On The Work Bench

1806 Project Update

I have been chipping away at the 1806 Project over the past two weeks as I try to keep to my commitment to spend the month of January adding new figures for this project. I added 20 or so figures each to battalions IR24 von Zenge and IR13 von Arnim in order to bring them up to 60 figures plus 5 scheutzen. The next unit on my painting table is the grenadier battalion Osten (22/36). Half of the battalion will be painted as IR22 (von Pirch) grenadiers with red facings, while the other half will be painted as IR36 (Puttkamer) grenadiers with white facings. The grenadiers wear a leather cap & mitre with the hat band in the regimental facing color, unless the facing color is white - and then the band color is blue.

By the end of this month then, I should have four battalions of Prussians ready for service. This should provide me with enough of a core of troops to start play-testing some rules ideas for a BAR Napoleonic variant. The French have two line battalions and one legere battalion that are ready to go. So the forces should be adequate for the play-testing.

Speaking of the French, I was going through boxes of figures that I have packed away in my famous (at least it is famous to me) Closet O' Lead and I came upon a box of Elite Miniatures Chasseurs a Cheval. I intend to paint these as the 1er Chasseurs a Cheval that served in Davout's III Corps as part of his light cavalry brigade. These are very nice figures and I'm looking forward to painting a few samples very soon.

Yesterday I received a large packet of GMB Designs flags from Miniature Service Center in California. MSC will no longer carry the range so I was stocking up on flags in order to fulfill my future needs and, ahem, help Doug Carroccio clear out a little bit of his inventory. So I have most of the flags that I will need for the Prussian part of my 1806 Project.

SYW Austrians

Progress is being made on my SYW Austrian army as well, although I haven't painted a single Austrian figure in several months now. Dennis Smail has been working on some Austrians for me since September of last year. He finished the 60 figure grenadier battalion shown in a previous post and recently sent me reinforcements in the form of 60 figure battalions of the Josef Esterhazy Hungarian regiment and the Gaisruck German regiment. I haven't based these figures yet, so I had better get going on this before I accumulate too many unbased figures. I hate it when a big game is coming up and I find myself basing and terraining several hundred figures during the week prior to the game. Not good.

What is good is how nice these Crusader Austrians are that Dennis has been working on. I am really impressed with the quality of the work (both the figure and the painting of the same) and look forward to putting these battalions on the gaming table. Yesterday I received a sample of one of the Crusader Croats, attired in a blue coat and all I can say is "Wow!" All of these reinforcements have me wishing that I could get back to painting SYW figures. I'm going to need around 200 Austrian cavalry for my BAR game at Historicon in July 2008 and time is a wasting.

SYW Prussians

There is not much to report on for the Prussian army. This army is largely completed and I really do not need to add a single Prussian for the rest of the year. Well, we all know that that is unlikely to happen. Here is what is in the que for the Prussian for 2008: a 12-figure squadron of the CR13 Garde du Corps cuirassiers, another 12-figure squadron of HR5 Black Hussars, a 60-figure IR18 Prinz von Preussen regiment using my Potsdam Miniatures, the Langen Kerls or Riesengarde using Stadden Prussian grenadiers, and humongous quantitites of Prussian artillery (using the Berlin Zinnfiguren models to replace some of my older, existing artillery pieces. I also need to paint a few more brigade commanders and base them on 2-inch round bases. So much to paint, so little time available to do it.

Happy New Year!

Greetings from Hesse Seewald and a Happy 1758 (2008) to everyone from Der Alte Fritz. The above picture depicts the view from the front porch of Schloss Seewald this morning. As you can see, the new year greeted us with about six inches of wet puffy white snow. I am tempted to go outside and make a snowman wearing a tricorn hat... Nah! As one can see, the weather is not suitable for active campaigning and so I will probably spend some time in the barracks getting more troops ready for the Spring Campaign of 1758.

Instead, I will show you a picture of the first three recruits to the Landgraf Georg Ludwig's Riesengarde battalion of Hesse Seewald. The Landgraf has decreed that each of his 16 regiments shall furnish a complement of ten men to form the first company of the new Landgraf's Riesengarde, or a total of 160 men (16 figures). The Stadden SYW Prussian grenadier 30mm figure will be used in this regiment, along with GMB Designs flags for either the Hessian Garde of the IR6 Prussian Garde Grenadier battalion.

