1809 Project
Napoleonics - French V Austrian
At last, the two 28mm Napoleonic Pocket Armies are under way. They will be themed around 1809 battles, but I know some of the uniforms, flags and units that I choose may sit outside that precise time frame, but I have never been a rivet or button counter and am not about to start now.
The project essentially started in January this year and I have given myself a year to get two eight unit armies together, plus accessories.
The reasons for going for an initial build of eight units is that this is how Neil Thomas in his book ‘Napoleonic Wargaming’, presents his armies.
His has an example fictional napoleonic battle from 1807, fighting around the town of Liebnitz. I have taken that scenario and adapted it for 1809, giving us the battle if Auberge. It is this game that I want to do in January 2025 with fully painted armies.
So this is a limited project with a one year goal and is hopefully achievable.
Mid May - 2024 update
French hussars have just gone onto the painting sticks. I have not been looking forward to doing all of the detail on these, however, so far, they are plodding along reasonably, thanks in part to there being so much raised detail.
The prime colours for these are horse flesh, red tunics and black pants, hats etc and so I have done these three colours, plus the flesh in contrast paint to quickly and fully get the big areas blocked in, without losing any of the raised detail. Beyond this, I will revert to traditional paints and then wash and highlight - we shall see, though they will look quite splendid on the field.
These and the Austrian hussars are the last units that I need to paint To get the 8 units per side Auberge game.
After that we have the project’s bonus material, a couple of mounted colonels per side and some skirmishers, meaning that the initial Pocket Army status will have been reached. I can then go on a slow down, perhaps going back to my ACW for a break and then eventually doubling the napoleonic numbers over time, to give the meatier divisional game.
I have committed myself to an article for a publication and this has a timetable for printing which requires me to get a move on, compressing what was meant to be a 12 month project into something much less.
Suddenly my painting has a lot more focus ….. borderline too much. I am getting a bit of painting fatigue, but the end is tantalisingly close!
See below for the updated army rosters.
Some One Hour wargames
With enough painted units to now get some of the scenarios from Neil Thomas’ One Hour wargames book, the newest unit for the French, the Grenadiers of the Old Guard, parade ready for action.
Above, a scratch built redoubt comes out of storage. this was built for two 50mm artillery bases, but the 1809 project uses 60mm bases, so there is a bit of a squeeze.
The Auberge Scenario
The Neil Thomas scenario has French and Russian armies fighting on the Liebnitz battlefield using his rules, which basically fight it out until one side drops to 25% strength.
I have taken his battlefield, swapping out Liebnitz for Auberge (a village in the 1809 campaign) and have then planned two armies from his 1809 lists that resemble as much as possible, his 1807 order of battle. All of his armies have eight units per side.
I have not settled on rules yet, but visually, I will not like to see forces going down to 25% and instead will set a cut-off point at 50% losses.
Will this all be ready by January 2025? We shall see. The army is do-able, but it will be competing against other painting demands.
There is a blog article on this with some more detail. LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2023/12/kicking-off-1809-project.html
Edit - I have all the figures needed for Auberge already collected and attached to temporary bases, so that I can have some practice games with Auberge with a mix of painted and unpainted units. I have been using y own rules and the scenario gives a good game. I am trying to develop three separate plans for either side, so a plan can be randomly selected for solo play.
Below - I have drawn up a roster for each force to map out the project and direct me where to build and paint next. This is going to need around 200 infantry, 32 cavalry and 4 gun models with crew. The two charts below show how things look on 14th May.
Some initial reading
Good old Osprey! Between these two books, they should give me a good feel for the campaign and the illustrations and photographs that are typical of Osprey publications, should help with army and scenario building.
Superb on line resource
Someone at The Lead Adventure Forum posted a link to this amazing PDF resource.
The Austrian Imperial-Royal army 1805 to 1809, by Enrico Acerbi, is a 198 page book covering uniform plates, facings and orders-of-battle, together with information on reform and organisation etc.
2 gun Austrian battery
These metal Perry 28mm napoleonic Austrian 6 pdrs roll off the painting table. They just need a quick blast of matt varnish to tie in the flocks and dampen down the light gloss on the figures.
These have already had a gloss varnish, followed by matt and being metal, I don’t think you can ever have too much varnish on them!
Each gun frontage is 60mm, so the total of 120mm will look right against my other planned units.
Overall a nice addition to the ‘Pocket Army’, which slowly - slowly moves on.
Pocket Army storage solution.
I have just found these 12 Litre plastic boxes at Hobby Craft (a UK chain) and they are deep enough to take infantry and cavalry standards.
I have lined each box with foam core, using double sided tape to help keep the light out, plus a few lids had had some stick backed plastic roll (fablon?) added to stop light penetrating through the top box.
I quite like the idea that the box itself will limit my collections of each army to something sensible.
the two piles of plastic figures you can see here are primed Austrian Grenadiers in white and primed hussar cavalry in grey.
The first line unit
The First infantry unit to make the French Pocket Army actually comes from an e-bay buy, which gives the project a bit of a boost.
These were 24 based on 40mm x 40mm bases in fours. My own basing is to be an 80mm frontage with 40mm depth, with figures set out in two ranks of 5, so I rebased and luckily the figures were only lightly held onto a plasticard base, so they were removed without any damage.
Austrian Cavalry
I’m not keen on multi-build units, but I do like plastic and so here we are, time to do cavalry and thankfully Perry Miniatures have an Austrian Napoleonic Cavalry 1798 - 1815 box.
It has 14 figures, but I am creating units of 8 figures on 2 x 80mm bases, so to make this work effectively, I will need to get a second box at some point, which will allow me to make three full units.
The box allows the gamer to make either Cuirassiers, Dragoons, Chevauxleger or Light Dragoons, the last two being pretty much the same thing by all accounts, though the Chevauxleger were more likely to be deployed with the advanced guard..
Anyway, I put 8 horse and riders together, intending them to be the 6th Dragoons and sent them to a commission painter. I have never had figures painted for me before, so this was to be a bit of a treat and a leg-up with the project.
Five weeks later they came back. I couldn’t quite make up my mind about them, they looked like they had been washed in a black ink and this had dulled them, so they didn’t look like the rest of my stuff, but they did have the campaign look about them.
Anyway, in the end, I decided to add some highlights. This was about two hours work and I am very happy with how the unit turned out. They have been flagged and based …… so the dreaded Hussars next!
