French 5th hussars Napoleonic 18

 Another French hussar unit, this time it's the 5th with their striking blue and white uniform, present at Wagram they were also part of Lasalle's brigade infernale together with the 7th regiment of hussars, I am tempted to get another box of Perry plastic hussars and make them up. I still have French chasseurs to paint and of course Austro-Hungarian hussars  but I can see it happening! Lovely figures that go together easily and are a joy to paint, they're now one of the earlier sets and maybe you would have removable sword arms for variety but they're still great sculpts as far as I'm concerned, I did of course want to paint Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard's unit but there is a bit of a sticking point as the unit he is meant to be leading defected to the allies at the beginning of the 19th century, the danger of fictional characters!

So here they are, I realise I've got to go back and touch up the commanders shako cords as I've got some red on them. As I  said they were fun to do , so when I went to Partizan  I  picked up another box of them, of course! Great show, lots of lovely historical games I had a nice chat with James Morris about his new dark age mass battle  rules Midgard which looks really  good .Next up some Austrian Napoleonic cavalry and then I need to knuckle down to painting more infantry for both sides , or maybe something different just for a change!

All the best 

Iain 

Rye medieval hill town

 Last weekend we managed to get away for the weekend to Rye, which is a medieval hill town and cinque port, that's now  a distance from the sea. 

I thought there was quite a bit that might be of interest to those that read this blog and I wanted to keep all the images together, so please, indulge  me!

 There is a  nice medieval gate, the Landgate, a big church, lots of timber framed buildings, some rebuilt in 1420 and a medieval fortification called the Ypres Tower . We went on a nice little walk that took us to another fortification built for Henry VIII,an artillery fort, much like  the Falmouth model but now a ruin , it was interesting to me to contrast the construction techniques of the two fortifications, the earlier tower is rubble except around the arrow slits and door ways which are masonry. In the fort it is clear it was faced entirely with masonry ,because a lot  of it has eroded/ fallen/ been removed? we can  see the rubble and brick structure beneath and also around the gun ports. Indeed there is a row of bricks below one gunport that looks like it's been done with London stock bricks!

I thought the erosion on the seaward side of the fort was also of interest. There were a couple of Georgian 32 pounders on War department garrison carriages outside the Ypres Tower , the other smaller guns didn't have any markings, I  did start thinking I could  maybe make the Ypres Tower out of four pringle tubes, some foamboard and a  bit of rubble type wallpaper but then decided not just yet, try and stay on task and get  some more Napoleonics done! A nice slice of East Sussex  to visit if you're in the area, next post will contain toy soldiers, honest!

All the best 

Iain 

Napoleonic Austrian command take 2 Napoleonic 17

 When I painted the metal Perry Austrian command figures I mentioned I might add some plastic Victrix mounted command to the three stands and here we have them, revised as it were. With the Victrix plastic Austrian Infantry boxes you get two mounted Colonels , which I don't tend to use with the Infantry unit,so I am utilising them as additional command figures to expand      ( not pad out of course!) my command stands. There is a variety of heads which are a little more caricature than  the Perry ones, but if anything it makes them easier to paint frankly. 

In other news I've joined a local wargames club, it's funny I've been looking for one near me for a few years but only just come across this lot recently, I think they were mainly on Facebook ( which I don't do) Anyway I went along, mostly scifi and fantasy played there but there is someone who does historical , the only issue is that the whole club plays Kings of War with it's attendant basing scheme which isn't what I'm geared for. So I'm going to have to temporarily base some figures up and have a game of Kings of War historical ( having bought, printed and read the pdf) and of course spending time going through my figures for what I can field opposite an Early Imperial Roman army. It might lead to me building a Roman army based for KoW and maybe a no cost/low cost Celtic/ ancient Briton army,which I will also be able to use for To the Strongest! as well, Matt seems to like KoW and has done some nice AARs on his wargaming in the dungeon blog so I am looking forward to giving it a go but it does throw a spanner in the Napoleonic plan,  although I think I can juggle a  bit,I'll just have to find time to build my Romans at some point! Next up will be more  cavalry, Napoleonics of course ,well for the moment anyway!

All the best Iain