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I was asked to do the Oktoberfest Ester and Quaff. Those should turn up on my doorstep soon-ish.



But apart from that it's just regular fare for me as far as I know. But you never know what minis I get in the next batch!

Still currently working on the Blacksmiths and the terrain pack. Seems like the casting got quite a bit better on these than on the Farmers. But maybe it's just me thinking it is.


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Another update:


Looking good for the deadline (19th December). The players are almost done now; just a bunch more terrain left to do. Hope you like them so far!

....aaaand we're done!







Hope you like them!

Up next: Masons&Brewers terrain pack.


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Alright, here's even more pictures, this time of the Masons&Brewers terrain pack!












Hope you like them! The lighting is getting a bit better now; still adjusting. Tomorrow I'll throw everything over again by trying out the dark backgrounds. :p So stay tuned!


Better pictures now. Still not entirely happy, but i'm getting there. :p Tomorrow: The very same with dark background!

Great work.

I always really like how you paint wood.

@Dr H: Thanks very much!

hey, a happy third advent sunday to all of you! Sundays are always slow, so here's just some onions and hay bales to finish this batch of Guildball Figures. :p

Hey peeps, the review for the Guild Ball Blacksmiths figures (and GB's plastics in general) is online now:

http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2017/12/review-guild-ball-blacksmiths-guild.html



Hope you find the article interesting and helpful!


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Hey, fellas!

Friend of mine printed a figure and asked me to slap some paint onto it. He (the figure ) is a proper christmas grinch alright...





Hope you like him. That 3d printer texture is evil, but I've managed to paint around that before and I think I mostly managed again!

Hey, just dropping by to drop holiday greetings!

Be excellent unto each other, do things which please you and others and enjoy.

LOL! Nice!

@Gitsplitta: Cheers.


Another WIP of the Deatchwatch Marines:

Lovely work on the christmas grinch, your blending is always something I will try to emulate. Deathwatch is coming along nicely too, love how you are able to make those colors pop.

Deathwatch are looking good, Siggy - any tips on working with this set?

@Yorkright: Cheers. Blending on this one was a bit tricky too, due to 3d print texture.

@Dysartes: Thanks very much, Sir! As for tips - err.. most of the left arms are separate bits, so if you like you can leave them off to paint them (as they'll all be silver). I glued'em on so we could play before painting. Painting the arms wilst glued on wasn't a problem either. A point in the favor of gluing first and painting later would be that you got the position of the arm and know where to place highlights. Other than that - it's just Space Marines. If you know how to paint black you'll be good and if you don't you will after having painted these.

Top of the morning to all of you. Here's another WIP shot of these space marines:


Most of what happened was metallics and detailwork on the Biker. Hope you like the minis!

Thanks Siggy - speaking of black, how have you approached painting the black power armour?

@Dysartes: Hmm... basically "less is more". Mid-grey, bluegrey, light bluegrey, mix of light bluegrey and white.

Hey guys, I guess it's time for an update, eh?

First of all: Happy new year! Hope all of you are well and all the best to you for 2018!

So what have I been working on? Mostly 25mm Napoleonic Polish Ulans again (6th and 8th regiment). Pictures of those are to follow.

I also painted a tank!







Then these chaps came along:




During moving house these chaps I bought about 12 years ago landed on my painting table again and during drying times on some horses I idly started painting the skin. And during other drying times I did some more work on them. Not sure where this leads, but for years I've had plans to refight the Battle At The Farm scenario from the Rogue Trader rulebook, which I think would be fun.


Oh, and for March we're planning to run a multi-player campaign of Hordes of the Things.



HotT is a cracking little set of rules based on DBA2.1. Basically the Fantasy variant. The plan is to have a map campaign based on Mighty Empire mechanics involving Bretonnians, Dwarfs, Dark Elves and Arabyians as the main players, with Empire, Orcs and possibly Wood Elves as smaller factions. We'll use 10mm sized figures.

Here's one of my opponents' Dwarf armies:



..and a few impressions of an evening of test games between Bretonnians and Dwarfs:




Knights of all shapes and sizes line up for the charge.


In the second game the Gyrocopter came into play. All of us are very convinced that flyers are incredibly useful now.


So yeah, cracking set of rules. And all you need is a 24x24" (or 30x30" board if you so prefer) and roughly 10 to 12 bases of troops. The rules play very fast, so several games per evening are possible.

