Progress on Japanese, Italian, Turkish and Caribbean fronts. Edistystä Kaukoidän, Italian, Turkin ja Karibian rintamilla

Doing inventory and clean up on the work bench brought up a small forest of bamboo that has waited basing for ages. In same vein I added grass and tufts to several divergent units: reiters from Italian wars, Ottoman sipahis, Gallic cavalry, Poenic cavalry and Ligurian infantry.

Reiters and sipahi

Gauls, Poenic citizen cavalry, Ligurians and Gdansk (Danzig) general with his retinue

Pöydän raivauksen sivutuotteena tuli rakenneltua pieni bambumetsikkö jonka tarpeet on olleet pöydällä iät ja ajat. Samalla tuli nurmetettua melkoisen kirjava satsi yksiköitä: Italian sotien keihäinn aseistettuja reitereita, gallialaista ja puunilaista ratsuväkeä, ottomaanisipaheja, ligurialaista kevyttä jalkaväkeä ja Danzigin kaupunkiarmeijan kenraali.

Ettei fokus säilyisi liian terävänä posti toi lisää leluja Blood and Plunderiin: Iron Gate Sceneryn 3d tulostettuja veneitä ja hylkytavaraa. Kanootti, keskikokoinen soutuvene ja iso purjevene. Oikein kivaa kamaa, hyvin jännä nähdä miten ottavat maalia.

  Not to stay too focused I ordered some new toys for Blood and Plunder. I felt my maroons and buccaneers needed couple of boats in addition to their sloop and thus fell for Iron Gate scenerys offerings. Medium rowboat, canoe, and large sailing boat plus some flotsam. Inspiring stuff, interesting to see how surface behaves uner paint.

Something rotten in Denmark BFaS AAR Jotakin mättää Tanskanmaassa

For yesterdays game I took a plunge to new list and decided to bring forth the true rulers of Scandinavia: The Danes. My opponent once again fielded his trusty Swedes - or mercenaries in Swedish service.

My force was 3 companies of 3 bases of mercenary dragoons, squadron of 4 bases of National (read mediocre) reiters, colonel Mikkel Huitfelt and possibly some local irregular fighters, snapphanar.

This force of 5 Force points met Swedish detachment of 6 bases of Reiters, 4 bases of veteran dragoons, 2 companies of dragoons of 3 bases each, 2 cannons with both colonel Hochkirch and lieutenant-colonel for command - with Force points of 11

For scenario we got ambush: Swedes were struck with panic,( that was to hit his Reiters,) delay which left one of his guns out of board and choice of battle field that saw pigsty on edge of ambush area being moved off his deployment area.

As decoy I left one company of dragoons and deployed all my remaining troops behind the advancing blue menace. My idea was to let the evil Swede taste Danish gunpowder on round one from all possible muskets and let the national Reiters charge pellmell into the remaining artillery piece.

Kierros 1 Tanskalainen on liikkunut ruotsit eivät

 Round 1 At the pic Danes have moved Swedes not. Danish dragoons in the field, protected from cavalrycharge, Danish Reiters trying to reach that pesky cannon. The Swedish Reiters have suyffered from disorder, but were rallied and took defence order.

Helas, the Swedes avoided fire of dragoons totally. Snapphane sniper from the mill failed to hit the cannon, and Reiters did not reach any target. Losing their nerve from this they withdrew in disorder to about the same place they are in picture.

Kierroksella 2 Tanskalainen ratsuväki pahassa paikassa

On round 2 My mounted dragoons got herded tighter between two companies of Swedish dragoons. The hapless reiters in the open got charged by Swedish dragoons from the flank and squadron of reiters from the front. Now - following exchange was played falsely - namely when my dragoons in the field fired a salvo at the Reiters they - being six in number, twice the number of the dragoon company, could have ignored it. Now they took a morale test, failed and withdrew in disorder.
The charging dragoons and Danish reiters fought a skirmish that resulted in a draw, with both troops retreating away from the carnage.

Hyvin hämmentynyt eversti Hochkirch vuoron 2 lopulla.

The Swedish colonel is flabbergasted - and so is everyone else. Snapphane in the mill takes a cannoball, while one in pigsty merely terrifies Swedish officers.

Round 3 National reiters have charged the Swedish squadron an despite receiving a salvo from dragoons and case shot from the cannon have actually managed to push home and with a draw have outperformed any expectations there were to their life or performance.

Outside picture dragoon company is fighting two others with expected results.

Rounds 4 to 6 The Reiters charge dragoons despite case shot from the arty and demolish that unit. Swedish Reiters are very slow to get organized and fail to catch national reiters.

The decoy company gets annihilated. I kill 5 bases to 4, but lose the scenario since I fail to give the enemy enough losses.

Fun and relatively quick engagement. Lessons learned - dragoons might benefit from being deployed in squadrons of 2 companies. Both the volume of fire and the the ability to benefit from salvo against larger squadrons would say so.

To actually hurt the enemy with musket fire on round 1 is pretty hard since he gets to move first. At least if he is mounted. 

Snapphanar are great fun even though they failed to actually kill anything this time. That 50 cm reacvh of rifled barrels is more effective deterrent than it would actually merit.

PS: Work on Ottomans proceeds at steady pace: Gonullu and Beszli slowly getting ready for the table top.

Gonullu ja Beszli joukkoja. Kevyttä ratsuväkeä.

Covering up. Paikkamaalausta.

