The battle of Sekigahara 1600 in 1/72nd scale

Who didn´t go slightly crazy after seeing Ran or Kagemusha from Akira Kurosawa? I was for sure! And when Zvezda and Red Box started to offer the world their beautiful little figure (in fact more Zvezda than Red Box) you could finally play those big battles of the Sengoku period like Nagashino or Kawanakajima that you can also see in the movies Furi Kazan or Ten To Chi To or on the recent 2017 Sekigahara. The problem with Sekigahara is you need over 40 clans and with these 5 you almost fill the table. Its in fact a time consuming task this one of painting the Sengoku armies. Even so there is nowadays plenty of information on the period (just check Samurai Archives on the web) and plenty of miniatures easily available. What I do to speed up a bit the process is to spray the clan in its main color and go from there to smaller details. Its not working but may be one day :).

The figures are based and organised according to Steve Duncan´s Damyo rules.

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 48) Tippelskirch brigade

This brigade was made from 28mm hard plastic Hat miniatures turned into "20s", or kind of it. With the big Italeri figures in the middle, like the officer and drummer they play their part. The brigade included these  IR 2 and IR 25, this one from the famous FreiKorps.

The trick was to cut some 5mm from the legs, another 5mm from the musket and glue the bayonet back as these are hard plastic minis very easy to glue. The "en masse" look help to desguise the origin and the difference to an Italeri French unit is not that big.  Another thing that helps is the fact that these 28mm figures are far from the more widely seen and much bulkier Perry or Warlord being much slimmer and elegant. 

Another aspect that convinced me at having a go at this "downscaling" thing was that I built most of the French around Airfix French (big heads on these) and Italeri figures which in fact are branded 1/72 but are 24mm in height. So if ever they face in battle I hope these new Hat will face Italeri French (if they don´t it will be strange but what is done is done). 

I´ve seen worse... but don´t remember where. 

The IR25 was changed in order to have litewkas as uniform. The officer came from Hat Opolchenie box and goes pretty well with the bunch. 

The change can be made with Greenstuff but for this particular longer coats I found Superfine Milliput  better. 

Also added are these three batteries of Prussian artillery (two horse and one foot). 

The artillerymen are Hat Bavarian with their rolled blankets around the torso with new Esci and Italeri heads as the Hat Prussian artillerymen are some of their first dating from 1997 and a bit on the small side and too tall. But a funny thing that probably happened with these first boxes by Hat was that they tried to complement the existing ones from other brands and the Revell Prussian infantry must have had some influence on its design. 

Also from Hat came these old Prussian dragoons from 1996, again with small heads to go along with the Revell infantry. This is the 5th Dragoons regiment representing the 1st Cavalry Brigade. 

Next: more artillery and the 5th Westphalian Landwehr

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 47) Steinmetz brigade

 

The Prussians for Waterloo are an old love of mine. I´ve always enjoyed the simplicity of their uniforms and their performance in battle, even with Landwehr units making a good part of its force. My first atempt was decades ago while painting Airfix Landwehr and Esci Russians as Prussians. Then Revell brought real line infantry and a lot of boxes were amassed for the future, always afraid of Armaggeddon. Then cheap 28mm plastics from Warlord and Perry came up and many of 20s were given away to friends or the Revell ones became Russians, this time in opposite direction. Recently in my large exchange with TC I got many Prussian boxes that were increased in numbers thanks to Vinted. 

This first group is Steinmetz Brigade made of the IR12 (black reserve short coats) and the IR24 (grey coats). All figures but three are Revell. The flags are made up as most of Prussian units only got flags after Waterloo. 

The Prussian regular figures of almost all brands can give nice reserve infantry with short coats as the Prussian infantryman carried a lot of stuff on its back - bedroll, bread bag, ammo pouch and sabre - hiding the details of the back of the coat, something that maybe Revell thought about that and that may be a nice detail. So really no need for the Hat reserve infantry. 

