a massed look compared with the light cav.

stirrup colour?

I just noticed that another painter used brass colour for the stirrups on his horseman. I'd just assumed these would be steel and so pianted them a silver colour! Should have realised that horse furniture metal is brass. Oh dear.

Ken

Update on Chasseurs a Cheval and musings on rulesets

For the past few days I have been working on the green coated French Horse Chasseurs (Line), these are AB's and seem ok enough. I think the AB hussars are better sculpted or at least they have more detail and repay careful painting. I'm not a fan of Old Glory cavalry - I still have some Prussian Landwher lancers and Hussars to paint, the horses and riders are quite a bit smaller than the AB's. So I'll stick to AB or Fantassin for cavalry.

I bought the new Lasalle rules by Sam Mustafa and think they are ok but I'm no real judge of rules. Everything I expect of a wargame appears to be there. I bought his Grande Armee rules which I think are great. I'm looking forward to his Blucher set which is the grand tactical version of Lasalle.

Cheers

Ken

The guy on the corner is finished, I usually complete one figure to get an idea of what the final paint job may look like. Gives me the spur to finsih the others!

Another 40 to do.