After the last game of By Fire and Sword I happened to look at some closeups of my figures side by side with my regular opponents really nicely painted ones. More to the point he has actually finished the group my Reiters were facing.  Mine had been on the gaming table as wips with the idea of finishing them at some better time.

I actually managed to get the troop of Reiters that acted as Courland Lehnsfahne to the point it could be varnished and based properly. Irritating project - since these guys, four bases of three figures each  had quite a lot of minor errors like unpainted boots or gloves in them and it took several rounds to catch them.

Wargamerin Ruotsalaisen skirmishpaketin reitereita

Vähän turhan yhdenmukainen asustus palkkasoturiratsumiehille

Valmiina palvelemaan Puolan, Itävallan tai Tanskan kruunua

 Another irritation was to see how uniform I had painted this bach. Everyone in same leather jacket, white shirt and red trousers. Minor variation in headgear and horse tack. I might visit these guys later, but for now they may serve on.

Continuing the reiters

 Decent hour hour and a half of painting. Added red on the reiters and used same color for various cossacks, volunteers,pancerni and other troops  on the painting table. Same story with different browns

I used for reins and different parts of these Reiters other gear. Only after putting this pic up I noticed missing scabbards. 

Likewise with skintone and metallic blue I gave to the helmets and breastplates. The effect of metallic blue is not bad but feels a bit like cheating. It is also a bit too shiny for what I'd expect blackened armor of mercenary troopers to look like. 

QR miniatures - some 15 mm cavalry

Yesterday was assemby for Poles in here today I mounted them on cardboard for undercoating and possibly painting too.

Here are some pics and my feelings on the guys.

QR light cavalry with a member of nobility leading on.

Sold as light cavalry - these troopers have no visible armor. Could work as wallachians, volunteers or cossacks in my army. For Polish cossacks they might be slightly underarmoured. Nice mixture of bows and carbines.

Members of nobility

Nice gowns, seem to give good opportunity for opulent painting. No bows, quivers or carbines, but case of pistol holsters. Separate heads and weapons. I struggled with the weapons, but heads fitted easily.

QR Pancerni

 Commander with fur hat, leading a noble again. Carbines and quivers bows on those without. Separate weapons and right hands on some. Easy to glue on. My favorite is estoc carried by fourth from the left.

QR 30 Years War cuirassiers

Five wear closed helms, three have zishagge helmets, all in 3/4 armour. 3 with drawn swords rest with pistols. Will no doubt find a place in early 30 Years war army. Detail on zishagge is especially pleasing to me.

QR 30 years war Reiters

 Of the eight six seem to have breastplates. 2 of these have weird helmets of the type shown as Swedish early cavalry helm in Osprey, close to kapalina. The rest have hats. Pistols for all the armored troopers, drawn swords for the two guys in long buff? coats. Will nicely turn into a gruffy looking company of German Livonian or Curonian mercenaries I think. Could also work as early Swedish company.

Armored reiters - Finished

The squadron of armored reiters was finished last week.

I took these guys for the Christmas time painting challenge of Sotavasara forum. A nice little project and the deadline with these fellows helped in concentrating on actually finishing the group.

When making small inventory of what I have finished last year I marked that although I have painted relatively lot of troops to condition where they are recognizable on the table I tend to wander off precisely at that point.

Also, with lots of renaissance guys with very varied dress I have had tendency to work simultaneously with overly large batches with the result that painting monotonous stuff like pike shafts or doing bases has become a too tedious chore to be interesting.

I did not work only with these guys during holiday season. At the same time I had some Polish cossacks on the table and worked on getting mounts of larger batch to some kind of color. On the finishing run of these reiters I also gave finishing touch to the group of pancerni I have had almost finished for quite some time.

Reiters - almost there

After tasting defeat as part of Lithuanian skirmish list my reiters returned to painting table.
They received a wash of strong tone ink, new primary colors for highlights and some touchup.

They need varnish and some work on the bases.
Overall  I am pretty happy on how these guys turned out. Obviously I am need of practise in basic accuracy but with the help of second layer of paint after inking lots of the mess from original painting was eliminated.

Armored reiters - work in progress

Some Acies Edizioni  Pappenheim- cavalry waiting to be drafted to a foreign regiment in Polish service. These guys will probably serve as two banners, combined  into one  squadron on the field.

For some reason they all have white horses and similar, blued armor.

Coats vary between off white, red and tan. Horse gear swords and helmets expect color

Some more works in progress

I have been painting some polish cossacks and volunteers to complement existing troops.

The two cossack banners are almost done - just waiting for a shading of wash, lacquer and some grass and details on the base. Blue reins give the unit surprisingly blue overall look. For some reason I seem unable to focus on just compelting the guys once they are almost done. So...

I have at the same time dabbled with volunteers - their horses still need painting, as well as much of their clothing. These were supposed to be "the blue troops"  but may get more tan or yellow topcoats to lighten the overall impression.

And even more fuzzy ride the German type reiters. These guys are going to play role of German mercenary reiters, possibly Danish and Imperial troops as well. Red will be their main identification color - in sashes and feathers, with white, red and tan  dominating jackets and coatcolors. At the moment the most finished guys, in the front, are a tad too uniform for historical accuracy.
 I might give these guys mainly white and light grey horses in contrast to Poles riding grey and brown horses.

And  as an aside - I need to actually learn how to get decent pics - pic quality here is abysmal.