From RichardM - Napoleonic French cavalry in 6mm (245.5 points)

This week started with an intention to get six French Dragoon regiments done to end the challenge.  Good progress on these saw me pull out two additional regiments - early French Carabiniers and then when Curt extended by a day I decided to push and add an additional two French Chasseur regiments.  Again these are all 6mm Adler Miniatures 

So I'll start with the six French Dragoon regiments.

A random three dragoon regiments from the side

There were a random 11 foot dragoon figures so I did these while I had the colours out.

I already have the later French Carabiniers but wanted to add the early ones given how different their uniform was - so two early French Carabinier regiments.

And lastly two French Chasseur regiments.

Points

10 regiments of French cavalry so 240 figures @ 1 point each = 240 points

11 French Foot Dragoons foot figures  @ 0.5 points each = 5.5 points

Total = 245.5 points

From Millsy:

Six dragoon regiments in one go is something else. One of the joys of this scale is the ability to do proper cavalry divisions and what a sight they make! And then you added a few more regiments for good measure! Lovely work mate, and probably my favourite of your Naps apart from the Confederation of the Rhine.

What a way to close out your Challenge. This takes you past 2000 points so well done indeed.

Cheers,

Millsy

From MartijnN: The last post (The Inconstant, The Ambitious) (137 points)

Phew. Managed to get my 6mm cavalry and artillery done just in time. So here are my last figures for Challenge XV:

These are five bases for my Blucher French force. There is a brigade each of dragoons, cuirassiers and chasseurs a cheval, and a both a foot artillery and a horse artillery battery.

Horse artillery and foot artillery

A brigade of Chasseurs a Cheval

Cuirassiers and Dragoons

They are all Baccus miniatures.

There was one Circle of Hell left to visit, Treachery. I had a great idea to paint up a 6mm figure representing the Count De Bourmont, a French Géneral de Division commanding the 14th division, who deserted to the Allies on the morning of the 15th of June, 1815. However, I also had an idea for the first two Spheres of Paradise, so I had to get my priorities right. Having done enough Circles, Paradise was in reach!

So, for the Inconstant and The Ambitious, as must surely be a shock for anyone who followed me along during this Challenge, I have painted two Iain Lovecraft figures. Here is the wobbly old King, representing the Inconstant, and his just a little too eager son, the Crown Prince, representing the Ambitious:

As you can see, the old King likes his liquor a little too much, and his crown is tottering as a result. I will leave it up to you to decide if he is either eagerly reaching for or desperately rejecting the cup his son, who thinks he has been waiting for the Throne quite long enough, is offering him."Come on, dad, one more won't hurt, right?".

They are 3d printed figures. I really love these Lovecraft figures, they are so full of character. I will probably never find any use for them, but they are fun to paint!

And I also painted a log cabin. No points, just for show (and hopefully help persuade Curt to let terrain back in next Challenge 😉). It is a very bad photo, it is a lot more colourful in real life. Very simple paintjob, but I am pleased with it:

So I made it to Paradise in the end. Scoring is easy I guess:

66 6mm cavalry @1 = 66

7 6mm guns @1 = 7

28x 6mm foot @0.5= 14

2x 28mm foot @5= 10

2 Challenge locations = 40

For a total of 137 points. 

Thanks for looking. I'll leave the formal thanksgiving for the wrap-up post, but thank you all for the support and the encouraging comments. I am already looking forward to Challenge XVI!

Martijn 

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What a lovely last post Martijn! I particularly like your Napoleonic French Horse Artillery, but have to laugh and admire your Inconstant and Ambitious. You've been a great booster of Lovecraft's miniatures and these two are worthy additions to your collection. The cabin looks very nice and cozy. Who knows, perhaps my heart (or head) will soften to terrain for next year. :) 

Last but not least, thank you so very much for serving as our Friday Minion. Your comments and support were well received and I very much enjoyed your grand tour of brews and spirits that can be found in the Low Countries. I hope we can imbibe a few in a future visit (along with a rousing rematch of SAGA)!

