Another Present to Myself!

 

Following on from my earlier post on 18 March about the buildings I commissioned from TM Terrain. Here is the church and a couple of redoubts that I collected at Partizan for my Napoleonic and growing 7YW collections. As you can see from the photos below, the church has a detachable graveyard, in case I need to keep the footprint down. As usual David has done a fantastic job, not just on the design, but the detail; really, really pleased. Along with the 8 houses and barns he has already done for me, this should give me enough for several villages. At some stage I might look at getting a few larger houses for the posher side of town and perhaps a walled farm, but these will certainly keep me going for a while.

I really can't recommend TM Terrain highly enough, not just the quality of the finished product but the service is top notch too. I was kept constantly updated on progress with WIP photos and checks to make sure it was what I had in mind. No, I am not on commission - just saying! Hopefully you will agree he has done a fine job. Had some of them on the table for a Russo-Swedish GNW game a week or two ago and they looked great.

I have been working pretty heavily on my terrain boards as well and with some nice drop on terrain to go with them, I feel as though I am finally getting somewhere terrain-wise. When I can find the time, I would like to start doing some AARs to show everything together: figures, boards and drop on terrain.

Anyway, hope you like them.

Partizan: Another Great Day Out.

 

Short of a wedding or a funeral there are two days in the year that I always keep free: those for Partizan I and II. I always have a sore throat the following day as I am not used to talking so much, but I see people at this show, that I don't get to see during the rest of the year. This time was certainly no different and in between a great deal of chatting I also got to see the usual collection of excellent display games that this particular show always offers. 

Rather than go through even the highlights, which would take a long time, I thought I would concentrate on one of the offerings. It wasn't to be honest a game at all, but it was one of the loveliest examples of painting and terrain making excellence that I have ever seen. Not only that but the figures were not commercially available but are the result of an incredible amount of design, conversion and animation. For those of you who haven't guessed already, I am of course talking about Bill Gaskin's beautiful Seven Years War display. And a display is what it was; nothing moved all day and it certainly wasn't a wargame, but it was a great example of what, an admittedly ridiculously talented person can do given time and effort. I also looked at a large number of very impressive games at the show and enjoyed the evident pleasure that the players were getting from playing them. It is fun to go back to games throughout the day and see what progress, if any, the attacking side has made and this is wargaming at its best for me, even as an observer. Bill's game though sent me home both inspired and determined to improve my own skills whether as a painter or terrain maker. It was particularly the case with this game, as I am in the early stages of a very large and ambitious Seven Years War project myself.

This is why I think that such displays, even though not really a wargame, can be so valuable. Over the years my own ability to put on the kind of aesthetically pleasing games that I aspire to has been helped massively by such people as Bill, Colin Rumford, the Perrys and many, many others. As a mark of my appreciation here are some of the photos I took on the day. Enjoy!

So there we are. My own collection will be commercially available figures with little or no conversion but I can hopefully imbue them with a bit of Gaskin magic, even if it is only the basing!!

Napoleonic Italians

My original Italian division had 4 line units (24 figures each) and I planned to add a couple of light infantry units to bulk it out to 6 in total. As this would make a division of 7,200 men in the rules I am using, it represented fairly sizeable force. Increasing the unit size to 32 figures involved disbanding one of the line units and using the figures to supplement the other 3. I only did this because I didn't think I could paint the extras closely enough to match the originals as the white had "turned" a little since I first painted them. For the same reason I decided not to attempt a 4th line unit, instead switching attention to the two lights (in green). This represented the loss of one unit, but the remainder, to my eyes at least, look a lot better.

Here is one of the line units of 32 figures. I really do like these slightly retro Foundry figures.

Next are the two light infantry units, in their distinctive green uniforms, again with a fairly scruffy campaign look. The ones with the rather fetching yellow waistcoats are the 2nd Regiment, who also boast a unit mascot trotting alongside the standard bearer!

I think 5 infantry units plus a unit of foot artillery will still make an acceptable division. I have 3 more French line infantry units to complete before moving on (I think) to another allied contingent - probably Bavarians. Saxons and Poles are also on the horizon, but even now that I am only painting for myself, it still seems to take ages getting things done; I must admit to being a bit of a butterfly when it comes to painting!