Prussian Artillery and 28mm FPW Odds & Ends

Some Prussian artillery and a few foot-slogging odds & ends for my 28mm Franco-Prussian war projects

Over the weekend I finished a few more bits for my 28mm Franco-Prussian War project(s), and here they are!  Up first are a few spare 28mm figures for my skirmish-gaming side of things - these are the extremely awesome sculpts from "Eagles of Empire".  The more I paint these castings, the more I love them.  They have some new figure releases lined up for 2018, and I'm pretty excited to see them - especially the French Turcos!

Chasspot rifles being prepped for action in defence of the Second Empire!

There are four French infantrymen here, intended to "round out" the four squads of French infantry I have painted from seven models to eight models each.  While that difference makes no difference in many skirmish rules, if I can ever sort out "Sharpe Practice" from Too Fat Lardies I think the base elements of four/eight in the infantry units will make a difference.

So much detail on these lovely "Eagles of Empire" castings

These fellows show all of the lean, tall beauty of the "Eagles of Empire" sculpts, with all sorts of excellent detail.  The uniform of the French infantry from this era is just beautiful, and I love to paint them up.

Drums of war! Prussian drummer beats the charge - need to close the range on those Chassepot rifles!

The animation of the "Eagles of Empire" sculpts is really something - you can feel the beat!

There is also a lone Prussian figure - a drummer.  Again, this is mostly intended to "round out" my collection of individually-based 28mm Prussian troops.  Each package of Eagles of Empire Prussians includes both a drummer and a bugler...since the bugler is also carrying a rifle, I used the bugler as command figures, and did not use the drummer.  Now that most of my individually-based Prussians are completed (well, for now, at any rate), I thought the drummer would be a useful figure to have around, so I finished painting him up over the weekend.

And then, we move to an artillery piece! While this may have some application for skirmish-type gaming, the gun piece is intended to accompany the 28mm Prussians I am painting for "Black Powder" type games.  The gun and crew are all from the War-games Foundry FPW range, which was sculpted by the Perry brothers.

Prussian artillery - gun and crew castings from War-games Foundry

The Prussian artillery was devastating in the Franco-Prussian war. While the Prussian infantry were out-gunned by the Chassepot rifles of their French opponents, the steel breach-loading artillery of the Prussian army was a great (over) equalizer.   The Prussian guns out-ranged the rifled muzzle-loading French artillery and would generally blast them to pieces before turning their attention to the French infantry positions.

You can see a bit of the breech-loading mechanism for the artillery in this shot

Ready to fight for the King, and blast those upstart French to pieces! This Krupp weapon will come in handy...

Gaming certain periods in 28mm calls for some distortions, and the FPW games will be subject to this as the ranges would generally stretch beyond most tables, at least for the Prussian guns.  Indeed, when the time comes to finally play a 28mm game, I expect I will be telling the players that the Prussian guns are somewhere off-table...

Fire!

Still, having some of the lighter guns represented on the table isn't the worst thing in the world - it's always fun to give the players control of some artillery, and then some of the issues that come with it (watching for the firing lanes etc).  Vague off-table threats are one thing, but having the artillery piece on the board will be useful for focusing the minds of the players.  This will be a useful addition to the forces of the Kingdom of Prussia when that distant time arrives for a game of "Black Powder" using massed 28mm figures...