Painting 3mm Hussars and Chasseurs à Cheval

 I have lumped these together, as the show offs of the French and Austrian armies are surprisingly similar to paint at this scale. I can see some purists already wincing, but in practice the uniforms are similar from a distance.

You can paint both using the same broad colour palette, which is good! Of course, depending on the hussar regiment, the colours may be very different. I happen to be painting the green uniform of the Chasseurs à Cheval and the Austrian 8th Hussar Regiment "Kienmayer", which has a predominantly green uniform. You may be painting other colours, so while I will give you my colours, you should use whichever you are aiming for.

One thing to note - I'd learnt at this point that I needed bright colours, so my choices reflect this.

Chasseurs à Cheval

Start by undercoating black. As with the infantry, this is a good base coat, and it hides any errors well. First is to drybrush the horses. I use Gorthor Brown, but choose your own colour. You will be seeing these from a distance, so I would choose the same colour for all the horses. Don't bother with painting blazes or stockings. 

Drybrushing is your friend - it saves you so much time!

Next paint the uniform. Chasseurs had green uniforms, rather darker than mine are, but you don't want the models to blend into a dark mass. I use Skarsnik Green, and a very delicate brush. The Army Painter: Super Detail brush is perfect for this. You want to paint the legs, arms and back.

This is very easy, but looks very impressive. Also, that black undercoat helps define the figures.

Next up is the saddle and scabbards. Saddles I paint a neutral colour - I use Rakarth Flesh, but what you're aiming for is a colour that does not overpower the uniform. The scabbards I paint in red and yellow. That's quite fancy, but since Chasseurs considered themselves as flamboyant as Hussars, I feel it's fitting. The saddle is generally a quick brush stroke across the back, so it's visible from the back.

Single line of paint. Vary the scabbard colours - change them at your pleasure. Gaudy is not bad!

Finally, paint the swords and flesh. Swords, similar to the bayonets, should be silver. The flesh is a bit tricky on these models, as the face is tucked away. A blob of paint is good enough, and try and paint the hand holding the sword. This is also a good point to paint the flag and touch up the Shakos.

Paint the bases as per the rest of your army. I base mine so that they are not directly next to one another. Close order suggests knee to knee, but it also looks less impressive!

I've also added some Rakarth Flesh highlights on the horses' tails. You can also see the saddles a bit better here.

Hussars

The steps are almost identical to above. Drybrush the horses first.

I can't emphasise how good drybrushing is. Mine looks very dark here, but you can lighten the colours with ease.

Next, paint the dolman, pelisse and breeches. The dolman is the jacket, the pelisse is the cloak and the breeches are the trousers. For the Kienmayer Hussars, the dolman and pelisse are green and the breeches are red. Paint them in:

Two colours and look how good they already look!

It's amazing the level of detail you can get isn't it?! 

Finally, paint the scabbards yellow, the swords silver and the faces flesh. Again, these are going to be seen en masse so minor mistakes are fine. Don't bother with saddles in my opinion - simplicity is key. 

Fairly little work, but they look great!

At this point, paint the flags and shakos, if needed. 

Overview 

I was terrified of the complexity of cavalry for a long time, but once I got going you can paint them quite quickly. Hussars and Chasseurs add some colour to the battlefield and you can use them to smash aside unprepared and tired infantry formations. Just don't let them near wine or women!

The start of two fleets - 1/6000 Naval Wargaming

 Sometime, over the lockdown period, I was lucky enough to be linked in YouTube to a channel "Drachinifel". If you like finding out information about anything warship related from 1950 or before, I highly reccomend listening to him. Anyway, (and for the record no I'm not on comission!) this ignited my desire to do Naval Wargames again.

But what scale, and what period?

This was quite easy. 1/6000 is fairly cheap, easy to paint and you can have battles at a decent scale, without needing a tennis court. I purchased Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts, read the rules and then I treated myself at Christmas to some WWI ships. This week I've painted them. Are they small?

It should be noted this is a destroyer, but gives a sense of the size!

Possibly.

If you want some quick and easy models to paint though? Amazing! Quick spray of grey, wash of Nuln Oil, paint the deck, wash, and then touch up with grey. All done!

