IainW: 28mm Napoleonic Austrian cuirassier regiment no 6 Mack and some other bits and bobs( 220 points)

These are cuirassier regiment no 5 Mack, assembled from the Perry plastic kit, nice to put together and I'm pretty happy with the white and how the unit has come out overall, found an expensive liquatex artists acrylic with masses of pigment in the shed and tried that, when I am priming Austrians next I'll do it in white as I  have followed David's advice and bought some contrast paints, but as I have a ton in black and grey, I'll stick to my new white for a bit!

I like cavalry as I just bash out the horses rapidly, in addition I have  finished three mounted Austrian commanders ,metal figures this time, also from Perry. 

Two six pounders for the Austrians,  Perry metal once more, nice but two of the figures were missing their noses!

Easier as there is less white! I  rather like their business like uniforms and old school bicornes!

Finally four casualty markers for my French infantry, Perry plastic from their heavy cavalry sets. The blue is a bit too light but they'll do!

So to points, 15 x 28mm cavalry is 150, 2 crew served weapons with four crew each is 60 and 4 x prone figures is 10 points, giving me a total of 220 toward my total and the Napoleonic duel, once added to my running total that will take me to my target with, what, at least some hours left?!

All the best Iain 

_________________________________________

Oh, more Napoleonics, what a treat! These Austrians look terrific Iain, even the nose-challenged artillerists are spiffing. I quite like the high-contrast, punchy, stark white against the red of the horse furniture and facings - very sharp. I also admire the hardscrabble groundwork you've used for this collection. It looks like they could be deployed in Northern Italy. Great work!

Thank you for participating again this season, Iain. I always appreciate, as do others, your encouraging comments in so many of the posts. Thanks again.

- Curt

  

AlanD - Something different.... (48 points)

The release of the second edition of Sam Mustafa's Lasalle rules has had me digging out my stockpiles of 6mm Napoleonic figures. I think massive Napoleonic games in 6mm are a bit of a Holy Grail for me. I've never really found rules that make me think it's work painting A LOT of tiny figures, but I needed a break from painting Dacians, so thought I'd do a unit of little Austrians with shakos from the 1814 campaign as a test. 

I do quite like painting 6mm. Once you get the hang of it it's quite meditative, and often I've found myself gently levitating while painting belt straps. Well maybe not, but I do find I can get into a good routine with them. The figures are from Baccus, and there are 96 of them, so 48 points worth.

Feel free to suggest your favourite rules for using these below! 

From Grahame H. 15mm Austrian 1866

 My plan for this years challenge was to paint a 15mm 1866 Austrian Army. Given the limited size of my table, 6’x4’, I decided, unlike my other armies, to be sensible and paint an army that might actually fit on the table. So I decided to painted 12 infantry battalion, 3 cavalry regiments and 2 gun batteries. 

What I didn’t think I would do was paint it within the first month. 

All the figures are 15mm Essex, so rather than show you every unit, and avoid duplication, I have just taken some pictures that show the various units.

First the infantry battalions. There are 12 of theses, each with 32 figures. Every 3 battalions makes a regiments. The only real difference is a small coloured patch on the collars so I have only shown one regiment with its 9 figure jäger attachment and its 2 commanders. 

Next are the cavalry. 3 regiments each of 18 figures. 

1st Uhlan

1st Hussars

2nd Hussars 

The artillery. Two batteries each with 3 guns and a limber. I only have one limber per battery as they are so expensive for what the actually do during a game and Essex don’t make an Austrian limber so I had to do some head swaps on some Prussian one.

Finally the CinC. I have painted a brigade general for each of the regiments in case I want to use a regiment as a brigade and fight some larger battles. 

So that is it. An army in a month and it only cost me a case of tennis elbow and a sore neck. It also seems I need to clean my cutting mat. 

I don’t think I’ll add any more to it (yeah right), well not during the challenge. I am now just finishing off my Prussian FPW army, which is a lot larger than this one. I may post some photos of these later as I only have the basing to do.

Points.

Line Infantry  (384) 768 points

Cavalry (54) 216

Jäger (36) 72

Artillery two batteries 120

Generals (15) 60

Total 1236

From GregB: 28mm Austrian Grenzers for the Seven Years War (40 points)

"This way, lads!" Austrian Grenzers for the Seven Years War - 28mm figures from Front Rank.

And now something...well, not completely different, but just...a bit different, a slight adjustment to the control dials of historical periods.  These are Austrian Grenzers from the Seven Years War. The castings are 28mm metal figures from Front Rank.

Lovely reds and greens...the Christmas skirmishers!

