These three groups complete my Spanish Guerrilla force

 Here are the remaining 18 figures, in three groups of six;

They are a mixture of Front Rank and North Star (from their Muskets and Tomahawks Napoleonic range). They look considerably less "military" that the first two groups, so they can represent civilians who have taken up arms and become guerrilleros rather than regulars who have joined the Little War against Napoleon.

So, I have now five skirmishing groups and four leaders to form a core force for Sharp Practice, but I intend to add in two groups of skirmishing 95th Rifles to create a bigger force of around 85pts. I'm thinking of it as being a deliberately "literary" force, based on the kind of units found in Bernard Cornwell's classic Peninsular War Sharpe books.

First two groups of Spanish Guerrillas

These two groups of six are all 28mm Perry Miniatures;

They are a mixture of two different Perry sets. One is scruffy-looking infantry in a mix of uniforms and civilian clothes and the other is infantry with British-supplied equipment and Spanish uniforms. I deliberately avoided any real uniformity in uniform colours, because I wanted them to look like stragglers or deserters from a variety of regiments. I'll admit to being pretty happy with how they have turned out.

I have three more groups of six to varnish and I'll photograph them tomorrow and post them up.

Keeping the Spanish theme going...........

Here is the start of my next Sharp Practice project; Napoleonic Spanish Guerrillas.

I have started with four leaders. From left to right they are from Bad Squiddo, North Star, Front Rank and Perry Miniatures. What I like here is the huge variety of different styles of the figures, giving me an opportunity to paint them all differently. The Perry figure on the right is an actual Spanish infantry officer, but the guerrilla bands included members from all over the place, including from the Spanish armies.

I now have to think of suitable names for each of them.

I am currently working on 30 guerrilla figures, which will give me five groups of six to fit in with Sharp Practice rules. The first two groups are nearly finished and they are also Perry Spanish fusilier figures, all wearing a mixture of uniforms and civilian clothing. The others three groups will be a mixture of North Star and Front Rank and have a far more non-military appearance. 

Spanish Unit For The Silver Bayonet

I haven't posted anything for over three weeks, but I have been busy, mostly working on Napoleonic Spanish types. First up, is my Spanish unit for The Silver Bayonet, a set of rules for Gothic Horror during the Napoleonic Wars. There are eight figures in total.

These four above are the more "regular" troops, an Artilleryman, an Officer, an Infantryman and a Sapper. Below are four "irregular" types, a Guerrilla, a Veteran Hunter, a Champion of the Faith and a Swordsman. All these eight labels have specific meanings within the rules.

The figures are from the official range of figures produced by North Star and I have to say that they are excellent sculpts with lots of character and nice details. I decided when painting them that I wasn't going to get too bothered over making them specific to any particular Spanish units of the period. After all, it is basically a fantasy game, although some of these could be used in historical Peninsular War games, probably as characters or specialists for Sharp Practice, although they are quite chunky and on the large size compared with Perry figures, for example.

Anyway, I now finally have a force to use for games of The Silver Bayonet. I'll have to find time to paint up the French and British sets at some point.

My plans for 2023

Well, I've been pondering what I want/need to get on with over the next 12 months, and looking at the metal, plastic and resin mountain to see what I really ought to do something about, even if it is only because the various things have been hanging around for ages.

There are things that fell off the bottom of my 2022 list that I will definitely work on, as well as others that might get done. There are also a few things that won't happen and one or two that might end up as something else.

So, here are the things I will definitely be aiming at getting done. The higher up the list, the more likely they will get an early start;

15mm WW2 British Airborne support options for Chain of Command (these will be my January priority).

15mm WW2 German support options for Chain of Command

Stargrave plastic box sets for Xenos Rampant armies

Various other plastic sets that will work for Xenos Rampant with head and weapons swaps.

28mm Spanish for Sharp Practice 

28mm Bloody Miniatures 17th century troopers

28mm 17th century Bicorne Miniatures Pikemen and Musketeers (these will augment my existing Bloody Miniatures figures to make up useful forces for various sets of rules)

15mm extra units for my SYW Honours Of War army, infantry and artillery mostly

28mm Wild West figures for Dead Man's Hand and anything else.