So here's what I have so far:

For the Kaiserliche Marine we have 7 battlecruisers, an armoured cruiser and 8 torpedo boats. The battlecruisers are SMS Derfflinger, Lützow, Hindenburg, Von Der Tann, Seydlitz, Moltke and Goeben. The armoured cruiser is the Blücher. 

A proud collection of ships!

This is the core for a few refights, and a few hypothetical encounters.

Not going to lie, only noticed I'd put one on back to front when I clipped the photo.

The only minor thing with ships this small, is identifying them and putting them the right way around! As you can see from the ships above, you need to be careful as one of these ships is heading the wrong way! Fortunately, they are yet to be glued down, so for me this is easy to fix. The back of the base will have a number on, which will help identify the ship, but I may need to add a larger base to make identification easier. The destroyers in Naval Thunder represent flotillas, so I'm going to grab some circular bases and base a few on.

The Royal Navy forces are smaller, at the moment, though reinforcements are incoming. So they consist of HMS Tiger, Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary and 8 destroyers.

Splendid ships!

The Royal Navy ships are easy to identify, but that's more likely because the British built more ships in individual classes.

From Top to Bottom: HMS Queen Mary, HMS Lion and HMS Princess Royal. By the end of the war, only two would be left, as Queen Mary would detonate at Jutland.

 

Two destroyers accompany HMS Tiger

Once I get the Queen Elizabeths, this is the core of the Battlecruiser fleet, so I'm pretty happy with these!

It took me less than a week to paint everything you've seen on this page. If you're looking for a easy painting challenge - 1/6000 might be for you!

Why do I like collecting 3mm figures?

So while I do a bit of painting on some WWI warships, before I take on the Napoleonic Cavalry units again, I thought I'd jot down some thoughts on why I chose 3mm figures.

So firstly, it's not necessarily cost. You certainly get more figures per unit for a much lower cost, but if I'd done 10mm or 15mm then I'd have finished the units I'd need long ago for less overall cost.

I also didn't choose because of time. 3mm are quick to paint, this is very true, but there's so many of them that it does take longer than I'd necessarily want. I'm also a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to painting. The figures are painted in far more detail than is needed!

So why did I choose 3mm?

This could be a division of 12000 men - it looks like it's a large amount of troops, which is apt as it's nearly 1000 figures!

Simple - spectacle! I've never been happy with displaying large units with small amounts of figures. Napoleonic warfare, in my mind's eye, is massed numbers of men marching towards each other before unleashing volleys of disciplined fire into each other. I blame watching Waterloo for this!

So I'm not happy with a division being a grand total of 50 men. It doesn't feel right to me.

Don't get me wrong - massed 28mm, 20mm, 15mm or 10mm Napoleonic armies look fantastic and are a real opportunity to paint detail. I love seeing other people's armies on the battlefield (and they don't take as long to collect!) - but they're not the right scale for massed battles for me.

So why not 2mm? It seems more popular than 3mm, certainly from what I've seen on Twitter and on the Great Wargaming Survey. There's even a wider range of figures and terrain. So why not this scale?

Strangely, it's too impersonal. For someone who wants massed battles and hordes of infantry, I like my painting and I like being able to see detail on my models. It's a strange dichotomy - I want small scale, but I want detail! I'm awkward, but I'm OK with this! I'm collecting two armies anyway. If an opponent wants to take a game of Napoleonics then I'll provide the armies.

Besides, as a clash of armies:

You can't tell me that these don't look a beautiful sight? Even on a plain board 😂

Painting 3mm Austrian Napoleonic Line Infantry

So last post was the French, this time we will tackle probably the most tenacious enemy of the French - the Austrians. Despite the general wargaming focus on the British in this time period, the Austrians fought against the French in the Revolutionary Wars, as the Holy Roman Empire, then the Napoleonic Wars. In total, of the Seven Coalitions that formed against France, Austria was in six of them. Did they do well? Not really, but against Napoleon I don't think that you can judge them too harshly. 

