2nd Battalion Tarnopol Regiment

 I finished the 2nd Battalion of the Tarnopol regiment.  These are Perry plastics and this time I went with the soft caps.  With 2 battalions the regiment is ready for battle!

1812 Russian Tarnopol Battalion

 As has become the norm around here, I have been very bad about blogging my gaming and modeling progress.  I have actually been having a pretty good year on both fronts, but I have been too lazy to document it. 

My most recent completed paint project is the 1st Battalion of the Tarnopol Regiment.  This is my first unit of Perry miniature for the Napoleonic era, and I must say, they are very nice.  I selected the Tarnopol regiment using the same reasoning I have used for all my Napoleonic units, I have the flags.  I do not know a thing about this unit or its history.

I also painted a commander for the musketeer brigade, also a Perry model.  Finally, I have my second  Russian gun.  This is a 12lb cannon from Warlord games.

Perry Plastic Russians.  Excellent figures that are not really a great match for my Warlord plastics but should be OK in separate units.  The kit allows for building earlier (1807-1812) or later (1812+) units.  It also has heads with soft caps.  There are way too many figures in the box for the size units I build so I ordered some separate command frames from Perry to build more units.

I am following my painting standard for Russians of red for collars, cuffs, shoulder straps, and turn backs.  These should have shoulder straps colored based on their seniority in the division.  I don't know this info so they gat red and that's that.  I might paint some units in the future where I use the regional color for the cuffs and collars.

This is a Perry Russian Officer that I will use as a brigade commander.  I don't have a good uniform reference so he got a fairly generic paint job.

The Perry miniatures really are the gold standard for the period.

This is the same model that my friend, Tim, painted for me a couple of years ago.  The Warlord stuff is good solid and functional stuff that will not wow you.  This is a half-battery so with the two I now have a full battery of artillery.

I expect this will be the last Warlord gun I paint.  Future artillery addition to this army will be Perry.

My Russian Napoleonic collection is nearing the point where I can play a game.  I now have 4 Grenadier battalions, 2 Musketeer battalions, a battery of cannon and 2 commanders.  On the paint bench I have the 2nd battalion of the Tarnopol regiment as well as the army commander.  After that I will paint the 2nd battalion of the Narva regiment and I will have 8 battalions.  That is enough to get these guys on the table.

Future plans will be to add a second battery (Perrys miniatures) and a brigade of cavalry.  That, I think, would complete this project.  The next Napoleonic army on the list will be British.  I really don't want to do them, but like the French, hard to do do the period without them.

1812 Russian Narva Musketeer Regiment

For the first time since November 2020 I have finished a painting project.  I am VERY rusty but I am happy with how these turned out.  I am not totally sure why I chose these figure and my return to the painting hobby.  I really love the look of painted Napoleonic figures but I find painting them a chore.  I don't have any immediate plans to use these, it just seemed like the thing to do. 

This is the first battalion of the Narva musketeer regiment with the 1812 Kiver (Kiwa).  I am still struggling a bit with the colors on the uniforms.  It seems like the collars and cuffs changed to red in 1807 but the shoulder straps stayed the regimental color.  That means these are probably wrong but I can't find a reference for this regiment.  They are the Narva regiment simple because I had flags for them.

These are Warlord games plastic figures.  They are pretty nice and are not too bad to paint.

3rd Battalion, Little Russia Grenadier Regiment

 As part of the trade that got me the 12lb Russian artillery, Tim also painted a battalion of grenadiers.  These have been based and bannered as the 3rd Battalion of the Little Russia Grenadier regiment.  I have already painted the 1st battalion and Tim painted these to match. I think he did a good job matching my style.

With this battalion and the artillery I now have one fully painted brigade of Russians.  That is just enough to get a small game in.

Russian Napoleonic Artillery

 This is the first artillery unit for my Black Powder Russian Napoleonic army.  My friend, Tim, painted this for me earlier in the summer as part of a trade.  The model is from Warlord games and is pretty nice.  This represents a 12lb cannon.