The Seven Years War is another one of those long-simmering-but-never-boiling gaming interests of mine.  I do love gaming the Austrian side in just about any conflict, and my real heart-and-soul Austrian interests have been found in the Napoleonic wars. I have a small-but-healthy collection of Napoleonic Austrians, and have played some wonderful games with Curt and the crew over the years.  Curt was the one who pointed me in the direction of the Austrians when I we first got to know each other and I was just getting interested in Napoleonic gaming.  Of course I was hooked, and this has just increased over time. I love Austrians!

Love the animation of that officer...he looks ready to jump right into action...

Ah, the lovely long hair, tied with a black ribbon...

Following this into the Seven Years War seems(ed) like a natural step. The Austrians were a major participant in the wars, still wore cool white uniforms and had very cool-looking units. But I haven't yet dived in...I have done all of the preliminary things that help one get set up for a new period - like amassing a considerable amount of supporting info on the uniforms etc.  But I haven't yet tackled the painting part of it...in fact, my Austrian Seven Years War collection in 28mm so far amounts to a single unit! But hey...you know...you have to start somewhere, right?

Another view showing the kit, canteen, blanket roll and sword.

Anyway, I found these Grenzers while rummaging around in my pile of shame last week.  Inhabitants of the "grenz" - the border areas between the Austrian and Ottoman Empires - the Grenzers were fierce fighters and fine light infantry/skirmish troops, a nice dash of violent flexibility for a military establishment which was otherwise quite hidebound.

These poor figures have been sitting in there, primed, since 2013. That's six years ago! Yikes! I saw them and I thought it would be fun to just knock them off.  After all, the Grenzers wore some pretty fun colours in the Seven Years War period. Why not crack open the paints and enjoy! I flipped through some handy Osprey colour references, and came across the Carlstadt Liccaner Grenz. Red! Cool! Off we went! 

Ready for some skirmishing...

The figures are from Front Rank. I have not painted a lot of Front Rank figures, but wow, I really like them.  They are hefty, "well-fed" and have a certain character to the sculpting and posing that I just love.  And they are so fun to paint!  These guys were a treat.

These are based individually so as to represent a skirmishing formation for rules such as "Black Powder".  Grenzers always seem to be skirmishing, so I thought this approach most appropriate.

These eight different 28mm figures should get me another 40 points - my goal is getting even closer! And wow, this is now, technically speaking, a second unit for my Austrian Seven Years War collection...hey - progress is progress, right?

_____________________________________________

Grenzers have always been among my favorite units. They add a splash of color to the forces of the Empress-Queen in any period, but especially during the WAS and SYW. Give those vile Prussians of Freddy-the-Not-So-Great a right royal thrashing!

Though, given the French subsidies to the Austrians make these pseudo-French, we won't hold that against Greg.

40 points of sartorial elegance, sir!

From SanderS - Vorwärts! (140 points?)

Hoi,

A serious case of the flu and work kept me from posting last week and pretty much from painting as well. But last weekend saw me put that right. So here are two totally different types of units I would like to show you guys.

First up is a model that has been awaiting painting for nigh on 10 years! It's my all metal Old Skool Dark Angels Dreadnaught. I have started painting it, stripped it and restarted about 4 times over the years and now what with the boy being all into Space Marines I decided that he would have to be done this Challenge. So here he is.

Next up some figures that are really special to me because of several reasons. So what figures are they? Well 7YW Austrians in 20mm or 1:72 scale from HäT. These will be available in HäT's MAC format i.e. Marching, Action and Command sets, here you can see figures of all 3 different boxes combined. This is due to the fact that these are "test-shots" meaning: pre-production test runs of the figures. I am lucky enough to have a long-standing close working relation with the HäT company and sometimes test shots find their way over to me.

Them being testshots makes them special, but they are also special for a reason I am not yet allowed to disclose but it's also the reason they do not have a colour yet since I want to rework a standard Austrian colour for that.  Well enough of the shady talk, I have painted them up as the Infanterie Regiment 30, Sachsen-Gotha. This was a regiment formed of citizens of the Austrian Netherlands which encompassed the region where I now live. As an aside note, my wife and myself got married under the watchful gaze of Empress Maria Theresia herself hanging from the city hall wall. Anyway here are some more pictures.

Now, where does this leave me points-wise? Not sure what amount of points the Dread will be: technically I guess it's a 28mm vehicle so 20 points? But I would understand Lee giving me 15. There are 29 figures in 20mm so that would be 116 points so say 131 points?

---

Ooo very nice. I love the oldskool Dreadnought, I reckon it was worth the false starts because this time you've hit the bullseye. I'm counting this as a vehicle so you get 20 points for this. The 7YW Austrians are very nice but I think you've cut yourself short on points because you have 28 foot and one mounted figure earning you 120 points, adding up to a solid 140 points for todays entry. Nicely done sir. 

Lee