Russian Grenadiers in Greatcoats

Here we have a box of Strelets Napoleonic Russian Grenadiers in greatcoats with 4 additional commander from their officer box. This gives me enough stands to run the first CCN scenario from the Russian expansion

And here is the scenario for next week:

Napoleonic Spanish and lancers

The last few weeks have been insanely busy at work, but I still completed 3 new regiments of 1/72 Napoleonics - enough to fill out the CC:N order of battle for the Albuera scenario. Here I have two regiment of Spanish infantry from Hat and a regiment of Polish guard lancers from Zvezda. They are glossy because the temperatures have not really allowed for dullcoting.

1/72 "Portuguese"

Dennis and I are planning to run a couple of versions of the the battle of Vitoria next month, it will be the 200th anniversary of one of Wellington's capstone victories on the Peninsula on June 21st. I plan to first run the CC:N scenario at the club on the 4th, then later in the month try the same using Lasalle.

In preparation, here are some Portuguese artillery (actually Dutch by Waterloo 1815, but they are mistakenly given British style artillery carriages, so they could pass for Portuguese at a distance) and Cascadores (OK- they are 95th Rifles by Italeri painted in brown).

What did Santa bring?

My haul this year included a new camera- a Samsung compact smart camera that is probably too smart for me, and cost well above what I spend. But it's lovely, thank you to the missus, and I hope it will improve the quality of the photos on my blog- and in doing so cast a better light on the shortcomings of my painting ability! Also received was a copy of War and Conquest

3 boxes of Sarmatian cataphracts

CC:N Spanish Expansion (great game!)

Here are the first photos from the new camera. The models are WF cavalry cobbled together from bits of Germans, Saxons, Persian and Celtic sprues and meant to be Gothic for my late Roman project (starting in 2013). I also experimented with some new basing materials including leftover grout for the base (too coarse, I think DAB or polyfilla is better), new Javis flock (too green methinks- will have to work on the blend) and GW tufts under the horses. The tufts are potentially useful but you really have to apply them to flat surfaces, so I used them right underneath the horse.

Year in review coming up on New Year's Day. Happy Holidays everyone!

Command and Colors Napoleonics: Corunna

I rarely photograph the games I host, I just can't get organized to bring a camera and frankly, would rather not be messing around with one one a game night. So instead I took this opportunity to take some shots of my 1/72 Command and Colors game of the Corunna scenario from the box game. I am pleased with the terrain, which includes a brand new 4" Hotz Command mat, JR Miniatures 6mm rivers, terrainmaker hill hexes, and nice 4" hex resin villages that I picked up in the last club auction. (Each is a single piece, they were a real chore to paint!).

This looks like a fun scenario, French attacking the British rearguard during Moore's retreat from Portugal in 1809. British muskets in tough terrain behind a river, the French will need to draw a good hand to have a decent crack at it, I reckon. But CC:N often surprises me. One of my favorite all time games, I must say.

And finishing with the obligatory cat photo, this time fat Charley squeezing under the cupboard where a warm air vent gently heats his backside.