Riesengarde Regiment of Hesse Seewald (by Der Alte Fritz)

The grenadier and the drummer are both from the Stadden range of SYW Prussians, while the officer is one of my own Potsdam Miniatures. The uniform is based on the Lange Kerls of Frederick William I of Prussia, circa 1729. During this period, the garde wore a more traditional mid-18th century mitre (akin to the ones worn during the SYW) while the red gaitors were replaced by white gaitors. Around 1730-1736, the uniform was changed, yet again, to something closer to that worn by IR6 Grenadier Garde during the SYW. By this I mean that the breeches and waistcoat were yellow, instead of red and the cut of the coat was a little tighter. The final uniform transformation was instituted by Frederick II in 1740.

I expect that it will take awhile to fill the regiment out to a full 60 figures, given my pledge to reduce the pile of lead that has accumulated in my basement. I have enough Staddens to paint the first 16 figures for now. These will accompany der Erbprinz onto the battlefield as his personal headquarters guard, i.e. they will be "just for looks" and will not engage in battle. Once I build them up to 30 or 48 figures, then they may participate in some of our SYW battles.

1806 Taster
Below is a picture of one of my 1806 Prussian battalions (IR24 Zenge) that I have been working on. The unit was started back in December 2006 and only recently brought up to the full complement of 60 figures plus 5 extra scheutzen. They are not yet flagged or based yet, as you can see.


Elite Miniatures 1806 Prussian regiment IR24 - Zenge.

I am still working out how to base the Prussians. My initial thought is to have smaller movement trays designed to hold six figures in three ranks. Thus each stand would represent a zug, or platoon of 60 men. I may just put twelve figures on a stand (in three ranks) and call each stand 2 zuge, or platoons. This roughly corresponds to a company, although I should note that the company was only an administrative unit, rather than a tactical unit. I am still unclear as to whether or not the 1806 Prussians operated in grand divisions of two zuge, like they did during the SYW. During this period, the battalion was divided into ten zuge, or platoons. So in the picture above, the figures are divided into ten groups of six figures. There were also 50-60 scheutzen per battalion and a 6-pound regimental gun. So I will have 5 scheutzen figures per battalion and maybe a battalion gun (I don't know about this part yet).

Prussian brigades are likely to have 3 musketeer battalions and 1 grenadier battalion in my wargame setup. Again, this is still in the planning stage so nothing is set in stone yet. I am nearly done with the first three Prussian battalions and plan to spend the rest of January 2008 working on the 1806 Project.

SYW Austrian Update: After that, I will probably return to painting SYW Austrian cavalry. Dennis Smail has kindly agreed to continue working on the Austrian infantry for me. I received the Gaisruck battalion (purple facings) yesterday and they really look nice. I will endeavor to base both Gaisruck and Josef Esterhazy soon so that I can take some pictures and show you Dennis' fine brushwork.

The 2007 Year In Review

Battle of Eylau Re-enactment - February 2007. George Rust, Mike Husky and Keith Leidy (left to right) contest the village of Eylau in a game played earlier in the year.

The paint is drying on the last figures painted in 2007, so I thought that it would be interesting to take an inventory of what I painted during the course of the year. My initial talley indicates a total of 1,015 figures were painted during 2007. This breaks down into 881 infantry, 12 artillery crew, 8 mounted generals, and 114 cavalry. Under the system created by Phil Olley (or Olley Painting Points), wherein an infantry figure or cannon counts as one point and any mounted figure counts as two points (one point each for the rider and the horse), my painting output translates into 1,137 Olley Painting Points. I think that this might be a new personal record for Der Alte Fritz.