I decided to go with an Araby army, because I just love the Warmaster minis. Of course nowadays these are just absurdly priced on ebay and I actually already owned a bunch of fitting figures in 10mm from my collection of 16th/17th century Ottomans (all Pendraken minis). So all I needed to do was to turn them into Fantasy-ish units and add some Fantasy elements. Here's the latest WIP shot of my army:



As you can see I got (from top left to front right): A base of a horse mounted general and lifeguard and a base of Sipahis (Knights). Those are basically still unpainted. Then we got two bases of Janissaries (count as Shooters in Hordes of the Things terms). In the centre row we got a base of light cavalry in the left (still WIP), two bases of skirmishers (counting as Hordes), a base of artillery (I tarted up the cannon a bit by sculpting a monstros face onto the muzzle), 2 bases of spearmen, and the frontmost row begins with a base of three wise men/magi/scientists. All on that base (apart from the figures themselves) is scratch-built. They got a big old (hand painted) carpet (probably with flying capabilities ), a table of star maps, books, and all the stuff you need, a big telescope, some more maps in a container in the back and so on. Good stuff. The scientists count as a base of magicians. Then we got Soup Pot carriers. Historically the soup pot was an incredibly important thing to the elite Janissary corps. Along with the two Janissary pot carriers I put a guy waving a big flag, a drummer and a trumpeter to turn the whole scene into a proper procession. This base counts as Clerics in game terms. Next to them in the front centre I quickly made a base of a snake charmer and his nasty venomous snakes. In game terms they count as a Lurker unit. In the front right there are two more cavalry bases which still are WIP.

Few days ago I placed an order with Magister Militum for some more stuff. Mostly flying carpets and Elephants. Oh, and a huge Djinn.




But now back to commission stuff. In this regard I just started a whole new project:




Yeeeeeeeeah, let's talk about the Great Northern War (1700-1721).

To me warfare in the 18th century always was kind of a blind spot. Sure a bunch of landmarks come to mine: Kabinettskriege, Empress Maria Theresia, War of Spanish Succession, Louie XIV., good uniforms, Prussians nicking Silesia by use of ungentlemanly measures ( ), seven years war, american war of independence... and then it's French revolution time already! Kinda.

Concerning warfare: Tricorns, linear warfare, the vanishing of the pike, Grenadiers wear funny hats, good uniforms (a point which should always be stressed), kinda slow cavalry, Prussians get +1 on all rolls (because in the 18th century Prussians are Space Marines), etc.

Now a fine gentleman approached me and asked me to paint his Swedes and Russians for the GNW. A good reason to get a bit more into this topic. During the Thirty Years War Sweden cemented their position as a major European power. Over the course of the second half of the 17th century the Swedes expanded and consolidated their realm along the borders of the Baltic Sea.



Enclaves and often important centres of trade in Poland, the baltic states and northern Germany were in Swedish hands. This allowed for the kingdom (which mostly was agraric in nature) to be and remain a major player in Northern Europe.

After the death of Swedish king Charles XI. his then 15-year old son succeeded him to the throne as Charles XII. The kingdoms of Denmark (along with the kongdom of Norway) as well as the King of Saxony and Poland, August the Strong, took this opportunity to forge an attack alliance against the Swedes. Tsar Peter I. of Russia also joined the Anti-Swedish league and three years later, in 1700, they attacked Sweden from all Sides.



Denmark-Norway marched into Schleswig-Holstein to their southern border, Saxony-Poland besieged the important trade centre of Riga and Russia invaded from the East (Livland). Somehow though the Allies had miscalculated. Charles XII. immediately raised an army, led it to Denmark and forced a peace treaty. Then he went on to Livland and after a 2 months campaign he beat a numerically vastly superior Russian army. The Swedish king left a garrison force in Livland, with the rest of his army he marched into Poland and reliefed Riga. In 1705 a peace treaty was reached with Poland. To top it all off Charles XII. led his army right into the heart of Saxony. King August was forced to nullify any treaties with Russia and, and this is the big thing, to relinquish any rights to the Polish throne. Within 6 years Charles XII. had proven his enemies' conceptions of the king's weakness wrong. The Swedish army, who enjoyed a reputation of being the best and most aggressive soldiers in Europe had a bunch of new combat experience and were of the best of morales.

So what do you do when you got the tip top army of the continent? You march it into Russia!

Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland were out of the game for now and Russia was still licking her wounds. After the Russian crushing defeat at the battle of Narva Charles XII. had a very low opinion of the Russian army. Russia at this point still was very much stuck in feudal times. This is why he immediately turned to Poland afterwards rather than marching into Russia. This gave the Tsar 6 crucial years to reorganize his army further. Because this Tsar wasn't any guy, but Peter I. (the Great).

Happy New Year to you and yours, Siggy!

The JagdPanther is ace, nice work

Awesome Space Orks, proppa old skool an’ well Orky like! Really fun little fantasy armies and a tidy set of rules, too.

Incredible historical stuff, and an awesome history lesson, too, thanks Sig. Never heard of The Great Northern War until today. Mainland European history is so amazingly complex, and it’s unfortunately not taught much in schools over here.

For example, nobody is ever taught about the absolute balls-up that was The English Armada. I think that some counter-patriotism might have done well in recent years.

Sorry Sigur Nice to see you back!

Grrrr.... most of the pics aren't showing up for me. Stupid computer.

@Cosmic: Thanks for the comment and amen to that. I knew next to nothing about the GNW up until 4 days ago either. Summarizing stuff and writing it down helps me memorizing a lot though.

@Gitsplitta: Yikes! Weird, they all show properly for me. I'll check if something's gone awry.


Right, to get into the meat of the matter - I'll build and paint two small armies: Swedes and Russians. All in 6mm, all Baccus minis. For Swedes, we got much more accurate sources on uniforms and whatnot, so I'll start with those. Basing is done with Polemos Standards, each base represents one regiment.

First I cleaned all the minis, then I glued the swedish units onto cocktail sticks (by unit/regiment) and primed them):



Slightly annoying: that little piece of flash you get between the centre of the base and each horse's belly. Those have to be cut away. Then I started working on some of the more annoying things I should get out of the way early on - the white trims on the tricorns. I also painted one regiment as a test unit. It's the Narke-Varmland infantry regiment. By accident I'd grabbed one with a slightly out of the ordinary red facings, cuffs and turnbacks. On the vast majority of regiments those were yellow:

Kinda like this (with smaller variety between regiments):
[img width=602 height=275]http://www.tabletopwelt.de/uploads/monthly_2018_01/main-qimg-53a52c974b89a199aa9f2c37fc25021d.png.cbf618200a80c77ce9dd4a82daa6df3b.png[/img]


To get back to the historical bits (because I really don't have much to show in terms of minis yet. ):
In the last post we stopped at Tsar Peter I. (later: Emperor Peter the Great). This gentleman was important. Right after getting on the throne in 1682 (end of reign: 1725) he started modernizing the army and began a general big program of Westernization in all aspects of the Russian Tsardom. As mentioned above, Russia at that point was still stuck in Feudalism. The young Tsar travelled Western Europe a lot (often incognito), invited a lot of clever peeps from the West to his court as advisors and ordered beards to be either cut off or radically trimmed back so that state officials and pretty much everyone looked more 'civilized' (even on clergy! :O ). This, and other reforms, didn't resonate well with large parts of the population and officials and early in his reign Peter was often busy beating down uprisings or throwing conspirators or just opponents into prisons, holes or exile.



Originally Peter I. looked in the direction of the Ottoman empire with plans for expansion. On their own the Russian army wasn't able to do much there though. Peter went from court to court in Europe, but looking at how everybody was busy preparing for the War of Spanish Succession and other things nobody was willing to send troops off to the Bosporus. So this plan got buried and Tsar Peter I. turned to the North-West and the importance of the Baltic sea for trade.

Peter I. was enamoured with seafaring and had a Russian fleet built (an extremely unorthodox move for the traditionally land-warfare oriented Russia) to protect Russian interests (=trade) in the Baltic Sea. He dreamt of Russian sea harbors, and soon breaking Swedens dominance over Northern Europe become the #1 priority to the Tsar.

Hence Russia joining the Anti-Swedish League (August the Strong of Saxony [and thus Poland], Kingdom of Denmark [and thus Norway], see above). Also above you can see how this didn't really go so well initially (Battle of Narva). The Russian army was beaten horribly by superior and experienced Swedish troops. Like really horribly. 10,000 Swedes (including the Narva garrison force) beat 30,000-35,000 Russians. Swedes suffered under 2,000 dead and wounded while the Russian army suffered roughly 9,000 dead and wounded and 20,000 prisonders of war.


The Victory of Narva. In the left you can see a sled-mounted light cannon.