Only the drummers, officers and flagbearers have the normal dark blue coat. In this stand the drummer is a converted Zvezda artillery Russian, the flagbearer is a Pavlov Italeri figure with new head and the officer is a Hat  artillery Bavarian also with new head. The first two got the bedroll in GreenStuff. 

These Italeri French Hussars became the 11th Prussian Hussar Regiment with GreenStuff added on top of the shako. 

Next: DaveM and Jeffers, two of my most dedicated followers will have round 3 of my failed atempt to convince them of the beauties of downscaling. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 46) Stubborn as a mule...

 

I´m not still done in trying to convincing you that the 28mm Hat Prussians can give reasonable 20mm figures. The work on shortening the 28mm Prussians continue but now I just saw how huge the muskets still are are they were also shortened. The way is to take around 5mm from the middle and re-glue the bayonet a bit down. Here the Hat figures are next not to the giant Italeri but with much more "1/72" Airfix line French and Hat Middle Guard. 

What I find nice in the Hat 28mm figures is that they have by far the slender bodies and smaller faces of all 28mm figures I had both in plastic and metal even if it was only Victrix, Perry, Irregular and Warlord. Its true that I received these guys by mistake but I on keep on thinking they can give nice 20 mm with these changes. The faces are the same size in all four figures even if the backpacks are bigger (as expected) in the 28mm figures. Of course if the correct 1/72 minis have been sent no (un)convincing propaganda like this would have been used :)

Half of the 60 figures of these 28mm Hat will go to the Freikorps dressed with litewkas. And this detail is important on applying Milliput on these figures as the backpack and particularly the sabre are detached from the body, something that will help as Milliput will be used to extend the bottom of the jacket. I thought about making the Freikorps from the Revell or Waterloo1815 figures but modelling the litewka on the waist of these figures would be complicated as it would tend to cover the sabre. 

Next: Steinmetz brigade now for real. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 45) Napoleon´s army at Waterloo

Next: more Prussians

 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 44) Prussians have a go with a first and strange option

 

In the last few months I manage to get everything necessary to build Blücher´s army at brigade level. First I got plenty of unpainted boxes from the exchange made with TC, then I found a few more  boxes here and there and finally Vinted helped finding the last few boxes. In total some 30 boxes were gathered, Hat, Airfix, Italeri and Revell. 

Funilly enough I was quick finding all artillery and cavalry, exactly the opposite of what I was able to do in the previous 28mm Prussian army were Perry and Warlord cheap and available plastics filled quicky the ranks of the line infantry and the Landwehr. 

Even so there is a need of 306 figures for the Line infantry for this project (six figures in three ranks per stand) and only 280 were on the stash as I used plenty of the Revell Prussians for 1812 Russians. So a quick order from Aliexpress was meant to solve the issue: in their site there is a shop that sells sprues of 1/72nd Hat Miniatures that I´m used to order from. But sometimes I get the wrong thing as I believe the level of organization of that shop is the same of the friend´s football groups before Whatssapp. And this time it happened again: I got 28mm marching Prussians instead of 1/72nd scale, probably the only ones they have, but, also probably, they can´t distinguish the two sizes. On the positive side I was getting seven sprues instead of the six that were ordered. 

A few years ago I painted some of these marching 28mm Hat figures but with Perry plastic heads and the result was quite nice with these cheaper and slender figures standing pretty well next to the Perry and Warlord. The issue with these figures in terms of 28mm is the small heads (hence the usage of the much bigger Perry´s) which, on the other side are not much bigger then 1/72nd scale heads. So, by burning the feet of these figures you get what you can see on the pictures, figures that go along with some the large (oversized...) 1/72nd scale figures by Italeri and even Hat. Judge it by yourself and comment, please, as I need some (positive) comments in order to overcome this heresy.

Here they are with burned boots next to the Russian Opolchenie Hat officer (left) and the Prussian Line officer by Italeri. Obviously the 28mm are larger bulkier figures but even so, due to their small faces, the difference is not that much comparing to 1/72nd figures sculpted on the fatty and big side.

These conversions will go mostly to the IR25 FreiKorps as they were mostly young (and well fed) people. 

