$100 Katzbach

So, in celebration of the new Pico Armor War College, I decided to do something I've long had in mind, which is a 1/3 scale Grande Armée army in 3mm.  I also wanted to make this a bit of a "how-to," to explain to new players how they might go about collecting and painting a 3mm force.  So, I started from scratch, ordering all the packs of figures I needed from PicoArmor.  I don't use a single figure from my larger collection for Wagram.

I picked the Katzbach because I wanted a change from painting Austrians for 1809.  In addition, it is a medium sized battle which would allow me to paint up both sides in a day or so.  As it turns out, it took me a few days, but with breaks in-between.  You could easily do one army on a weekend if you wanted. Each army cost about $45.

As I discuss in my previous post, I utilized eBases to base and organize the force.  I needed to come up with something to keep the small brigade units organized on the table top.  The brigades are only 1" squares, and artillery units at 1" x .5" rectangles.  It's hard to keep track of which brigade belongs to which division and corps without some sort of labeling, and eBases provided this in a nice, clean format.  I added in some unit name plaques to give some flare to the table top.

So, here are my two new armies, side by side.

Here's a close up of the French:

The stats for each corps commander is printed on the name plaque.  I have an alternative set which has the number of troops in each corps, which gives a sense os scale as regards what is being represented.  I removed these because the stat line is particularly useful to have in FPGA/GA.  I retained the total number of troops on the Army Commanders plaque, located front and middle.

Here are the Prussians and Russians under Blucher...

Every unit is color coded to the corps, including the officers and the artillery pieces.  The artillery is also given its weight and the letter designator from the scenario roaster.  To figure out if a battery is foot or horse, or 6 pound or 12 pound you need only look at the base itself.

The idea behind this basing/organizing system is that even someone who isn't up on history or who might not know how to read a historic OOB can quickly and easily identify which units belong where, what the organization of units on the table top is, and how many figures they'll need to order and paint up to complete the entire OOB.  Basically, I wanted to created a fool-proof way of organizing a force on the table top.

Here is the list of Pico Armor codes you'll need to create both armies for the Grande Armée Katzbach scenario.  Note that some of the codes are used for both armies, and some are used a bit creatively.  The Heavy Cavalry III are horse grenadier models that I used for cossacks (bearskins... close enough at 3mm).

NAP-601 Infantry - shako                 $3.50 12 $42.00

NAP-608 Artillery crew - shako         $3.50 2 $7.00

NAP-610 Heavy cavalry Ia                 $3.50 1 $3.50

NAP-612 Heavy cavalry Iia                 $3.50 1 $3.50

NAP-613 Hussars - shako                 $3.50 1 $3.50

NAP-621 Heavy cavalry III                 $3.50 1 $3.50

NAP-628 12 pdr gun                         $3.50 2 $7.00

NAP-631 Line lancers                         $3.50 1 $3.50

NAP-633 Horse teams I                         $3.50 2 $7.00

NAP-634 Horse teams II                    $3.50 2 $7.00

NAP-635 Chasseurs a cheval             $3.50 1 $3.50

NAP-641 General staff                         $3.50 1 $3.50

Total................................................................................$80.50

I crossed off the horse teams because I ended up not using them for this particular project.  I used a ton of them in my 1809 project (too many, so many gun teams...), so this is no loss.  I'd recommend skipping them in 1/3 scale Grande Armée games, however.

*      *     *

In the course of working on these guys I also did some more houses.  In an alteration of my normal system, I went ahead and ordered up a bag of replacement Monopoly buildings.  The wooden ones, without chimneys.  I also used a Sharpie oil paint marker to draw the windows, doors and eaves.

SO MUCH EASIER THAN CUTTING THEM FROM BALSA WOOD!
The hotels are under $1, and the houses are about 35 cents each.  That means they can get a bit pricey, so I'd recommend using a mix of these and the balsa wood ones.

Link to houses.

I also used the generic, uncolored eBases to finish basing up my second Austrian Korps (not sure which one yet...).

22 battalion, 2200 figures, representing 22,000 historic troops at 10:1...

This is my second corps for the Austrians.  I now have 50 Austrian battalions at 10:1, about half the number I need for the battle.  Fortunately, I came up with an extremely fast method for painting 3mm infantry (which I'll detail in another post in the future).  I also have 50 or so French battalions, although those are smaller (3 base, as opposed to Austrian 5 base), so I'll need a lot more.  Anyway, the 1809 project is coming along nicely.  Now if I could only get Marcin to put out some grenadiers.....

In this second photo I've added some officers to show where the regiments/brigades and divisions are located within the corps formation.

For the final Wagram 1809 project I want to create a set of plaques which will include the name of each brigade commander and higher which I'll place on the table next to their figure, to aid in keeping track what units are where.  Those will be color coded exactly like in my Grande Armée set-up, but the actually units will be on the plain green bases you see here. 

Woof, ok, long post.  I you made it this far I hope you enjoyed it.  And, if you like the Katzbach armies and want to do something similar, take a look at the eBase Project, the link for which is on the menu at the top of this page.  Print out the bases, laminate them on the heaviest laminate available (.10mm in most places) and then cut them out and glue the figures down.