 My Austrians are for the War of the Fifth Coalition - in which Napoleon suffered his first personal defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, though of course he would shatter the Austrians, and the coalition, at Wagram. So what do we need to paint the Austrians? Well, we need these paints:

From left to right: Citadel Praxeti White, Citadel Gorthor Brown, Vallejo White, Army Painter Banshee Brown, Army Painter Barbarian Flesh, Citadel Runefand Steel, Citadel Abaddon Black, Citadel Yriel Yellow. You can mix and match brands as you need.

The Austrians are quick to paint, and again I'm going to suggest batch painting. Again, I do two battalions (12 stands, 120 men) at a time. You can do more or less with some ease.

My models are once again primed in black. This may seem silly for white uniforms, and I guess you could prime white and then wash with black shade, but I prefer this method.

First step is to drybrush white. You want to drybrush the body and legs, but don't be afraid to do the whole model. You can tidy up the Shakos later. If yours have helmets, the same applies. Try and avoid the bayonets if you can, but again not vital. I've found with Praxeti White it can look chalky and very bright to begin with, but it will fade to a rather pleasant grey-white. 

See, I've hit the shakos and some of the bayonets. This is meant to be an easy and effective method, not neat!

Next up, we're going to do the remaining large areas - this is the wood and backpack. I use Gorthor Brown, watered down slightly. I do the muskets first, as they are the most fiddly. Even so, it should be a stroke of paint both sides, followed by the backpacks. Remember, leave the bedding roll at the top unpainted. Minor mistakes can be ignored.

This is probably the most time consuming part. Take breaks if you need to.

The next two steps can be done in either order. My preferred order is to do the bedding first. I use Banshee Brown (or Rakarth Flesh) as it is distinct enough from the uniform, bright enough to be seen at a distance but not distracting. A quick stroke across the top is enough for this!

As you can see the colour is distinctive but not distracting.

Next up the bandoliers. There is one distictive bandolier across the chest and you should paint this white. Water your paint slightly, and use a fine brush and you should be able to do the bandolier with a single stroke. 

Now you can see why we want that pleasing grey-white as the uniform. The bandolier now stands out, and though the soldiers look more grey than white it works from a distance.

Final steps now - paint the bayonets with the silver so they stand out, and paint the faces. Remember, they are too small for detail, so blobs of colour is more than sufficient. If you are brave, pick out the hands on the officers, standards and musicians, but you don't need to. At the same time, use the black on the shakos and the flag. The flag is half black and yellow. I think the flag should actually be white with an Imperial Eagle, but for identification it is a hell of a lot easier to paint and identify the Flag of the Habsburg Monastry. 

The bluriness is more a product of poor camerawork than the painting! It's clear enough I hope.

You can then base them. I base them as 6 stands to a 30mm base. I'll do a seperate post on my basing, but in short, I glue sand to the base, paint it with watered down Vallejo Leather Brown and then drybrush with Citadel Usabti Bone and Screaming Skull. 

You can see the effect en masse. Yes, it's not bright white, but in my opinion it works well and is distinctive enough from the French infantry.

These are quicker than my French forces to paint and you can easily get two bases done per evening. As these are for Et Sans Résultat, each base is a battalion and you'll need two or three for a regiment. The individual men are not particularily impressive, but once you get a few battalions down, the effect is quite something.

The forces of Austria - the first to beat Napoleon, the most tenacious of his opponents.

In no time you'll build up an impressive force to liberate Europe from the Tyrant Napoleon and restore Europe to its natural balance of power!

Painting 3mm French Napoleonic Line Infantry

 I love the Napoleonic era. Absolutely love it. So, a few years ago I invested in some 3mm Napoleonics and found a small scale that in my opinion looked good en masse and was easy to paint. Last year I painted about 1400 of these models - as they're in lines of 10, it's really not hard to do! 

So how do I paint them? Firstly, it should be noted that batch painting these is the way forward. I do a minimum of six stands, but twelve is more usual - that's two units of 60 men each! I can get these done in about an hour. 

I use these paints:

From left to right: Citadel Praxeti White, Citadel Caledor Sky, Vallejo White, Citadel Gorthor Brown, Army Painter Barbarian Flesh, Citadel Runefang Steel, Citadel Mephiston Red. Not shown: Black for touching up any mistakes on the hat.

