71st Highland Regiment of Foot

I've been working on a commission over the past few weeks for some 10mm Napoleonics, so not as much painting time for my own projects, but I did manage to get this unit done - the first of the light infantry for my British 1815(ish) army. The original plan was to paint them up as the 52nd, but on a moment of impulse I decided to go the harder route and paint them up as the famous 71st. I just couldn't resist their distinctive blue bonnets and dicing.

No flag bearers in this unit, as the 71st didn't carry them on the field at Waterloo, and I wasn't able to source any flags even if I did want to add them. The officer isn't entirely correct either, since his sash isn't worn diagonally over the shoulder, but I'm not too worried about that. I couldn't find a definitive answer as to whether or not the 71st had its own pipers, and if so what tartan they would have worn. It seems plausible they did still have them at the time of Waterloo, but in any case I didn't have a spare piper model so decided not to bother anyway.

I was good to paint buff coloured crossbelts, pack straps and musket straps for a change. I found some photos of 71st re-enactors wearing belts that were a darker buff compared to the buff colour of the turnbacks, so decided to go with the darker colour, which stands out a bit better on the tabletop. The lighter buff of the collars, cuffs and turnbacks tend to look like white from a distance.

I'm quite pleased with how the blue bonnets turned out as well. I didn't want to make the blue too bright or saturated, but equally it had to be clearly different from the regular black shakos. I read somewhere that the bonnets were a dark blue, so it seemed to make sense not to paint them too bright.

All in all, a satisfying unit to have painted and added to the collection. I'm still planning on painting the 52nd eventually, especially since they did apparently carry their colours into the battle. Units always look better with flags on the tabletop!

KGL 1st Light Dragoons

 

I managed to get the first of the light cavalry units finished off this week for my Anglo-allied army. These are British light dragoon figures from Newline Designs painted as the KGL 1st regiment.

I have one other pack of these in the lead pile at the moment, and it's tempting to paint them as the KGL 2nd regiment since both units saw action during the 100 Days campaign, but I may go with one of their British counterparts instead and add the other KGL unit at a later date.

Next up will be one or two artillery bases I think. That should give me enough to give the British their first proper run out on the table with a small game.

British 2nd Dragoons - Royal Scots Greys

 

I have a bit more spare time on my hands at the moment, so there's no excuse not to dig into the lead pile and add some more units to my British Napoleonic army. First up is the Scots Greys.

I've settled on 8-figure cavalry units these days, but may extend these out to 12 figures to match units that I painted earlier in the project. 12 figures (6 bases) do look great on the table, but 8 figures are fine and work well for games like Shadow of the Eagles and Neil Thomas' Napoleonic Wargaming.

These were good fun to paint - a solid couple of days' work, but worth the time put in. I didn't go for much variation on the horses, and held back from adding certain uniform details, but all in all I'm happy enough with how they turned out. The grey horses will certainly stand out nicely on the table.

A unit of light dragoons is next in the painting queue, and I'll see where my fancy takes me after that.

British 79th regiment of foot - Cameron Highlanders

 

At long last I got round to painting the first of what will probably be 3 units of Scottish Highlanders for my Napoleonic British collection - figures as usual by Newline Designs. I decided to paint the first lot as the 79th Cameron Highlanders, if for no other reason than because I like their green cuffs and facings.

My only previous attempt at painting tartan was on 10mm minis, so I wasn't sure how this would go, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Doing some practice attempts first and following advice from other painters online certainly helped.

The flags from Tiny Tin Troops really help to finish the unit off nicely.

The other two planned Highlander units are the Gordon Highlanders and the Black Watch. I'll look forward to adding those at some point, but will more than likely divert to other things first - namely, some cavalry and artillery. 3 units of British done in total now. Another 5 and I can have a game using the Neil Thomas rules.

British line infantry - The Royal Scots

 

A very quiet year on this blog but I will at least close out 2022 with one more post to show the latest unit to leave the paint desk - the 3rd battalion of the British 1st Regiment of Foot, The Royal Scots. Along with the 44th East Essex, I now have two units of British Napoleonics painted with a third (79th Cameron Highlanders) in progress.

The flags are by Tiny Tin Troops, which I'm going to use as much as possible from now on. I like the strong colours of the printing, so they stand out well on the tabletop.

I also got round to rebasing the 44th East Essex, which were still on the smaller 25x25mm bases (4 figs per base). The flags were replaced with ones from Tiny Tin Troops.

I can't remember why I never painted any flank company figures for the 44th. I must have been saving them for some other use, but I think I'll go back and add them at a later date.

Although I haven't posted or painted much lately, I have been enjoying quite a few games with my 20mm collection. Shadow of the Eagles has had a few enjoyable outings, but in particular I've been playing quite a lot of Neil Thomas' 'Napoleonic Wargaming'. The rules are very simple, and use only 8 units per side. There's no reason why you couldn't scale up to use 12 or 16 units per side, but so far I've stuck with 8 units, which fit well onto a smaller table - in my case 4' x 4'. I'll talk more about the rules and my games with them in the future.

2023 should see me posting more often here. I'll continue painting more British troops but also plan to add in some Prussian allies in the form of some Austrian and Russian troops. I'd like to add some Bavarians and Swiss troops for the French, too.

Hope you enjoy the photos. More to follow.

Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Picton - 20mm

With the 44th East Essex more or less done for my 20mm British army, I will stay with the 9th Brigade and paint either the 44th Black Watch or the 92nd Gordon Highlanders next. Before that, though, I'll be jumping back over to the French army to paint up a unit of hussars - the 5th regiment. My French army has a distinct lack of light cavalry at the moment, which needs to be remedied!

First, something a bit less flamboyant...and Napoleonic miniatures probably don't come any less flamboyant than Picton at Waterloo. If only more generals dressed this way. It would make the life of the wargames painter much easier!

I like this sculpt from Newline Designs. It seems to capture Picton's famous temperament very well.

British line infantry - 44th East Essex

My first unit of Napoleonic British is now finished! These are painted to represent the 2nd battalion of the 44th East Essex, which was part of Pack's brigade at Waterloo. Hopefully I got most of the uniform details correct, although I'm starting almost from scratch as far as my knowledge of British uniforms goes. I think I'm right in saying drummers didn't wear reversed colours by the time of 1815 (officially, at least), but I decided to go with the yellow jacket anyway for the sake of variety.

Figures are by Newline Designs. Flags are from warflag.com

I originally intended to go all out and paint a 36-figure unit, using 6 bases of 6 figures, but I changed my mind at the end and switched back to my usual 24-man unit on 4-figure bases. As a result, I still need to add a couple of flank companies, so I'll probably swap out two of the bases at some point and repurpose them for a different battalion, once the flank companies are painted.

I'm keen to dive straight into another unit of British, but can't quite decide what to do next - lots to choose from. I'm very tempted to stay with Pack's brigade and paint the Black Watch battalion next. Time to put a brew on and have a think about it...

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...