From MartijnN: A very mixed bag (86 points)

This may well be my last post for this Challenge, and it is definitely my last regular Thursday post. It is a bit of a mixed bag. 

First, for my ongoing 1866 project I have two Austrian light cavalry brigades of the 1st Light Cavalry Division of the Reserve Cavalry.  Brigade Appel, consisting of the 9th hussars and 2nd dragoons, and Brigade Wallis made up of the 10th hussars and the 1st dragoons. At this point, all German cavalry wore white, dragoons as well as cuirassiers, but 1st and 2nd dragoons had been converted from cheveaux-légers en had retained their old green uniforms. 6mm Baccus figures, as usual.

Then I have painted up some more real estate, again mostly by Leven and Battlescale I think.

And some hedges, you can never have enough of those. These work equally well for 6mm and 10mm I reckon.

Finally, some more Iain Lovecraft pirates and/or general 17th-18th century types. And a beggar.

As I really had not realized we are already that close to the end, I did not really plan for another library theme. So no map.

However, I won't let you go without a final book recommendation. This is just a book that I read recently and enjoyed. It is Never Greater Slaughter. Brunanburh and the Birth of England,  by Michael Livingston.

Livingston is a well-known medieval scholar with many titles to his name, among them books on Agincourt and Crecy. This volume is on the Battle of Brunanburh in 937. Quite an achievement to write a book on a battle about which hardly anything can be said for certain. However, the book is very well written and argues convincingly for the location of the battle in the Wirral, while also painting a very vivid picture of medieval battle and the situation in England at the beginning of the 10th century. Much recommended. 

Michael Livingston and Kelly Devries also do a very interesting and also much recommended podcast, Bow and Blade. A must listen for anyone remotely interested in medieval military history. Battles from Thermopylae to the Fall of Rhodes by two military historians who know their stuff and also share the problems and dilemmas facing the historian confronted by few or unreliable sources. Great fun as well.

Scoring:

6x 28mm/32mm foot @ 5 = 30

36x 6mm horse @ 1 = 36

8x 6mm buildings and 17x 6mm/10mm hedges = 20?

For a total of 86, which should take me past my updated goal.

Thanks to all for stopping by, and in particular a very big thank you to Teemu for some great minioning!

TeemuL: A mixed bag indeed, I guess that's common at the end of the Challenge, when all the almost-dones projects are hurriedly finished instead of starting another project. At least that happens to me. Those pirates and their companions look terrific, I think I need to buy some of them myself. And the hedges are handy, like you said, can be used in different scales. 6mm cavalry and buildings are nice additions to your project, too. Well done achieving your target!

From MartijnN: Red Lancers and Real Estate [Local History] (102 points)

As a Dutchman living in Belgium I realized a had a lot of local history to choose from. Waterloo is only one hour's drive away, and of course Belgium is sadly riddled with battlefields from conflicts ranging from ancient times to the Second World War. However, I ended up choosing a different subject: the 2me cheveau-légers lanciers de la Garde Imperiale, the famous red lancers. In 6mm, no less.

In 1810, Napoleon finally had enough of his brother Louis playing the independent King of Holland. Louis Napoléon, or Lodewijk as he was called in Holland, had proven surprisingly popular with his new subjects, even trying to learn the language (not always successfully though; he has been recorded talking about himself as "uw Konijn", Your Rabbit, in stead of "uw Koning", your King) and trying to spare his people the burden constant French demands for more and more goods and troops put upon them, as well as turning a blind eye towards the blatant smuggling and trading with England that was the backbone of the Dutch economy. However, in 1810 Holland was formally annexed by France, and the Dutch army was integrated in the French. Napoleon was, however, sufficiently impressed by his brother's Royal Guard to incorporate some units into the Imperial Guard. Thus, the 2nd (Dutch) regiment of light lancers of the Guard was born.

Now of course, the regiment was recruited in The Netherlands, and famously fought its last battle at Waterloo, but I am also claiming the Local History bonus because I have a family connection with it. Two members of my family served in the regiment, both named Jacob Nicasie, cousins. According to the French military archives, both were killed during the campaign (tersely recorded as "resté en Russie"), although at least one of them actually may have returned after all. 

I did put a little more effort into them than I would normally do in this scale, and I like how they came out. The regiment, almost 900 strong, formed its own brigade during the Russian campaign so I made a whole Blücher base out of them.

I also painted up one more French brigade of infantry for Blücher.

Finally, I painted up some real estate , mostly in 6mm scale. I think all buildings are either Leven Miniatures or Battlescale.

As a book recommendation, I will give you two titles as the first will not be of much use to most of you. However, Naar Moskou, naar Moskou! by Willem Oosterbeek is well worth reading.

These are the memoirs of a Dutch officer of the Russian Campaign, Jean Francois Dumonceau (I know, not a very Dutch name). He was a captain in the 2nd Lancers, and I suppose he must have been near my relatives pretty much all of the time. His memoirs were previously published in French, those might be worth looking up for those of you who don't read Dutch.

For all you exclusively Anglophones out there I have Alexander Mikaberidze's The Battle of Borodino. Napoleon against Kutuzov. A good, solid and clear account of the climactic battle on the road to Moscow, which is very much based on the Russian point of view.

I must say that I find Mikaberidze's style a bit of heavy going now and then, and not all of his arguments and numbers are entirely convincing, but he has a good command of his sources and makes full use of them. Perhaps a little too revisionist for my taste, but still a healthy counter to the almost exclusively French view on the battle most of us are familiar with, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.. 