Let's break down the output by country to see where the concentration was:

Prussian SYW:
IR5 Alt Braunschweig (60)
IR20 Bornstadt (45) - the first 15 figures were painted in 2006
IR25 Kalckstein (60)
IR34 Prinz Ferdinand (60)
IR35 Prinz Heinrich (60)
5/20 Grenadiers (61)
IR6 Grenadier Garde (12) - to top up the unit to 60 figures

Artillery Crew (12)

HR2 Zieten Hussars (12)
HR5 Black Hussars (12)
DR2 Jung Krakow Dragoons (12)
CR8 Seydlitz Cuirsassiers (24)
CR13 Garde du Corps (24)
Mounted Generals (2)

British SYW:
8th Foot (King's Regt) (60)
42nd Highland Regt (48)
2nd Horse Regt (18)
Household Horse Grenadiers (12)

French SYW: (NOTE - These are for sale)
D'Eu Regt. (30) - to complete the unit to 60
Bulkeley Regt. (60)
Arquebusiers de Grassin (45)

Austrian SYW:Warrior Miniatures repainted as Austrians (60)
RSM Austrian btn (60)

Teddy Bears SYW
Blue Army (24)
Pink Army (24)

Napoleonics - 1806 Project
Prussian IR24 (21)
French Infantry (156)
French Mounted Officer (1)
Russian Mounted Officers (5)

Well, it is easy to see that my focus was on my SYW Prussian army during 2007. I painted the equivalent of 6 battalions of infantry and 7 12-man squadrons of cavalry. I sold several Prussian battalions during the year as I began to weed out some older figures so that I could replace them with my own Potsdam Miniatures. The Big Battalion Game in October 2007 underscored my need for more Prussian cuirassiers and so I added 48 more of them after the game. My Prussian army is more or less completed now. I will probably top up the Black Hussars with 12 more figures to get them up to a 60-figure regiment and add 12 more Garde du Corps to get them up to three squadrons. I also have to start the task of replacing my artillery guns with the new Berlin Zinnfiguren models that I purchased this year.

The Austrians have not been neglected, despite what the painting talley shows above. Dennis Smail has been painting Austrian infantry for me, adding three 60-figure battalions to my army during 2007. The latest two battalions, the Josef Esterhazy and the Gaisruck battalions, bring my Austrian force up to nine battalions of infantry. My goal is to get to an even dozen Austrian battalions and add more cavalry in 2008.

The 1806 Project got off of the ground during 2007, with two battalions of French line infantry completed. I had finished three Prussian battalions of 40-48 figures towards the end of 2006 and I am currently in the process of building these up to 60-figure battalions. I expect to devote January 2008 to painting 1806 Prussians. This will give me a break from painting strictly Seven Years War figures for awhile and I welcome the change of subject matter. That said, I did paint a couple of the Riesengarde or Lange Kerls today. I now have one grenadieir and one officer in this version of the Potsdam Guard.

The First Teddy Bear Battle

Lord Paddington Bear's Pink army (Eureka Miniatures painted by Der Alte Fritz).


Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe watches as her Blue Bear army marches onto the field of battle. (Bears by Eureka Miniatures, trees by K&M, buildings by Herb Gundt - the builder, not the owner of the Gundt Bear Company).

We held our first Teddy Bear Wargame today and I'm happy to say that my daughter holds great promise as a future general, because she thoroughly defeated her Daddy 25 points to 10 points. The field of Mars was our kitchen table (3ft by 6ft) with two armies (blue and pink) of 24 bears facing one another for the very first time. The prize: Almond M & Ms strewn about the table top in various buildings and wooded areas. Whoever inflicted the most "hits" and collected the most M&Ms would be the winner of the game.



The picture above depicts the advance of Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe's army of blue bears, from the left. Note the perfectly aligned battle lines of the blue bears. It makes a father feel right proud, it does. In contrast, Lord Paddington Bear's army of pink bears, advancing from the right, was having problems keeping the lads together in a common frontage. You can see some of the "honey pots", represented by the M&Ms, in the Hundred Acre Wood in the background. Lady Emma's army has already captured the little hamlet of Stiefsburg, although she is unaware that each house contains a veritable treasure of honey pots.

The rules that we used were made up on the spur of the moment. A D6 was thrown each turn to see who would have the first movement initiative. A player could then opt to walk (three D6 movement) or run (four D6 movement rate). Firing ranges were Close Range (0-6" and a 1 or 2 on a D6 per figure firing for a hit) and Long Range (7-12" and a 1 on a D6). All casualties could be saved on a saving roll of 6 on a D6. Casualties were then placed "in the hospital" for the remainder of the game.

