Prussian officers

As promised the other day (and just a little late) here are some pictures of the last two Prussian officers I painted for the Möckern game. I have to admit, that with these two it is pretty hard to find some conclusive information on what they did before or after the battle. So I can not really tell which unit or province they came from. On the other hand this left me with some freedom as to how to depict them.

Up first is Major von Hiller who commanded the Prussian infantry at Möckern.

EDIT: I got some more information regarding Major von Hiller from Christian, a reader of this blog, which I wanted to share with you:

I have some information on Major von Hiller. His full name is Baron August Hiller von Gaertringen. His father is from Wurttemberg in the south of Germany. August was born on 11 November 1772 in Magdeburg and died on 18 January 1856 as one of the last veteran officers of the Waterloo battle. As he was wounded at Möckern, he did not participate at Blücher’s Rhine crossing, but joined the army laster and was engaged in the conquest of Paris. At the Waterloo battle he had a decisive role as he was leading the attack on Plancenoit.

[OK… I could kick myself for not seeing the Plancenoit connection! Rhanks a lot for the information Christian!!!]

Now rank wise he was not the highest ranking officer at Möckern. That was Oberst Katzeler (see below). Depending on what book you read, this also leads to some confusion as to who commanded the advent grade at Möckern as most authors choose one or the other to have done so. Reading through the Prussian after action reports you get the impression, that Oberst Katzler was in command of the advent grade, but passed command on to Major Hiller and did lead the cavalry instead. Some notes mention that he was  Oberst der Kavallerie (Colonel of cavalry), so he probably felt more comfortable leading the mounted troops than the infantry.

But this also presents a slight dilemma for me from a modeling perspective. Given that he was command of roughly three brigades worth of troops, he should have a medium sized base under the Republic to Empire rules. Given his rank it should be a small one. Since I was unable to find any historic drawing or paintings of the man I was aiming to keep his base rather generic anyway. So I chose the small base but put two horse mounted officers on it to indicate his higher responsibilities (with most brigade commanders I just use one mounted officer and one or two infantry minis). Both minis are from Calpe. One (who is to depict von Hiller) is wearing Silesian yellow. Given the number of Silesian troops in the advent grade, this seemed fitting to me. The other officer is wearing East Prussian orange. I really like the combination of orange and dark blue and since there was one East Prussian unit, I felt this would be acceptable.

Major von Hiller

Major von Hiller

Major von Hiller

I already said a few words about Oberst Katzeler when talking about von Hiller so I will mostly go into the the choice of minis here. Being an Oberst he was benefitted with a larger base and to fill that up, I put two more mounted soldiers besides him. Since he commanded the cavalry at Möckern, I felt that these should be men from a cavalry unit and which unit would be more fitting for that than the Brandenburg Hussaren. Those of you looking closely will notice, that the mins for Katzeler is actually the same as the one for von Hiller (just on different horses). I only noticed this when I was just about to start painting them. In all honesty, I should not really have cared, since they will most likely never be right to one another on the tabletop, but I was painting them both in one go and it bothered me. Now the easiest solution would have been to use a different mini, but since I was already hard pressed for time, I did not want to dig through my lead pile, clean and fill the gaps up and base coat another mini up. So I just kept him and sculpted a beard on the man. Very small addition, but it made a huge difference when it comes to his looks. Otherwise I just painted him up in Brandenburg colors, which seemed the right thing to do with the high number of Brandenburg units in the cavalry force. Again all minis are from Calpe.

Oberst Katzeler

Oberst Katzeler

Oberst Katzeler

Oberst Katzeler

 

 

Generic French Ligne Regiment

So as promised in my last post here are two more units of French Napoleonic Infantry. As with the last unit shown, these will serve as stand-ins for the Marine Artillery at Leipzig and otherwise will see service as a generic French infantry unit for a number of battles. A purpose made so much easier by their covered flags and fannions.
As before these two unit are pretty small with 20 minis (which equates to roughly 400 men under the R2E rules). When all that Leipzig rush for Crisis in Antwerp is over these two and the previous one will all receive another company, which will bring them to strength for use as an average French unit of the time I want to depict.

After I painted the last battalion up von Peter pointed out to me that according to regulation it was not the first company of a battalion that was carry the eagle/flag or fannion (as I had arranged them with that unit) but the second company. That way it would always be in the centre of the unit, no matter the formation. Now I did not go back and change that with the previously depicted unit (simply too many men with sabres on the bases in question where the tassels could not be corrected once multibased), so that was one unit that did not follow regulations. But with these two, I heeded to vP’s advise and their command bases feature the colours of the second company.

What else? Well I am usually a big fan of Calpe, but I had a hard time getting around these minis when I returned from my holidays. Even though the first unit was about 1/3 finished when I got back, it took me ages to finish it. Now Peter from Calpe has done some extremely detailed minis here! Which is fine unless you are a stickler for details (like me) and working on a tight schedule. This got me somewhat frustrated and as a result working slow. But if ones worst complaint about a mini is that it is extremely detailed… well there could be worse. On the other hand it was good to paint the second unit right afterwards since I managed to finish it in one weekend plus about a week with roughly two to three hours painting time a night. When I did the work on the bases yesterday though, I was extremely happy I chose Calpe for these battalions. They just look so immensely beautiful in my humble opinion.

I am not going to do photos of individual stands this time, to make sure I do not bore you with tons of detailed photos of marching men in greatcoats. If you want to see more detail, just click on the photos, since they are linked to larger versions:

Generic French regiment
[1st battalion, in line]

Generic French regiment
[1st battalion, in line]

Generic French regiment
[1st battalion, marching]

Generic French regiment
[2nd battalion, in line]

Generic French regiment
[2nd battalion, in line]

Generic French regiment
[2nd battalion, marching]

And I could not resist, but also take a photo of all three battalions in formation:

Generic French regiment
[three battalion shot]

I have to admit, that this progress was badly needed. I still have two Prussian commander bases (which will be next), the Brandenburg Hussars, two batteries of Prussian artillery and one battery of French artillery, and the village of Möckern itself to do. All in just one month. If push comes to shove, the Prussians could do without the two additional batteries, since they could be simulated with off-board fire and I could use a 12pdr. stand-in for the French, but after 2 1/2 years of preparing for this, I would hate it if I stumbled on the finish line. I shall keep you posted on the further progress!