The Gilded Staff.

Whilst my wargaming room is in a somewhat disheveled state I thought I would post some pictures of my Austrian Generals which I have got finished . I rarely put my General figures on multi figure bases but I thought Arch Duke Charles deserved his staff with him (this photo is a bit fuzzy my camera is acting up - or the fault lies with the operator).

An Austrian Brigadier and map, I really like the Austrian General uniform.

An Austrian Cavalry General , very dashing indeed . These figures are the last of my Austrian 28mm Napoleonic project needing painting - finished ! phew ! that has taken about 6 or 7 years to do , feeling pleased with myself at the moment (lots of other unfinished projects in the 'corner of shame' under my wargaming table though !).

Tidy, Tidy, Tidy.

No there has not been an explosion in my wargaming room nor has it been trashed by a robber ! , I'm in the process of re-organising it ! so everything is on the table at the moment - and that photo is after half the stuff has been moved ! .

All the figures will be under the table in box files - with labels ! - drat ! - run out of labels ! (and I could have stuck them on squarely as well ) . Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible ....

Painting Commision .

Have taken on a private painting commission which will take up most of my painting time in the next few weeks . I'm not to keen on painting other peoples figures as it's a bit like fostering - just get them ready to play with then somebody comes and takes them away ! . Another down side is they are 15mm figures - it's ages since I've painted this scale as I find them a bit of a pain . On the up side is they are 'Peter Pig' 15mm which are beautiful little figures and from his American War of Independence range , figures I have admired for a long time - so now I get to paint them . Once you have got into the swing of things I'm getting through them fairly fast , above is the 63rd Regiment of Foote in campaign dress as they will be portraying the later Southern campaign . Some Highlanders from the 71st are next - luckily NOT in kilts ! . The owner is going to do the basing and providing the flag .

The Dreaded Re-basing .

I was preening myself thinking I had almost finished off my Napoleonic collection when I get my final Austrians painted , then I remembered that my Bavarians were still on the old single bases . Overcome with guilt I thought it would be a worthy thing to get them re-based .

Having re-based the whole of my Austrian and French forces I have worked out the best method to remove the pennies that they were mounted on (they were going to be a single model Old School project , but I've decided to use 'Black Powder' rules instead) by fastening them in the vice and tapping CAREFULLY on the edge of the penny which loosens the glue and you can twist the figure off .

The figures de-based and only hit my finger once ! .

Gluing them onto the bases . The Bavarians in 1809 used a different regimental organisation to the French of four companies - so two bases per company , to the right my half eaten lunch not an nasty accident ! .

I also found a Austrian cavalry General which will get painted up when I have finish off my Austrian Infantry which are nearly completed .

A Converted Papal General

In my last post I mention about being short a General figure , The one mounted General I had was in full uniform - cocked hat etc and I wanted one in the more usual campaign dress . So I cut the top half off a officer on foot (pointing)and removed the mounted officers torso , drilled and pinned them together , there was meant to be a gap - but not that big ! .

The resultant waste bits - will go into my box of metal to be used for home casting.

I decided to mount him on his horse before I started filling in the gap .

I then made up some 'Green Stuff' and filled in his mid drift and gave him a frock coat , waist sash and modelled his left arm , I had lots of 'Green Stuff' left as I always mix to much up !.

Then I undercoated him and the following day painted him up and put him on a base  .

Here he is in charge of his Brigade , half of which has retreated (a fine start to his career !) , but hopefully the Papal Zouaves will save the day ! .

A General Short Of A Battle.

I thought I would try out my finished Piedmontese army of 1860 and fight the Papal army using 'Black Powder' rules . I diced for the starting positions of the various Brigades and placed them onto the table - here we see a couple of Piedmontese Brigades moving up in column (note the not entirely successful attempt at 'photo shopping' dust clouds).

The next Piedmontese Brigade comes onto the table , Lancers and Bersaglieri this time.

The Papal Line Infantry move down the road (there's that dodgy 'photo shop' again).

Things were going well and I was getting into the battle when the time came to deploy the last Papal Brigade of two Infantry units - and I couldn't find a Brigadier to go with them !? , I searched through my other Italian Wars of Unification boxes to see if he had been misplaced but couldn't find one anywhere ? . Then I started to remember that I was aware of this shortage but had inadvertently ordered the wrong figure ! "DRAT ! " . I searched in my bits box and found the wrongly ordered figure and horse and a Officer on foot , I thought - 'I wonder if I can convert the foot figure into a mounted one ?'. Now it's easy enough to convert plastic figures but metal ones ?! , so it was with some hesitancy I picked up my razor saw ............. (to be continued)

Getting There And Camera Problems.

Sorry for the very poor photo but I'm having problems downloading photos from my camera - suddenly my computer doesn't seem to want to do it (Grr ! bloody technology !) so I have resorted to my phone and Emailing it to my computer , unfortunately my phone has a poor camera . My gut feeling is to take the camera/computer outside and 'repair' it with a BIG hammer ! . On a happier note I've got over half of the Austrians done and as a treat I did one of the mounted General figures . Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible ..........

P.S. after fiddling around and finding it will not download photos from my wife's camera as well, I found I can download the contents of the camera 'sim' card plugged into the computer ! so this will do for now . I Googled about this issue and the consensus of opinion is that it is Windows 10's problem (as seems half the ills in the world).

Better - but the evening light streaming in behind it don't help ! .