The next picture, above, shows the state of the respective armies at the end of Turn 2 (which was the first turn of musketry, or should I say corkage - the Bears have cork gun/pop guns instead of muskets, and getting bonked on the head by a cork sent a bear to the hospital). Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe won the first firing initiative and mowed down 8 of my Pink Bears in the opening salvo. I think that I was only able to save one of my bears with a saving throw. Lord Paddington Bear's lads only knocked down three of their counterparts on the first turn. In the picture above, you can see that the two units at the top are in close range, while the two units at the bottom of the picture are in long range.


Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe looking very pleased with the performance of her Blue Bear army. Note all of the Pink Bear casualties laying on the ground.

The second firing turn was a little more promising for Lord Paddington Bear's Pink Bear army. They sent 6 Blue bears to the hospital while losing only one of their number. Thus the score was 9 to 8 in favor of the Blue team at the end of turn 2. This was to be the high-water mark of the Pink team, as they were unable to inflict any more trips to the hospital on their adversaries. At this point, both sides decided to start collecting honey pots in the nearby Hundred Acre Wood.

The Pink army casualties are starting to mount up in the Hundred Acre Wood, on the right. The Blue bears can be seen running into the woods to collect honey pots (M&Ms) while a forlorn hope of Pink bears, under the personal guidance of Lord Paddington Bear, conduct a rear-guard defense.

The third turn of firing resulted in a complete whiff by the Pink team, while the Blue team inflicted two more casualties. Thus the score was now 11 to 8 in favor of the Blue team. The Blue team was also running away with most of the honey pots, having collected 4 in the village of Stiefburg, 2 more in the Hundred Acre Wood, and most embarrassingly, 2 more honeypots in Gundtdorf, far in the rear of the Pink army's lines. The Pink army had 2 honey pots collected from within the smaller of the two buildings shown in the picture above, as well as control of 2 more honey pots in the Wood beyond the village of Stiefburg.


Blue Bears collecting honey pots (M&Ms) from Gundtdorf, behind the enemy's lines.

The fourth turn was a complete disaster for Lord Paddington Bear's army. He lost 4 more bears while inflicting no damage on the Blue army. At this point, Lord Paddington Bear was the last bear standing in front of a firing line of Blue bears. Thus, he decided that it was time to skedaddle, and he did so without informing the garrison of 4 Pink bears, holding out in the little tiny house. Lady Emma decided that it was time to storm the tiny house and capture the honey pots and the Pink bears therein, the storming of which is shown below.


The storming of the Tiny House by the Blue Bears.

I made up some quick melee rules on the fly, as it were. Each side would get one D6 for each bear participating in the melee. The side with the highest score would win the melee. Lady Emma threw seven dice to four for the defenders, outscoring them 32 to 20, so she won the melee and captured two more honey pots. The four Pink bears inside the building had nowhere to run, so the surrendered (and counted as hit points). After the melee, there were only four members of the Pink army still standing on the kitchen, erm wargame table and so it was obvious that Lady Emma's army was victorious over Lord Paddington Bear's army. Thus to the victor goeth the spoils, which in this case, were Almond M&Ms. Her Highness consented to sharing her large pot of loot with her Daddy, which was greatly appreciated.

This will undoubtedly be the first of many battles in the Seven Bears Wars and I look forward to future encounters on the kitchen table.

French 1806 Project

I guess that I just can't do anything nice and easy, when it comes to wargaming projects. I like big beautiful battalions with lots of color and even more miniatures. So after building SYW Austrian and Prussian armies at a 1 to 10 ratio and previously using the same ratio for the American Revolution and the American Civil War, it was probably inevitable that my thoughts would turn to doing something similar with Napoleonics. My nascent 1806 Project is the epitome of doing things in the grand manner, what with French battalions sized at 72 to 81 figures and my 1806 Prussians checking in with 60 figures. A sample French line battalion is depicted in the following pictures. Please click on the pictures to enlarge the photograph.

