This post is in some sense a celebration. It has been a long term project of mine to paint up the troops required for Quatre Bras & then game it. A couple of months ago I finally completed this & the pictures in this post are of some of the last troops; it's taken me a while to get half-decent pictures sorted out. As part of this I decided to 'treat' myself by painting up this Napoleon figure.
I've had him for a couple of years but felt I needed an excuse to paint him up (a bit like opening a bottle of champagne rather than a vin ordinaire).
Above are Ney, Napoleon and Lefebvre-Desnouettes at La Belle Alliance. Of course Napoleon himself will not be needed for Quatre Bras as he's busy beating the Prussians at Ligny (the Prussians are another long term project, but there are plenty of others). I plan to use some buildings from Hovel's Waterloo range for QB; the terrain I need is pretty much sorted, I hope.
And here is the Duke of Orange and one of of his staff inspecting a unit of Nassauers.
These are two units of Hanoverians, rather than British, sporting stovepipe shakos & the officers/NCO's have yellow sashes. They will form part of Kielmansegge's brigade.
I now have all the figures that I need to do Quatre Bras using the Age of Eagles rules, which I intend to try out for the first time in a couple of weeks' time. After that the plan will be to do QB with the LFS rules (a somewhat down-sized scenario I admit; I will need to paint just a couple more units for that). I hope it will be interesting to see how the two compare; I might then try Shako. I confess that I've not really settled on a set of rules for Napoleonic battles so I hope this will help me decide.
Finally, while painting up these guys I produced a couple of officers for use as big men in Sharp Practice, (I use the same 15mm figs). I am especially pleased with the new Capt Fondler as the rifles officer I was using before was bit of a dull figure.
All figures incidentally are AB, apart from those on the shot of the Duke of Orange which are Essex.
PS Originally published on 30 August 2014, re-published on 27 September with better versions of photos.
There's also Napoleon at War, which I rather like from what I've read of the rules. but haven't play tested yet.
ReplyDeleteIts basing is a little idiosyncratic, though :D
Cheers Mike. Yes NaW is another one to look at probably. I'll bet though its basing is less idiosyncratic than my own which is distinctly home-brewed.
DeleteHow much of Quatre Bras are you intending to game? It was a fair-sized battle.
ReplyDeleteCheers John. Age of Eagles works at quite a high level with each unit being a Brigade so it can do big battles; I know people who've done Borodino!. QB is about 12 brigades on each side & I can do that. (LFS will require some compromises though).
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