15mm Renaissance army for Sword and Spear Fantasy (with a Warhammer Fantasy Empire theme)

15mm Northwest Frontier Imperial and Afghan forces and buildings (this is a new project)

Continuing building up my scenic collection in 15mm and 28mm, including lots of 28mm Sci Fi scenics

1/285 scale 8th Army and DAK for O Group

Crossfire 15mm US infantry company

15mm WW2 1943-45 British/Commonwealth infantry for the Far East.

28mm Pulp figures for all sorts of things (I have too many of these in my leadpile)

Additions to my 28mm Perry plastic Renaissance collection

Silver Bayonet

28mm Soviet Women, also for Chain of Command (from the Bad Squiddo Kickstarter)

28mm Late Roman skirmishing and armoured cavalry, and cataphracts too.

15mm Romano-British "Arthurian" army for Sword and Spear Fantasy

The thing about all of the above is that I already have the necessary figures for most of this, apart from the extra units for my SYW army and more Perry 15th century plastic infantry, so the only thing stopping me from making a start on this list is my own laziness and habit of playing with the dogs, reading books and listening to music instead of prepping and painting minis.

Of course, there are lots of other odds and ends hanging around that might get worked on simply because I feel like a change. I've got lots of Fantasy stuff that I really ought to do something about this year, including a box of Wargames Atlantic giant spiders, which would definitely work for Xenos Rampant.

The Beast From The East (part 2) - 1813 Napoleonic Sharp Practice

Following on from my previous post, here are the rest of my photos from last weekend's Sharp Practice action;

The Beast From The East (part 1) - 1813 Napoleonic Sharp Practice

Last weekend saw two days of excellent gaming at https://www.bristolindependentgaming.co.uk/ in Bristol. The theme was the 1813 Sixth Coalition conflict between Napoleon and his allies against the might of Austria, Prussia, Russia and various others. 

Here are some pictures of the Day 1 games;

The premise of these games was a fictional campaign set towards the end of the year, with the French and their allies withdrawing in poor weather following the defeat at the Battle of Leipzig. There was snow, rain and reduced visibility and a wide variety of forces on parade.

I will post Day 2 tomorrow.

Even more Austrians; extra fusiliers and lots of Landwehr.

I've been working away on my Napoleonic Austrians over the last few weeks, and now, I have finished all the infantry.

The photo above is a final group of eight fusiliers from the 57th Regiment, this time wearing forage caps, with an NCO as part of the group, rather than a separate leader figure. I decided to make them look different in case I needed a group of sentries or a small garrison for a specific scenario.

The next three photos are all Landwehr;

The Landwehr were militia, raised by the various provinces of the Austrian empire (apart from in Hungary, where different rules applied). In Sharp Practice, militia are represented in groups of 10 figures and are generally not particularly good troops, which certainly sums up the Austrian Landwehr in the period after 1808 when they were first raised. They were poorly equipped, poorly trained and led mainly by retired officers called back to the colours. This is represented in SP by having them cheap and without any special qualities when it comes to shooting. They are also disadvantaged in fisticuffs.

However, the Landwehr was reconstituted in 1813 and made up the fourth battalion of regular infantry regiments. This meant, in theory at least, that they would get at least some military training.

You will note that the drummer and standard bearer in the first picture are on 2cm square bases. This is to allow me to field 32 Landwehr infantry in four groups of eight, representing the 1813 establishment or three groups of ten with a separate drummer and standard for the earlier period.

I pained these in a kind of generic Landwehr uniform with green facings. They don't represent any particular historical formation. I also decided that the NCOs would have white belts rather than black, to make them stand out more, and the senior NCO also has white breeches.

Once again, all these figures are Perry Plastics in 28mm.

18 Grenzers and two leaders

Well, It stayed dry and I varnished my Grenzer skirmishers! There are three groups of six, plus an officer and an NCO as leaders.

First. the group with the NCO:

Next a group with an officer;

And finally a third group;

These are all Perry 28mm metal figures and will provide the skirmishing capability for my Austrian Napoleonic force. They are equipped with muskets rather than rifles and will therefore be cheaper in Sharp Practice terms than Jägers with rifles.

As they have red facings and yellow buttons, I have chosen them to represent Grenzregiment no. 5, the Warasdiner-Kreutzer regiment.

As a first for me, I have given these chaps movement trays. I don't usually bother for skirmish groups, but I bought some cheap trays at Colours recently, so I suppose I should at least give them a go.