French Cuirassiers

These minis were bought via ebay before Christmas but the task of painting them always seemed too daunting for me. But as I mentioned a few posts back, me finally winning against Michael in 1812 Retreat from Moscow boosted my energy towards the project even more.

I started looking on ebay for painted models and made a bid on a set of 6 French Dragoons and another bid on 6 French Cuirassiers, but only won the Dragoons. That got me thinking that it was stupid to buy something which I already had, but still the details on these Perry plastics were so crisp and numerous that I had doubts when I put the first base coat on them.

These are without a doubt the most difficult minis I have painted, all because of the amount of detail, which I absolutely love. They took me around 4 days to paint, which amounts to some 20 hours all in all. That is far more than I normally spend on a miniature, but I got to admit that I am very pleased with the end result and can't wait to see what Michael will say when I tell him that the French now have heavy cavalry available. I am not sure about what stat line I will give them and my reading into the effectiveness of the cuirassier breastplate is so limited that I don't even know if it offers any protection.

But here are some photos of the group - comments are as usual always read and appreciated.

Templar Knights warband

Finally finished my warlord for my Templar Knights warband for SAGA The Crescent and the Cross to fight my Mutatawwi'a warband.

All figures with the exception of the warlord are from Fireforge Games, with the warlord being from Gripping Beast.

The Fireforge miniatures were easy to assemble and look great. The problems I had with the them were of my own doing. Let me explain.

I normally hate painting white, it takes so many layers and normally the colour will not look fluid enough, so in order to combat that, I decided that I would buy a white base spray can. This way I would get the difficult white colour on easily. However in my eager to get a good coating on all I ended up giving some of them too much, which meant that some of the details on the miniatures were lost.

My second problem which only occurred to me when I got to the Templar Infantry was that there are two sets of trousers for this set. One is meant for the crossbowmen and the other for the regular infantry. This meant that I had to do some arm and head swapping which is not easy when the figures have already been assembled and base coated. Anyway in the end I think I got away with it.

For the shields and the chests I had been pointed in the way of a Battleflags decal transfer set, which are specifically made for the Fireforge set. After having used the Little Big Men shield transfers for the Mutatawwi'a the Battleflag decals were difficult to use and did not stick at all. In the end I had to glue them down and of the 96 decals that were on the set, I could use only half. I then went back to LBM and ordered a general Knights set, which proved to be better.

This was also the first time that I had painted in sets of 24 - 24 cavalry and 24 infantry, but with the colour palette fairly limited it was okay.

The figures will give me the following for SAGA:

Warlord (who could be used as a Priest as well)

12 Mounted Hearthguards

12 Mounted Warriors

12 Warriors

12 Warrior Crossbowmen

I am very pleased with the end result and think that they will look great on the table against the almost all black Mutatawwi'a.

General update

Have done a lot of painting in the last couple of weeks, and so I have an update for all four of my chosen games:

1812 - Retreat from Moscow
I played another game of 1812 - Retreat from Moscow almost a fortnight ago, and as it turned out I actually won! My first victory ever in the game. I took no pictures whatsoever as I was concentrating so much. This victory inspired me to look for more options for both the French and the Russian army, and on ebay I picked up a set of 6 painted French Dragoons. Almost half a year ago I picked up some French Cuirassiers but the daunting task of painting them had put me off getting started on them. But now they are about 70% done. Still have not figured out what I should get for the Russians, but I am thinking Hussars - and as usual Perry have some nice ones. An artillery piece for each army would also be nice.

Across the Dead Earth
With almost all of the SAGA figures painted I have finally come to Across the Dead Earth miniatures. They have all been cleaned - not much needed and base coated. The look like they will paint up very easily. Been collecting some old miniature cars from booth sales as well to use as terrain, and I am still hopeful that my normal Empire of the Dead boards are usable for Across the Dead Earth.

Empire of the Dead
Bought some singles and kickstarter exclusive miniatures from Simon "Brummie" who sadly decided that he was never gonna get any more Empire of the Dead done. Simon had some fair prices and I am looking forward to getting the miniatures in the post hopefully this week. Since Michael and I have found out that EotD actually plays better on a 4x4 table I have been thinking about what to do with my two dedicated EotD boards. The solution I came up with was to make a 4x1 and 3x1 section that will fit both boards. So I will be getting back into some Gothic Horror board building again

SAGA The Crescent and the Cross
Mutatawwi'a warband, I have now finished the bases and given them a mat varnish. Once the varnish had dried I lined them up in my miniatures cubboard - it is really so nice to have this.

Uploaded my first video to YouTube of the warband, so here you go:

Two weeks of painting and I now only need to base the warlord before the Mutatawwi'a warband's adversaries the Templar Knights are finished. Pictures should be up this week.

Have also started on making terrain for SAGA The Crescent and the Cross, but besides houses I am unsure what is suitable.

Anyway updates should be flying in in the next few weeks, especially with me still having a week left of my holiday.

1812 - Retreat from Moscow: Battle Report

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of getting a visit from Teemu, a blogger from Finland who is visiting Denmark. Teemu has been playing with the 1812 - Retreat from Moscow ruleset almost since I finished it.