- Curt

From MartijnN: More Saracens, entering Hell, and some pointless buildings (Limbo, Gluttony, Lust)(159 points)

I have worked some more on my Saracen starter for Saga. Gripping Beast metals again. First up is the warlord, a really nice figure:

Being utterly unimaginative, I painted him up per the box art. Next, I painted a small unit of four bowmen hearthguard:

That leaves me with just one unit of mounted bowmen warriors to paint. Should be possible ;-)

Then, it seems time to finally enter the Circles of Hell. Or else I might never reach my target!

First, Limbo. These 6mm French Napoleonic figures from Baccus have sat on my painting desk for ages. They are not difficult to paint, but that's maybe why I keep putting it off. Anyway, they are my perfect entry into Limbo:

They are based for Blücher, the Sam Mustafa ruleset for big battle Napoleonics.

Next circle is Gluttony. I painted this serving girl carrying a large tray laden with food and drink. A great meal for a glutton!

She is a 3D printed figure designed by Iain Lovecraft.

Cher was famously "born in the wagon of a travelling show, my mother would dance for the money they throw". Next up are two gipsy dancers, again 3D printed figures by Iain Lovecraft. I think these seductive ladies are a good entry for Lust.

Finally, another figure that languished on my painting desk for a long time. Alas, it is not very fitting for the next Circle, but I decided to paint him up anyway. Once again a 3D printed Iain Lovecraft figure.

He does hide a nasty surprise behind his back. Perhaps he is a Witcher?

Finally, not for points, some 15mm ACW buildings. I have had these for at least 25 years, so it was about time to paint them. Yes, I know, it is a perfect waste of valuable Challenge painting time, but I wanted to try out a recipe for painting wood by Stuart from the Miniature Realms YouTube Channel.

I need to keep working on this technique, which wet blends grey, green and brown speedpaints, for I would like a more greyish look. Still, I think they look okay.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Scores:

5 28mm mounted @10 = 50

4 28mm foot @5 = 20

58 6mm @0.5 = 29

Limbo, Gluttony, Lust = 60

For a total of 159 points. And a 6mm squirrel.

All of which should enable me to still reach my target by the end of the Challenge...

It you stayed with me to this point, thanks for looking and keep up the good work!

Martijn

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Hello!

Great paint job on the Iain Lovecraft figures! And well done on passing through Limbo, Glutoony and Lust/

I'm very much looking forward to seeing you catch and beat your Challenge target  :)

- Sarah

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 IanS: 6mm French Napoleonic Division (275 points)

Hi,

This post was delayed from last week as I had an incident with a cat who broke one of the battalions. Although some figures were broken I was eventually able to piece them together. Just in case I painted up another battalion but am saving this for another Division later in the Challenge. So here we are again and another French Napoleonic Division, this time its the 6th Division belonging to the 2nd Corps 1812. As with the last Division this is a two brigade organisation with supporting artillery. Again all figures are from Commission Figurines and are MDF. First up is the Division conmander Legrand, fine fellow.

1st Brigade consists of the 26th Light Infantry and 56th Line Regiments, two battalions of 60 figures each. In addition there are 2 skirmish stands.

 

2nd Brigade consists of the 19th Line Regiment of 2 Battalions,  the 128th Regiment of just one battalion, and then the brown coated 3rd Portuguese Regiment, again only one battalion. With an attached skirmish stand split 50:50 between the French and Portuguese. The French regiments are in greatcoat as somehow I have mislaid the figures. Come to think of it I still have not found 2 of the Christmas presents I got from my daughter. First Photo is the three French battalions in greatcoat followed by the Portuguese: 

Last Up is the Artillery a battery of 8pdrs

.

Now here is the Division:

There is another Infantry Division in the 2nd Corps but I have already painted this, so next up is the cavalry element and corps artillery.

Points Being Claimed:

500 6mm Infantry figures at 0.5 pts each - 250pts 

24 6mm Artillery figures at 0.5 pts each - 12pts 

6 6mm Guns at 1pts each - 6pts  

7 6mm mounted figures at 1pt each - 7pts 

Total Pts - 275pts

More 6mm Napoleonic goodies, yes! As before, these look so good in their masses, Ian. I really love it that you went for 60 man battalions, very impressive. Also, I like the Portuguese, so seldom encountered outside of the Peninsular theatre. I am looking forward to the cavalry! 275 points added to your total.