Cuirassiers Day Four

I skipped doing any painting on Friday evening because I was feeling wiped out. Instead I had a good session yesterday, which saw me finish painting them and getting them varnished. So, that was Day Three. For Day Four all I've done is take them off the painting sticks and glue them onto their bases.

As you seem to like WIP pics, here's a few of them now that they're stuck onto their bases:

These are the Kazanskiy and Novotroitskiy regiments, which were converted to cuirassiers from dragoons. Although it isn't known exactly when they were issued with cuirassier uniforms and equipment I ended up painting them to show that they had. For a while I had toyed with the idea of painting them both with a mix of cuirassier and dragoon uniforms and equipment but abandoned that idea for simplicity.

Both regiments had the same flags, so to help with identification you will notice that I have placed the ensigns on different sides of the command base. To further help I've also done this:

I'm going to be doing this for all the Russians, which does mean a little bit of work is going to be required.

With these done, I've just got the six generals to paint which should be a fairly quick job, then I can do the basing for all of this batch, hopefully before next weekend.

Cuirassiers Day Two

It's Day Two because I didn't do any work on them last night! I've made good progress this evening to make up for that and I reckon I could finish painting them tomorrow evening if all goes well, but more likely on Saturday. That will leave me with just six commander figures to paint up to complete this batch of SYW Russians.

So, a couple of pics:

That's all for now folks!

Cuirassiers Day 1

With the hussars done (Huzzah!) my next batch of figures are the cuirassiers, another 18 cavalry. These will be the Kazanskiy and Novotroitskiy regiments. I made a start on them this evening, getting three base colours down.

As you can see from the pics, I'm not too worried about being a bit sloppy at this stage as all the colours will get used again, allowing me to do any necessary touch ups as I go.


"Weren't you in a wargames tournament on Sunday? How did it go? Any pics?"

You don't really want to know about that.

"Yes we do!"

I'm sure you don't really...

"WE DO!"

Well, if you insist...

1. I was
2. I didn't finish in the top 11
3. A few

There, will that do you?

"NO!"

Crap. OK then.

Sunday saw me getting up very early in order to set out very early to catch the first tube train out to West London for my lift to the tournament. Of course, in my bleary state after getting up so early, I reset my alarm clock ready for Monday. And switched it to "on". I only realised that when I was on the tube and it must have been going off at home. Apologies to my neighbours.

Anyway, I got to West London and was picked up by the Madaxeman (he of the blog and website). We then wended our way into the wilds beyond London towards Leighton Buzzard. We got there in reasonable time for the 9am start.

I should explain my cunning plan. With the restrictions on how many cavalry I could take and by the army list for Koreans I had two real choices - go for as many good troops as I could and have a smaller army or go for as many lower quality troops as possible. I opted for the latter and had a 19 BG army. Mostly in 8s and 10s. Which meant a whole lot of figures (and a correspondingly heavy bag to lug across London). What might have helped me out was actually sitting down and working out what was the most effective way to use and deploy them before going there. After all, 19 battle groups (almost all infantry, almost all 8s and 10s) takes up a lot of space.

My first game was against Keith who had brought Beninese with Dutch allies. I forgot to take pics of this game and made a complete hash of my deployment. Still, I got into combat reasonably quickly but kept having crap dice rolls (a lot of them would have been very good if the troops hadn't been Poor and having to reroll 6s!). I lost 12 points out of 19; Keith lost 2 points from 15, giving a final score of 5-15.

A short break, then onto the second game against Tom's Samurai - a historical match-up. For this game I made an incomplete hash of my deployment, which took a while to recover from (not aided by me co**ing up the sequence for moving units). Here are some pics:

Once again I was plagued with bad dice rolls (apart from that last pic - fragged Poor foot, down in melee against Elite steady Samurai cavalry managing to win 2:1 and disrupt them - the next round of melee didn't go quite so well...).

I lost 15 points from 19, Tom lost 0 from 13, giving a 3-17 loss for me. A fairly historical result for a historical match-up.


For the third game I was drawn against Dene's Mughals. Another big army, although not quite as large as mine (18 vs 19). My deployment wasn't quite such a hash this time, but still not brilliant. Some pics:

I forgot to take any more pics as the game got quite busy with both of us having so many units. The end result was me losing 11 points from 19 and Dene losing 0 from 18, giving another 5-15 loss for me.


You may have guessed from my earlier comment about not finishing in the top 11 that there might have only been 12 players. You will be pleased to know that your guess was right. Still, I had a long but enjoyable day of gaming.


So, how should I have deployed my troops for best effect? Well, I should have had all my "warrior" troops (the monks and Righteous Army) in the front rank as they were my best infantry, using the "poor" foot for rear support and to guard my flanks and rear. I should also have used the 10-pack conscript foot units ahead of the regular infantry as they could absorb more hits before auto-breaking. And perhaps have sent some of my troops on a flank march making it a bit easier to deploy in the central 4ft that infantry can be in. Oh, and not to have tried for as many crap troops as possible! My one big regret was that my arquebus units never actually managed to get into shooting range in any of the three games, so I might have been better off not taking them and opting for a 1593 list rather than 1598.

Hussars Done!

I succeeded in finishing the hussars today. Well, the painting, varnishing and sticking onto bases at any rate. I'll do the basing gunk stuff along with the cuirassiers and commanders when they're all painted.

So, some pics to keep you going:

Tomorrow will be a very early start to get across London for a lift to Leighton Buzzard for a FoGR match. My Koreans are getting a much needed run out over 3 games. It should be interesting as I don't think I've used them for FoGR before. Also because the list I've come up with is a bit bonkers. Or maybe genius. Probably bonkers.

Fiddly Progress

It's Friday and I didn't want to do a lot of painting. Last night I got the brown and black washes done. So tonight I decided to do the fiddly black stuff - jacket lace, swords, leather belts, carbine metalwork, scabbards and the border on the shabraques. Of course, looking at the pics I took, I spotted that I'd missed the border on one side for one horse. I've just gone back and painted it.

I've got a lot of areas to go back and touch up before the next steps, but that was inevitable. Tomorrow should see me finish the painting if all goes well.

Hussar! Decent Progress Today

I'm definitely feeling much better today and have made decent progress on the - as you may have guessed from the post title - hussars this evening.

So, some WIP pics:

I probably won't finish painting them tomorrow as I've got lots of fiddly details still to do. they should be finished on Saturday, but I won't be able to do the basing until next week. Mind you, I may hold off on basing until I've finished painting the cuirassiers and commanders and do them all as one big batch.

Slow Progress

Yup, progress on the Russian cavalry has been slow, mostly because I've gone down with a stinker of a cold. Luckily it seems to have broken now and I'm over the worst of it, but it has meant I haven't been able to do as much painting as I'd have liked the last two days.

This evening I spotted that the Army Painter wash on the NSL hover vehicles had dried to white in some places. So, out with some brown wash to stain those spots.

I then cracked on with the horses. First job was to do the white markings, then to paint the bases. Once that was done I had to take a break. I've since done the fiddly job of painting the horse tack. That puts me in position to break them into groups for painting the rest of the figure.

Pics of them as they are now:

I'll be working on the hussars first - they will be painted as the Serbskiy and Vengerskiy regiments. Just because.