"AB Saxon army" Topic

Some photos of my recenty finished 15mm AB Saxon Army.
The Saxons, along with the Wurttembergers my fav mini-army!
Flags are GMB, bases are Warbases painting: Old Guard painters mostly. Basing and conversionwork myself.
Proper happy with these lads;)
Happy gaming and painting folks!

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

Some photos of my recenty finished 15mm AB Saxon Army.
The Saxons, along with the Wurttembergers my fav mini-army!
Flags are GMB, bases are Warbases painting: Old Guard painters mostly. Basing and conversionwork myself.
Proper happy with these lads;)
Happy gaming and painting folks!

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌Untitled by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

Terrific posting. Anyone who can paint striped trouser overalls or tunic buttons in 15/18mm commands respect.

For me it is always the cavalry. Those chevaulegers are just brilliant.

A most excellent force

Great little army. Always regret selling my 15mm Minifigs Saxons over 30 years ago, but they were not as good as these. I assume you recommend the painting service?

I kept wondering what was troubling me about the Garde do Corps. Then it struck me, the rolled cloak. AB got it wrong (in all but one figure, oddly). Always rolled over the sword arm shoulder in any army ie the right shoulder…..and their trumpeters rode black horses.

Minor issues obviously. Especially when you see how the painter has captured the complex lace edges to their shabraques. Not easy in 28mm….that I know only too well.

Silver trumpet, well spotted!

How did you resist the distinctive standards carried by the Zastrow and G du Corps? However wrong, when suggested as carried in action, they do look good.

Yes!

Theres nothing I don't like about this post

Regards

J

Amazing!

Lovely to see so many,so well painted.
Deadhead, do you have any evidence for your bald statement about blanket rolls? When I made these over 25 years or more ago, none of the references had anything to say on the matter of which shoulder, so I followed what seemed common sense. An opponent, being right handed, will strike at the left shoulder, since it's easier to hit. Cavalrymen have always worn extra protection ( when bothering at all) on their own left ( think bridle arm guards etc) since it's not so well protected by their swords.I am however open to solid, contemporary evidence to the contrary….

Infantry have to wear the roll over the left shoulder, so they can rest the rifle into the right one to aim.

Cavalry reverse this, to protect the sword arm/shoulder. Two right handed cavalry opponents are much more likely, given any choice, to face right arm to right arm, as it is far easier and more effective to swing the sword away from you and your horse. Your reach is far longer than trying to slash across your body and the horse's head, off to your left.

Let me try to find contemporary illustrations. I would stress not a great issue. Great figures and a wonderful posting

Again, wonderfully painted, but assembly of the cannons is erratic and most don't show the hollow required by the dished spokes. Hollow being the measurement of the distance between the bottoms of the wheels.

If the wheels on cannons and wagons or carriages are modeled as dished, then it is proper to angle the wheel such that the spokes touching the ground are perpendicular to the ground. The axles were slightly angled down to make this happen. It provided several advantages; the wheels were strongest and supported the most weight when perpendicular to the ground; also the angle (mostly for carriages, wagons and limbers) would throw mud and dirt away from the vehicle; the slight angle of the axle also helped the wheel to stay on the axle if other restraints failed.

Very minor, too picky, but so easy to do correctly when initially assembling.

WOW!

Very nice army and the good news for me is that Old Guard is painting up my Dutch-Belgians and Brunswickers for Waterloo.

John

The cloak issue.

You know how you just know you are right about something and do not need evidence?

Every picture of G du C from the Borodino panorama to Haythornthwaite's Uniforms of Retreat from Moscow, every miniature I could find, shows right shoulder. Rousellot shows Garde Chasseurs and Dragoons the same. all later artists show such.

The snag is that I could not find much truly contemporary showing them on either shoulder. Faber du Faur does show two officers behind Murat with cloaks over the left, but every trooper over the right!

So reading Muir's Tactics and Experience of…I read an account by Francis Hall 14th Light Dragoons at Fuentes de Onoro. "Their cloaks were so well rolled across their left shoulders that it was no easy matter etc". A famous photo of a Confederate infantryman captured at Gettysburg shows his roll over the "wrong" shoulder (maybe that is why he was captured).

So who knows? AB may well be right to show his G du Corps using either shoulder……..but I would want my right neck protected in a cavalry melee

Deadhead, thanks for bothering to look.
You have come to the same conclusion, as it were, as I did at the time, that there seems to be no absolute rule as to which shoulder. Looking again at all my Saxon uniform books, all they mention was that the cavalry wore their cloaks rolled over their shoulders…. but nothing on which shoulder.
We can agree to disagree about which we would personally prefer !

I would broadly agree about the Infantry preference for the left shoulder, as in Russian and Prussian standard practice… but there's always some fellow off message. I have a Klein watercolour showing Bavarian Landwehr with their greatcoats over their right .

Cavalrymen have always worn extra protection ( when bothering at all) on their own left ( think bridle arm guards etc) since it's not so well protected by their swords.I am however open to solid, contemporary evidence to the contrary…

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A difficult question, also here no Saxons but Chasseurs à Cheval.

Why do I believe (stress don't know) that cavalry carried the cloak on the right shoulder – It didn't cross over the cartridge box, it did not hamper the access of the carbine when hooked on the carbine belt and it protected the left kidney when in retreat – I read on this one, but as usual did not write down the source.

In case I come across solid reference for the Saxons I will let you know.

Great miniatures – great brushwork and impressive units, I wish I would be as productive in quality and quantity.

You have shown two pictures I have never seen.

Superb research.

I stick with the idea that any cavalryman will, if given any choice, attack an opponent to his right. Head to head, it becomes inevitable that two opponents will fight right arm to right arm. I fully accept AB's suggestion that the left is then very exposed, as neither defended by the sword arm or the rolled cloak. But I think unlikely to be a target.

I reckon 95% of images I have found (all at least 100 years later tho') show right shoulder.

This posting convinced me. Next project is the Garde Du Corps from Black Hussars…ordered today. I already have a dozen Aussie Eureka from this lot……no idea why. Not one at Waterloo. Seems there was an earlier skirmish before 1815, which might explain that.

the left side is a target in the retreat, it is very difficult to protect the back, usually the sabre – sword was just hold down the back – still awkward.

Fantastic collection! Wonderful :)

Von W, thanks for those, which are new to me.
I am happy to stand corrected about my figures, as it were, but in my defence I should say that they were modelled long before the Internet provided us with so much more information in the way of contemporary images. In the early '90s, there were just the Osprey book, and the Rawkins pamphlet, and then Nafziger's book on the Poles & Saxons.

None of them commit at all on which shoulder.

So I followed my rather 17c preference for bridle arm guards; and of course all the Infantry examples where they carry the roll on their left shoulder.
The masters for the Saxon Heavy cavalry are still in a drawer on my desk : I just checked…

AB

I agree that it is today almost no excuse to do good research and produce excellent miniatures, seemingly however only very few sculptors are interested in research. And still some decisions have to be made on the basis of educated guess.

I am very impressed how painstakingly you researched your miniatures 30 years ago – they stand the test of time very well.

How I agree with von W, and he is a hard judge!

My only complaint is that you never progressed into TOTS (The One True Scale).

What would I give for your Grenadiers a Cheval or Dragoons of the Imperial Guard, in 28mm?

Protection in retreat? Impossible. All the evidence is that most lethal wounds were inflicted on units in flight, one morale had collapsed and they fled from the threat.