I've been meaning to post some pictures of the 15mm Russian Napoleonic army (pre-1812) that I have been working on this year but kept delaying because I was trying to get better pictures. However, I've decided to go ahead and post this anyway because a) I don't have a decent camera b) the figures are actually quite small (being 15mm) and c) I'm not very good at taking pictures.
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| Roundway - Lithuanian Inspection, Murmansk and Rostov |
As discussed in a slightly
earlier post I decided to go for a mixture of Warrior figures with some Roundway. They are pretty much compatible on the table although I generally didn't mix figures in the same regiment (exceptions apply, see below). My intention was to have an early Russian army which means that regiments
would still be organised into 'inspections' instead of divisions.
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| Roundway - Lithuanian Inspection, Ekaterinoslav Grenadiers |
This was party because I was using figures with earlier uniforms (especially Roundway) but also this meant I could paint different facings on the regiments, instead of them all just being red, as in later uniforms. Furthermore, at that time the NCOs of different regiments carried halberds with different colour hafts (black, coffee or yellow) which applied to the drumsticks too. Also, I don't like the kiwer much.
So, I started off with the Lithuania Inspection and painted them as the Murmansk & Rostov Musketeers and the Ekaterinoslav Grenadiers. This worked fine until I realised that all of them would have the same flag, being similar to the green and white version that was adopted universally in the 1812 reforms (flags are all hand painted by the way). So I decided to mix things up a bit going forward.
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| Warrior - Siberia Inspection, Tomsk regiment |
And here are some examples including the Tomsk regiment (which naturally was chosen partly to honour a certain childrens' programme from the 1970s), and the Kazan regiment from the Caucasus Inspection.
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| Warrior - Caucasus Inspection, Kazan regiment |
The idea was to get a variety of flags and facings and also, crucially, that the names of the inspections and/or regiments should be easily pronounceable for a non-Russian speaker like me. Finally, I added the iconic Pavlov Grenadiers (flag still to be done).
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| Warrior - St Petersburg Inspection, Pavlov Grenadiers |
Someone was telling me that the mitre continued in use in other grenadier regiments as well as the Pavlovs, but for now these will be the only guys sporting this impressive headgear on the tabletop.
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| Pavlovs advance purposefully |
Having painted these I still have a few more infantry regiments to do (mainly Warrior) which will span various inspections and regiments including Kursk, Riga and my particular favourite the Astrakhan Grenadiers, which despite being from all the way over on the Caspian coast is, oddly, in the Moscow Inspection.
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| 5th Jagers (turquoise facings) |
To complete the infantry offering I also did some bases of Jagers. At this time they wore uniforms of a paler green than the line regiments and sported rather natty top hats. The advancing figures are Roundway although the NCOs and officers are Warrior and as you can see they are a little more chunky.
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| 6th Jagers (orange facings) |
The drummer here is actually a spare musketeer with a modified shako. I filed this down to be more cylindrical and added a brim at the back made from a sliver of plastic from a biro inner which was just the right radius.
For information (and so I won't forget when I come to paint the next
batch) for the line regiments I used Tamiya JA Green (XF-13), which
is the same colour I had previously painted some T-34 tanks. For the
Jagers I used Tamiya NATO Green (XF-67).
Finally, I would like to draw the reader's attention to the basing. This was my usual coarse shelly sand painted earth brown then flocked. However, for the Jagers I thought I'd do something different and have them advancing through broken ground, with the trees, stumps and fallen logs all being made from some dried cloves I found at the back of a kitchen cupboard; variety, as they say, being the spice of life.
