Napoleonic Wargaming Blogs for January 2025 - yes a New Year and you miniatures mad folks have been busy....

Ken's back on the painting joymill with his Plancenoit project continuing in 28mm.  Here is shows his French battery and a bit later in the video the start of what will be a lot of Landwehr: click on the pciture below to go to the viudeo (for some reason I'm struggling to embed).  Thanks Yarkshire Gamer.

 

https://youtu.be/itz6ze92xPA?si=D9hZQhkpcBu1z4AZ

Heretical gaming have been working on some 6mm Saxon's.

Sparkers Wargames played an epic scale Quatre Bras using Lasalle 2 rules.  Neat looking terrain and figures: 

Over on Bloody Big Battles Albuera gets fought out with some reflections.

Will's Wargames is a wonderful look at 20mm ish wargaming - from Hinton Hunt's through to 3d printed figures. Here he is updating his Prussian Kurassiers.  Meanwhile over on the actual Hinton Hunt blog some bad weather reports and some glorious images of a game, Waterloo no less!  Below - the French advance on Hougomont.

 Chasseur has posted a refurb of some Perry Marie Louises - crisp clean painting

and a battle report of a 28mm Vimerio refight. 

Sergeant Steiner writes about an 1813 scenario:

set during Lutzen 1813 and depicts the afternoon counter attack by the Imperial Guard around the 'four villages' defended by a Prussian and Russian force. French had 32 units with 2 Old Guard,12 Young Guard, 4 Line, 4 Second Line some Skirmish screens and supported by Guard Lancers and Line Lancers with several batteries of guns (some Guard standard with one Battery static on heights), they also had 45 Morale.

The French had to place 2 Brigades in off-table reserve (they choose the Old Gde and Gde Cavalry).

Allies had 24 units with 4 Prussian Line, a Prussian Guard Brigade with 2 Gde Musketeers, a small (3UI) unit of Gde Jager, 4 Russian Grenadiers (although Pavlov unit starts as a village garrison), 4 Russian Second Line, Skirmish screens and Prussian Cavalry Dragoons and Hussars, a unit of Russian Gde Hussars and several gun batteries, they started with 35 Morale.
Game was another cracker with lots of action and incident.

For more see here 

Calpe's Peter Fitzgerald has finally decided to retire from producing figures - he still wants sot sculpt but his looking for someone to take on the making.  I've bought his figures over the years and love them for ease of painting and animation. 

 

and with some Saxon Command figures and casualties, a game or two and a some thought on General d'Armee 2.  Delighted to see this blog back!  

Phil Robinson is still painting peninsular French and there are some gorgeous 6mm Baccus Prussian reinforcements painted over in Scrivsland. 

One Lover Ray at don't throw a one is painting some fab 28mm Retreat from Moscow figures - including a Wurtemberg contingent:

I didn't want to use all the Foundry figures otherwise they would all look the same, so I included 3 plastic Perry figures and one Perry metal figure. I also added a scarf in the 4th facing colours to the only marching figure

Gonsalvo presents the freshly painted "Portuguese 23rd Line, "2nd Almeida".

A very old style Bavarian General graces the pages of Miniture Minions - mooch through those pages for wonderful old style figures. 

That's all I've found this month. It's been a delight - thank you all. 

Stephen Summerfield's Prussian Landwehr of the Napoleonic Wars - first look. - Fabulous - I'm so happy!

This is a very quick review of first impressions. The book arrived today from Ken Trotman and it's fantastic - it's gives colured illustrations of all the uniforms and gives the dates when uniforms changed and evolved, as well as details of equipment. This is exactly how uniform books should be - whether for the modeller or the wargamer.   I know it was published a few years ago, but this is my first site of it. 

Thank you Stephen and I hope you find time to publish many more of these :-) 

Buy it direct from the Publisher here:   https://kentrotman.co.uk/newbooks/prussian-landwehr-of-the-napoleonic-wars/

Here are some of his other books - and here.    I've roderd some others so will share those when they arrive.

Napoleonic Wargames Blogs for May

 

Jabba had a great game - singling out a section of the Battle of Leipzig.  

"My task was to capture Probstheida, held by veteran French troops with Napoleon and his Imperial Guard to their rear as a reserve. The Austrians were to pin the Young Guard in place while the Russians on my right were to try and roll up the French left flank, comprised of newly raised units, and prevent them re-enforcing the village. The Russian guard were to exploit any inroads made or capture Probstheida if my Prussians failed".

