Painting during 2025 - Going for the 500?

What a painting year!

This year has seen me painting couple of whole new armies: Brotherhood without Banners and House Greyjoy for ASOIAF, as well as many historical miniatures for Napoleonic, WW2 and Age of Chivalry, for example. As I'm writing this I have finished 404 new miniatures and finished 44 miniatures I have started painting earlier (before 2025). As I have quite few more started miniatures, I was thinking to reach 500, but as we decided to go for a last minute holiday for the rest of the year, it's not likely to happen. Oh well, more miniatures to complete 2026.

Retreat from Moscow 1812 . second part of our campaign concluded

Boney - get the hell out of Russia!

So Napoleon and his Grande Armee had reached Moscow during the first part of our campaign, and now it was time to retreat... set simple objectives:

• Napoleon (me) would win if he could get 2/3 of his force beyond Berezina river in 5 campaign rounds
• Alexander (Jaakko) would win if Russians could annihilate more than 1/3 of the Grande Armee 

Rules for the retreat phase (adapted Dawns & Departures by Too Fat Lardies)

• We skipped rules for supplying the forces
• Grande Armee groups would suffer shock equal to Round number - (D3+1)
• Russian Groups would suffer shock equal to Round number - (D3)
• +1 would be added to the D3 roll if there was more than 60p. in the column or if the column moved more than one area 
• Russian forces were 4 divisions of 60 points
• Grande Armee was a total of 180 points

French starting moves 

We individually informed Marko, our Umpire, about our scouting and movement plans, he then proceeded to roll the dice for initiative and movement (terrain impacting). He then announced how we succeeded and where forces collided and battles erupted. Muchos Gracias Marko! 

First half of 2021 on my painting desk

So much more started

As first half of the year is soon done it's time to share miniatures I've painted so far.

Besides these minis presented here, there's a separate blogpost for all my ASOIAF new paint jobs.  

My current standing is still below 200 finished miniatures, but so many more have already been started...

Sharp Practise: Road to Moscow 1812 Campaign

Map based campaign, based on "Dawns & Departures" by Too Fat Lardies 

For the longest time (since I purchased the awesome "Retreat from Moscow 1812" -range by Perry Miniatures) 

First moves

First go with Sharp Practise 2.

Revisiting Retreat from Moscow 1812

My club mate Jaakko ( @jamopower in IG) has been slowly building a napoleonic Russian force and we’ve been pondering which of the many available, skirmish level, rulesets we would use.

We’ve been playing napoleonics with Black Powder, Muskets & Tomahawks (were waiting for the napoleonic supplement to be released for the 2nd edition), Rebels and Patriots, but as Jaakko wanted to play with a smaller number of miniatures we decided to give Sharp Practise a go. Eventually Jaakko painted 30 more miniatures for the game, so the argument for a smaller amount of minis sort of flew out of the window, but who cares!

Battle of Oravais - Part 1.- blast from the past

First go with Black Powder 2nd Edition

Two brave volunteers joined in to give the 2nd edition a go.

See the pictures of the game in this blog post.

This is another un-finished battle report, that I'm now putting out, because why not. 

Salute 2019 Part 2. Battle of Däneholm Demo Game

Rebels and Patriots in Action

For the second consecutive year I had joined in to Dalauppror's international team to throw a visually

superb demo game (where people could actually participate) for Salute. See our exploits from 2018 here. This time it was the Napoleonic era and not surprisingly Swedish exploits in it. As I had already painted stuff for the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-1809, it was an easy (if not cheap, as my whole family of five traveled along) decision to join in. 

Celebrating the launch of Rebels and Patriots by Osprley Wargames

AWI AND BATTLE OF VAASA 1808

Several of us had had the opportunity to do play testing for this new set of rules coming from Osprey Wargames tomorrow! So we clearly had invented a way to travel to future!
Besides us play testers three more mates from club joined in to learn about the game.
Juha and Kalle hosted an AWI battle with and The Lament Ridge scenario from the book.
Me and Marko hosted a Russo-Swedish War 1808-1809 battle of Vaasa, that took place 25th of June 1808. This was also the next battle in our related campaign, which has been on hold for a while.

We started the event by distributing recently arrived rulebooks for play testers and then having a video call with Michael Leck (aka Dalauppror), co-author of the rules. He was at their club in Stockholm. We showed our tables and club and expressed our congrats on the publishing of the game.

Armies on Parade: Swedes and Finns of Napoleonic Wars

Army that lost Finland

Battle of Nykarleby 24.6.1808 - Report completed!

The Finnish (Swedish) push continues!

Finally the snow has melted in northern Finland and the Finns are encouraged after the victory in Revonlahti. Now Adlercreutz, Von Öttern and Von Döbeln were marching and circling the small town of Nykarleby in order to take out the Russian forces there...

Read on to find out if the Russian managed to escape from the clutches of the attacking Finnish forces... 

Battle of Revonlahti 27.4.1808 - Report ready

Finnish attack continues

First, of course, in the words of Johan Ludvig Runeberg:

(for Gregori Tigerstedtille on the 50th anniversary of the Revonlahti  battle )

"Tunsitko joskus, joukoss' ihmisten

kulkeissas täällä elon tanterella,

kuink' outo voima, pakko sisäinen

toist' ihmistä voi toiseen taivutella?

