a new year

well, Its almost new year which always makes me want to start a new period. So this year I am going to start a Napoleonic Russian army. I will continue to work on some existing armies but I am looking forward to starting something new. So my lovely wife has started the ball with a christmas present of the first 100 figures. so here goes nothing!

Belgians

here are some shots of the Belgian 7th line. Just finished the light company this week. I have 2 more companies and this unit is done at 35 figures. the picture behind the light comapnie is La Haye Sainte.

Perry Fench

well finally back into a period just to bad I don't have more time to paint. the story of life. here are my latest( this morning). they are the plastic French Napoleonic infantry. What a great time for wargaming! Perry figures are my favorite sculptors and it sure shows why with this box set. the figures are easy to put together and really look sharp. and at 42 figures for 27 dollars a great buy as well. The figures are part of 2 different companies and I am going to mix some infantry with habits to complete the companies.

Doldrums

don't you hate when the doldrums strike? I will be all jazzed on a period, start painting and then blah. nothing, no energy, the life has been sucked out of me. Some more resolute souls may take this as a challenge to work harder but not I " brave sir David ran away" to quote a too quoted movie.

What to do when this strikes ...I know find a new period! but in the meantime I have been playing around with some old periods. finished some Liberation 20mm figures for my ongoing Rhodesia project. It's kinda funny I feel like I have finally got the hang on Rhodesian camo and most of my figures are painted. oh well, I have heard that liberation miniatures is coming out with more on this line so maybe I will paint more.

The 2 bare headed chaps are Australian SAS figures from the Vietnam range. I think they look quite good as long pants Rhodesians. One nice thing about these 2 figures is that you can't see jacket lines on either figure which makes it look like they are wearing the 1 pice overall . The other figure is a South African. I have figures from that purchase left over and I am planning to paint them as RAR or support unit or PATU figures. and last is a zipra RPG gunner painted in soviet para camo.

Dutch lines

Here are all the companies I have finished based and grassed. Each militia bn had 6 companies If I am not mistaken, just 2 to go. unfortunately I don't have them so I'll start work on the Belgian 7th line for now.

the picture in the background is from Waterloo. I took It 12 years ago. It is looking from the French lines at the position that the Dutch held early in the battle. it would have been on the forward slope just to the left of the copse of woods.

finished today

I finished 1 more company of militia and finished basing the command company. I know nothing about birthing no babies.... I mean photographing miniatures, but I am going to play around with it some .

Maybe someone should tell them to turn around!

Dutch Belgians

I will start trying to model part of the attack on La Haie Sainte by I corps. and I will start with the much maligned, I think falsely Dutch-Belgians.

First half of the first bn of dutch militia is done. all figures are Perry miniatures and I have reverted to layer painting for this period. which means it will be slow. I try to get new ideas for painting by reading the blogs of other painters. One of the best is Der alter Fritz. He turns out what to me seem like huge numbers of figures all well painted. whats the secret? In one of his blogs he noted that he paints for 1 hour a night every night an a 3-4 hours on saturday. heck, I can do that! so lets se how that works for me. Thanks Fritz for the idea.

This bn is the Dutch 7th militia bn of Biljandt's brigade. and while it didn't perform that great at Waterloo, the Brigade was an isolated force that met the initial attack of D'Erlon almost by itself. It had performed quite well at Quarte Bras for militia, and between the 2 battles the brigade lost 43% of its strength. That's quite respectable for any force, let alone militia. I think if properly deployed would have done much better than they are given credit for.