Leipzig Project Part IV

Completed the Swedish army except for Generals.    I still haven't decided on the basing of generals at this time.   This didn't take much time.   About an hour or two to repaint the grey or other colors of the figure bases and add ground foam.

Next will be the Austrians, followed by the Russians, and then the French.   I still need to order some figures for the Austrian cuirassiers and some Russian cavalry.   Though that will wait until I have determined what I need for the Seven Years War imagination armies.    That way I will only be placing one order with Heroics and Ros instead of multiple small orders.   

Leipzig Project Part Three

Except for the Generals, the Prussian army has been completed.    This included replacing missing figures, new labels, touching up paint where needed, and adding ground foam to the bases.  This was done over several days and took between eight to twelve hours including the time to make the labels.
There are actually more infantry and guns than were at Leipzig, but the right amount for three of the four corps that were at Waterloo.

 Infantry units are 32 figures on two bases representing 3000 men,   Cavalry are 20 figures on two bases representing 1000 men, and artillery are one gun plus crew on a single base representing 24 guns.

The Leipzig Project Part Two

Following on from the previous post, here are the other armies that were present at Leipzig.   The French army is organized into a Guard Cavalry Corps, Guard Artillery, Old Guard Infantry Corps, two Young Guard Infantry Corps, five Cavalry Corps, and twelve Infantry Corps.   This is more than was present at Leipzig, but since I had so many extra figures, I added the missing corps that were in other areas.

The French Guard

French Generals to left, infantry to right.   I need to paint some additional generals

French artillery.  I found enough painted guns in the spares to make all units.  Next will be painting the gunners for them

French line cavalry   Gap in the left center is for missing units.

Close up of the Carabiniers.   There were two regiments, but only about 500 total between the two at Waterloo and Leipzig.  I may paint some more to make a full unit of them.

 The Swedish army,   Four infantry units, two cavalry units, and two artillery units.

The Russian army has been organized into twelve commands.   At this point most Russian infantry divisions were very understrength.   Often two infantry corps were combined under a Wing Commander.

 The Tsar was present at Leipzig and is represented at the front left,  Russian army commander to his right,  other generals behind them, and artillery to the rear.

Russian Guard cavalry in center, Cossacks to right and rear.

Russian line cavalry

Russian infantry.

The next step is to finish  one army at a time, by painting the figure bases to match the mat board, then painting and adding any additional figures, followed by flocking the bases.  

The scale ratio for the troops is about 1:100 for infantry, 1:50 for cavalry, and 1:24 for guns.

The Leipzig Project Part One

Years ago I traded my 15mm figures to a fellow club member for his 6mm (actually Heroics and Ros) figures.  Part of that exchange was a large number of Napoleonic figures.   These included figures from almost every army in various stages of painting.  One thing he did when painting them was o use different colors on the bases to help identify units.

I had an Anglo-Allied army, some Prussians and some French that I had been painting for Waterloo.  Combining what I had and what he gave me I found I had almost enough figures to do Leipzig.   At the time I didn't bother to repaint them and went about basing them to see exactly what I had.   After getting them based I determined that I needed some more Cossacks, Austrian Cuirassiers, and some French cavalry.   I also had an excess amount of French guard with bearskins. and others.

Before moving they were used for a few games.   Since then they have been in storage.   This year I finally decided to get them out, fix anything that needed fixing, paint them as needed. and purchase the missing troops.  This is one of the projects that I had listed for this year.   It is also one that I have been dreading due to the amount of work that I expected needed to be done.

The rules I have used organize the armies into brigades.  There are several different rule sets that do this - Volley and Bayonet, Grand Armee, Blucher, and I believe Age of Eagles.   While some of them allow brigades of different strengths I settled on 3000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and 24 guns.   The infantry and cavalry units are on two 1 1/2 inch square bases and the guns are on one  1 1/2 inch square base.   Nafziger's book on Leipzig provided unit strengths.   In some cases I moved excess men from one corps to another to bring understrength brigades up to full strength.  

The first step was to make new labels for all the units.   After making the labels and applying them to the bases, I found that I will need three units of Austrian Cuirassiers, 6 units of Cossacks, a couple of units of French cuirassiers, and maybe some units of Prussian cavalry.   As can be seen from the photos of the Austrian and Prussian armies there is a lot of work to be done.   This includes painting the figure bases to match the artist mat board I use for bases,  adding missing figures, and painting those that need to be finished.   I several boxes of excess figures that I can use to add gun crews, etc.  I am also going to remount the generals on round bases of different sizes and add new labels to them.

 The Prussians.   From left to right army commander and the two guard brigades which were in the Russian Guard Corps for the battle, I Korps, II Korps, III Korps.   The three Prussian corps were each assigned to one of the three major allied armies (Bohemia, Silesia, and North) for the battle.  I also have additional infantry, cavalry, and guns to bring all three Korps up to strength for Waterloo.   In the background are the storage boxes I use.   I got them at a discount and they will work for 15mm or smaller figures on 40mm wide or less bases.  They are about 7 inches by twelve inches and have four compartments that can be divided if need be.  Several different companies make similar sized containers.  They are stackable.   I use them for my American Civil War and ancient armies also.

The Austrians,   From left to right Advanced Guard Korps, Army commander at front left, I Armee Korps, II Armee Korps.

 III Armee Korps, IV Armee Korps, Reserve Korps.  Artillery Reserve in back and the commander of the Reserve Cavalry (cuirassiers) in back right.