After picking up some food at my friend Michael's grill and Teemu being told by Michael how easy I am to beat, we returned to my flat. A quarter of an hour later we where ready to roll up the objectives and build our armies. Teemu had brought some of his Cossacks - excellent sculpts from Wargames Foundry, so he took the role of the Russians while the French were once again stuck with me.

I rolled up the Raid objective and Teemu got the Protection objective, meaning that he would get an additional 10% of the points total to buy peasants from. Since he had a long drive ahead of him in order to get home, we decided on 350 points.

French army:

Officer, regular

Regular troops, 1 unit of 8

Voltigeurs, 1 unit of 6

Grenadiers, 1 unit of 8

Light Cavalry, 1 unit of 6


Russian army (this is what I believe Teemu took):

Cossack officer

Mtd Cossack officer

Cossack Cavalry, 1 unit of 4

Cossack Cavalry, 1 unit of 5

Cossack Infantry, 2 units of 8

Peasants, 1 unit of 5

Peasants, 1 unit of 6

Teemu started with his Cossack Cavalry units and the Mtd Cossack officer in reserve.

In the first round things took a dramatic turn when on the Event 1 card we managed to roll up the event, that it had started to snow. This basically meant that the penalty for shooting a more than Long Range (6") would be doubled to -2. So a lot of melee it would seem.

My Grenadiers and Voltigeurs quickly got into the face of one of the Cossack Infantry units and the Cossack officer, and with a few losses managed to defeat them. Unfortunately for the French the other Cossack Infantry unit had withstood the charge of my Light Cavalry, who then recoiled and was subsequently defeated in a combination of failed melee rolls and Reaction tests.

In the next turn, the Russian reinforcements in the shape of a 5 man Cossack Cavalry unit then appeared on the horizon. At this point my Regular unit where chasing a group of peasants and were about to set fire to one of the buildings. With two units and my officer close to one of the other buildings I quickly managed to put the six burning markers on it.

The next turn was brutal. My Regular unit was charged from the rear by the Cossack Cavalry and took heavy casualties, before Routing. This meant that the French Morale Card would be added to the deck and I had failed my Side Plot. At this time Teemu revealed that he had also failed his Side Plot of making sure that the Cossack unit that I had defeated would come back alive with at least 3 men. So the game was still up for grabs, but my chances were looking bleak - at this point I had my Officer, 7 Grenadiers and 4 Voltigeurs left on the table.

Another round and another Cossack Cavalry unit came on to the table, this unit would not get to see any action as I gambled and failed miserably. With in the first 4 cards that we played were my two 2 Actions Regulars, meaning that my Grenadiers would be fully done (with the exception of the Forward Boys! card) for the turn before the Cossack Cavalry unit within shooting range. I got into Long rang and tried to see if I could make the Cossacks take any casualties that would provoke the Reaction test, but failed. This meant that my Grenadiers would just be standing there waiting for the Cossacks. I tried the same when my Voltigeurs were activated but failed again. When the Cossacks charged the Grenadiers took 4 casualties and then Recoiled.

The next card played was the French Morale card and here both my Grenadiers and my Voltigeurs failed their Reaction test and rolled a Rout result. With only my Officer left the game had finished with a convincing victory to the Russians.

It was as usual great fun and a pleasure to play with Teemu - even though he had the indecency of defeating his host! Since he is also into Saga Crescent and the Cross we had lots to talk about, and could quite possibly have talked all night. So thanks for taking the effort and making the long drive to Struer to have a game with me.

EotD - Bedlam Brotherhood vs. Wulfen Jaegers

Had a game of Empire of the Dead with my friend Michael yesterday. This battle between the Bedlam Brotherhood and the Wulfen Jaegers was part of our campaign. In the campaign both of us have three factions and before each game we draw a small piece of paper with the faction name on it to determine who is pitted against each another.

The scenario rolled up was Entrapment, one of my favourites but also one of the hardest to win as the defender IMO. In the game the Bedlam Brotherhood(me) would try to get to the other side of the table and the Wulfen Jaegers(Michael) would try to prevent them.

Normally we play on one of my 3x3 boards, but this time we tried to play on a 4x4 which is what the rulebook recommends. I must say that the added distances that a 4x4 board provides gives a better game. Problem is that I have two 3x3 themed boards that I now need to add to.

The game started for me in the usual fashion - my opponent tries to make an almost impossible shot, which succeeds and kills on of my factions members, this time Hat Man.

As the game progressed I lost Nipper - who had a fit and went prone and then discombobulated accumulating a massive -6 modifier to his Combat Roll. Two brothers were killed by the Wulfen Jaeger leader who after a previous game has 3 atttacks! In melee I only managed to put the Jaegers on Down, but Michael then managed to roll Remove from Play in the following Maintenance Phase. So despite things looking bleak for the Bedlamites it ended up being a tight battle in the end. In the last round the Wulfen Jaeger leader killed Parson while Ninja Bob killed the Wulfen Jaeger second in command. Both of us then rolled a Bravado test which promptly made both survivors flee the battle.

Despite this I had lost the game, since none of my Bedlamites had made it across the board and Michael had in the end managed to kill more than 75% of my faction. Another loss for me, but another enjoyable game.