Portuguese line and Spanish light infantry

 

A busy end to the year meant no real time for gaming this month, but I'm hoping to at least get something set up and started before heading back to work in January.

I did, however, manage to get this unit of Portuguese line infantry done. It took longer than expected but was well worth the effort. I do like this earlier version of the Portuguese uniform with the barretina cap. For reference, I used a colour plate from the Blandford book of uniforms on the Peninsular War showing a sergeant of the 18th infantry.

A while back Sean from Newline Designs very kindly added some Spanish light infantry to one of my orders. It's taken me a while to get round to painting them, but here's how a few of them turned out. I'll get round to painting the rest of the unit at some point. The reference I used for these was a Gerry Embleton illustration from Martin Windrow's book, Military Dress of the Peninsular War - another excellent book of Napoleonic uniforms and well worth picking up. It shows a trooper from the Spanish 2nd light infantry regiment. I think it has to be among the most colourful infantry uniforms from the whole war - making them look a bit like dismounted hussars. Very impressive! 

I'm not entirely sure what my next game will be. I had intended to give Lasalle 2 a try out, then thought about doing another Shadow of the Eagles game. Now I'm thinking of having a go at Field of Battle (now in its 3rd edition) after buying the PDF the other day. I'll just have to see where my enthusiasm takes me. I'm particularly interested in seeing how Field of Battle works as a choice for solo gaming. I've read lots of good things from others who enjoy it especially for this reason. There's also a campaign system included in the new edition called 'Season of Battle', which looks like it would be quite enjoyable for linking games in a meaningful way without much additional effort.

So, I'll see what happens between this blog post and the next post.