The Russian army made a very bad impression, Charles XII. rushed on to Poland, as Russia seemed a wet paper tiger and there were more important things to do. In the mean time the Tsar immediately raised new troops, trained them in the western style and had them carry out limited campaigns over the next years as to gain some land and first and foremost experience and learn how to counter the aggressive Swedish tactics. New regiments were created, especially cavalry. In 1700 there were only two regular cavalry regiments in the Russian army, by 1708 it was 34.

By the way, Charles XII. attack on Russia in 1708 was the first time a European army invaded Russia (later examples being Napoleon in 1812 and the German army in 1941).



The Russian army of 1708 was a completely different to the one the Swedes had beaten so triumphantly in 1700. Training and general quality still wasn't on par with the Swedes, but the whole army had been reorganized, set up in the style of Western armies and now had experience and a few plans for countering the Swedish war machine.



The Swedish army, tactics and equipment

Swedish soldiers, the famous Caroleans, basically were trained in a style directly derived from the ideas Gustavus Adolphus had nicked from the Dutch for his army in the 1620s and 30s. These plans had been adapted for the new developments in warfare.

Infantry aggressively closed in with the enemy and at roughly 50m distance (later in the GNW this was reduced to 20m or even 15m) unleshed a devastating salvo of the whole battalion in two ranks. To the order of 'Gå–På!' bayonets and pikes were lowered (or swords were drawn) and the enemy was attacked in a reckless charge. This tactic was especially made to face numerically superior enemy troops. Very often these would flee the scene either due to the stoic advance of the Swedes though enemy musket fire, the devastating impact of the close-ranged salvo or the range advantage pikes had over bayonets.


A Swedish musketeer (1700-1721), by ManuLaCanette

A word on pikes: Yeah, that was an anachronistic speciality of the Swedes (but also used by the Russians in the GNW). One third of each battalion was equipped with pikes. Since the introduction of the bayonet pikes pretty much had vanished from the European battlefields. Apart from the range advantage thing on the charge I assume that most enemies the Swedes faced in Poland and Russia (with large proportions of Cossacks and other irregular cavalry) Pikes still were handy. Last, but not least: pikes are cheaper than muskets and if you make the charge a crucial part of your tactic with just one big salvo before that pikes make perfect sense. It's not a good idea to get into a prolonged firefight with numerically superior foes.

Musketeers all were armed with ...well, muskets (modern flintlocks) and swords. An important thing to mention is the Swedish system of recruitment/maintaining a standing army. Look it up, it's very interesting.


The quota of cavalry in the Swedish army was very high (almost 50%, as opposed to roughly 25% in other European armies). They also reflected the doctrine first introduced by Gustavus Adolphus in the early 17th century. Just as the infantry the cavalry's approach to warfare was very aggressive. At 150m cavalry began the charge with swords drawn. Firing pistols from the saddle and then charge was generally not done in the Swedish army. For this shock tactic Swedes were trained to ride 'knee behind knee', leading to a wedge-like formation in three ranks, leading to a very tight formation which was hard to break up and led to maximum impact.

What surprised me when reading about this was that officers and cornets were to be at the front of the formation (being the tip, essentially). And how Charles XII. and Peter I. led armies from the front as well. Not sure how the Swedish army was able to maintain their officer corps, but somehow they did.



Apart from cavalry regiments Sweden had a bunch of Dragoon regiments (which of course were cheaper to set up and maintain, making them the wartime choice of regiments raised). Originally Dragoons had been infantry mounted on cheap horses just so they could get from point a to point b relatively fast, create ambushes, forage, harass, protect lines of support and so on. Fighting was done on foot. Befitting Swedish doctrine though in battle Carolean dragoons also were basically used as shock cavalry. I think they also wore cavalry boots at this point already, which of course makes fighting on foot a bit of a chore. I mean even more than it usually is.

On paper there also were 2 or 3 Horse Grenadier regiments (mostly supplied by French and German allies). In practice those were used just as any other cavalry as well.

In general I didn't read of any cuirasses or helmets being used in the Swedish army of the time, but I do remember cavalrymen in the 18th century weaing metal fittings underneath their tricorns for protection.



The relationship of Charles XII. to the artillery is an interesting one. On the campaign against Russia the Swedes had light and mid-weight cannon with them (plus extra-light regimental cannons). All but the lightest guns had trouble keeping up with the rest of the army though. There's a conception that Charles XII. wasn't fond of the artillery arm on the whole. On the other hand, given the very aggressive doctrines of the Swedish army, the artillery just didn't play that big a role in land battles. Anyway, artillerymen wore light grey jackets instead of blue ones like the cavalry and infantry. turnbacks/cuffs were dark blue.

