But there is no 1860's Russian army in the Warlord Epic boxed set so it had to be bodged. This is the "Bodger's Guide", from experience gained building an army. I have discovered these Big Rules, they may be useful for others thinking similar thoughts.:
(i) Its a lot easier to "bodge" at smaller scales, you have to look more closely to see the errors, for e.g. you cannot easily tell the difference between a black shako and a black tall fur Cossack hat at this scale. Also, just paint what you want to see over the figure at this scale.
(ii) Dark colours make the errors even harder to see - Russian Dark Green is marvellous for this.
(iii) The clipper and sanding file are your friends. The most obvious differences are headware - getting shakoes/hats etc to correct shape. Often this just meant clipping a bit off the top.
(iii) For some reason, the Prussian Napoleonic uniforms are a shoo-in for so much of the later military fashions in the century (the "Landwher" Epic set with the Russian-like forage cap was my go-to, but the same is true of its cavalry), The Union ACW troops with kepis/caps are also very useful. Its annoying that the Warlord Epic Box set has mixed kepis and hats, but there you go. Beggars etc.
(v) 12mm figures work OK if used with separate units, with a bit of spacing to get the models to similar height. Kallistra had a good range of ACW. Ditto old 15mm are OK but its hard to find the older, smaller figs.
(vi) Flocking and Flags - big colourful flags and nice bases draw attention from the multiple liberties one has taken.
Big colourful flags - slightly overscale (18mm flags on 12.5mm army). These are the flag elements of each infantry battalion and cavalry regiment
To be fair, the Russian army of this period is a bodger's delight as (i) they went through multiple simultaneous uniform changes - the official "Frenchification" of the headgear, and "Prussianification" of the uniforms, countered by the "Pan-slavism counterforce to use more traditional Russian gear; (ii) miserly investment / regimental resistance, so old gear was retained for a long time, (iii) it was all provided locally, so "standards" were not and finally (iv) in action, troops generally donned pragmatic not parade ground gear, e.g the Uhlan Czapka is covered in an oilskin bag which looks much a shiny shako at this scale, plus the fatigue cap (and fur headwear in winter) was far more often worn than official Big Hats....
Tactically, their evolution is interesting. Post Crimean War, they saved money by dumping all the Jaegers into the infantry regiments and then getting rid of lots of peasant troops, the idea being that all the infantry would be like Jaegers. In an army that believed deeply in "General Bayonet", that was always going to be a hard sell, and to reinforce it, in the Italian Wars the French - by moving fast, with "elan" - could bayonet Austrians before the Austrian could shoot them own with longer range rifle muskets as happened in Crimea. The Russians, Austrians and French took all this to heart, but the Austrians did not realise this pre-supposes slow reloading of a rifle, so "General Bayonet" came unstuck in 1866. The ACW had already hinted that General Bayonet may need retiring and the Russian raise new independent battalions of light infantry. They also pragmatically started to use unofficial "light companies" in the line usnits (manned mainly by ex Jaegers I'd bet) and these were pulled out the line into a dense skirmish screen - the "tsep" (chain) - before advancing. The other big change was converting all the Dragoons into mounted infantry - but still wanted them to deliver the big heavy-sabre charge. Apparently the Dragoons didn't really like being infantry, and shot from horseback with a modified infantry rifle, not a carbine, before charging.As always the Russians strongly believed in artillery and they focussed on updating it, but the sheer numbers in the artillery park and the usual parsimony meant new guns arrived slowly. Another "interesting" thing they did was get rid of Corps elements, everything is structured at Divisional level, so this Special Operations Force going to California has to sort out its Corps level functions for itself from scratch. What could possibly go wrong?
Having done Russians, I am now considering bodging an Austrian army as (i) they also very nearly fought each other a number of times and certainty that (ii) if Warlord Epic do anything in their range it will be French and Prussians so I will have plenty of historical opponents. Or, of course, an Imagi-Nation to tweak the Bear. Ruritania is beautiful this time of year....