That brings us to the map:

And scoring. Now the figures are easy, but the buildings less so. In proportion to the standard 6x6x6" cube they are practically worthless, but I hope that each building may be at least worth as much as a 6mm infantry figure, so 5 points for the nine perhaps? It's for our minion to decide, I'm happy with whatever I get.

So:

- 34x 6mm cavalry @ 1 = 34

- 56 6mm infantry @ 0.5 = 28

- 9x 6mm/ 10mm buildings = 20

- Local History Bonus = 20

Total of 87 points

TeemuL: Very nice entry and local history indeed is different depending where you are located. While I was in Northern Finland I had quick chat with a local and we discussed about buildings. He said, they don't have any old buildings, since Germans "cleaned" everything 70 years ago while retreating to Norway. And here in the South we have churches, castles and houses dating almost 800 years. And if you are from Belgium, you get Waterloo in your backyard.

While the 6mm forces look great and your extra effort shows, I still like your 6mm buildings a lot. The terrain cubes are not working on this scale and while Curt says "it is what we got" he also says "use your brain", so I'm giving full 20 points for them. And it is still less than a 6mm base. You have made great process on your Library map and you have already achieved your points target.

From LeeH: Merchants House (Library: New Acquisition) + Encampments (30pts)

I’m all Medieval with this entry so I am revisiting my Wars of the Roses project from last year. This Merchants House is a relatively new acquisition and was sent to me by 6MilPhil and is part of his recent Medieval Village Kickstarter. He sent me a whole set for review last year and I have painted most of the buildings now, apart from this one. So I decided it was time to pull my finger out and get it done. The figures are just for scale, these archers were painted for last year's challenge. 

In fact, while I was working on one building I may as well do another, so the Barn, also from the Kickstarter set. 

I have also been trying to clear up a few more little bits from my Wars of the Roses project and these items have been sitting around neglected for far too long. The Tents are from Leven Miniatures and as I have come to expect from this company are reasonably priced and the resin is nice to work with. I had painted a much more colourful set last year but I really didn’t like them so I bought two more sets and went instead with this much simpler colour scheme of off-white canvas with coloured trim. At the last minute, I decided to base them up as encampments and then decided to add the flags and trees. 

So, how to score this little lot?? Well, they are terrain so here are some dimensions. 

1x6mm Merchants House 3" x 2" x 2"
1x6mm Barn 2" x 1.5" x 1.5"
2 Medieval Encampments, each 5" x 3" x 1.5"

If my 'maffs' is correct that's not even close to a 6x6" cube (just over 61 cubic inches) so this little lot will be worth about 5 points...plus a couple for the flags maybe? However, I will claim the Challenge Library "New Acquisition" bonus of 20 points as the buildings were recently given to me by Phil Page (aka 6milphil of Slug Industries). So maybe that nudges the total up to about 27 points?? 

I'll leave the final decision in the hands of the judges. Better you than me! 😄

Lovely work here! More so considering the scale, one I am struggling with so it's great to see such inspiration to lean on later on. 

My maths are also terrible but I do like the extra work you have done here so let's just make life easier an call if a straight 30 PTS all in 😉

Kyle

From Martijn N: Small scale scatter (48 points)

 

With my pathetic attempt to brave the Pit of the Pendulum with historic figures (justifiably) thwarted and being mostly a small-scale historical gamer I have decided to first concentrate on my painting target. Once having made some progress, I will perhaps again take up the journey down and acquire some suitable figures to brave the dungeon!

For now, therefore, here are some 15mm Minifigs. They are more than 25 or 30 years old, and have been languishing in my lead pile for far too long. Earlier last year I have begun to rebase my old figures for Volley and Bayonet, so the time had come to throw some paint on these Russian dragoons. Being Minifigs, the detail is fairly soft and the uniform is not entirely correct (hence my clumsy attempts in 1991 or so to remove the peaks from the other ranks’ caps). However, from 3ft away I guess they look okay. I used contrast paints for these. Now I only have to dig up a Crimean Russian cavalry flag somewhere!

 

Then there is some real estate. I do not usually base my buildings, but sometimes that does look better and I felt that was the case with this 6mm Roman watchtower from  Leven Miniatures; its footprint is tiny. It is generic enough to be used in other periods and theatres. It is accompanied by an outbuilding, also from Leven, and a thatched barn, from Battlescale. Again contrast paints on these with a wash and drybrush where appropriate.

 

The final piece is a resin  medieval castle in 2mm scale from Brigade Models. A simple paintjob with contrast paint and a drybrush. The drawbridge has obviously been removed in preparation for a siege! I was experimenting with AK Water Gel Swamp Green for the moat. Struggled a bit to get an even surface and a colour to my liking but the end result is reasonable.

 

So there you have it. As for scoring, the 10 15mm figures should get me 40 points, that’s easy. The terrain pieces are of course very small, and together take up only a fraction of a 6” (15cm) cube.  The castle is on a 10 cm round base, and allowing a generous 1 cm height all over would yield just under 80 cubic cm. The tower is about 5 cubic cm, the outbuilding too, the barn about 10, or in all about 100. That is about 3% of a  3375 cubic cm cube, or 0,6 point. Let’s make it one point. Perhaps a better way to score the terrain items would be to treat them as 6mm vehicles? In which case the four items would net me 8 points. However, I will of course settle for anything the minions would consider appropriate.

So ten 15mm cavalry and four tiny terrain items: 48 points?