Battle on the 17th of May

The Prussian and Austrian front line.

Yesterday Thomas and I fought a Napoleonic battle on a tabletop at school. It was between an Austro-Prussian army and the Imperial French army. I will be brief in the details but it was the first battle my Austrians have won so far!

The Prussian cavalry decimated their French counterparts with extremely few losses, while the French infantry column was halted by Austrian musketry. The other column, stalled by the advance of the Prussian cavalry, formed square and played little part in the battle.

After this, the French army was defeated, so a solid victory for me!

Stay tuned everyone!

-Jakob

Progress on my Prussians

I have completed the first of my new Prussians! Specifically six soldiers from the Landwehr of 1815.

Current state of my new Prussians!

 

As can be seen here, my Prussians are coming along nicely, I hope to have them finished very soon.

Then Prussian Cavalry may be my next project...

First battle with my Austrians and a slight painting change

 Yesterday afternoon, Thomas and I had a small wargame to test my new Austrian infantry. The battle was fought on a featureless desk at school. Each side had close to 50 troops.

The Austrian position at the start of the battle.

The battle started when the Austrian force formed a line, with Grenadiers on the right flank and Light Infantry on the left.  The French made an attack column, and moved slowly towards the Austrians. 

The Austrians were the first to fire. Several volleys tore into the first French Infantry, killing much of the front rank. My grenadiers and light infantry advanced to flank the column, targeting the middle of the formation.

Thomas countered this by moving his Grenadiers and Voltigeurs out of the column to melee their Austrian counterparts. They were successful, killing my flanking troops. 

The attack column shifted into a line, and advanced to meet my own line. While I had an initial numbers advantage, the French infantry ravaged my formation, and after many casualties, my men broke and ran, being fired apon as they did so.

 

The surviving Austrians flee the battlefield.

In conclusion, this battle was a decisive French victory. While my Austrians performed excellently in the first half of the battle, most notably the Grenadiers and Light infantry, they did not fare well when they encountered the main body of the French troops.

The battlefield littered with casualties.

Overall, my Austrians had a decent first battle, and looked excellent when amassed on a tabletop.

However, my Grenadiers look extremely similar to the standard infantry of the line, and do not stand out when put alongside them. As a result, I decided to paint them in the colours of the Hungarian Grenadiers attached to the main Austrian army, and I am pleased to say they are now very eye-catching and look very vibrant.

Note the bright blue pants and yellow facings.

Stay tuned everyone! More posts are on the way including plans for a refight of Austerlitz...

I may have ordered more Prussian Infantry...

 In an extremely boring statistics lesson last week I found myself ordering another set of 1:72 scale Italeri Prussian Infantry. I did this for several reasons. The first being that I need more Prussians to build up my army, which is currently composed of the old Airfix set and the Italeri Prussians. While the Airfix set is good, it does not match the aesthetic of the Italeri figures, so in the interest of standardisation I have acquired another set of the Italeri figures. My third and final reason, which is the main one, is that I wished to re-experience the feelings I had when painting my first infantry five years ago. So essentially I've bought another set of Prussian Infantry for sentimental reasons.

Opening my parcel!

I am greatly looking forward to completing these infantry, and have already started painting them. I shall keep you updated on their progress.

Got a favourite pose? Let me know in the comments!

Have a good day all, and stay tuned for more content on Miniature Wars!

My Finished Austrians

 As promised, here are the photos of my completed Austrian Infantry (1798-1805).

The army all together.

Those of you with keen eyes may have noticed the lack of flag-bearers. Rest assured, they are on their way, the standards take a long time to paint with any detail. So they will receive a separate post when done.

Austrian Light Infantry (left) in their distinctive 'Roman' helmets. 

I'll give a quick review of this kit, before I conclude this post.

They were very simple to paint, requiring only a few colours for the bulk of the infantry. They are well sculpted and the details are very crisp. The plastic is nice and firm with minimal bend (so the paint stays on them unlike squishy Airfix figures!).

The Grenadiers with their bearskin headgear.

Only a couple of flaws I can see, and that is the size of the figures. Each is about 26mm tall. This equates to 1.87m in real life, which is well above the average height of the time. However, this is excusable for the Grenadiers (who were generally tall men) and as they compare well with other Italeri figures of the same scale.

An angle seldom seen during the Napoleonic Wars - Unless you were a cannonball!

In conclusion, these were a joy to paint and I am looking forward to seeing them in their first battle!

AUSTRIAN INFANTRY ARE FINISHED

 I am pleased to announce that I have (finally) completed my Austrian Infantry from the 1798-1805 period. I have some minor details to add and then they shall be completely ready for battle, as well as a few pictures on this blog.