Friday, February 2, 2018

Zorndorf Project Update

Frederick the Great grasps the nettle in his hands and tries to rally the von Bellow fusilier regiment
during the battle of Zorndorf. He paced off several steps and then looked behind him and realized that nobody was following him. The print was by Carl Rochling.


The battlefield of Zorndorf in miniature. Click to enlarge.


My Zorndorf Project began in earnest in October 2017 when I decided to go all-in on painting the SYW era Russian army. I set the date of the Seven Years War Association convention in April 2018 as a goal in order to keep me focused on the project. The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight does wonders for concentrating one's mind, I suppose.

In any event, here is what I have painted since October 18, 2017:

84 Cavalry
160 musketeers
9 limber horses
4 limber horse riders
2 division general command stands
2 Shuvulov Howitzers

I also based three sets of munitions/baggage wagons (a set includes one 4-wheel and one 2-wheel wagon and horse team), four artillery stands and one Prussian ammo wagon. Let's not forget about the Prussians.

The Russian Cavalry

Here are some pictures of all of the Russian cavalry that I have painted since October 2017. I still need to add 12 more cuirassiers and to bring the two hussar regiments up from 12 figures to 24 figures. Click on all pictures to enlarge the view. In some cases, a double click on the picture will make it even larger. Yipes!

Hussar Brigade: 12 man squadrons of Horvath (left) and Grudzinski (right) regiments.

Two 12-figure squadrons of Kargopol Horse Grenadiers. The first dozen horse grenadiers
had been painted prior to  October 2017.

Two 12-figure pulks of Cossacks.

One squadron of 12 of the 3rd Cuirassier Regiment.

Twelve of the 24 Russian dragoons that I have painted. They can be any dragoon regiment since the dragoons did not have any regimental distinctions, other than their flags.

The Russian Infantry

Since October I have painted four musketeer battalions in red waistcoats and one Observation Corps battalion wearing their regulation green coats. I previously had 4 battalions (3 musketeers and 1 grenadier battalion) already painted. The older battalions have 30 figures and the five new battalions have 32 figures that are more tightly spaced together on their stands.

The Perm and Moscow regiments based in the new 32-figure formation.

A close up view of the Narva regiment of musketeers. All of my flags are from GMB Designs.


The 5th Observation Corps musketeer regiment. I used the Minden Russian artillery crew figures
 that looked like they were standing around at ease and added some muskets from my Bits Box. The flags were copied from the Kronoskaf web site.


This gives me 9 Russian infantry battalions. I will need 12 or 13 for my convention game in April 2018. I am painting at a clip of one battalion per week so I should have no problems reaching my infantry goal in time for the game.

Russian Logistical Support Troops (wagons)

Ed Phillips painted some Russian 2-wheel and 4-wheel munitions wagons for me and I added a Perry Cossack wagon which really identifies the baggage train as "Russian".

Perry Cossack Wagon (from their Napoleonic figure range).

Some of Ed Phillips scrathch built Russian munitions wagons. Each of my infantry brigades will have both a 2-wheel and 4-wheel munitions wagon in its own unique color scheme. The above picture does not show the horse teams that I added to each wagon.


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The full set of munitions wagons showing the horse teams and riders.


The Green Set of wagons. 2-wheelers get one horse and rider.
4-wheelers get two horses and one rider.


The Red set of wagons.

The Light Blue set of wagons.


Russian General Staff

I painted the Fermor personality figure from the Minden Miniatures figure range. I also added command stands for division commanders Galitzen, Saltykov for the infantry and Demiku for the cavalry brigade.


Russian generals. Click picture to enlarge the view and to read the
captions that  identify the individual generals.

Russian Artillery
I am only going to use three or four cannon models in my Zorndorf game. The Prussian artillery component outnumbered that of the Russians, so the Prussians will have one more field gun model than the Russians. There will also be some small regimental guns that simply add one more D10 die to the musket fire of the battalion to which it is attached.

I still have to paint some limber team stands for each artillery piece. This will consist of four horses and one horse rider.


My Russian artillery contingent of two 12-pounders and two howitzers (both Shuvulov Secret Howitzers).


Summary

Well that brings the Zorndorf Project up to date. I have accomplished a lot of painting since October 2017 and I am far enough along that I can see the end of the painting obligations in sight. Once all of the painting is completed, then I will work on some terrain pieces that I will lay on top of my game mats.

6 comments:

  1. Gob smackingly splendid! Well done, that was a major project!...well worth the effort!

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  2. An excellent effort to say the least. Even as a basic set up, the table looks great.

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  3. I've always loved your painting. It's nice to see so many months of work all laid out at once.

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  4. Inspiring work, thank you for sharing.

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  5. A very lovely display. Well done for producing that lot in such quick time. I particularly like your Russian Hussars.
    Chris

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