Napoleonic Russian Brigade Commander

I have finally finished my Russian Napoleonic Brigade commander for my Black Powder Russians.  I actually painted this guy last year but for some unknown reason I let it sit on the paint table with the base incomplete.  All done now.

This model is from Warlord games and is actually a mounted colonel.  He will make a usable brigadier until I get around to finding a better model.

1st Battalion, Little Russia Grenadier Regiment

I am making good progress this spring on my long neglected Napoleonic project.  This time we have the 1st battalion of the Little Russia grenadier regiment.  To be honest, I had not set out to model this particular unit so I really have no idea if this looks 'correct' in terms of uniform.  It is the Little Russia regiment because Warlord kindly included flags in the box for this unit.

When I started my Russians I really knew nothing about Napoleonic Russians - how to configure the units, how to paint the uniforms, what are the flags all about?  Part of the joy of historical wargaming is the research and discovery of a new period or topic. 

Needless to say I have been doing a lot of research all-be-it on the internet.  Since I have been working on grenadiers that has been my main focus.  These figures are painted in the 1809-14 style with the old style shako and large plume.  I painted the jackets more inline with my understanding of the 1812 uniform (1812 being my area of interest for this project) with the red collars, cuffs and turnbacks.  The earlier uniforms used the red turnbacks but the collars and cuffs would have been the color of the Inspectorate (basically a region) that the unit was raised from.  In the case of this unit I think the cuffs and collars would have been pink to match the color in the flags.

FOr this unit I really have no idea if it ever wore this combination of uniform traits or not.  I am not even sure a unit could have retained the old style shako but been issued the new red and green jackets.  The amount of variation I found in my research leads me to believe it is plausible. 

Another area of confusion is how to structure the units.  I play Black Powder and these rules really don't get into how a unit should be built or appear just how many figures it has and what troop classification it is.  That should make things a little easier, or so I thought.  Since a grenadier battalion has different in-game stats it is important to be able to easily identify the unit on the table.  This battalion, with its large dramatic plumes will be easy to spot.  The trouble comes with the 3rd battalion (also know as the 2nd line battalion) which I have yet to model and paint.  I am leaning in the direction of building a unit just like this one but that would deviate from the history a bit. 

It turns out that a Russian grenadier regiment was not comprise solely or entirely of grenadiers.  They also contained fusiliers, which were the equivalent of the line regiment's musketeers. Basically regular soldiers. Prior to 1812 the regiment would have had a first battalion comprised on grenadiers just as I have modeled here.  The 3rd battalion would have been entirely fusiliers without the tall plumes.  This is likely to cause some confusion in game terms.  It gets more complicated for grenadiers in 1812 and beyond.  The unit structure at that time was basically identical to the structure for the line regiments - 2 companies of grenadiers, 4 companies of fusiliers/musketeers.  This certainly would make identification of grenadier regiments difficult on the table.  Quite the problem - units that look more like the historical counter parts or units that are easy to identify on the table.

Since I am much more a gamer than a button counting Napoleonic simulator I will go with easier to identify on the table.  This means that my grenadiers will all get the tall plume regardless of the style of shako or which battalion they represent.  This might send some purists into a tailspin but I think it will make the games more manageable and fun.  Besides, the grenadiers look cool so it will be neat to have a bunch of units running around.

As a final disclaimer, I really don't know much about this topic.  I am sure I have goofed some of this up but I am sure I will keep learning.

Pavlovsk Grenadier Regiment

With my Napoleonic French at a usable point I decided to switch to Russians.  I am starting with grenadiers and the first unit is the Pavlovsk Grenadier regiment.  This is the first and the third battalions and the figures are all Warlord Games 28mm.  These are nice figures and are very easy to paint.

1st battalion front 

1st battalion rear

1st battalion command

3rd battalion front

3rd battalion rear

3rd battalion command