Waterloo Project: 191 from Luneburg on the painting table

Kevin puts me to shame with his prolific output, (french-brigade-510) super detail and top quality figures, and so to try to keep my end up I'm just showing what is in store for me next. Unlike Kev's gourmet approach to his models, I tend to love doing my wargaming on a shoestring, so I have been accumulating the Hanoverian Luneburg Battalion slowly for about the last 8 months or so, bit by bit. In fact every time an opportunity came up  to buy some "British Infantry in stovepipe shakos" at a good price on Ebay, or cadge them cheaply elsewhere.

I've got all the figures I need now for our 1:3 scale representation and have mounted them and undercoated them in Army Painter "Army Green" spray ready for painting. Before I say any more here is an overall shot.

They are an eclectic bunch, but all judged by my eye to fit together on the tabletop. They started off when my art patron, Ian, offered his unwanted boxes of Victrix French and British to the 1:3 project. Shortly after that I bought a batch of Front Rank British Light Infantry from James Fergusson of Fergscalemodels. That eventually led to James joining our project and supplying lots of boxes of plastic figures to me and other members of the team at a good price. Some of those ex Ian and James Victrix Peninsular Infantry have found their way into the Luneburg ranks here. In addition there are batches of Foundry and Essex, and I've included a few Perry Hanoverian buglers and command figures. There was also an Ebay batch that looked a bit like old Hinchliffe style but bigger, so not sure what they are.

From my research it seems Luneburg was one of two Hanoverian "light" battalions but on the day was being used as a field (line) battalion so I've based the majority in 6s to ease that function.  Apparently it was composed of four large companies. But info also suggests that 1 in 3 men were armed with rifles not muskets, I assume that means within each company. At Waterloo 50 men were detached to join the Nassau troops defending Hougoumont, I'm guessing they were all rifle armed skirmish types. Followimg this logic my Luneburg battalion would still need a large quantity of skirmishers so I've based this first company in 3s using kneeling, firing and at the ready poses so they will adopt  "open order" more easily in our game.

The models don't have rifles as such but I've removed most bayonets and from a distance who will notice?

I've put the other companies together just in a pragmatic way that makes each one a bit different but hopefully looking as if they belong together - the full paint job will help that. More formal poses have been used, but even different manufacturers in the same company.

The unit is completed by a command stand of officers, musicians and colour bearers, and there is also a mounted Lieutenant Colonel, and four casualty markers. Our rules will allow for very varied sized units so I anticipate, on the day, this will be one  rifle-armed company of 44 figures, and a main battalion unit of 147 all ranks.

Now I've put these on the blog it's meant to spur me on to get them painted .....191 in one go is exciting yet scary. I've set myself a 3 month target for completion. Meanwhile if anyone has any reliable information on what the Luneburg colours looked like on 18th June 1815 please let me know, my colour bearers are waiting expectantly with bare poles ........(ummm, perhaps I should rephrase that!!)

Not sure when I will be brave enough to show these again but next time I will try to say a little more about their role in our La Haye Sainte scenario and why I think they are worth all this effort.

If you haven't found it already James Fergusson's blog is worth a visit Napoleonic Wargames blog.

Waterloo Project: Now a French Brigade - 510 Figures

Kevin East continues to turn out superbly painted figures at an astonishing rate. For those not familiar with our mad aims please see this link to the previous part waterloo-project-treble-top-180 and all the others with the Label "Waterloo".

He has now produced two line battalions as well as the light infantry battalion featured earlier. Here is a photo of the whole lot.

And here are Kevin's own words

"Here, hot off the painting blocks are a few details of the latest French battalion along with the other two already completed at 1:3 ratio.  This would represent a standard three battalion regiment in the field if they were all the same type, or a two battalion regiment and an attached light battalion making a brigade. In this case a total of 510 figures.

Here are three photos of the latest battalion in process

This one includes quite a lot in greatcoats but
 Kevin is mixing them in with those in jackets.

