Thus far, 2022 has turned out to be a busy old time for me. Work, Homelife and a dodgy mouse on the PC have all conspired to keep me from updating this site. However, with a few annual leaves under my belt and a new mouse, I decided to take a couple of days off and spend the time adding some new content.

It seemed like a sound plan at the time, but sadly I’m back to work tomorrow and I’ve done toss all on the website. I got distracted you see, spent the whole break pottering around in the war room. What you’d call a perfect storm is what happen here. The wife had gone away and I just happen to stumble across some old notes on a half-baked Napoleonic rule system I was toying with some years back. It took me three days to come to the same conclusion I came to the last time I messed around with these bloody rules. Which is of course, that they don’t quite work properly and probably never will. So let’s get on with some updates then.

10mm Napoleonic update: Oh the Long and winding road

This neurotic mess of a project started out as a 15mm Dutch-Belgian army for Bataille Empire. Six or seven units in I realized the appeal of BE was wearing thin. Not a bad rule set, just not for me.

So, in a moment of financial stupidity, I decided to turn the project into a battalion-level re-fight of Waterloo using Dave Brown’s GdA. After that winner of an idea, things got a little out of control. More 15’s were bought, then sold and 10mm became the new bling. Some frantic painting and basing ensued. Blucher was in the mix for a bit but, disappeared quickly, some figures got re-based while others didn’t. Then everything got boxed up and side-lined.

So here’s where the project sits right now. Waterloo/100 days campaign at battalion level using 10mm figures with either GdA, Shako 2 or my own half-baked rule system (that’s not finished and doesn’t work anyway).

Looks like 10mm is back on the menu boys.

It should be noted that some of these figures have already been posted on earlier Just Painted pages. Back when they were based for Sam Mustafa’s Blucher. Then again when they got re-based for GdA. However, rather than go back and sort through what’s new and what’s old I thought I’d throw it all up here together.

With the new plan in place, I decided to concentrate on the units that fought at Quatre Bras before moving on to Waterloo. So far I have finished the following troop formations.

Van Merlen’s 2nd light Netherlands cavalry brigade with the 6th Dutch Hussars and the 5th Belgian light dragoons regiments.

Perponcher’s 2nd Netherlands infantry division. Saxe-Weimer’s Nassau brigade is finished but I still need to paint the 7th Belgian line to complete the 1st brigade.

The Brunswick contingent is complete bar some skirmish stands.

French 2nd Corps

5th and 9th Divisions have been completed while I still have about nine more battalions to paint for Jerome’s division. Pire’s 2nd light cavalry division is complete and I have also made a start on Kellerman’s Heavy cavalry corps.

If everything goes to plan I hope to have enough troops painted to refight Quatre bra over the Christmas break.

I’ve started working on some Hanoverian infantry while also finishing off the last of Jerome’s 6th division. Linked below is a great little site that sell 10 & 15mm flag packs for all of the nations that fought at Waterloo. The packs can be purchased in a PDF format which you can print yourself or you can order a printed booklet from their website. Personally, I went with the PDFs so if I stuff any up I can just print more. Currently, they only have British and French ranges available but it looks like they plan to add Prussian and Dutch-Belgian packs soonish.

  Waterloo Flags

Next up we have a couple of WWII French artillery pieces I painted up to use in my chain of command campaign.

Sharp Practice

Before I got lost in painting 10mm figures I did manage to finish a couple of basic forces for SP. This wasn’t a big job as I already had a lot of skirmish figures lurking about from when I use to play Song of drums and Shakos. Like always I’ve departed from the norm by basing all of these troops on 30 not 25mm bases. Skirmishers and command figures are mounted on round bases while the line units are set on squares. I’m not a big fan of movement trays as they can look weird when placed over terrain pieces. Likewise, 25mm bases tend to fall over a lot when in terrain or on hills. Ah but, 30mm is like Goldilocks’s porridge “just right”.

I love this French supply wagon from the Perry brothers. I have another one for the British but just haven’t got paint on it yet.

Go the Vistula legion

Not content with playing Sharp practice in just one scale or time period I decided to pick up some 40mm Triguard AWI figures. Based in New Zealand (which is handy) Triguard has quite a large AWI catalogue. The initial plan was to grab just a few Hessians as test models to start with. You know, to see if I like them or not (Wow). Two orders later the Hessian force is almost complete and I’m now working on some continental troops to oppose them. Where the hell am I going to find some 40mm terrain?

Finally, I’ve added the only pictures I could find of my ill-fated 15/18mm AB army. Gone to a good home before they graced my table.