Napoleonic French Casualty Stands

This has been an ongoing saga to perfect casualty markers for Napoleon's Battles.  At this point I have reached the "this will do" stage.  Regardless, glad to have got these figures painted, based and ready to use.

British Casualty Markers

I've had these figures a while and had started to paint them but hadn't really settled on how to use them.  I have now.  They are my new format casualty bases for use with Napoleon's Battles.

The riflemen are Essex and are a restructured base,

(as in an existing 4 figure base that is now two 2 figure bases)

but all the rest are brand new.

The cut off nail is pretending to be a bit of a tree trunk.

And here we have the bases with the casualty marker showing the zero loss.

From this angle they are a bit obvious.

But with standing figures they seem less obvious.

I've since come up with a further refinement, but that will be revealed in a future post.

Nr.1 Dragoner-Regiment Koningin

Another unit of Prussian cavalry re-lifed.

A top down view to show I have revised the basing.

Movement trays will be required.

6th Regiment of Uhlans

First two squadrons formed from von Lutzow's Friekorp and had very black uniforms.  I took that as a challenge and ended up with three or four different shades of black on these repurposed figures.

Source information came from a few places including this excellent site: http://centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/detail_uniformes_unitePR.php?nom=1er%20Escadron%20du%206%C3%A8me%20R%C3%A9giment%20de%20Uhlans&rubrique=U&uniformes=13&drapeau=

1st Regiment of Uhlans

Hot on the heels of the Kurmark Landwher cavalry (see this post for a bit of background to the project) I have now restored these figures to fighting status.

Cossacks

These guys are full of character, but perhaps not the best poses for a strict wargames unit.  However basing them three to a base is fine and while they represent four, the reduced number is a reminder that they are not really battle cavalry.

I can't remember where I got these from, could have been Stan, Dave or I might have even purchased them in one of my buying sprees.  I have always wanted to paint them, it has just taken a few years to get around to it.

4th Regiment of Kurmark Landwehr Cavalry

I had some Prussian cavalry languishing from a past purchase and felt compelled to fix them up.  I was also trying a different basing concept for Napoleon's Battles command stands.

In looking up uniform details for Landwehr cavalry, I found this site very informative:

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1642260/

Restored and almost ready for action.

I was thinking of creating a special command stand just comprising two figures,

but I have now changed my mind and extra figures will be added.

In a major departure for my Napoleon's Battles basing,

I have mounted these as pairs

on one square inch bases.

Casualty Markers for Napoleon's Battles and further varnish observations

I started with the Napoleon's Battles rules around the same time as Fire and Fury.  What I liked about the latter was the use of figures rather than chits to denote unit status etc. I have been striving ever since to bring the same level of visual appeal to Napoleon's Battles.  

There are plenty of lovely figures to use and these ones from AB are delightful, if a little sad.  My only challenge is that I am not convinced I have yet devised the best way to incorporate markers into units.  What I have are designed to replace a base once a casualty has occurred.  My new thinking is that it would be best if the base was a permanent feature of the unit, incorporating the "command" element as well - which for Napoleon's Battles means the base that has the tag that provides unit information.

This chap had a brief spray of varnish and I am glad that was all it had 

as you can see how it started to mottle on the horse's rump.

This figure had been done some time ago and was varnished back then without trouble.

 On the subject of varnish, this was my test to see if it was the paints I use that was causing the reaction.

From left to right: Jo Sonja, Vallejo, Jo Sonja with a Games Workshop wash and Tamiya.

The problem shows up more on the darker colours in this image.

The clean squares on the bottom colour intersections are from where I applied a top coat of wash.

This seems to readily fix the problem.

The limbers which were badly affected by the varnish have now largely been repaired by painting on varnish (as suggested by Carlo and that partially reduced the problem) and finally by applying a wash.

Needless to say I am no longer using a varnish on my figures (although as per the previous post, I did varnish the Dragon's Teeth without apparent problem - which was at exactly the same time I sprayed the test strip shown above). It remains a mystery.

Austrian Command Stands

It's taken me a while to finish these fabulous castings, I hope I have done them justice.

Now I have enough figures to do Marengo.

Army Commanders

Divisional Commanders

A Mix of Austrian Jaegers

 

Here we see four stands of Austrian Jaegers,

the two on the left are Old Glory while those on the right are ABs.

Only half have been painted by me.

If you guessed it was the Old Glory ones like my daughter did,

you would be wrong.  These were part of a purchase some years back.

The wonderful AB figures came up splendidly despite my paint job,

even allowing for the rather dark photography.

I needed another 8 figures to make up the unit and so had purchased the ABs,

reasonably recently, and best of all now have the unit finished.

Prussian and Austrian Casualty Markers

These have been a slow trickle of progress, especially considering the Austrians were already painted as part of an acquisition last year or possibly the previous year.  The Prussians were also in varying degrees of completion over the years, but all done now.  These markers are part of my quest to reduce counter clutter in Napoleon's Battles games.

The aim of these markers is that as soon as a unit takes a casualty, one of its bases is removed and replaced by one of the casualty markers bearing either a one or two chit or just the bare bae which represents three casualties.  This keeps with the miniatures theme as well as reducing the likelihood that casualty marks will be left behind (something that I find happens all too often). Note: should it be left behind it would mean that the unit was down a full base.  Ouch!

Any spare figure can be used, but there are some nice casualty figures in the AB range as well as others.

Photo taken with natural light (no flash)

This next little guy was a one off test to see how a French figure from Lancashire Games could paint up as a Westphalian.  While I was happy with the result I never proceeded to obtain the necessary additional figures.  This poor little guy has been languishing for over twenty years.  Finally he has a purpose.