What say you? 

Next: Steinmetz brigade

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 43) The French Generals for Waterloo

 

In 1999 Italeri released a juicy box with French Officers and ADC´s and that included one figure of the Man itself. I used a good number of them for my Bussaco French order of battle, converting many to figures like Massena, Soult, Reynier, Loison, etc. When my Waterloo project abandoned 28mm and became 20mm I found six Napoleons in the stash meaning six of this boxes have been piled up along the years. The box is great but in reality, if you want generals on horse, each box only provides three of them. So others had to be converted from "foot generals" to generals on horse. 

There were not enough proper horses for this group so some were recruited from the Prussian Cuirassiers box by Italeri that you can see in sand color. Some chaperons were made from card were they didn´t exist. 

The full group already painted. 

This stand had no conversions and was made from the Italeri HQ set with two Chasseurs from the artillery set. The Mamluk Ali (true name Saint Denis, Roustam was long gone) was painted with aproximate colors from the MSJ website; La Bédoyére had his face painted in a quite fair tone as he was only 29 y.o. at Waterloo and Napoleon had a simple paint job with its famous sourtout and chasseur dress. 

The Guard Chasseurs in the Italeri HQ set can be reinforced with the ones from the guard artillery set for extra variety. 

Around half time of the painting process some Greenstuff was added to increase the plumage of the Italeri bicornes which is too small in the Italeri figures. This one in particular is a conversion from a foot officer with Italeri austrian officer legs and bended arm. My trick to paint the awful gold color on top of blue is to paint it first in yellow as a base for gold color as you can see here. 

The Corps Commanders, D´Erlon, Reille and Lobau had white increased plumage on the bicornes and larger bases were an ADC could be used. These ADC´s were made from the ADC on horse with a small (and strange) shako replaced here by a Hat British bicorne from their command set. I didn´t use for these generals the Grand Cordon that can be done with a strip of thin paper. I´m not sure about its usage by the corps commanders at Waterloo even if they were entitled to use them. When I was making Waterloo in 28mm I used Perry´s metal Waterloo corps commanders and they were not sculpted with the Grand Cordon.

Even if British the new bicorne without distinctions from Hat goes pretty well for the French ADC´s. 

With Michel already done previously these four guard division commanders were made: Lefebvre-Desnouettes of the light cavalry; Guyot of the heavy cavalry; Friant (Chasseurs à Pied) and Duhesme (Jeune Guard).

The great reconstitution to the left was the inspiration for painting Lefebvre-Desnouettes, a figure from the Imperial artillery set by Italeri. 

General Guyot was made from the ADC figure with a Zvezda head. I read that Guyot had the normal uniform for a general of its rank but the uniform of the Grenadiers à Cheval is always tempting. 

The divisional commanders of the 1st Corps: Quiot; Donzelot; Marcognet; Durutte (with one eye only) and Jacquinot. The figures without bicornes on the head are foot figures with legs from Revell 7YW cavalry. 

The officer´s figures on foot were coupled with Austrian legs both from the Italeri Napoleonic officers and also from the Revell 7YW Dragoons, as both of them have a long coat tail that fit these nicely. Some sword scabbards were also glued to the legs while the two bigger parts were pinned to each other. 

Reille Corps with Bachelu; Foy; Jerôme Bonaparte and Piré. 

Lobau Corps with Simmer; Jeanin; Domon and Subervie. 

The plate to the left by Albert Rigondaud was great to create General Subervie, made from an Italeri Hussar with a Hat light infantry head. 

The III and IV Reserve Cavalry Corps divisional Commanders: L´Héritier; D´Hurbal; Watier and Delort.

In the future I want to make four more stands with Ney and Soult and the cavalry Corps commanders (maybe I´ll use the figures from the Buçaco OB), Kellerman and Milhaud but I´m out of figures. 

Next: "C´est Grouchy! (... merde, sont les Prussians...)".

