Big Black Powder Birthday Bash

     With the recent release of Black Powder 2 from Warlord Games (I got a copy for my birthday) and a brace of birthdays, mine and Danny's, we found we had the perfect excuse to arrange a big, birthday game of Napoleonic Black Powder in a couple of weeks time (first date we all had free) 

     The intention is to head to Common Ground in Stirling for the day, where we can get acres of table top, 14'x7', and run a "what if" game set in Northern Germany with Danny's French facing off against the Allies, in this case Richie's British and my Russians. We've still to thrash out the details of the scenario but that's the idea at the moment.

     With that in mind I have dug out my Russians with a view to adding a couple of units and to re-base a couple of the support units   

My Russian infantry division; 10 battalions of infantry and
2 of Jaeger. There also enough Jaeger to make up three skirmishing
 units or another battalion if I mount them in sabot bases

The cavalry division, a mix of three hussar regiments,
 a regiment each of dragoons and cuirassiers and a large
group of Cossacks

     So that's what I have at the moment. However, my artillery need rebasing. I have two batteries; one of light guns and one medium (we use two cannon to represent a battery rather than one) I don't base my cannons as I like to limber them up and shout "Giddyup!!" at my limber teams so I have never felt the desire to place my crews on a base especially as they sometimes appear in my games of Sharp Practice. However, after some reflection I decided that having the crews on a base with room for the guns to fit in might be a better idea and allow for some scenic pieces as well as avoiding all the time consuming head scratching as I try to work out which crew member goes with which gun I decided to mount them on old, unwanted CDs (well, I thought they were old and unwanted but apparently they were just stored away till such a time as they were wanted again....whoops!!), I added a couple of small mounds using Miliput and then covered them with my new found wonder stuff. Vallejo Earth Texture and left them to dry over night. I also have a few of Warbases ammunition cassions and some Renedra barrels that I will place on the bases too to make it a bit more scenic. From what I have seen this wouldn't actually be the case in reality but I thought I would use some artistic licence to make the bases look busier.

Not a recognised cure for baldness, the marthambles or the
falling damps but miraculous stuff in the General's opinion..
.for what it is worth

  

WIP on the artillery bases; just awaiting some dry
 brushing and flocking 

     Next my artillery limbers got some attention with the long overdue addition of ropes to the limbers. It's a fairly straight forward addition but it makes a huge difference I think. They don't bear close inspection but in the heat of battle they will definitely pass muster

Limber ropes added, much more pleasing than
 having them hover in mid air

     Next up I decided to re-base my commander, General Baccy De Rolly. I had these three Russian Hussars sitting about doing not much of anything so I decided they should act as the generals body guard. I trimmed the bases they were already mounted on and glued them to a larger base and liberally plastered the uncovered parts with the aforementioned Vallejo Earth Texture and, again, left this to dry over night. Here's the result. Not pretty but good enough, It should be fine once it is dry brushed and flocked

     Finally, both the infantry and cavalry divisions are being reinforced. The cavalry with these cuirassiers (I think the troopers are Old Glory miniatures whilst their mounts are a mix of goodness knows what) and the infantry are Perry's plastics with a metal command set. I have just under two weeks to get these chaps painted, which should be doable...I say should.. but it means concentrating on these for the next two weeks to the exclusion of all my other projects which, giving my poor painting discipline will definitely be a challenge. At the time of writing they have been primed just need to get cracking with the actual painting now...

Cuirassiers and their not very pretty mounts

Infantry awaiting paint and TLC. I plan to order some new
flags for these chaps I want them to represent the 1st Battalion
of the Ismailovsky Guards. One of the "challenges" with playing
Russians in Napoleonic Black Powder is that you can't give brigade
 orders to brigades with battalions from different regiments
(well I suppose you could if you decided to ignore that rule but
where's the fun in that?) so a second battalion of Guards are called for 

       I will post updates as I go along and, most delicately, will post a batrep of our battle when it comes...just need to see if I can find a lithograph app for my phone camera.


pip pip for the moment,
The General