28mm Bavarian Napoleonic Artillery

These are five Bavarian artillery batteries based up for Napoleon's Rules of War or Electronic Brigadier. I purchased three of these guns and all of the gunners pre-painted from a seller on Ebay. Since there were many more crew than I needed for three batteries, I printed up two additional French 8lb Gribeuval cannons from my own STL files (available for free on Thingaverse).

These figures are the last of my current batch of Napoleonics re-basing. They include 14 purchased painted figures/guns and two 3-D printed and painted by me guns. Definitely a mixed bag!

This photo, a close up photo of the 3-D printed guns made from my own designed STL files. They're nothing super fancy, but serviceable on the tabletop and I've given the files away free for non-commercial use. I hope you get some use out of them!

Even MORE Napoleonic Re-Basing

Here's the other group of Napoleonics that I promised to post earlier this month. These are another two groups that I picked up on Ebay already painted. I just needed to re-base them to fit my favorite rule sets, Napoleon's Rules of War and Electronic Brigadier. 

These very nicely painted Bavarian jagers will represent a small two-battalion regiment of light infantry.

These Austrian line infantry are quite sharp with their purple facings. That's the primary reason I picked them up. I didn't really NEED another large three-battalion regiment, but the purple facings sold me on grabbing this unit. Also it was a good value for the quality of the paint job.

Further losing pace on my purchased vs. self-painted figures. These represent another 56 figures in the purchased column.

More Napoleonic Re-Basing

 This group of Prussian regular line infantry is the most recent addition to my Prussian Napoleonic army for Electronic Brigadier and Napoleon's Rules of War. I purchased them on Ebay along with some other figures that will be the subject of future figure re-basing posts. 

These are plastic figures, probably either Warlord or Perry. I can't figure out which as I'm not much of a plastic figure aficionado. They're painted to a good wargaming standard and based up into two medium-sized and one large battalion. I was excited with this group as it also included a mounted officer and a foot battery.

Not much else to say. This adds 77 figures to my 'purchased 28mm figures' totals for the year. It looks like I'll be upside down again this year on painted vs. purchased figures. Keep an eye out on this blog, as there will be a considerable bit of figures that I did paint myself posted soon.

28mm Macedonian Pike re-based

Just a quick post of 24 Macedonians with sarissa (pike) that I bought off of ebay, touched up and re-based for Clash of Spears. 

24 figures purchased, 24 figures re-based on my annual totals.
 

 

 

 

Roman Re-Basing Project

I recently purchased the figures shown to the left from several Ebay auctions from a single seller. I was looking for a quick start on a Roman army for Saga and Clash of Spears. These figures were well loved, but arrived in good condition, although I wanted to re-base them on circular 25mm bases to be consistent with my other Saga and Clash of Spears figures. Due to transit damage and just normal wear-and-tear, nearly all of the figures had some touch-ups needed to bring them back up to snuff for tabletop use.

First up I tackled the allies. This unit of six Samnite figures also required I hand-paint one shield which was missing, lost in transit I believe. This is a unit for Clash of Spears, or a partial unit for Saga to be combined with figures in the below two units as 'warriors' in eight-figure units.

A second unit of allies, these are Italiotes, Etruscians, Campagnians, etc. A single unit of Warriors for Saga, or a large unit for Clash of Spears.

This unit, a mix of 'allied legion' Italiotes. A full unit for Clash of Spears, combined with Samanites above to complete a unit of eight warriors for Saga.

A unit of Triarii with white shields. Just under two units of hearthguards for Saga, or a large unit for Clash of Spears.

A group of red-shielded Triarii. This would make two and a half hearthguard units in Saga or likely two units in Clash of Spears.

The two mounted figures in this photo I've posted earlier. The four stands of foot officers can be used as warlord figures for Saga or officer figures for Clash of Spears. Clash uses single figures for officers, but the multi-figure bases take the guesswork out of knowing which is the officer and look better in my opinion. For game purposes each base will count as a single figure.

These were thrown in for free in the deal. They look more like Macedonians than Roman allies. Let's call them captured soldiers from Pyrrhus' army pressed into Roman service. They might serve as stand-ins for more Velites or even as filler for an allied legion unit.

Two very lonely Velites. I'll paint up some more from my unpainted lead collection to flesh this unit out.

The bulk of the Hastati and Principes, 15 with white tunics and red shields, 12 with red tunics and red shields, an officer, musician and an odd Triarii that got missed in the lot above. 

Here's a group shot of the above as well as previously posted ancient units for Saga.

Group shot of the bulk of the Roman infantry and officers. 

Project totals: 87 figures re-based, 87 28mm painted figures purchased.

15mm WWII Americans for 'O' Group

I purchased these figures on Ebay recently to complete my US infantry for 'O' Group.  My collection is primarily based, and was originally intended for Flames of War. In Flames of War a US platoon is the force shown: seven infantry stands and a small base bazooka team. For 'O' group this is two three-stand platoons, an extra infantry team and a bazooka support section, usually deployed in two or three section teams. 

 

These came fairly well painted. I did some touch-ups due to damage in shipping, added some additional details to the helmets and webbing and gave the bases a spruce up with static grass to hide some questionable basing choices. 

 

 

I'll count these only as 'purchased 15mm figures'. The touch-up work wasn't significant enough to warrant credit on my annual totals. 

