Russian Horse Artillery

Russian Horse Artillery 

Some Russian Horse artillery to go with my Russian Cavalry Brigades.

Figures by Lancashire Games, and the guns are a mix of LG's Russian 6lb cannon, and some Eureka Russian SYW period battalion guns.

Polish Hussar - 1813

Polish Hussar - 1813

Following on from my last post about the Russian Loubny Hussars .... here are some more of the same figure, but this time painted up as Polish Hussars in the opposing forces at Leipzig.

Russian Hussars - Loubny Regt

Regiment of the Day - Loubny Hussars

 

Time for some Russian Cavalry ... and I need LOTS of Russian Cavalry.

For the start of my newer Russian Cavalry collection,  will get into the Loubny Hussars for 1812+

Russian Grenadiers 1807

Russian Grenadiers 1807

And now for something completely different - more Russians !

Another Battalion of 1807 period Russian Grenadiers from Warrior miniatures, shown above advancing to battle in 1-company wide march column.

Russian Musketeers (1812+)

Russian Musketeers (1812+)

Another quick one .. some left over warrior miniatures later Russians in Kiver, enough to make up 2 battalions.

1813 Russians in field cap

Russians in field caps - 1813

Some later (1812+) Russians in a mix of uniforms and field caps, shown here advancing in Closed Column.


Picked up a few bags of mixed of OG Russians in field caps from the TMP marketplace. Ended up with about 100 figures in this lot.

OG always have a good mix of animations and poses in the bag, so they are quite useful to  create fill in bases to pad out a growing army.

Time to splash some paint on them and get them on the gaming table.

Russian Musketeer 1807

Russian Musketeer 1807

Another Battalion of the wonderfully formidable Russian Musketeer line regiments, shown above in 1-company wide march column.

This time in their earlier 1807 period uniforms, complete with regimental facings.

Japanese - Manchuria 1905

Regiment of the Day

Sort of Russian related -  here is another box from the cupboard, which contains a stack of 1907 Japanese to fight the Russians in Manchuria.

Figures by Irregular.

Russian Grenadiers

Russian Grenadiers (1813)

"Russian Month" is going so well, that I now have a significant backlog of Russian units to blogged about. A serious backlog !

Lets get rolling then ...

Russian Grenadiers for 1813.

Main differences for the Russian Grenadiers for this latter period are :

- Reduced unit size. Most battalions are now down to 2 bases worth of troops by the time they take the field at Leipzig.
- Reduced grading. 1813 sees the average Grenadier battalion drop from grade 'Grenadier' in 1812 down to 'Elite' ... not a huge change.
- Simplified uniform. All units in standard kiver, large but thin plume, and standard red facings.

Russian 5th Jaegers - Eylau 1807

Regiment of the Day

Following up from the last set of 1812+ Jaegers, here are some of their earlier cousins from the 1789-1810 period.

Russian Jaeger - 1812+

Russian Jaegers (1812+)

I better get this thing Napoleonic before we get way off track.

Here is a quick one then - some 1812 Russian Jaeger Battalions.

Russians in Manchuria - 1905

Regiment of the Day

And now for something completely different to kick off Russian Month ...

Some 1905 Russians in Manchuria !

All figures below are from irregular's 15mm colonial range, and painted up as Russians for the 1905 campaign against the Japanese in Manchuria.

These figures are another save from years ago. After doing a monster house move, its amazing what  turns up buried away in the cupboards !  So these figures are on FoW bases, and painted up using primitive techniques from before the discovery of vallejo glazes and sealers. The results are still pretty good though



The Russo-Japanese War

An excellent war to game this one - as the period is still in transition from Napoleonic post-linear style tactics to modern tactics. Artillery, trenches, mines, machine guns, barbed wire, flamethrowers, telegraph and rail .... all conquered by human wave bayonet attacks.

Well, thats how some observers from Europe incorrectly read the results anyway.

By the end of the Russo Japanese war, some observers had noted and learned the real underlying lessons .... some not so much.  The result was clearly shown in the trenches of WW1 a few short years later.

I highly recommend reading up on this war, as the ground battles themselves demonstrate some of the worst possible command and control stuff ups (mostly on the Russian side). It has it all - whole Divisions attacking the wrong objectives at the wrong times,  whole Divisions attacking each other !, orders simply not getting through, total failures of logistics, etc, etc.

In fact, just one short battle in this disastrous campaign has enough WTF moments to justify even the very worst die rolls on the table as being entirely "historical" in their impact.

Anyway, on with the figures .....

Russian field gun.

New Gaming Room Finally Taking Shape

New Gaming Room ... slowly taking shape

The whole economy isn't exactly in top gear at the moment, and the repercussions for that go pretty deep for everyone.

You don't have to look too hard to find empty warehouses, shopfronts, or even churches these days. Awesome great spaces that are basically sitting there in mothballs, un-used.

Here is one example of a church in our area which has been sitting vacant for a number of years. I have often looked through the windows of the meeting hall at the rear of the building, and thought "What a Great Gaming Room that would make !".

Anyway ... fast forward to today, and after a pretty easy run of enquiries, negotiations .. and some work ... have managed to score a 2 year lease on something even better - the whole Front of the old Church !

So, opening up in another 4-6 weeks ... my All New Gaming Room !

Here is a quick photo tour of what we have so far, and what the plans are for the next stages.

An Airship for Hordes

Horde of the Day

Something a little different today .... an airship for HoTT.

French Infantrie de Marine 1813

French Infantrie Artillerie de Marine - 1813

Finally got some Battalions out for the French Infantrie de Marine for Leipzig 1813.

After digging around for resources on these guys ... and finding the usual mix of conflicting details from different sources, I settled on this "interpretation", which I reckon fits the feel of these units well.  See what you think.

All of the line troops have greatcoats, and are still equipped in bicornes. Note that all the leather cross belts are black as well.

All pompoms are red, and to distinguish them from regular troops in greatcoats, they have a little brass anchor insignia on the left sleeve.

Finally, the flag is standard French tricolor, with a gold anchor symbol. OK, I made that up, but it works for me :)

9th Silesian Landwehr - Dresden 1813

Regiment of the Day

Another batch of Landwehr ... another test of the varnish, and another excuse to make up a speculative flag.

Enjoy :)

ActionFront - Leipzig Nord -Initial Setup

Battle of the Day

A step by step run through of a test game using my new Computer Moderated Napoleonic system - ActionFront !

This is taken from the Leipzig-Nord scenario, with the French III Corps vs the Prussian III Corps in 1813.

Prussian Brigade begins its deployment for the Battle.

To make it even simpler, will start off with the initial contact between a single maneuvre element from each of these 2 Corps sized units.

On the Prussian side, we have the 5th Brigade, on the French side we have the 11e Division.
....

Lets have a look at the 2 forces involved for the initial contact, and how that translates to the tabletop  :