An amazing Napoleonic source book

For those of you interested this is the book that helped me figure out my starting point for my prussians. From their I went crazy investigating through other resources to reach my final decision. I spent time over a 6 month period figuring it all out. And this is where it all began.

Napoleonic Armies: A wargamer's Campaign Directory 1805-1815
by Ray Johnson

You can get it on amazon for about $30.
Now the book is broken up by country/kingdom. Of which it covers 27. Everything from France to Hesse Cassel. Which by the way I had never even heard of before reading this book. It starts at regiment levels and works it's way up depending on the country/kingdom.  Now to be fair if your interested in France this book is fantastic because there are 40+ pages just on them.
The book gives a bit of detail about each countries history around 1805 and then launches into organization.
For Prussia this starts with 1806 and tells you what the Prussian army consisted of and tells you what is going on at that time. It then launches into the organization of the infantry with a nice little chart for an infantry regiment.

It then goes on to tell you exactly how each company was formed. By this I mean the number of men and what they did. For example a Prussian 1806 musketeer company was 12 officers, 3 musicians, 10 rifles and 130 men. The book also explains the different cavalry break ups and artillery. Include the size of guns and who they were assigned to. It then also explains what a typical division looked like in 1806 along with a nice chart.This is then followed by a sections that do it for 1808-1812, 1812,1813,1814 and 1815. In total it is about 9 1/2 pages of text. All of the other 26 countries follow a similar format.


Well I hope this post is useful to some people at least and if you have any questions drop me a line or a comment.


aruki

The type of player I am

I came to a realization the other day that I have changed how I define the type of player I am. I started way back in second as a fluff player with my Khorne army, nothing but beserkers, champions, Kharn and a dread. Of course everything had a mark of Khorne.  Later on I changed to being a casual player that very much played whatever for fun. A great example of this was the IG forces where I ran nothing but penal legion, commissars and ratlings. To explain casual in my reference it was playing every so often, at least every other week, for fun. Even the tournaments I played in those days I never worried about my standings.These days however, I have become a collector.


By collector I literally mean I collect and if possible paint whatever interests me . I have not played an actual game of anything in almost 2 years. To be fair the birth and then raising of 2 under 5's is a big reason for this. But interestingly I find I don't regret it. I have been a GW player for about 16 or 17 years. Back then their were a few other games I was interested in but never got into because as a teenage kid even Gw was tough to afford. But for me the big change came only around when my first son was born. I had always heard of these other systems and seen them but never really got into them. The one that finally got me was infinity. Mainly cause I loved the models. Later of course I ditched them just because playing the game wasn't that fun for me. Me I always play for fun. Winning is nice but I have always had some sort of vision or story to go with my armies even if others didn't realize it. And with infinity I didn't which is why I think I found it so easy to dump the system. Now since the birth of my oldest I have been free to expand and go crazy with new systems. I started an ancients roman force (played them maybe 2 or 3 times), gotten two DW feets (never played except against myself when working the rules out), Two FSA armada fleets (played against myself and over the net a few times, which was weird) and of course my epic SM and prussian forces. The epic SM force is literally because I have always wanted a full chapter of marines, and this was the best way for me to do it. The prussians once again is more of a dream. I have always wanted too have a couple of Napoleonic forces even if only for display. I love to read about the time period and the idea of having a full prussian army tickled all the right places. In the future I will expand them. But back to the point.

Even now with my GW stuff I am no longer really looking at stats of units and such. I just grab what I want or what I think might be fun. I lost count last edition how many times my tau got steam rolled because I didn't use the power builds. But love them none the less because of the concept I had built around them and my old IG army. Now my concept has changed but stays the same. The same with my space marines, the concept/the story and the collecting and then painting has been more important to me than anything else. A good example is a project I want to do in the future that was inspired by the old love of tau blog (seems to have been deleted). He did modified tau fire warriors with jet packs to use as vespid. I love this idea and am going to try and do it myself. Are vespid really considered great or anything. No, but I think it will be fun and I can't wait to convert and paint them.