I'm going to point out that I should have made the blue a little brighter - but I'm a sucker for a more natural look. If I was doing this again, I'd definitely make them brighter, but I've painted over 800 of them now, so I'm too deep in!

I prime my models black. This gives a good base, although it does darken the overall colour, but if you miss a bit when paining, you can't easily tell. Remember, 3mm figures are going to look rudimentary at close range, but you should be going for the massed look from a distance.

Firstly, drybrush the models white, aiming mainly for the legs. 

You get an idea here from my picture - I aim to drybrush the lower half of the model

This also makes details stand out, but your main aim is to paint the white of the trousers quickly and easily!

Next paint the jackets blue. With a relatively fine brush, this is quick and easy.

As you can see, the blue is a bit dark

Next up paint the muskets, wood of the banner pole and the backpacks. We're going to paint these the same colour, because at a few feet, no one will notice that they are the same. 

I start with muskets - you only need one brush stroke, but be careful of the uniform. Minor mistakes can be ignored, but if necessary touch up at the end. Remember, the unit will be closely packed, so minor mistakes won't be noticed. After that, the backpacks - these are much easier and quicker to paint and for all twelve stands I estimate it should take about five minutes at most.

The backpacks are clearer here, but you can see the brown on the muskets too. The tips are left to paint silver, as they are the bayonets.

Next white paint. You are aiming for the bedding on top of the backpacks, and the bandoliers on the front. There should, I believe, be two bandoliers but on these 3mm figures you can only see one. A fine brush, a steady hand and patience will get you through. Again, minor mistakes can be ignored.

You can see the bandoliers - a single stroke of paint gets these done

You can really see the model starting to come together now

I also paint the centre of the flag. A bit of water is a good idea, and a few thin coats on the flag tend to be better than one thick one.

Final steps - finish the flag with the red and blue. Le Tricolore should be proud and stand out - it's also a focal point for the unit. You can also use black to touch up the shakos or hats, which I like to do.

I then pick out the bayonets and the faces. Use a bright silver for the bayonets - you want them to gleam, as they are much more focal. The faces are blobs at this scale, so don't spend time on them! In some cases, getting some paint on the shako is not actually a bad thing, as the "faces" can be seen at a distance. If you're feeling brave, or confident, pick out hands on the standard bearer, officer and musicians. Don't bother with hands on the line troopers. They're not worth the time.

The finished front rank! Faces are my favourite part as it makes the unit come alive.

I glue mine to 30mm square bases, then glue sand to the base. A quick paint of watered down Vallejo Leather brown, followed by a drybrush of Citadel Usabti Bone and Citadel Screaming Skull leaves you with this:

A picture of the unit - 61 men strong, as I add an Eagle, a Colour or an officer, as I do love my French infantry

I can get two units painted an evening, and then once I have a number of units painted I do all the bases at once.

In very little time, you can have quite a number of infantry units, ready to do battle. These are for Et Sans Résultat, so each of the units is a Line Infantry Battalion. Once you get a number of them, they start to look quite impressive. As you can see, the men are fairly indistinguishable, but the flags are not - this helps identify the units and nationalities much easier.

Vive la France, vive l'Empereur!

I do hope this is, and has been, useful if you make the 3mm plunge!

New Year, Actual Focus

 So, firstly this is really an extension of my twitter account (@Under_The_Eagle) - this is really a way of focusing my attention on what I want to do!

So confession first - I am very much a hobby butterfly. Very much. If I see a bunch of nice models, or a good rules set, then I'm likely to try and get into it. It takes a lot to keep me entertained, but it takes very little to get me interested.

So this year I'm going to focus on three main areas:

1) 10mm World War II for Chain of Command.
2) 3mm Napoleonics for Et Sans Résultat
3) WWI warships, 1:6000 scale for gaming and possible 1:2400 for display/small games for Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts

To do this, I'm going to post some musings about these smaller scale miniatures and the wargames, post some painting guides and some AARs. Hopefully, this will help keep me motivated and keep me on the straight and narrow!

So, I plan on updating approximately once or twice a week. Hopefully by this time next year, this will be a bit more of a fleshed out blog - I might have learnt how to make this fancy for a start...