Näet muodon, äänen kuulet, riemastut,

vaan et voit virkkaa, miks niin ihastut.

Mies oli Cronstedtilla väessään,

ilolla häntä vielä muistelenki;

ma vanhus olin, nuorukainen hän,

mut kummassakin meiss' ol' yksi henki.

Ma helposti ja paljon unhoitan,

mut Tigerstedtin muistan ainian.

Four warriors gathered again to pay our respects for the old glory of those soldiers and heroes, who fought to keep the archenemy at bay... Some of the pics are courtesy from Juha, thanks!

REPORT IS COMPLETED

Battle of Siikajoki 16.4.1808

Finns to the offensive!

All set for the next episode in our "Finnish War 1808-09" or Suomen  Sota -Campaign...

Ken joen rannall' on tuo miesi ylhäinen,

jok' yli vetten, maiden katsahtaapi?

Jo ryhti, huulten uhka, säihke silmien,

kädessä miehekkäässä miekka tulinen

urosta, sotilasta muistuttaapi.

Hän yksinään on, ilman seuraajaa,

mies nuori tullen mennen herrallensa

vain aika ajoin sanaa kuljettaa;

mut takan ja eessä kaksi armeijaa

veristä surmaa uhkaa toisillensa.

Hän tuosa näkee Siikajoen maiseman

niin kolkkona kuin ruumiin laudoillansa,

hän Suomen sodan muistaa vielä kolkomman,

häpeän, paon, hylyks jääneen kunnian

ja ryssäin pilkkanaurun takanansa.

Se syynä, miks niin synkkä otsa on,

miks varjo musta huolihunnun vetää

peitteeksi urhon jaloon muotohon;

hän näkee, kuinka Suomi, äiti turvaton,

nyt alttiiks jää, kun poikain miehuus pettää.

- Part of the poem "Adlercreutz" by Johan Ludvig Runeberg,

WIP: pictures added, report will follow...

Re-run: 16.4.1808 Battle of Yppäri

A Fighting Retreat

Finishing miniatures

1808 Reinforcements: Jaegers for Finns and Russians

As my painting goal for this year is to FINISH  (including varnish) miniatures, that I'm painting, I sticked to completing these Russian jaegers in a one go (= not leaving them almost finished). I also did the final touches for some Savolax jaegers, that had been "almost finished" since November 2016.

So here they are ready for the game tomorrow:

Some WIP pictures from the painting process:

Eagle Rampant: Battle of Virta bridges 27.10.1808

Babtism of fire for my Finns

Battle of Koljonvirta

For the last 6 weeks I've mainly been painting miniatures for the Russo-Swedish war 1808-1809 (after it Finland was ceded to Russia). So it was high time to get them onto battlefield, even if their painting is still mostly WIP. We played the so called "Koljonvirta battle", which is epitomized in Finnish national history as part of Ensign Ståls (Steel) poems by our national poet  Johan Ludvig Runeberg. 

Some info in English on the battle here

Warning: this AAR includes poetry in Finnish. You have been warned!

Mut toista tuli, törmältä kun täyttä vauhtia

riens' adjutantti Sandelsin, hevonen vaahdossa:

"Jumalan tähden, portaallen, aseihin", huusi hän,

"vihollisjoukon tiedetään täst' yli pyrkivän."

Päämiehelle hän lisäsi: "Te silta purkakaa,

jos voitte, muuten viimeiseen verehen taistelkaa!

Hukassa kaikk' on, taaksemme jo ryssät ennättää;

apua saatte, kenraali jo tulla lennättää."

Sven Tuuva

More Savolax Jaegers

New conversions for the Russo-Swedish War 1808-09

Check the pictures and how they were made,

UPDATED: Russo-Swedish War 1808-1809 proggres report

I've Been busy building My Finnish troops for 1808-1809.

I've used both metal and plastic miniatures.

Read more on how and what.

Rearguard action 1812 - Eagle Rampant demo

After our visit to Little Wars in Stockholm, we set to work on creating our own resources for the Russo-Swedish War 1808-1809 or "Suomen Sota" (War for Finland). As it takes time to convert and paint the Finnish / Swedish troops we started playing Eagle Rampant (see WI April 2016) or "Pikeman's Lament" with Russians chasing after the retreating French in the cold winter of 1812...

This was a team game for 4 players, 2 of whom had never played any Rampant variant before.

Russo-Swedish War 1808-1809 - first Finns WIP

These Savolax Jägers are made from French Dragoons on foot (Perry). Heads are from some other plastic napoleonic set. I had them in my bitsbox. See the others and learn how they were made.

UPDTED: Day 2. Visiting Little Wars in Stockholm - The Army Museum

The second day of Nopat-Club's "class trip" to Stockholm contained a visit to Sweden's Army Museum. An excellent museum and an obvious choice for a wargamer. After several hours in the museum we settled down to "fika" with our host for the day Micke aka Dalauppror and played a demo game of "La Belle Alliance aka Waterloo 1815" we have brought as a gift for The Little Wars.

Read on to see pictures from the museum and some comments on them.