I know it seems weird to call myself a collector even though I have brought up a lot of stuff that's more fluff orientated but given it isn't shall we say codex fluff I think its a bit different.

Sorry for the random rant but just thought it was interesting.

aruki

August round up

This will be short and sweet. I have spent nothing and painted nothing.
With all the prep for moving and then the move being delayed all I have really done is assembly and a tiny bit of priming/base coating.

Painting wise I am at:

Painting points= 252.75
Goal = 500

About halfway there. I think I should be able to make it by the end of december.
Spending wise:

Total: -$270.95

Goal: max of -$250.00

Even though this is over my goal of $250.00 or less this year I am fine with this. I have sold off quite a lot. gained quite a lot and will not feel that bad if it reaches $300.00 which it probably will.

As for total points painted I am still working on figuring that out.
At the moment the mininum amount I have painted is around 3000+ points across 5 game systems. I know it is higher but have yet to figure out by how much.

Next month I expect this to change quite a lot since I have more than a few models ready to be painted up. I will also have some spending as I still need liquid green stuff. Other than that I will finish off the review of baccus models and show off my new set up.

So see you all next month with real updates.
aruki

Official vs. Unofficial models

This may just be because of how long I have been into 40k or just here in South Korea but often I have found not just here but in many places for the past 10 years or so that people hate non-GW/FW stuff. For example, the last 3 stores/clubs I have played at only allow official models or at least 50% of the converted model must be official. To me this sucks.


Mainly cause there are many types of things that fit the scale and such that I would love to use in 40k but can't. Classic example is the releases by dreamforge in the past year. I would love to use their troops and vehicles for a small IG force. Along with a small Number of GW ones with modified weapons and heads. Never mind, I love their HW teams. Alas I wouldn't be able to play it.

 The lack of different types of models within 40k for say IG, SM etc drives me a bit crazy. Lets say I want my IG to be women and have slug throwers instead of lasguns. There are many conversion parts out there to do this but the your looking at less than 50% of the models being gw parts. Same if you want SM's but not the run of the mill GW ones, different shoulder pads and paints aren't enough for me. Now I know part of this is unrealistic because the cost for GW to do so many variants is unrealistic. But at the same time, I don't see why so many clubs/stores have these rules. For tournaments I can understand. You want the models to be clearly what they are no doubts. But outside of that I think it's a bit crazy. I have actually canceled two projects because I would never be able to use them here. I was going to scratch build a warhound and a manta. But with the rules here I would never be able to use them. And unfortunately most people here don't have the space to game at home.


What's your view on it? Am I just being winy or is it really just crazy?

Aruki

Things I am looking forward to for the last 4 months of 2013

As the tittle says the last 4 months of the year will be quite interesting for all the new things coming out.

1. For me is easily the DZC starter set I love this thing and really want one.

2. Spartan games New FSA factions. They have recently announced and are releasing 2 more and I would love to continue growing this game system.

3. Spartan games DW sets. They have been releasing all kinds of new sets which are cheaper and make it so I can start getting into the land and air aspects of the game more.

4. The New SM codex. This one I am on the fence about. I got my marines but am not sure how much this will change the game for me. Never mind, the cost.

5. GW supplements: here I am mainly interested to see what other ones they release. I would really like some other tau ones and maybe a more renegade marine one rather than a chaos based one. This is because when I started way back I actually had 2 chaos forces 1 that was true chaos (khorne) and a Hurron Blackheart based force. I loved the idea of rebel but not chaotic Space marines.

6. New Baccus stuff. Baccus has been steadily redoing and updating many of there molds and other aspects of there offerings. I cant wait to see what comes out of it.

7. New DZC factions/models. More enemies is always good and the new models recently have been excellent looking.


What are you guys looking forward to?
Aruki

DZC starter announced

This past week Hawk wargames announced their new 2 player starter set for DZC this kind of excites me because it is for the two factions I don't have and the overall contents and price look like a pretty good deal.

So here is what you get in the box.

