1812 Overture (no cannons)

 Having received my 1812 The Retreat from Moscow rule book I got straight to work on gathering the necessary terrain - which is helpfully listed in the rule book.

Luckily I had my snowy mat already (aka white table cloth)

I had also purchased earlier this year 80 n-scale pine trees for no real reason other than they were cheap. Some of these needed to be sprayed with a little white paint and based in snow.

Also in the terrain mountain were some n-scale tree armatures which with spray and basing would be snowy deciduous trees.

Some fences that I had bought last year from Pendraken that had been unsuitable for the purpose in mind would also be handy.

I needed to buy 6 buildings so went for my favourite cheap ones. The same as that had recently been featured on the blog as Chinese farm houses. While there were some card ones available, these would nearly be the same price with postage from overseas.

I also needed snowy rivers and roads/tracks. I already had these in paper terrain so printing them out and adding to magnetic paper, a bit of white paint and snow flock and I am done.

To cross the rivers I will need three bridges. These were built up out of toothpicks.

Then come the various markers that need to be made up. These I have made from small coloured discs and simply labeled.

Some piccies!

I  have set up the largest scenario which is meant to be four foot square. As I am playing in 10mm I have converted this to 50cm square. Everything is there but the buildings are not yet painted. Excess trees are on the left.

A bit of a closer view. Not quite perfect to the design but it is all there. REP markers are where the Russians arrive from and blue exit markers for the French to reach.

Roads are a bit iffy where they are overlaid but being magnetic they should not slide about too much.
The fences don't quite match the scenario layout but are close enough for me.

Another overview. In the top right corner is the French entry point, a Russian Entry Point, and a second green marker which identifies the last place Russians appeared. This is necessary for determining where they will appear next turn.

Loot markers added, not necessary in the last scenario. I have made a simple Regimental Eagle to add for the last scenario.

Closeup of my trees. I am quite pleased with these, although the the pine trees are a bit bright.

One of my bridges. As I was adding the snow piles I realised I could add one, two, or three piles each so they can be easily identified if ever necessary.

The figures have been readied for painting. They are in their summer uniforms, but at this scale with a bit of paint this will not be a problem.
I am going to base them on some clear plastic discs which should make them stable enough.

So now I am nearly ready. I am currently painting the British Napoleonic artillery and once done the 1812 troops are next. So fingers crossed a game before winter is over (down here)

Blogging Restart

 After a absence of four months I am restarting the blog. I know the internet has been filled with speculation and unfounded conspiracies relating to this catastrophe but I will set the record straight 😁

 In March there was a re-arrangement of my household which caused what was to be a short interruption but extended due to laziness, a lack of things to post, a secret project that took my hobby skills elsewhere and a three week adventure in Europe from which I have recently returned.

The secret project will be revealed in January next year, the laziness was caused by an excess of Napoleonics to be painted, and the three week adventure in Europe to be reported on in due course.

To get myself back on track I decided on a terrain project as this always helps my hobby mojo. So reviewing 2025 purchases of a Chinese VSF army I have completed the additional terrain necessary to play it once I get around to painting it.

First up some appropriate buildings.

I purchased two European type farm houses in MDF and added the bits in white to make them a bit more Chinese influenced.

This is the sort of thing I was looking for.

This is my final result

And the second building with some French colonial oppressors for scale

 

I also bought three Great Wall card models that can be placed in a line for my own Great Wall. These stretch 90cm together so will look OK on the table. Here the French are place holders showing how the walls are just the right size for 10mm. The large tower can fit an artillery piece while the rest of the wall will easily fit 6 bases of infantry.

So while these will never win any awards they work quite well for the few times they will be used. 😂

My travels in Europe took me to Amsterdam, Bruges, and Brussels so look forward to posts on each of those. When in Brussels I took the time to go to Waterloo for the day so may do a post just on that.

Other hobby news. 

I purchased the Pazzoot Retreat from Moscow campaign and Pendraken miniatures so hopefully when that turns up I get cracking and paint it, although I will also need to get some terrain for it as well. 

