Marshal Poniatowski - 28mm Murawski

Marshal Poniatowski and staff. Figures once again from Murawski Miniatures. A worthy sculpt of the great Marshal I think! These are from the larger command pack that comes with 7 figures total.

Poniatwoski was made a Marshal of France after commanding the right wing at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.  As the French were forced to retreat he commanded the French rearguard, being trapped in the city of Leipzig after the bridge was prematurely destroyed. He refused to surrender despite the overwhelming odds arrayed against his forces. He had been wounded by a lance several days earlier, and shot twice in the fighting at Leipzig - once in the arm and once in the side. Despite his wounds, he rode his horse into the Elster River to escape. However, the current was too strong given his weakened state and he was swept away and drowned - or as other accounts suggest he may have been shot for a third time as he entered the river. The event has been a popular subject for paintings and engravings like the following.

Napoleon described Poniatowksi as "brimming with honor and bravery" and that "He was a real king, had all the necessary traits of character. Had nobleness of a chief, magnificence, humanity, the same in seriousness and in play, soul"

A good account of Poniatowski's dramatic life can be found here. 

Thanks for looking! That's the last of the Poles I have planned for the moment bar a few more staff, and possibly cavalry. I'll add some group photos of all my Poles together when I have a moment!

Polish Uhlans - 28mm Murawski

More Polish Uhlans from Murawski Miniatures. 21st regiment this time with flashy orange facings!

General d'Armee List Creator

As many of you are aware the new General d'Armee rules have just been released. I'm waiting for my hard copy to arrive in the mail to New Zealand. Having pre-ordered though, I also got a PDF version of the rules and I've been having a read of them. 

While I'm waiting I also made this spreadsheet for working out points costs of army lists. I thought I'd share it in case anyone else is interested. Points details are as described in Appendix B (page 104) of the General d'Armee rulebook.

Download it from this link:

GDA List Creator

Note: I made it in WPS Office and it should be compatible with Microsoft Excel.

Also, I'm no expert on creating such things, but I got impatient waiting for someone else to do it and miraculously it seems to work as far as I can tell! Let me know of any errors you find or if you create a better version somehow.

Update 21.08.2021:  Mark Schultz from the GDA forums has made an updated version, including the FAQ from 2018 I believe, and gave me permssion to host it here. I have not tested it myself yet, but imagine it works fine. Thanks! :)

Updated GDA List Creator

Polish Infantry - 28mm Murawski

Another Polish infantry regiment painted up, making a total of four now.  Figures are more full dress from Murawski Miniatures. A mounted officer from a generals pack has been placed with the Grenadiers in this instance.

Baden Line Infantry - 28mm Murawski

More allied infantry painted up. This time two regiments of Baden line infantry from Murawski Miniatures. Figures for this minor state have been long sought after - given they showed up in quite a few battles, so great to have them. In later battles they also shifted to shakos, but I decided I liked the earlier 'raupenhelm' (caterpillar helm) look so went with that in this instance.

Nice figures again, seemingly a little finer in proportion than their Poles, though not noticeable when together with them, and part of that is due to the raupenhelm. I've done up 4 centre companies for each regiment, so I can add the two flank companies later.

Similar to what Peter suggests here, I couldn't stand the sight of the flags mismatched to facing colours and instead chose matching flags.  I wasn't as game to try his yellow/red striped helmet comb under the crest as he was, instead viewing the fact that the crest hides this on these sculpts as a positive feature from the perspective of painting time and difficullty :)

Here's Regiment 3, von Harrant, with red facings.  As Peter notes in his excellent article linked to above, historically most sources suggest they had a blue flag. But I tried it and the insanity of mismatched flags annoyed me too much - so a red flag to match the facing colour it is!

Regiment 2, Erbgrossherzog, with yellow facings. Historically they likely should have the above red flag(!), but I've given  them the yellow flag which matches the facing colours. And which was no doubt the intention until some German bureaucratic bungling or something.

My wife who is German informed me the mismatch of flags was actually done to confuse the enemy, which made me pause for a second or two until I realised she was (probably) joking... 

Anyway nice uniforms and figures! And very nice to paint as with previous Murawski miniatures.