United Colonies of Mankind:

- 3x Sabre Main Battle Tanks

- 3x Rapier AA Tanks

- 2x Bear APC’s 

- 30x Colonial Legionnaires 

- 3x Condor Medium Dropships 

The Scourge :

- 3x Hunter Main Grav-Tanks

- 3x Reaper AA Grav-Tanks

- 2x Invader APC’s 

- 30x Scourge Warriors 

- 3x Marauder Medium Dropships

Terrain:

- 2x Urban Streets Posters, will join together in 4 different ways to create a 48”x33” road layout

- Both posters feature stunning artwork on the reverse face!

- 10 x Pre-cut, pre-folded card buildings in 10 different designs

Rules and Accessories:

- Full sized Dropzone Commander 1.1 Core Rulebook

- UCM and Scourge reference sheets with stats, army composition and quick reference tables

- Starter scenario and turn sequence prompt sheet

- 10x 14mm D6 black dice

- 1m/38” Hawk Wargames tape measure keyring

- Full set of card templates and Scenario Object tokens

As you can see models wise it isn't that many but this is enough to build 2 basic forces. Which is excellent compared to certain other starter sets. This also brings back a bit of nostalgia from back in the days when gw used to do the same. I mean yes today's starters are nicer than they used to be but they used to be literally a game you could actually play out of the box. Were today's starter box you don't actually have enough stuff to build a basic force without spending more money. Never mind the terrain, yes the old GW terrain wasn't that great but it was better than nothing.

Safe to say I am psyched for this and plan on buying one closer to the holidays. To me one of the greatest parts is price. £60.00 is perfectly reasonable for everything that comes in the box. Given it's only a little cheaper than a 40k starter box. But this is a much better deal in my opinion. Anyway enough of my ranting.


Later,
Aruki 

Epic plans

Well the work on the epic SM has been moving forward slowly. One of the problems I ran into is because I didn't have the cash when the surprise we no longer are making the models announcement happened I am seriously lacking in some rather expensive to get models. Mainly in assault marines but also terminatiors and scouts and even some more rhinos. I also have no real tank assets besides land raiders, rhinos whirlwinds.

So I am changing my plan from making the first company a termie company into it just being a vetran company with a termie detachment. Scouts and assault marines I will just have to buy along with almost 30 more rhinos. Luckily now that I have completed my inventory I know what I have to trade/sell so I can soften the cost a bit. Right now I have all the models needed for 3 of the 4 battle companies and only 2 more assault stands to finish off the 4th. Then I need 18 more stands of assault of the assault company and 13 more scout stands for the scout company. Then I just need more rhinos. for everything else. On the bright side I have plenty of extra devastators and command models to trade off and I am pretty happy with my titan selection. I will also have other bits and bobs to  trade off of extra models.

So if you have or now someone who has some scouts/rhinos/assault marines to trade/sell for let me know. Break down of my planes for all the units to come along with rough point total.

Aruki

Update

Well the move is upon me and I have packed away 95% of my hobby stuff. I have a few articles ready to post over the next week or so but honestly there isn't much. I will be getting back into the full swing somewhere around the end of the month. I will be discussing in my future posts some stuff regarding my epic plans and probably a comparison article. Other than that there is nothing really planned for the next two weeks or so.

So I will see you all once the family is fully settled in.

Aruki

Baccus 6mm Prussians 3/??, artillery and officers

Today I have some pictures and such of the Cannons and the Officers that you get. We will start with the cannons.


In the starter army I got their were a total of  4 cannons and crew. Now when all done up they can look like this. You can also get 4 additional cannons and crew for £2.50 but i would suggest getting the artillery booster pack for £11.00 which has 8 cannons/crew and 8 limbers and teams. I know I want some of these to add a bit more detail to my army. Never mind, I think I need more cannons anyway.

Below is what you receive. As you can see the main body of the cannon is one solid piece and the wheels are seperate. The crew all come on 1 strip and can then be taken off for basing. From the dozen or so cannons I have the crew are all 1 pose but at 6mm its not that big of a deal. The bigger thing for me will be how well the models assemble which should be straight forward. The only thing I don't like is there aren't more options for cannons. Mainly model wise, because lets face it their were many different styles/sizes of cannons at the time. But once again this is 6mm so I can understand why.

