Expanding the collection...finally!

So, my plan to start painting some of the other nations from the Napoleonic Wars - notably the British and their allies - has finally started. I originally intended to get stuck in at the start of this year, but distractions with terrain projects and other things got in the way.

Foremost among those 'other things' is, of course, the current situation with the pandemic - an anxious time for everyone, to put it mildly. Although far from normal, life has slowly settled into a new routine here in the Wee Painted Men household. Both me and Mrs Kev are able to work from home, for which I'm extremely thankful, and both of our incomes are, for the time being at least, relatively secure. I do still worry about elderly parents and close family members working 'on the front line', but just hope and trust that we will all be ok.

I'm gradually getting into a healthier daily habit which doesn't involve being glued to some 24-hour news feed or other. Keeping up with details of every unfolding event seemed vital at first - even obligatory - but eventually it just became all-consuming, not to mention utterly depressing. Things like painting toy soldiers were put firmly in the back seat, but I soon realised that keeping up the ordinary, day-to-day hobbies was important. The fun stuff is what helps you through bad times.

Over the Easter weekend I had a go with a couple of rulesets using my French and Prussian collections. The first was Field of Battle (mentioned in my last post) and the second was Waterloo, the now out of print game published by Games Workshop. Of the two, I had the most fun with Waterloo. So much so, in fact, that it suddenly ignited my enthusiasm for getting out my big lead pile o' British troops from Newline Designs.

I'm sure I'll be talking more about the Waterloo rules (written by Mark Latham) in future posts, and I hope to put together a few battle reports. In the meantime, I'll be pressing on with this first unit of British line infantry, which I've decided to paint up as the 44th East Essex. I have the idea of doing a few battalions from the 5th (Picton's) Division from 1815, and the East Essex seemed like as good a place to start as any. I painted this first miniature to completion just to get my bearings with the uniform, and I'll be doing the rest of the unit in larger batches next. (I'm not sure yet whether I'll paint the regiment's number on the back of the napsack or not.)

All this doesn't mean I'll be abandoning the French or Prussian collections - far from it! Both of those armies still have units I want to get painted, so expect me to be jumping around between nations for the forseeable. I may even be doing a (big) bit of rebasing if the Waterloo rules continue to hold my interest. And there's still the terrain collection to be improved...

Lots to do! More soon...