First Birthday Bash

It's our first birthday here at Col Campbell's Barracks and the good folks in the Margraviate of Carpania helped us celebrate with a fireworks display.


This first year has been an interesting experience with trying to get my wargaming (and other) endeavors made available on the web. I've had some set-backs, like with my Napoleonic unit reviews, and some accomplishments. I think my photography skills have improved.

So what to expect for next year. I hope to be able to make more posts (this past year I've averaged about one every ten or eleven days) to provide you with the further adventures in my little part of Imagi-Europe as well as my larger adventures in the world of wargaming.

So thanks for all of you who have read and commented on my posts and I hope to see you back for another year.

Jim

Hapnich Dragoons, 1st Squadron

The 1st (or Leib) Squadron of the Hapnich Dragoon Regiment from Carpania is now finished. These Old Glory SYW Prussian dragoons were very easy to paint. Their uniform is patterned on the Prussian 10th Dragoons, which was one of the two dragoon regiments (other was the 9th) that fought for a while with Prince Ferdinand's His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany before they were recalled by Der Alte Fritz.


I have two more squadrons, plus the regimental commander, to paint. With four bags of dragoons (one command and three troopers) I was able to get the three 12-figure squadrons and have a few dragoons left over for couriers.

New Picture of the Tamnii Narod Pandurs

After looking at the previous picture I posted showing one of the three companies of the Tamnii Narod Pandur Battalion of the Duchy of Courland, I knew I could get a better picture. So here it is.


As you can see, these doughty fellows are wearing red pants and small clothes, with black tunics. The poses in the Old Glory SYW Austrian Croat bag are dynamic, which is very suitable for a skirmishing unit. I will be adding two figures, an officer and a sergeant, to each company, as well as a battalion commander. the additions will be Front Rank figures which I believe will go well with these Old Glory figures.

"True" 25mm Figure Comparison

On Friday, poster "FirstBrigade" was asking about what metal figures would match with 1/72 scale plastic figures. He was primarily interested in Napoleonic figures. You can read the thread here:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=148784

I've been wargaming long enough that I have a good selection of what is referred to as "true" 25mm figures - Ral Partha, RAFM, MiniFigs, Scruby, etc. This picture shows a small selection of those figures compared with Italeri and Revell/Accurate plastic figures.

From left to right: RAFM F&IW Highlander, Italeri Napoleonic Russian Pavlov grenadier, MiniFig Napoleonic Prussian fusilier, Scruby (now produced by Historifigs) Napoleonic Prussian musketeer, Revell/Accurate AWR British infantry, and Ral Partha Colonial British infantry.

The black line is 1" (25.4mm) from the base of the background, giving a rough comparison of figure height. As you can see, only the Scruby figure comes close to the height and heft of the two plastic figures. But all of them will match well in separate units on the gaming table. Our group here in Jackson, Miss. (USA) utilize these brands (and others, such as Hinton Hunt/Der Kriegspieler, Warrior, Custom Cast, and Hinchliffe) in our "25mm" medieval, horse and musket, Napoleonic, and colonial armies. You can see how they look on the gaming table by visiting our web site: www.angelfire.com/games3/jacksongamer , clicking on "Pictures of Games," and then scrolling down and looking at the various battle reports.

I hope that this has helped.

Carpanian Dragoons - in progress

And while I'm on a photographing roll, here is an in-progress picture of three of the twelve dragoons of the 1st (Leib) Squadron, Hapnich Dragoon Regiment, Margraviate of Carpania.

Wearing medium blue coats with orange facings and tan trousers (patterned after the 10th Dragoons), these Old Glory Prussian dragoon figures will soon be joining the Carpanian army. I use plastic soda bottle caps to hold the horses while the dragoons are handled individually (not my preferred choice, but I've not found a better one yet). The biggest challenge with Old Glory cavalry figures is getting the rider to properly match with his horse. I finally carved and clipped each rider and horse to match and then painted a colored dot on the back of the horse and the bottom of the rider so that I can rematch them when painting is finished. I really wish Old Glory sculptors would do a better job in matching riders to horses.

Pandur Battalion Tamnii Narod

Finally, the last of the units I painted in July has been photographed. This is the Pandur Battalion Tamnii Narod [Тамний Народ] of the army of the Duchy of Courland. Since the Duchy is loosely patterned after the SYW Russian army, I felt that a unit of pandurs to serve as light troops was warranted.


This is one of the three companies that compose the battalion. Composed of Old Glory Austrian grenzers, each company has one each of the ten types of figures in the bag. I'll be augmenting each company later with an officer and sergeant using Front Rank figures. The battalion will get a mounted officer (the Franz Nadasdy figure from Front Rank) who will control both the pandurs and the cossacks for the Courland army.

The pandurs get their name from the black coats they wear. Tamnii narod loosely translates from the Russian as "the dark ones."

They should prove formidable opponents to the Carpania jagers and freikorps featured in previous posts.