For nostalgia reasons I have also purchased the rereleased Airfix Romans and Gauls, and the Robin Hood and Sheriff of Nottingham sets as well as the medieval castle. The plan for these is to make HoTT armies  to add to the other 1/72nd scale HoTT armies I don't use.

I also have purchased a 1/144 scale Landing Ship Tank, which is a particularly pointless purchase but does have an amusing (to me anyway) story - of years of longing, inspiration, success, rejection, regret, and finally redemption -  to go with it.

And also I have started my British Napoleonic army so hopefully this starts to appear as well.

So a full line up and I hope to keep up a regular 2-3 posts per month.

Napoleonic Parade

 Normal programming has returned.

A parade of my French and Dutch Napoleonic armies.

Both have had their bases freshly flocked to make them presentable on any wargamers table!

The French Army was painted in the second half of 2025 while the Dutch were painted in late 2022 or early 2023.

All figures from Pendraken in 10mm

A bird's eye view* of the battlefield. The French force in the foreground are attacking the Dutch across the river who are defending their windmill.

* actually one of the Montgolfier brothers.

I have updated my terrain as well. With new streams and rivers and roads that have all been flocked on their edges to blend in better as well as being based on  1mm magnetic adhesive paper. This lies a lot flatter than when thicker material I used before. 

I have also made some additional fields and bought some cows and sheep to add for scatter terrain.

Just the Dutch

And the French from overhead

French from their front

Closeup of M. Napoleon surrounded by his favourite things. The Old Guard to the right, the Grenadiers to the left, and the Grand Battery to the front. (and a nice place to sleep behind him)

French from the side

Dutch at an angle

Atmospheric shot of the French through the trees. (Ridley Scott will be quietly jealous)

Now he will be furious.

There is a lot of the little buggers!

Not so many Dutch.  Where are the damned British!

When will the British turn up? When will a game of Napoleonic's be played?

Stayed tuned ..... but not soon.

I think we will be going Victorian before we go back to Napoleon. (And maybe fast forward to the 400th century, but nothing is set in stone it is all written in the sands of the desert 😁)

Penguin Parade

 My penguins first appeared in Arrival of the Emperor in November 2018, a mere 7 years ago.

While creating my Disney Princesses I thought about what I could do with them once more.

Finally some of them have been armed. 15 angry Penguins ready to fight to the last fish. Their shield is cleverly designed to slide on snow. You might think you are safe when they are on a hill far away but thirty seconds later they are cutting you off at the knees!

The Antarctica Guard

Individual designs on their shields.

Swords, shields and spear/standard from Wargames Factory Skeletons sprue. Snowflake designs from the internet. Flag is a semi-official flag for Antarctica (I didn't know they had one either) 

I am assuming once global warming gets going the penguins will get angry. Living in Australia I think we may be one of the first targets.... after New Zealand of course....watch out Keith!

A more respectable parade of Napoleonic's soon.

International Brain Machines - IBM - A Steam Valley Inventor.

 Way back in 2015 I started a new VSF project called Steam Valley.  Steam Valley background

It consisted of a number of inventors or companies' proposed military inventions, all suitably Victorian Science Fictiony. Click the Steam Valley label to the left to see them all. The one I never got around to completing was International Brain Machines (aka IBM) but a late 2025 purchase of 10 Necron Warriors for $17 allows me to finish them off. (I am way to cheap to purchase a new box of Necron Warriors that would cost $87 from GW.)

International Brain Machines

IBM is a consortium of investors from the United States of America who have developed a way of integrating human brains with machinery and using the brains as a control mechanism. They have been supported by project money supplied by the US Army's DARPA division (Daring And Revolutionary Proposals  Agency) in their attempt to ensure that future American armies will not have the same casualties as were incurred in the civil war.

IBM has opened a laboratory in Steam Valley to be closer to suppliers of specialised equipment but primarily  for the location's renown tolerance for the weird and wonderful, including human experimentation, that seems to cause other societies to reach for their pitchforks and torches.

