Army of Banst - a parade

Eventually got around to taking some pictures of the finished army. My apologies for the greenish tinge - I suspect a combination of the uniforms, base board and backdrop (a model railway one or part of one used as packing in a recent order) did something to the camera filter....

Anyway, his excellency the Elector of Banst - Eric Helmut Graufuchs (channelling Augustus the Strong of Saxony):

 

His intriguing son-in -law...

 General of the army Von Reuthen

Legion commanders

I & II Legion Dragoons

I & II Legion Hussars

I & II Legion Lancers

I Legion Hastati, Princeps and Triari regiments

II Legion Hastati, Princeps and Triari Regiments

I & II Legion Velites

Amusettes

Flying Artillery

Army from above

The enemy's view

Army Tetris or "will they fit in the box?"

Teasers....

Just finished the Banst army after what feels like a boxing match of several rounds!

I'm so knackered, I can't be bothered to have a proper parade.....

So until I can get them marching and take some decent photos, here's some teasers...

First, the flags....for so few they gave me no end of trouble with touching up and fettling....

Then, when I got the bases labelled and scraped the paint off the magnetic tape on the bottom, and got the b***ers lined up and glued down, I still had to play Tetris to get them into the box!

I also got hung up on the flags; wasn't sure of the colours and whether to add numbers. In the end just went with what I had. Look OK on the figures....

This week I have mostly been......painting Spencer Smiths

As I thought I'd been neglecting my existing projects, I decided to tackle the half-finished army of Banst...

It was a bit of a change to swap to normal acrylics on a black undercoat after all the flats using Contrast paint on white...

To be honest, I'm not sure how the Contrast paints would have coped with the heat (I use a palette); as it was I had to extemporise a wet palette to cope with the paint drying too rapidly.

Quite aside from the challenges mentioned, I have to say I found it a slog to finish off the army; not sure why, but it didn't come easy. It was only when I completed the last of the infantry that I felt I was going to get them finished....

Still need to varnish, make flags and base with labels. Those jobs can be done after work next week and will hopefully keep up motivation. Still feels like there's a fair bit to do on the project.

Here is the army in their box, painted and on temporary card bases for painting:

The |Elector (top left) looks on with his son-in-law (middle) and Von Reuthen - more Fimo "Grotesques":

Infantry:

Cavalry:

Artillery:

The Elector, Erich Helmut Graufuchs, Kurfurst von Banst is an interesting character; when creating his personality, he turned out to be: War Dominant (equivalent to highest military skill), scandalous past, clumsy, elegant and a martinet.

Creating a matrix for how states view each other, it turned out he was either neutral or hostile to everyone else! In many cases, this was reciprocated! These seems to be a back story involving two Hrvatskan twin sisters, married to the rulers of Dupanen and Sinistria which may explain the scandal in the past and current hostility!

I see the army as one using innovations along the lines of Marscall du Saxe and his Legion with Neoclassical helmets....

His son-in -law is Gunter Elster Wealth high as main motivator, a well practised intriguer and unfit.

Herbert Kiefer Graf von Reuthen is Wealth (moderate), huntsman, friends in high places, elegant and a martinet...

Clearly discipline is strict in the Banst army...

A proper parade to follow when finished.

January update

Whatever cold / flu  virus I picked up settled firmly on my chest last week resulting in much coughing, wheezing, sneezing and generally feeling unwell. There was little I could do physically that didn't result in a coughing fit and leaving me exhausted and washed out, usually falling asleep in the afternoon.

Taking the week off work, I attempted to distract myself with more painting. I wasn't very productive, finding after one or two colours I didn't have the energy to continue. Getting old is a pain!

Anyway, with the worst of my affliction behind me (still lingering unfortunately) I managed to finish off the painting on Saturday before a restorative tonic of the VWC.

So, continuing the Frankenstein creations of the Electorate of Banst, I present the Flying (horse) artillery.

The limbers date back to my first acquisition of SSMs from the late Ronald Spencer Smith himself. They were originally created for the Austrian and Prussian forces of the SYW for WRG's 1685-1845 out of SSM limber wheels, balsa, wire, cocktail sticks and chopped about Napoleonic Lifeguard figures. They languished along with the SSMs in a tin then box after deciding to use "proper" metal figures. They were resurrected for Banst with chopping, headswaps and application of Greenstuff.

