Remeber to fly once and awhile

My Dad is really into flight simulators and incorporating all the mods he can lay his hands on into each and every single flight simulator he has. I think this is cool, because it shows that age is no hindrance to learning how to do new things. Why talk about this? Well there is a saying among the people that make these mods and among the people who download them . "Remember to fly once and a while". So as I lay vegetating in my bed this morning thinking about all the crap that has happened in this last week. I realized that 1) I had not managed to paint very much, 2) what I did paint was more haphazard than usual, and 3) that I did not have much to show for my efforts and wondered why I bothered to do all this stuff in the first place. Now this may sound like a lack of continued interest in this hobby (I assure you it is not). I look on it as not having flown enough with what I have done.  Gabbing my camera and the project I have done the most work on, I decided to take a stress free break from reality for a few minutes and these are the results. (please pardon the lack of terrain and a decent floor cover, I spend money on miniatures because I do not have the space for terrain)

Massed French Heavy Cav

The I Corps deploys in the back round while artillery gets set up.

The I Corps deployment.

The French armies battle line.

French 2nd Division on the march.

Austrians on the attack.

Russian and Austrian Cav held in reserve behind the main Austrian attack.

Austrian heavy Cav

Russian Battalions move forward to engage the French right

Russian Inf Attack supported by Russian Dragoons.

There is no real rhyme or reason as to what is going on except that a French army is engaged with a combined Austrian/Russian army.  A few numbers for you. There are 26 infantry regiments, 25 cavalry regiments, and 19 artillery batteries on the field in these pictures. Additionally there are all my commanders on the field and the 8 limbers that I painted recently. That is a total of  about 1248 infantry, 450 cavalry, 24 guns, and 96 gun crews( these numbers do not include skirmishers and commanders). EAT THAT you 6mm haters.

If there has been anything that makes me want to continue painting 6mm it is photos like these. I know that they lack the terrain to make the pictures truly mesmerizing but that comes later. What I see in these few pictures is a vision of the closest we will ever come to seeing a Napoleonic battle again. There are only two other blogs out there that match the scale I have here in these shots. The first is Lord Ashram's House of War. He has an amazing setup for a 10mm line of Napoleonics. I love his photos and am even currently using one as a desktop back round and all his others as a photo slide show screen saver. The other blog is Steve's Paintingshed. He did a truly stunning 6mm Napoleonic project a while ago. The scale of it has inspired me to go as big as possible. The only thing is he does not show post of any new pictures of his 6mm Naps. He does have a bunch of good pictures up though and if you want some more inspiration go check him out.

 Latest Additions

Recenlty I completed the 3rd and 4th Regiments of Lancers. These two units complete the line up for the French I Corps. All that is left is for me to paint the remaining Division commanders and then I Corps will be complete. I think I am going to do the Guard Units I have next and then hit the II Corps and what ever I can of the II and IV Cav Corps.

3rd Reg of Lancers

4th Reg of Lancers

Order plans are changing again. Priority right now is to get the replacement shoulder pad for the Lion and then look at more Russian and Austrian 6mm miniatures. The 28mm Romans and 28mm Napoleonics are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Reinforcements are on Route

Under 6mm Eagles update
So a few updates on all the projects I am working on are in store. The biggest update, in terms of the number of unites added to the available OOB, is to the French. I have completed a grand total of 12 artillery batteries(8 Horse batteries and 4 Light batteries). The Light batteries and one of the horse batteries will go to completing the French I Corps' Artillery park. The other 7 Horse batters will go to the II Corps(1x), the Imperial Guard(2x), and to the II and IV Cavalry Corps(2x each). Once again I am awe struck at the 6mm line. Nothing else compares to this.

Eight Horse Artillery Batteries.

Four Light Artillery Batteries.

The second addition to the French army comes in the form of two newly completed Cavalry Regiments. One of Hussars and one of Chasseurs. They are the 6th Reg of Hussars and the 8th Reg of Chasseurs. They are for the newly started 7th Cav Division in the French IV Corps. Note to reader: Do not ask why I paint what I paint when I paint it. It does not make sense to me either. As for painting these guys. If I ever get around to buying some of Perry's plastic Hussars, I certainly hope I have more fun painting them than I do with these 6mm guys. They are a pain in the butt to paint. Not sure why( I think it may have to due with all the colors and trying to make it look good on 6mm, generally not hard to do given the "paint what you can see at 3ft" rule). Anyways they are done and I still have more to do.

6th Reg of Hussars

8th Reg of Chasseurs

Next for the 6mm line I think I am going to start on some of French Line Lancers I have base coated so I can complete the French I Corps. 

Eagles of Rome update
I finished base coating the last two boxes of Warlord Games Roman Legionaries that I have. As well as having made another contribution to having trees cut down in the forests by ordering some more bases from LITKO. I highly recommend them to anyone looking for bases for their miniatures. All the shapes and sizes you could want. They even give a few options on what material you want them made out of and thickness. Enough of the advertisements. SO the plan right now is to use the bases that are coming in this order to outfit as many 12 figure Cohorts from all my Romans as possible. Once this is done I then should be able to tell how many more commanders I need. With that I should be able to get an order together sometime in February(provided I do not get distracted............ again).

Once I get all the command figures I need I should with just what is in these two pictures be able to make 16 Cohorts. I think I will try for two Legions then.


Under the Eagles update
So here is the now completed 28mm French 1st and 2nd Regiments of Old Guard Grenadiers. 4 full battalions of les grognards to give the Allies and French command a pain in the neck. Next I think I am going to start on either the 3rd Reg of Old Guard Grenadiers or finish the other Victrix French line Reg that is waiting to be painted. As well as getting some more Roman commanders the next order of Miniatures should also included some battalion commanders from Perry to round out a couple of battalions I have lying around.