French battalion in line with voltigeurs deployed in the line with the rest of the unit. Figures are Elite Miniatures (painted by Der Alte Fritz).


French battalion in line with voltigeur company in skirmish order.

My current thinking is to organize the French into 9 companies, per the organization in effect during the glory years of 1805 to 1807. This breaks down into 7 line companies, 1 grenadier company, and 1 voltigeur company. Each company will have 9 figures based in 3 ranks, so an infantry company stand will be 3 figures wide by 3 figures deep. Each figure will be mounted on a 3/4 inch metal base so that it can adher to a magnetized movement tray. Each regiment will have two battalions and four battalions will comprise a brigade. For the post-1807 period, the French would be organized into the more familiar 6 company organization.

Now that's what I call a column! French battalion deployed in a column of divisions with a frontage of two companies. The grenadiers and voltigeurs are deployed in the rear ranks.

The 1806 campaign might seem like an unusual choice of subsegment of the vast Napoleonic Era, but it has all of the elements that have long attracted me to SYW wargaming.

First Element: The Prussian army of the period still retains many of the trappings of its Frederician organization and appearance. The regiments are organized in a similar manner, the uniforms are little-changed from the SYW period, save for the use of trousers instead of breeches on campaign and the wearing of a bicorn instead of tricorn hat. The regimental flags are nearly identical to those used in the SYW (other than a different royal cypher in each period) and regiments take the name of their inhaber or colonel, rather than a regimental number. The artillery and the cavalry organizations also bear a strong resemblance to their SYW counterparts, with the one major exception being that Prussian cuirassiers no longer wear a cuirass. So all in all, an aficionado of the SYW will feel very much at home commanding a Prussian army, circa 1806.

Second Element: The period 1805 to 1807 represents, in my humble opinion, the glory years of Napoleon and his Grande Armee. This mighty miliatary machine, trained to perfection at the camps at Boulogne on the English Channel, were unmatched in this era. Napoleon used this instrument of war to defeat the combined might of Austria and Russia in 1805, Prussia in 1806, and Russia and Prussia in 1807. For some reason, this army seems to get overlooked by wargamers, who seem more interested in Napoleon's later years (1812 to 1815) when the armies were larger, but not as agile or superior to its opponents.

Third Element: Did I mention that the French wore long-tailed coats and bicorn hats? This uniform, like its Prussian counterpart, represents a transition from the uniforms of the elegant 18th Century, to that of the harder and grittier 19th Century. Also, I don't care for shakos. They look fine on the British, but I've always thought that the French look better in the old, pre-Bardin reform, uniforms. The cavalry uniforms of this era are magnificent to look at: the French cuirassiers, the bearskin hats of the Grenadiers a Cheval and the Carabiniers, the gaudy hussars and the chasseurs, and the splendid looking dragoons with their classical helmets, green coats and a rainbow of facing colors (yellow, blue, red, pink and more).

Fourth Element: Interesting personalities. The French army has personality, and then some! What a cast of characters when one can select from such different personalities as Davout, Lannes, Murat, LaSalle, Bernadotte, Ney and many others. But it doesn't just stop at the corps level. The French army had a deep bench of talent at the divisional and brigade levels, with many of these individuals rising through the ranks on merit, to eventual corps command after 1807.

I plan to organize my French army as a division of 8 battalions with supporting divisional artillery. I will probably use Gudin's division in Davout's III Corps circa 1806 as my model for the layout. My cavalry force will consist of the III Corps light cavalry, notably the 1er Chasseurs a Cheval and the 7e Hussars and maybe a unit of cuirassiers and dragoons. French cavalry regiments will have 36 to 48 figures, representing three squadrons.

I will provide more information on the French organization later in the week as well as my initial thoughts and ideas for organizing the Prussians. The rules will be a variant of the BAR rules that we use for the Seven Years War. We haven't written the rules yet, so there is a considerable amount of play testing ahead of us. However, I like the basic system of firing, melee and morale that is used in BAR, so I will probably use this as the framework for a unique set of Napoleonic rules for the 1805-1807 period.