 "According to the painting spreadsheet we have for our games, which commence in June 2015, I have just one further 150 French battalion to complete my total of ‘Frenchies’. I am part way there already and should have those ready in a further 6 weeks or so. Of course, I am then onto the 250 Nassau infantry and British guards which should keep me busy for at least 4-5 months! 

The latest battalion on its own.

Followed by some amazing views of  "le tout ensemble"

"I have the joy of painting Napoleon’s carriage (which I have from Warlord Games) as a reward for completing all my painting for the games.

Hope you like the photos. Happy viewing!

All the best, Kevin"

Well I certainly have Kevin. 

And here are more showing his detailed and artistic approach

I have to do a Light Battalion myself and I think Paul has enough to lend three more French battalions to the 1:3 cause. All of us (6 participants) are making up battalions and squadrons for the Allies too, more of which later.

Meanwhile....this time next week Kevin and I will be on a two day guided tour of the Waterloo campaign battlefields so I hope I'll come back with something suitably inspiring to report.

Battle of Razgulaevka Station - Conclusion

You might have thought that I was using a journalistic ploy in leaving the previous part of this After Action Report hanging.......but actually I find that the longer the blog post and the more photos, the more unreliable the technology gets. You can see from the final skewed photo caption that the jeopardy was not in the wargame as much as in the author's worry if he would lose the report!

Elsewhere things were also happening:

Mark brought on 1st Battalion 21st Panzer Grenadier Regiment powering up the
roads in their half tracks. The infantry up the left flank to reinforce the Engineer company
and the artillery support in the central road to give weight to the defence of the station.

The Panzer IV company was sent straight up the road through the station complex and
out the other side, machine guns blazing on the Russian infantry clinging grimly to
 some cover. At this point the German 517th infantry had suffered quite severe
casualties and were glad of the heavy metal support to counter attack.

It was about this time that the Russian 124th Rifle Brigade suffered its 20th casualty and needed a morale check. They got "No offensive action" so just ground to a halt, firing back where they could. frankly they had lasted longer than I expected, partly due to a run of below average dice rolls by Mark early in the game.

Across the road 2nd Battalion 112th Rifles had deployed, only just in time to add 1
in support to the next Morale check of now much depleted 124th.
The latter had not only received a further dose of casualties but just lost their CO to mortar fire.
 So Minus for his loss,  Minus for second Morale test and Minus for being "Poor"
as they started very low on men and equipment. I rolled a '2' so no chance !
Those in the station ruins surrendered and the rest fled.

And what about that Morale check for the T34 company? I ended up with a '0' for them and they retreated two moves which coincided with the late arrival of the Stuka support. Oberst Freimann had earlier got his Air Link half track in a commanding position on Razguelaevka Railway bridge, received a radio message from the CO 517th about the tanks on the flank and ordered the air support to deal with them. Mark's first bombing run missed, but he still had two more chances to damage the fleeing tanks.

Conclusion
We had played for about 5 hours, obviously slowed by explaining procedures to a newcomer, but still lots of units hardly yet in action. Time had to be called and the two adverse Morale checks for my Russians made it an easy decision to declare Mark the winner of his first wargame. While his infantry in the station were nearing  a critical strength, he had good hard cover and supports and was unlikely to fail morale. The tanks and Panzer Grenadiers and Elite Assault Engineers were well placed to sweep through and destroy the ill equipped infantry battalions facing them in the open. I thoroughly enjoyed it and Mark felt a lot of the time as though he was going to fail, so it was an exciting and successful game. In my view the change of scale had worked a treat, giving plenty of scope for manoeuvre yet with some long range fire. Keeping the movement distances the same maintained the momentum of the game and allowed both sides to get to close quarters when it mattered.  I'm going to need two to three times this amount of models and a lot more ruins when I host a game for the whole group in November, but I'm now quietly optimistic.

Meanwhile....back to the Waterloo madness!