A 15mm Town Made from Paper

Several years ago, I made this 15mm town using various free paper buildings found through the Miniature Wargaming web site: www.miniaturewargaming.com/

The buildings are glued to a base of masonite hardboard to which was then applied terrain effects - main road, side lane, flocking, a couple of bushes, and some small walls. The two trees in this picture were added for this battle.

We used this town during an English Civil War game fought last Saturday. The Royalists started the battle in control of the town with two regiments of dismounted dragoons. During the battle, the Parliamentary army assaulted with three infantry regiments (pike/shot) and one fusilier regiment (shot) and took control. They held the town for the rest of the game, effectively denying the Royalists the road to London.

A battle report will be posted on our group's web site shortly.
www.angelfire.com/games3/jacksongamer

July 2008 Painting, Part 2

Well, here are the pictures of some of the figures I painted during the month of July.

First, we have the royal family of the Margraviate of Carpania. The Markgraf, Friedrich Hapnich, is seated in the center. It seems his gout is acting up and he can't stand for long periods. His faithful wife, the Margravine Ruth, and her African body servant stand to the Markgraf's left. To the Markgraf's right is his African body servant ready with a goblet of medicinal brandy for the Markgraf's gout. While on the far left of the picture is General Kuhster, the Markgraf's Minister for War. They stand in front of the Royal Pavillion ready to review the troops of the Margraviate. These figures are from the Old Glory pack - "Fat Governor and Creepy Assistants" in their Pirate range.

Then there is the ruling family of the Duchy of Courland. The Duke, Yakov Alexandrovitch Pavlov, stands in the middle, flanked by his wife, Duchess Jamie and her pet spaniel, and his Minister of War, General Count Pavel Ivanovitch Alexandrovski. The Duke and the General are Old Glory figures from the Governor pack while the Duchess is one of the Old Glory Army pirate figures.

Joining the Carpanian army is the first of two companies of the Jager Corps Staffeldünkel. These valiant hunters were recruited from the forest preserves of the Markgraf and will be excellent fighters in the kleine krieg portions of the Markgraf's battles. They are also Old Glory figures - Hessian jagers from the American Revolution line.

And finally, I applied the terrain effects to the bases of all the artillery pieces and gunners I currently have painted and mounted. Seven Carpanian guns with 31 crewmen and six Courland guns with 11 crewmen (more are needed) were prepared.

This example is the Carpanian 12-lbr with Crusader Prussian gunners.

The Courland artillery is also represented by a 12-lbr but with Front Rank artillery figures, including their gunnery officer wearing his cloak and two of their excellent artillery fusiliers.

Coming later will be a picture of the Courland Pandur Regiment Tamnii Narod.

July 2008 Painting (Part 1)

My July 2008 painting wasn't what I hoped it would be. I did paint a small group of 9 civilians for background color in my SYW imagi-nation world. A company of 15 jagers joined the Carpanian army. A small battalion of 30 pandurs joined the Courland army. This makes 54 "Olly" painting points. But I don't have pictures taken yet.

About half of my hobby time was taken up with adding terrain effects to my mounted officers and artillery. I added terrain effects (building up bases and adding flock) to 5 mounted officers (2 Carpanian and 3 Courland), 25 Carpanian gunners and 7 guns, and 11 Courland gunners and 6 guns. Again, pictures will be posted later.

I also rebased the Warsteiner Freikorps onto individual figure bases so that they can be used in conjunction with the jagers as opponents in "der kleiner krieg" against the pandurs.

I think that for the future, I will post a brief description and a picture as I get a unit finished, rather than waiting until the end of the month. We'll see how that goes.

My SYW imagi-nation armies continue to slowly grow as I prepare for attendance at the "big battalions" SYW game at MilleniumCon in Austin, Texas in November. As of the end of July:

Carpania (an ally of Germania [Prussia]) has two 48-figure infantry battalions, one 12-figure grenadier company, one 12-figure freikorps company, one 15-figure jager company, two position guns with crews, and five battalion guns with crews.

Courland (an ally of the Imperium [Austria]) has one 48-figure grenadier battalion, one 48-figure infantry battalion, one 30-figure pandur battalion, one 12-figure dragoon squadron, two 8-figure cossack squadrons, two position guns with crews, and four battalion guns without crews (yet).

August will be devoted to painting Carpanian and Courland cavalry and putting terrain effects on the infantry unit bases.

Busy, busy, busy!

Historicon Newspaper Report

Although I wasn't able to go to Historicon this year (or the last several), I read about the following newspaper report from the Philadelphia Inquirer on the Miniatures Page and several different blogs. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/25930759.html
The article is very well written and portrays wargaming in a positive light (which is somewhat unusual from my perspective).

I decided to send the writer, Art Carey, an e-mail thanking him for the article.

"From a link on the Miniatures Page, I read your article on Historicon. Thank you for the well written story behind what we like to do as a hobby. It is refreshing to see a newspaper article that celebrates the joy people get from a hobby rather than being branded as a "warmonger." Please keep up the excellent reporting on all the stories you do. "

Art responded with a very nice message.

" Thanks very much for taking the time to write and for your kind compliment. While reporting the story, I met a wonderful group of committed, passionate folks and it was a pleasure to be able to share their joy with the paper's readers."