A reworked general!

After umming and arring a while about my decision with the Empire General I have finally came to a decision to re-do him and have him seated, using the general from the "Karl Franz on Deathclaw" box and a bit of tweaking, I've finally got something I'm happy with!

And so we have him, he'll also be the first of my conversions for this army to see the good end of a paintbrush!

Although technically speaking, the lance isn't really too thematic for a Napoleonic General, I couldn't resist the bonus he receives from having a lance on the charge!

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the green / white / red scheme and I am definitely set on continuing this throughout the army very soon!

Have a bit of faith!

Apologies for the delay on the most recent update, life isn't being the kindest of patrons to my hobbying as of late but as in theme with this update, please keep a bit of faith as this update includes the one and only warrior priest... kind of!

In theme with the rest of the army, I've decided to model the warrior priest after a Russian Orthodox priest but still keep it Sigmary! 

So this is where I ended up, using parts froma Celestial hurricanum / greatswords / handgunners etc I decided to model him as if he were preaching as I couldn't really picture a Russian Orthodox Priest swinging a warhammer around too much!

Making use of as much Sigmar devoted items as possible!

With a hint of Karl Franz, too!

Group shot!

After having a fair few of the models completed, I thought I'd get a small group shot of what I have so far, these all still require completing as I tend to dart around different models doing various bits to keep me interested rather than doing them by group, I'll be hopefully done modelling these guys in the next month (if I don't keep purchasing more) and then start painting them in the month to come!

Cavalry!

So here's another small update for you guys, although I haven't done much to them (yet) here are some of the cavalry that I will be using, made from pistoliers, I'll be doing the usual chopping and greenstuffing / kitbashing to liven them up a tad!

As you can see, I have given them all a sword / sabre each along with their pistols (aesthetic reasons). I'll be adding on various bits and pieces to give them all an individual look soon enough!

The four Grenadiers!

Another small update, I've managed to spare some time away from various other worldly things to finish off four Grenadiers tonight, these guys are all ready for priming and paint now!

As you may be able to see from the pictures, these guys fully consist of; a hand gunner body, arms and handguns with smoothed and drilled out barrels, affixed bayonets, headswaps, greenstuffed sigmar scrolls, cuffs and (wrist and boot), tassels and feathers to caps and field backpacks including canteens and short sabre in scabbards!

Small Grenadier progress!

Another hour or so has been spent on the grenadiers tonight, adding Epaullete's, tassels and Sigmar scrolls! I've still yet to finish those couple of bits and they all still need affixed bayonets too though!

As you can see, they are a lot more bulkier than the handgunners, I wanted to do this to ensure they show the extra bulk for their save characteristics whilst on the board!

Arriving in style - The Empire General.

Well here we go, after originally purchasing the general of the Empire model and not being too happy with it at all (I can't help but dislike how bulky he is) I decided to make my own from a Handgunner and a Pegasus (among a few other bits, including more to come!). The Pegasus was a bit of an on the spot purchase as I loved the model and then realised after that my General would gain the "can fly" ability with no extra cost! (Why not?!).

So without further ado, here he is!

 I decided to go for the "over the top" heroic pose with this guy because why not? He's a bloody general!

Typical of my theme - lots of Sigmar scrolls!

Still a long way to go though, I'm wanting to add more laurels and make him stand out a bit more as a General should!

Another pro to the custom General - awesome beardiness, which was not found on the old General I had, a great improvement!

Grenadier progress!

So since I haven't posted in a while I thought I would post a few mini updates as I have been messing with a few different models over the past couple weeks, starting with the grenadiers!

As you can see I have (nearly) three completed and they now have their bayonets affixed to the side of the muskets and their head position has been altered!

I decided to bulk these guys out a bit as the bodies are just from Handgunners and considering they're a proxy for State Troops, I felt they needed to look a little less squishy!

All quiet on the miniature front!

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the recent lack of updates in regards to the progress of my Napoleonic Empire army, unfortunately I managed to crack my Smartphones screen and rendered it about as useful as a coaster thus, being unable to take photographs to update my posts. It's not all bad news though!