IBM have developed three different automated weapons for the US Army who have sent along Major Arthur MacArthur Jr to monitor their investment.

A Steam Powered Vehicle with a three Brain control unit - Major MacArthur to the right. 
One brain is the commander, the second the gunner, and the third the driver. IBM found that trying to use less than three brains in the turret was inefficient. 

Heavy Assault Automatons.

Assault team.

Regular Automatons for the army. Useful for defence and also as follow-up for attacks by the assault teams. Powered by the new Curie Radium Atom Plants it gives them a healthy green glow.

All teams come with support personnel with extra brain liquid to keep them functioning at 100%

Well the lucky purchase of the Necron warriors helped me to complete the figure portion of this project. While building the rest of the factions 10 years ago I had made all the terrain so now I am finally in a position to actually fight the battles between each of the factions. I had purchased the GASLIGHT rules for this so I will use them for the games.

Hopefully I will get around to this soon or at least this year.

Butterflies and Disney Princesses

 A random inspiration while perusing a manufacturer's website was  making a small 28mm skirmish force of Snow White and the Eight Dwarves. This was then followed by pondering what other Disney Princesses could be used.

Elsa for Frozen was front of mind as my grand daughter is infatuated with her. Then I thought of Cinderella and a collection of "mouseketeers" with a Fairy Godmother sorceress. Mulan and her warriors and a dragon. Then came the Princess and the Frog as I already had a frog army for my 40k Dangerous Fauna.

A purchase of 15 snowmen was quickly made from Aliexpress for $10 and I already had some penguins with SMG so Elsa's force was complete.

However, unusually for me, I thought "What and when would I use these for?" Having no answer I rationally decided that while these would be fun little projects they were not needed when there were already a lot of other projects waiting for my time.

I searched for an Elsa so the snowmen would not go to waste and found her plus a friend in a packet of two resin elf sorceress. The second one was suitable for the Princess and the Frog so another $12 later I was closing out the purchasing for this butterfly project.

Here are the pictures.

Elsa and her gang.

Inspiration from Disney's version

My Elsa interpretation

Elsa and some friends... sending a cold front to someone

Elsa and more friends

Elsa's heavy hitters  "Reservoir Penguins" *

The Princess and the Frog

Inspiration from Disney

My version with her two froggy princes

The Princess sends out her horde of frogs.   They fear no one except the French.

Well, all in all I got out of that with little expense in either time or money.

This got me thinking about all the projects half done that I have waiting in various boxes. I really do need to concentrate on some of these so the Napoleonic British are going on hold** until I sort everything out and make a plan.

* "Reservoir Penguins" - stolen from Mr. Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs whose characters hid their identities under colourful names.

** I am sure many of you are thinking that I am just increasing the number of unfinished projects and so making things worse, and, that's a good point.

See you next time with something a bit more rational - we hope.

French Napoleonic - Grenadiers

 First post for 2026 and last post for the French Army Painting Project

The last two units for the French Napoleonic Army.  the 92nd* and 72nd Grenadiers*

The 92nd marching in column head on.

The 92nd marching in column at an angle

The 72nd in line. Unfortunately for them I have run out of drummers.

* these flags are from line units left over so I have used them.

Finally the army is completed.  An army review to follow.

10mm Figures and flags from Pendraken.

300 of        300 Infantry              10 units of 30        Completed 100%  YAY.

55 of        55 Skirmishers              5 units of 11        Completed 100%  YAY!

60 of        60 Cavalry                    4 units of 15        Completed 100%   YAY

9/36 of       9 Guns with 36 crew.                             Completed 100%    YAY

5 of            5 Command stands.                                Completed 100% YAY

I have now flocked all the bases and they look better and just have to do the photo shoot (I wonder if that is why we call it modelling?)

In January/February I hope to tie up a few loose ends from 2025, the Napoleonic army review, and update my census of painted and unpainted figures as well as my current list of stalled projects.