This one was inspired by my good friend Peter from Connecticut in the USA, (aka. Gonsalvo), who I have never actually met, but who operates a brilliant blog here :
Blunders on the Danube
Miniature Wargaming with an emphasis on the 1809 Campaign.
He has a very excellent collection of Austrian Landwehr in 15mm scale ... and to be honest, if I hadnt have stumbled across his extensive articles on Austrian Landwehr, then I probably would have skipped these units altogether
..... much to my loss !
So I just had to get some Austrian Landwehr, mainly for the flags ... which in turn created the need to put together some other Austrian regiments .. which in turn created the need to do the entire Wagram campaign.
But thats how this 'hobby / obsession' works I suppose.
I don't have a great deal of background information to add to these units - I recommend Peter's site above for that .. which is just as well because ... it's picture time instead.
On to the pictures - that's why we are here.
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| 3 Battalions of the Vienna Woods Landwehr. Figures by warrior miniatures 15mm napoleonics. In this range they only supply a generic 'Jaeger / Landwehr' figure - short coat and corsican hat. So in order to distinguish these guys from Jaegers, I''ve gone with the raw look - brown corsican hat (unpolished leather ?), and a motley assortment of civvy trousers. I think they look brilliant ! |
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| The No.1 Raison d'etre for modelling Austrian Landwehr - it's all about the flag ! Standard Austrian colours one side, and a coat of arms for one of the Vienna districts on the other. I needed an excuse to create another speculative flag, so this unit works perfectly. |
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| And along the way, I ended up with a really brilliant little set of figures. Love the way these guys turned out. The striped trousers man in the centre says it all :) |
Hope you enjoy - there are several Landwehr units in the queue, and each one of them will give me the opportunity to do something a little different each time.
The history of the various types, uniforms, nationalities and battle honours of the Landwehr, Hungarian Insurrectio and Charles Legion units is a miniature modellers heaven.
Some figure manufacturers therefore make a huge variety of different figures for some of their Napoleonics range - a distinct figure for each distinct troop type within an army. Some other ranges offer a smaller variety of figures within the same army, and leave it to the artist / modeller to make the distinction between troop types.
Either way can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you approach it.
So if there is one thought I would like to leave with you - lingering in the back of your mind - is that it's OK to be a little daring with some units, and use the paintbrush in different ways to give the same figure a totally different look from unit to unit.
Looking forward to more soon.
You did a great job with these fellows - just the right touch of "motley", LOL. There are more Coats of Arms for districts within the City of Vienna for possible adaptation than you can ever use, although doubtless many postdate Wagram. I look forward to seeing more.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I really enjoyed doing the Landwehr myself. By the second half of the 1809 campaign, they saw a lot of action, even if much of them performed less than illustriously. Tabletop performance wise, the cream of my Landwehr has been the Salzburg unit. Historically, they were particularly poor, but my version seems inspired! Maybe it's having their band play "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", or the pictures of local Landwehr from a small regional army museum in Salzburg that my German friend sent to me after his visit there. Who knows what motivates lead soldiers? :-)