28mm Napoleonic Bavarians Re-Based

These are 56 Bavarian Napoleonic infantry and four mounted officers that I've recently re-based for use with either my Electronic Brigadier rules or my friend Charlie's rules, Napoleon's Rules of War. I purchased all of these on Ebay recently with the exception of two of the officers in bicornes which came with some other figures I bought and re-based years ago.  I'll count this as 32 stands re-based in my annual totals.

15mm WWII Recent Acquisitions

 I'm still fleshing out my 15mm American WWII force for Blitzkrieg Commander 4. Here you see some recent purchases. These include some American Ranger infantry and heavy weapons, two M-16 Motor gun carriage halftracks, five Shermans and four German Stug assault guns.

These figures took a real beating in shipping. The infantry probably was the best off with only a gun here or there broken off. I did some touch up painting on some of the heavy weapons and added grass flock to the barren brown bases. This was a planned 'to-do' when I bought them. My intention was to get them to more closely match my other American infantry.

The Rangers came complete with bazooka teams, command, 80mm mortars and .30-cal air-cooled MG teams. A nice complete force.

The M-16 motor gun carriage halftracks took the most damage of any of the vehicles. Both gun assemblies including crew were broken off. Fenders were irreparably broken and there was chipped paint everywhere. I repaired and re-painted what I could and left the irreparable portions broken and painted them up as bare metal 'battle damage'. The save makes them tabletop ready. Nothing to be super proud of, but serviceable.

 

The Sherman tanks are well painted. Three had their barrels broken off in shipping. I glued then back on and that was about it.

The Stug III tanks were by far the most well painted. Three of the four barrels were broken. Two at the 'snout' and one mid barrel. The former were relatively easy to repair with minimal visual impact. The latter, not so much. I did my best. 

These Stugs pretty much finish up my German force for Blitzkrieg commander.

My entire American force in 15mm.

Eastern Princes Hearthguards, Bannerman and Warlords

Eight hearthguard cavalry, two warlords and a bannerman for my Saga Eastern princes force. I've been running larger multi-player games using simplified battle boards lately. I call it 'simple Saga'. I picked these figures up on Ebay to bolster my Eastern Princes force.

These came mounted in two and three figure bases so I had to remove them all from their original bases and re-base for Saga. The figures got hit HARD in shipping. One horse was snapped off at the ankles. Most of the spears were broken off the figures, two riders were dislodged. I replaced all of the spears that were knocked off with steel wire spears. I repaired all of the other damage as well, the most challenging of which was repairing the horse that was snapped off at the ankles. I can say you probably cannot tell which one it was, so I think I did a passable job at that. 

These well-loved figures also needed a LOT of paint touch-ups including re-doing many hands due to the replacement of the spears. Still a good addition to my force at a decent price. I will be counting this as 11 stands re-based in my painting totals for the year. Re-basing always includes some repairs and touch-ups.

28mm French Napoleonic Infantry From Ebay

This is a collection of three separate units of 28mm French Napoleonic infantry that I purchased from three separate Ebay auctions. This post could also be titled, "the good, the bad and the ugly", or "caveat emptor". More about that below.

This first unit in greatcoats I purchased about 15 months ago just as I was moving into my new home. They are the 'good' part of the story. They were based individually for Sharpe's Practice or some similar skirmish rule set. The figures are mostly plastic figures and were well painted and arrived well packaged and in good shape. All I had to do was re-base for my preferred basing, and do some minor touch-ups and a little bit of washing to give the great coats better shading. A nice unit for a good value.

These two units were purchased from the same seller on Ebay. While I usually consider myself a savvy Ebay purchaser, I definitely did not review the photos of these figures carefully enough. They were only partially painted. Many of the details on the rear of the figures were still in white primer: cartridge boxes, bayonet scabbards, canteens, powder flasks, packs, etc. Also most of the minor straps and pack straps were unpainted. The backs of the figures were in short - an incomplete mess. This is the bad.

The figures were plastic, and packaged four to a small bubble-wrapped pouch. These pouches for 48 figures were over-stuffed into a USPS Priority Mail small flat-rate box. While I cannot prove they were damaged when stuffed in, by the time I received them the figures were destroyed. To the left, a typical selection of four figures from a pouch. Every musket is broken, some in up to three places. Heads decapitated, ankles broken, pom-poms ripped off. Three of the 48 figures were a complete write-off. Many more ended up not having bayonets after repairing them. Of the 48 figures, only 13 had no major damage, of these 4 were lead figures that required some re-bending to straighten them out.

One I had completed the figure repairs using plastic cement, the re-painting, or in many cases the initial painting of everything began. I put another nine or ten hours into touch-ups, re-paints, painting details and finally putting some heavy washes on the figures to hide the myriad of sins. 

In the end, I have a couple of 'OK' units for my collection, not the 'very good' ones I had thought I had purchased. In contrast to the great coat unit above these were far inferior in all ways: more expensive, damaged, un-paited and even after re-working them they're much less eye-catching on the tabletop. Still, they're now done and will see at least a few battles on the tabletop before I consider replacing them. I want to get my time investment back before I consider trying to recoup a portion of my monetary losses. 

Here's a small gallery below of the completed units based up. I'm counting this entire project as 32 stands re-based and 12 figures 'painted' based on the approximate amount of work re-painting.