 Click here to read the whole thing.

Some glorious eyecandy at http://jayswargamingmadness.blogspot.com/2022/05/napoleonic-russian-army-major-progress.html as he comes close to completing (what a curious idea) his Napoleonic Russian Army in 28mm. 

This is not from may but I've just spotted an effective painting guide over on 

https://krigetkommer.weebly.com/napoleonics-blog/french-line-infantry-part-2-painting

My first experience of the fab JP youtube channel.  Lots of games using General D'Armee (great set of rules) 

Painting tiny tartan....

Bloody Big Battles Does Dresden 1813, remotely! 

How nice to have a battle where you legitimately field the entire Imperial Guard!

 

Knuckleduster Miniatures are new to me - thanks to https://alystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-war-of-1812-another-british-unit.html

 

Sgt Steiner has been testing the Soldiers of Napoleon rules  from Warwick Kinrade at Artorus Games.  They're card driven and Sgt concluded: 

Enjoyable game overall (the cards make it) but unsure if is preferable to other more 'dynamic' sets we use for the period but always nice to have choice/options imho.

Saxondog has been painting Austrians! 

and Wargamer Terrain mentioned some new figures from Brigade Games 

Blunders on the Danube is painting Spanish:  Regimiento de Infanteria de Linea "León"

Victrix are close to releasing these veeeeery charging Dragoons (how often did they get this fast - if ever?) 

The Perry's indulged in a Napoleonic Feast of a weekend: 

https://www.facebook.com/perryminiatures/posts/4882260121896055

Napoleonic blogs from the last few weeks.... April 2022

Never say never - the revival of Napoleonic Naval games is clearly in part because they look amazing! 

JJ"s Wargames have been at it:

Picking up from my post in February, work has continued to put together some fleets for my friend and fellow clubmate Bob, which started with the build of the British Navy boxset from Warlord Games and has continued with this the French Navy set.

Warlord really is brilliant at making game systems.  I remember a long long time ago some Hinchcliffe system 12. Warlord's Epic Battles has the same ambition and wonderful execution.  

The Wargames Room ponders, points, campaigns and scenarios

Campaigns have a strong draw. Historical campaigns have the same appeal as historical refights, yet my experiences suggest a successful campaigning can deliver terribly unequal battles, which are not particularly satisfying. I’m of the view that campaign mechanics must be simple providing a narrative for a scenario game, or be played as a seperate campaign in an evening, likely as a board game.

 

Sgt Steiner tries out Soldiers of Napoleon - a card driven rules set: 

Overall a thumbs up and if you like (Sam Mustafas) Maurice 18th Century rules these have a similar feel regarding card deck use and level of complexity (low to medium) but with of course own feel and twists.

 Devon Wargames played the Battle of Maida 

The Battle of Maida was fought on 4th July 1806 and is popularly (and erroneously) seen as the first time that the fire power of the two deep British line overwhelmed an attacking French column, but let’s not go down that particular rabbit hole. It was a welcome victory after the humiliation of Ulm and crushing defeat at Austerlitz and showed that a French army could be defeated. Maida Vale owes its name to the battle, there apparently being a pub called The Maida or The Hero of Maida in reference to Sir John Stuart (later Count of Maida) who led the British troops.

The British force landed on the Italian coast and force marched to attack the French camp at Maida. Stuart’s force, numbering some 5,000 men, was made up of 11 battalions, (two of which, the 78th and the 81st were untested) and 8 guns. Regnier, the French commander, was notified of the British landing and with a slightly larger force of 8 Battalions, 4 squadrons of cavalry and 4 guns, left his well-fortified position to confront Stuart’s force. Confident of victory and eager to avenge his defeat in Egypt five years earlier, Regnier immediately ordered an attack on the outnumbered British force.

 Helion and company say they've book on the way about Leipzig - a Wargamers guide. 

Battlebrush studios says they actually like painting Austrian White! 

 

Musee de la Cavalerie - Saumur, visit summer 2019

Right folks - some pictures from my summer visit to the Cavalry Museum in Saumur, hosted in one of the old building used for training French Cavalry -  mostly images from Napoleonic times.

Worth an hour, not much more.