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 42) The last French infantry brigades (Bony, Thevenet and Tromelin)

This a farewell to the beautiful Bardin uniforms as this post completes the last few three brigades for the French army at Waterloo. The brigade to the left is Bony´s and is made exclusively of Italeri figures; the small one in the middle is Tromelin brigade, the smallest in the entire army and is made of Italeri and two conversions from Hat; the last one to the rear is again Hat conversions with a few Airfix, Italeri and Esci figures. 

The Esci and Hat figures got new sabres taken from surplus grenadiers for the elite companies. The front Bardin details were simply painted. 

The Hat figures with the old long tails of the 100 figures box had their tails cut down to look like the bardin uniform. 

So around half of these figures got some sort of conversion for them to look Ok for the final battles of the Napoleonic wars. The lack of figures dressed in overcoats is due to the fact that I have no more, with this project having eaten 150 of them. Like this they look a bit too pristine but at least there are  a few brigades looking sharp on the shelves. 

Next: Napoleon´s generals

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 41) The last French artillery models

 

In the last few weeks I managed to find the last few artillery models for my French and that was made in old style model shops, my favourite way of getting our stuff. There were still six horse artillery of the line models and two line models to be made so the full French artillery at Waterloo can be complete at brigade level rules. 

The gun models came from Italeri/Esci and Zvezda while all artillerymen figures are the old Airfix with two Hat figures mixed in. The limber is Italeri. 

While all horse artillerymen had their backpacks taken out the line artillerymen had them placed in as you can see with the figure struggling to carry a shell. The colour of the French artillery was made mixing two parts of ochre and one of black as in real life the French artillery green was obtained. Like that you can´t get it wrong. 

The painting of one more line horse limber changed a bit the looks of the figures as the Guard and Line horse artillerymen was different.

Next: the last few Infantry brigades and a stand with the Man itself. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 40) The French Tissot, which were always on time, and Bellair brigades

These two brigades were based on the Emhar French infantry. These figures were made for the Peninsula campaign but are better for other places as they look too neat for the harsh conditions of the Peninsula warfare. But with a cut (or two) on the tail of the coat and the front red lines of the plastron lapels painted Bardin style you can have some reasonable late French infantry. Emhar is also good for this as the detail is very fine and not carved too deep in Esci style.  As usual there are a few figures with overcoats from Hat, a few from Kozak 3d and Esci, one from Odemars and one from Airfix. Not counting the Airfix and Odemars, all others go very well as a group as they have shakoes of the same size. 

Last week I got these Emhar figures from Paul´s Dublin Model Shop, an amazing small place in this beautiful city, a bit far from the center but worth a visit (or renting a room nearby, I wish). Here I also got a few more Hat boxes (French 1805 and the Wurst wagons) and a number of bags with figures (Waterloo1815 Sioux indians; Airfix Cowboys and the 7th cavalry and Italeri AWI French). The Sioux for example came in a big bag with 100 horses ( from Nexus which is much better ) and 100 horsemen for 20 euros, that means some 9 boxes total for a bit more than 2 euros each! My lack of Sioux horsemen for Little Big Horn is solved.  Paul bought a large batch of 1/72 from a closing shop, so large that he didn´t have space for everything. His solution was taking all figures from the sprues and selling them at discount inside small plastic bags. And there are still dozens of them pinned and hanging from the shelves.  

I also visited two other shops, the also very good Mark´s models and Banba Toymaster and got my hands on a few more Italeri French and artillery sets and some paints, solving definitly my issue with the lack of French to finish this Waterloo project. In total I managed to pack some 20 new boxes everything divided in small bags into the younger kid´s backpack (which went empty for a good reason), Ryanair oblige, together with a few Osprey Campaigns from Hodges Figgis, a hell of a book store. 

Here you can see the cut off  tails of the Emhar figures. 

One of the Emhar figures came with a broken rifle but he quickly learned how to play the drum. The flagbearer is Odemars. 

The Emhar figures have broad shoulders in Airfix style which is helpful if you want to turn them into elite companies by painting epaulettes. The only things you need to add are the sabres which came from old Esci grenadiers. 

Next: the last French artillery