From SamuliS: Saxon Light Infantry (210 points)

After painting a bunch of rats I got back on track with a project that I started during the sixth edition of the Painting Challenge, the whole Saxon Corps for the 1813 campaign in Germany. I'd originally planned to have the whole Corps painted up by the autumn of 2016 when we were going to start our campaign, but life has a curious way of disturbing even the best plans. One gaming companion got deployed overseas while another moved to the states for a little over a year so our Napoleonic gaming got put on hold for a while. That coupled with my general lack of painting mojo lead to the whole project being tucked away in a storage box for a while. With the 205 year anniversary of the campaign coming up and the whole crew back in the same country we are finally moving on with the campaign so it was high time I dug up my Napoleonics project box and got painting.

Until now I've done a bit over half the Line infantry as well as heavy cavalry and artillery. To be honest painting all that white on the infantry is bit of a drag so I figured the next in line should be something at least a bit different. Luckily the Saxon's outfitted their light infantry with green uniform and equipment that had black leather straps! I can say that this was pure joy compared to the white uniforms with white strapping that all the line infantry and grenadiers had for the Saxons. Considering that I really don't like painting white, I still don't really understand how I ended up deciding to paint a whole Corps of them.

AB minis as are all of my other Saxons (nobody else seems to make them at this scale). Great sculpts, but they are hindered a bit by the fact that there are only 3 different poses for them. Luckily it's not too bad as they were mostly used in a skirmishing role so I just based them two minis to a base instead of my normal three. Spread out a bit on the table it shouldn't look too bad. I also had 4 minis left over as I hadn't taken into account officers in the units, but as we are using small dice as tokens to indicate different fatigue levels and other effects in game they offered a great way to spice up my dice trays for the units. 

The two great coat wearing officers have a small conversion on their shako. They normally had small pompoms, but I thought they would look a bit funny with everyone else having a tall plume so I quickly rolled some suitable plume shaped rolls from green stuff. They ended up a bit too tall, but from a distance look quite nice.

Painting wise I cheated a bit compared to how I normally paint my 15mm Napoleonics. For all the brighter colours I've tended to paint all the colours, add a dark brown or black wash and then highlight the minis, but with these guys I just skipped the whole highlight step and left them at it. The only addition I did was the red piping on their uniforms to make them stand out a bit.

All in all there are 52 15/18mm infantry. In the previous editions of the challenge AB Napoleonics have been counted as 20mm minis as they are way oversize for the scale they are supposed to be. Going with that ruling these should give me 208 points and get me back on track on reaching my goal of 1000 points.

Artist: Amon Amarth



Album: Jomsviking

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Painting the whole Saxon Corps for the 1813 campaign in Germany is definitely the sort of nonsense we love here at the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  It's monumental, immense, slightly insane and we love it all the more when you go and choose the white uniformed Saxons equipped with white strapping!!  Oh yes, a PERFECT project for Challenge VI, and VII and VIII.

And congratulations, Samuli, because despite the clear lunacy of such a plan, these AB Saxons are magnificent!  They're lovely, in every way.  You've done wonders with your paint-brush on their uniforms, shakos and plumes, and you've brought the (frankly) giant 18mm (...and then some...) AB figures to life.  Great work on the basing as well, which I confess I sometimes dash over on my 15mm troops.

I love the conversions you've done for the officers, removing those French-ified pompoms with Germanic plumes.  Quite right, Sir - it's a battlefield, not a fashion parade!!  

They're really excellent and I am very much hoping more of these units will grace the Challenge in the weeks to come.  A wonderfully well-deserved 208 points, with a point each for the conversions, bringing this submission's total to a round 210 points.  Great work!!