Proceeding well on the infantry and went on to some work on the cavalry:

Good God man...

How're you finding the Baccus stuff, Siggy? I know there's a Swedish guy who turns up to the Joy of Six each year who is a big proponent of the period, and has put on some excellent displays based on battles from the conflict.

A very good book to read on this subject is Peter the Great by Robert Massie, he of Dreadnought and Castles of Steel fame. There's a pretty great anecdote in the book about how Charles XII was a bit of a rowdy drunk in his youth and how one day they got a pet bear so drunk that it fell out of the window of Charles' castle and died. I believe the audiobook is still available on Audible for those who are interested.

As always, love the historical stuff Sigur.

@Gitsplitta:

@Dysartes: Love it. I got to work on Hoplites, Napoleonics, now GNW and I think some more stuff by Mr.Berry and they're all really, really nice. The bayonets generally are really nicely done and sturdy enough (okay, there's the odd one-in-a-hundred weak cast, but oh well), even the pikes seem to be OK. Sculpting and casting are really nice and the basing format they propagate in their rules set Polemos (about which I heard mixed reviews) feels very nice and works for depicting larger formations. Highly recommended.

@Das_Ubermike: wow. I read that Charles XII. was rather abstinate, but I guess we're still playing by 17th century rules here, meaning that everybody was a horrible drunkard by night and a sombre, upstanding [insert religion here] by day. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll put it on the list!



Right, I did some more work on the Swedes. Infantry are put on bases now:





...and I put some cavalry on their base as well. Just have to get the formation green-lit by the client:

There is definitely something to be said for massed ranks of 6mm models, Siggy

 Dysartes wrote:
There is definitely something to be said for massed ranks of 6mm models, Siggy

Yup, that's the thing. That's an effect you'll never get (unless you got a humongously huge table and a TON of time, space and money) with 28mm figures.





Right, tiny changes about the flags. Each base now gets a flag of the kingdom as well as a regimental flag. I got mosrt of the infos on the flag, but still had to do a little extra research (and a little freehanding on one of the flags).



The cornets (the little flags the cavalry got) are painted now as well. Next step is getting everything based. In the mean time I also prepared and primed the Russian army.

Has anyone of you read the GNW Compendium? I hear it's basically the standard work to get into the period.


Right, this is what the Swedes look like now:


A few bits are still left to fix. Basing will be done on all the bases at once right in the end, along with the bases on the Russians. Speaking of whom, here they are:




Oh and the new toys from Magister Militum for my 10mm Araby army have arrived!



From left to right: Pack camels for supply train bases or the camp. Next to them we got something very special - Camels disguised as war elephants! These are more mythical than historical, but according to certain historians the Assyrians used those against the Indians (as they didn't have any elephants of their own). Amazing, unique models. No idea what I'll do with them or what they are supposed to count as, but I saw them on the online store and had to get them. Then we got some flying carpet riders with bows and proper Elephants in the far right. Should be good.

The Swedes are looking really good, Siggy - nice work! Also, that is so. Many. RUSSIANS!

I went to a wargames convention back in 2011. (Yikes! ) It was mostly historical stuff, and I clearly remember visiting a 6mm scale miniatures booth. The guy said to me “everyone else has got it wrong, this is the proper scale for wargaming!”

Although they were just trying to sell their stuff, seeing all of the guys that you’ve painted makes me realise that he was absolutely correct. I suppose that 10/15mm isn’t far off, either. 28mm is just SO big! But it does look nice

If you're interested in smaller scale stuff, Cosmic, there's a 6mm miniatures show in Sheffield, run by Baccus.

Excellent work.

I used to truly love Epic tiny tiny men are special, full ranks like this look so awesome and give a real impression of the true scale of war.

Got to say though I would find it very daunting to paint all those guys to this amazing standard, I mean they might end up just all blue, the detail is amazing bud.

 Dysartes wrote:
If you're interested in smaller scale stuff, Cosmic, there's a 6mm miniatures show in Sheffield, run by Baccus.

Thanks, Dysartes! The Joy of Six I’ve just discovered, and I could make it. It does sound very interesting. I think that I ought to make a holy pilgrimage to Warhammer World first, and I really don’t need any more miniatures. However...

Amazing work Sigur, all that detail in those little fellas!