Next we move on to the officers. In the starter box you get what they call 3 command strips. each strip is of 3 men on horse back. The normal pack comes with 15 models though. I plan on using maybe 1 guy for battalion command, 2 men  for regimental  command and 3 for brigade command. But I am still unsure mainly due to needing to investigate more than just the black powder rule set. Which of course means I will need a lot more depending on the rule set played. But once again since its 6mm its fairly cheap for me £2.50 plus shipping of course. One important side note is that the Prussian command are technically Austrian models. But considering the scale and time period it isn't a big deal since its just really different colors that are the main difference (at this scale I would note).

As you can see from the below picture it is a limited set of poses again but you do get enough command for most games out of 1 pack.The one thing which you will see even more when I do the Calvary

I have is horses do look a wee bit funky but once again part of this is due to the scale. And I am not complaining because hell knows I cant create anything at 6mm on my own. Never mind make them crazy nice looking. This however is one complaint I have seen by other people who then use other companies for horse models instead. But to be honest it doesn't bother me. you will not being seeing them that close except when painting anyway.




That wraps up this part of the review of the cannon and officer models. More to come in the following weeks. I hope to have the overall review done by the end of the month and then of course we will see a lot more of them once I start painting them. First however I want to finish off another 2 or 3 projects. I also once again want to thank Peter from Baccus I have been in communication with him again, for general permissions and such, and he is always quick to answer and great to talk to.

Till then 
Aruki

End of the week

I finished assembling the last of my PHR immortals. I also Include picks below of all the extra metal that was on the sprue to show just the crazy amount. I have also been busy getting all the phr dropships and tanks ready for assembly. I have found the neptunes a bit annoying to put together just because of 1 area of flash that really has to be sanded down to assemble them. And as with the PHR tanks they will need liquid green stuff and sanding to make them look right later. If I can ever get my hands on the stuff.

Immortal with the extra metal from the sprue for squad

side view

the last immortal squad

Over the next week I mainly need to finish packing everything away. I have also started taking pictures so that I can post more baccus articles. Other than that not much is happening on the model front due to the impending move.

Thats all for now
Aruki

Assembly

Since I am unable to do airbrushing due to weather I thought I would show you what I assembled and something interesting. I assembled all the shaltari braves (2 units) and 1 unit of PHR immortals. But the amazing thing was the amount of extra metal that was left after clipping them off.

As you can see there is enough metal there to make probably 2 more units of Immortals if not more. It has made me start to think about what I could do with it since I have so much extra metal. I mean for example since I forgot to take a side by side. The metal at the top of the picture is from the PHR, it is taller and thicker than the 5 actual models it came on. Anyway more DZC and maybe Baccus stuff coming up soon.


Till then
Aruki

Foiled again

So after having paint explode all over me because my brother in law didn't reassemble my airbrush correctly I sat down to get all my priming done. Unfortunately I forgot 1 major factor of south Korea in August. The weather. After 3 failed attempts to prime all those models from last post I learned two things. My moisture tap fills up very fast during august and the weather dries my paint crazy fast.

In those 3 failed attempts the moister tap filled up completely. And another problem is paint was drying in the airbrush faster than I could spray it. So I only managed to prime about 1/8 of the models. This means that I really wont be getting any more priming and basing done till September. Especially since I have already packed all most all of my other hobby stuff away. So the next week or so will just be a lot of assembly to show.

I have also had the news that my move has been delayed a week which really screws me up even more since I don't want to unpack everything. On the bright side I am getting a very pretty new desk set up for painting so keep a look out for that post.

Anyway that is all for today assembly posts and stuff to come.

Later
Aruki

Late week update

Sorry about lack of updates I have just been rather busy with packing and sick kids. So here is what I have done. I managed to salvage 2 cruisers and the battleship that were damaged from the dendrenzi starter. I have also built the carrier, escorts and and fliers from my Britannia starter. The titans are also ready as well. I should be able to finish off these hopefully in the next few days.

Updates will be as much as I can the next two weeks but no promises on the amount.


till then
aruki