  

Guns and gunners; the artillery figures are all standard SSM AWI artillery with an ACW kepi head covered with Greenstuff plumes for a sort of Tarleton / French dragoon look. The ACW figures went for civilian militia / rebels with the artillerymens tricornes. The guns are the British Napoleonic carriage from someone's abortive conversion which I further chopped about and reduced in size. The guns barrels are plastic ship's cannons from source unknown which were used way back when for Austrian 3 pdr battalion guns.

I'm slowly working my way through Banst, helped by a limited palette  of colours, most straight from the pot.

New Year painting and fighting the lurgi!

Not the best of starts to 2024; before Xmas I had a chesty cough that kept coming and going. Number one son went out with his friends and came back with a stinking cold. Almost inevitably, I have come down with it as well. A Covid test showed negative, so I assume I have fallen victim to a combined cold and flu virus.

Cue coughing, sneezing, alternate runny or blocked up nose, disturbed sleep and generally feeling under the weather. Copious application of over the counter remedies has provided some relief. Amazingly, despite this I have managed to do some painting. I forced myself to have a go and found not only was I so zoned out I was able to concentrate and focus on the painting which distracted me from the cold/flu. I was careful not to push it too far; when I started making mistakes or felt tired I gave up for the day.

I tackled some more SSMs as they are undemanding to  paint once you have done 100 or more, simple block colours on black undercoat. I bit the bullet and brought down the box for Banst.

Banst is one of the Electoral states, ruled by an Elector that doesn't seem to get on with anyone! His character is one of the few militarily excellent personalities, his cards coming out as "War, Dominant" which in this campaign is going to be close to military genius! I see the army as a potential mercenary force.

The army was originally going to be made up of "left over" figures; I had some Napoleonic SSM cuirassiers in helmet and some of the later Peter Johnstone 25mm plastic SSM additions - much smaller than the classic SSM. I also sort of fancied doing an army to reflect some of Marechal du Saxe's less wacky ideas; plentiful skirmishers, amussette light artillery and a neo-classical organisation based around Roman legions. His real life Volunteers du Saxe provided uniforms and lancers. By the time it came to recreate the army with these ideas, I had managed to accumulate enough SSMs that I could use the smaller figures for head conversions on standard SSM bodies so they matched the other armies.

So here's last week's painting. I have already painted two more infantry units. Unusually, instead of ploughing through all the line infantry, instead I varied it by painting the other main components of the first "Legion" of mixed infantry, cavalry and amussette. There will be two such formations and two batteries of "flying" (horse) artillery.

Scratch-built amussette and mobile shield. The gunner is a converted frontiersman / cowboy from SSM with a head swap and carving.

Line infantry - two more "Cohorts" are painted - Princepes, Hastati and Triari.

Skirmishers - Velites - converted Napoleonic SSM 

Horse - Dragoons

Light cav Hussars and Lancers

The first of Banst

First unit finished for the Electorate of Banst.

Technically one of the Electoral states of the Empire, character generation through up an Elector with a scandalous past who, while militarily talented, has an antipathy for almost every other state and is disliked in return by many!

I have pictured him as possibly something of a cad; a slightly Frederickan character who has little tolerance for others coupled with an inventive military outlook. His army is essentially a mercenary one, for hire and inspired by the ideas of the Marshall de Saxe.

There are two "Legions" each with three "Cohorts" of infantry, a unit of "Velites" (LI skirmishers) and "Horse" (Dragoons, Hussars and Lancers). Each has some light "Flying artillery" ( horse artillery) and an amussette musket. All but the hussars wear a "neo-classical" helmet and the colour scheme is green faced red with buff.

The army's genesis was born out of a desire / need to use up surplus figures; initially , I only had enough AWI Spencer Smith for the main armies, but had left over Napoleonic lancers and cavalry as well as some later additions in a slightly smaller size, including AWI light infantry. Judicious purchases allowed modifications; the infantry and dragoons had head swaps using the AWI head on AWI grenadiers or French Napoleonics or Bavarian / Wurtembourg Napoleonic heads on AWI cavalry. The artillery ended up with heavily modified ACW kepis. The tricorne surplus heads were used on Napoleonic or ACW bodies to produce civilian militia / rebels.

Just for Jonathan, the inspiration and painting guide sketches (already I have deviated from some colour choices).