I have still continued the work on my miniatures and have progressed a fair bit (of which i will be updating you as soon as my phone returns to my side). This is including more grenadiers with reworked heads / muskets to make them a bit more realistic and correct (Bayonets of the side of the musket, heads turn as if they were bracing for an attack, rather than looking off into the distance!),

I have also made some progress on a General to lead these guys, this will consist of a converted Handgunner atop of a Pegasus (Got to love the "can fly" rule) with lots of green stuff, spare bits from sprues and whatnot! Although it will be a while before he is finished, it's a work in progress none the less!.

I'll also be looking at getting myself a cannon and magnetize it so i can swap it out to be a mortar depending on the situation in game, but that's all yet to come, anyway!


I also almost forgot to mention that this Napoleonic Empire army will now actually become "Napolepic", as I'm really loving the whole Empire's dedication to Sigmar, I feel I need to embrace this and just go crazy.

All hail Sigmar!

The Grenadiers!

I'd like to start this post off by apologising for the slow progress over the past few days, I've been itching to make some more progress on these guys and try something new, so here we are; Grenadiers!

I've decided to use these guys as a proxy for State Troops as a fully Handgunner army would be ridiculous and not very fun to play with or against! So thus these chaps have been spawned, part handgunner, part pistolier, tied together with all sorts of green stuff goodness! I decided to go for the "Old Guard" look with laurels and inscriptions (Sigmar scrolls) to keep them looking like Sigmar finatics (as they should be!), epaulletes and put them in a pose that differentiates them from handgunners as well as including an affixed bayonet!

Reinforcements have arrived.

As stated in my last post I was hoping to add backpacks and possibly head swap some models to get a nice mix of The Empire / Napoleonic style and so have treated myself to a little something!

I can't help but love the uniform of the Russian line infantry and am very tempted to do my paint scheme to this style as well so it made sense to use some actual Russian Line Infantry from Black Powder to spice things up a bit!

So here we go! I've not actually made a lot of use of the box as I'm not a fan of how static they look when compared to games workshops handgunners but the backpacks looked too great to turn down!

The first steps.

So here we go, the actual content of the blog begins! As you may well have read, I will be using games workshop models and chopping, kit bashing and greenstuffing them into line! (pun definitely intended).

It's going to be a steady process as there is going to be lots of small details to be done to a fair amount of models, starting with the handgunners who will be my line infantry. Firstly, every barrel will be smoothed down and any cartridges / wraps around the rifles will be removed so I can keep all of the guns uniform as seen below!

As you can see in comparison to the rifle I've yet to smooth down, it seems a lot more "Napoleonic". The canisters were also removed after this photograph and I added cuffs to the boots and arms too, oo-err!

That's pretty much how they sit right now, I do have plans to add some backpacks and was contemplating head swaps but I didn't want to take too much of the heroic warhammer feel from these guys as I love the models to begin with, I must say!

It begins!

So after realising how big of a project my little hobby is going to be I've decided to make a blog so I can look back on the progress I've made... but progress on what you ask? Well, here we go!

Recently I've managed to get myself sucked into Games Workshop's new project - Age of Sigmar, coming from the Hobbit SBG / 40k. It's all very different and very simple which is great for myself as I'm nothing more than a simple man anyway, but I digress.

I have a big thing for all things Napoleonic. The formations, weapons, tactics... like I said, all things! I mainly blame Sean Bean and his Portrayal of Richard Sharpe as I've always enjoyed this since I was too young to remember! As I got older I spent many hours playing Total War: Empire and Napoleon as well as The Napoleonic Wars Expansion for the good old Mount & Blade, it's all very much melted into the fiber of my being now, you only have to see my Steam profile picture.....

..... Obsessed!

So upon seeing the new WHFB *Cough*.... AoS, I instantly saw The Empire with their cannons, mortars, hand gunners.. etc etc as a perfect excuse to do what I've always wanted to... Create my own physical Napoleonic army. I know that there are many other modelling companies that make actual Napoleonic models and rule sets but they have very small communities and I'm sure as a very casual tabletop gamer, I wouldn't fare so well.

So I'll forget the dreams of large battles and stick to the smaller skirmishes of AoS, creating a Napoleonic-esk? army with influences from all over Europe as well as still sticking to the likeness of The Empire.

As stated in my first albeit small paragraph, this project is already underway and at the time of writing this I am way behind in posting progress so I won't bore you with insolent ramblings of my love of the era any longer and get right to it!