Russians For The 1812 Retreat From Moscow

With a game in the offing I have been trying to get some figures finished for this project.

I have been working on the Cossacks for some time and have quite a few done now. The snow basing has been a bit of a trial and I am still epxerimenting with it, cant decide if its getting better or worse to be honest!

So in terms of unit sizes I am trying to create units I can use for both Sharp Practice and Black Powder. So a unit or "Group" in Sharp Practice will usually be 8 figures. I am basing 4 figures to a base for foot so two bases will be one group. 4 bases as well as being two groups will be a battalion (16 foot) in Black Powder. Nice easy conversions.

8 Cavalry is a group, its also 4 bases so becomes a squadron or unit for Black Powder as well.

So my three units of 8 Cossacks below are either 3 squadrons or "standard" sized units as well as being 3 groups for Sharp Practice. I do like to keep it simple.

The vast majority of the figures are 28mm Perry's from their range designed for winter 1812. There are however 3 or 4 other figures mixed in. I think they may be Crusader. I have put them on Perry horses though so they tie in better. In the below shot the figure on the far left and the officer on the white horse are not Perry. The figure firing from his horse above is also a different manufacturer.

These Cossacks are really dynamic and there are quite a few packs so you can get a really diverse feel to the units. One more group of 8 to do and the Cossacks for this project will be complete.

I then want to add a unit of 8 Hussars and another 8 of Dragoons all in winter gear of course. This will give me 6 units of Russian horse which I can organise into two brigades for Black Powder

For the Russian foot I have opted mainly for Foundry figures. These are really lovely figures still despite being quite old now. I managed to get the bulk of them second hand and fleshed out with a visit to Foundry in Nottingham a few months back. The little shrine was a gift from chum Chris C, cheers Chris looks lovely.

Both rules sets require seperatlely based officers so here are the first three, the chap on foot will lead my Jaegers.

The artillery so far consists of these two sled guns. Both "donated" by chum Chris Flowers. Cheers Chris. Painted by Jerry Miller, I re-did the faces just so they matched mine and added the snow flock.  Lovely miniatures from Black Hussar.

So the first two groups of Jaegers in their dark green with blue shoulder boards. I have decided not to pipe the caps, I dont think I can do it justice so they will look worse for it not better.

Add them together and we have the first battalion of Russian foot. Jaegers did not carry flags so this is a complete unit for Black Powder now as well as two for Sharp Practice.

The basing as I mentioned is still a work in progress and from above you can see they dont all match. I will decide how bothered I am by that when I have more completed.

The Grenadiers like the Jaegers are a mix of cap and shako. I have three bases in the 1803 shako and 3 in the 1812, when I have painted a command base for each that will give me two battalions of grenadiers. whilst strictly speaking we may not want lots of flags and integral officers for units in sharp practice I am being practical and using the command bases as a basic foot base so they can do double duty. Flags arrived today from GMB designs and also a set from ebay which I will review for you when I have them completed. Both are very nice with the ones from ebay being sticky backed cloth.

Added together that gives me 5 units of foot and 3 of horse with 2 guns, a nice force for Sharp Practice just missing some skirmishers.

The Grande Armee is far less advanced at this stage (and far less grand)

I have 2 groups or one battalion of Poles, an officer, a gun and crew and Marshall Ney. I will share those with you another time when I et a few more finished.

Hoping to have all these on table on Thursday night for a game at Steve Shanns, watch this space for a write up.