One of my older armies these Austrians have had a bit of a checkered past. Starting life based up for Shako they never made it to the table before being dismantled and re-based in favour of Age of Eagles. One quick club game later they went back into storage. Sadly they have spent the rest of their life being shuffled from box to box and are yet to grace the table for a second time.

Mounted four figures to a 20/25 base the infantry arm of this force is comprised of twenty large six stand battalions and twelve smaller four stand units. Age of Eagles is a brigade based system where infantry maneuver elements can contain anything from four stands up. To this end I have painted most battalions in pairs so placed together they can form larger units with matching facings of anywhere between eight and twelve stands.

⇓One day I’ll paint the rest of the army⇓

Lessons learned

Although this army hasn’t seen much action it has taught me a couple of valuable lessons when it comes to collecting and painting historical figures.

The first of which is not to rely on a single book or source when it comes to uniforms. For example, the Wagram book pictured above is a good case in point. Over all it’s a lovely looking book with a ton of nicely illustrated Austrian and French uniform plates throughout. Just one problem, some plates (not all) are completely different when checked against other sources. This has left my 12th Hussars riding around in purple Pelisses instead of gray, dark blue or cornflower ones depending where you look.

The second big lesson for me was that when it comes to building large period armies it’s a good idea to build two sides. While I might talk someone into painting twenty odd figures to try a rule system, I suspect two or three hundred will be a bit more of a challenge.

All figures pictured on this page are from the Battle Honors Napoleonic Austrian range which were sculpted by the same guy who went on to produce the 18mm AB range of figures.

Artillery wise I have four heavy guns with four crew members per base. Nine foot guns with three figures per base and four horse guns with two figures per base. Thus, giving me a total of eight batteries when fielded as two models per unit.

All nine cavalry units in this army contain twelve figures each. These are mounted on six (25/25mm) stands. Pictured here is a single unit of Ulhans a long with two regiments each of Hussars, Dragoons, Cuirassiers and Chevau-légers.

Next we have the command elements for the army. One large C-in-C stand, three corps or Division commanders and eight brigade or division commanders depending of course on what rules I’m planning on running. The skirmisher stands pictured below are new to the army as they are slowly being re-purposed from old Shako stands. These will come in handy for General de Armée games.