Teddy Bear Christmas Armies

Two full regiments of Eureka Teddy Bears - the Blue Regiment (advancing) and the Pink Regiment (marching). Buildings are old Gallia resin buildings circa 1988.

At long last, the Pink and Blue Teddy Bear Christmas armies are completed (at least the first installment of the same) and drying in the varnishing shed. I have two 24-figure bear armies, with one army decked out in pink coats with green facings, and the second army wearing sky blue with pink facings. This is the first time that I have ever gloss coated a wargaming unit, and I'm rather pleased with the overall effect. The figures shown in these pictures have not yet received their gloss coatings. I used spray varnish and plan to give each unit three coats of varnish, to protect them from the wear and tear that they are likely to get from my 9-year old daughter. She is always talking about wanting to wargame with me, so I thought that this would be a fun way of doing it.

I have not made up any rules, as yet, but rest assured that they will be very, very easy to learn. I am thinking that firing will be with a D6 and it will take a natural "1" (or bulls eye) to get a hit. Melees will be done by matching up the figures one on one and having each player roll a D6 per figure. The highest roll wins that individual melee. I may use saving throws, but that might add a level of complication that my daughter isn't ready for.

The Pink Army of Eureka Teddy Bears in March Attack Pose. Note the officer riding the hobby horse and the reversed uniform colors on the drummer.

The Blue Army of Eureka Teddy Bears in the advancing pose. In this unit I made the musicians white Polar Bears while the rest of the battalion are Brown Bears. Note also that each army is in a different pose to make the difference more noticeable.

The figures are super glued to one-inch square MDF wooden bases and then painted a dark green. I elected to use the larger bases because my daughter has problems with her fine motor skills so I figured that it would be easier for her to pick up the larger bases. The other option was using a 3/4-inch base, but there is less to grab with the smaller base. I had thought of finishing the bases with texturing (spackle, flock and pieces of scrub brush), but elected to go for the Old School Toy Soldier look with the plain green bases. I am also figuring that a few of the figures might eventually break off of their bases, so it would be easier to make repairs if I leave the bases unflocked.

At a later date, I will add 8 grenadiers, 6 cavalry and a cannon with 4 crew to each army. I simply didn't have the time to finish everything before Christmas. I also have to work on the standard bearers for each regiment. The flag poles provided by Eureka have rocking horse or duck finials, but I like the idea that one of my blogger friends used for his Teddy Bear army: he put a pot of honey on the top of the flag pole. The artillery crew comes with a honey pot and I may use these for the flag finials instead of using them with the artillery crew.

These bears were fun to paint, but I look forward to getting back to historical miniatures soon. I have some 1806 French and Prussians on the painting table and these are likely to be my next project. I do need a bit of a break from painting SYW figures, you know.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers. I thank you for all of your kind comments and support for my on line journal. Your enthusiasm for my work keeps me motivated to write new articles all of the time. This is a lot of fun for me.

Project Updates

I am on the home stretch on the Teddy Bears Christmas Project and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (there's two cliches in one sentance). I just completed the 24 - Bear Blue Team and the 24-Bear Pink Team just needs a little bit of details to complete them. I'm going out to a Christmas party tonight with Mrs Fritz and plan to finish the Pink Team later this evening. There will be two teams of 24 Bear musketeers. The Bear grenadiers and the standard bearers will have to wait until after Christmas.

I black primed a dozen more 1806 French line center company figures the other night, and I have to say that I've been eyeing them all afternoon today as I was finishing the Blue Bears. With a full week of vacation time coming up, I could really go to town on a Napoleonic painting jag during this time. I feel like I owe myself a break from painting anymore SYW figures, or Bears, for awhile.

The French legere battalion has been glued to its bases. I am using 3/4-inch metal bases for the Napoleonic project, rather than the 1-inch bases that I have been using for the SYW period. Since the Elite Miniatures take up less space on the base, I can get away with using the smaller size of bases. I think that the smaller bases look better because they really pack the figures in closer together.

I will attempt to take some photographs of the Bears tomorrow and hopefully post them on this site on Sunday. I would also like to paint a couple of Potsdam Riesengarde figures and photograph them as well. So have patience, the pictures will be forthcoming soon.