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| That was a lot of flocking |
This week's hobby task has seen more progress on the Quatres Bras project. First, I finished off repainting three French Foot Artillery guns with crews. The gunners and guns were pretty banged up so I repainted them. I've got some infantry in the pipeline from the same source - and I think I'll strip the paint in future - Simple Green does a great job on old lead.
Second, I decided to base/flock the Nassau infantry - five battalions plus a bunch of extra stands for when I want to play them as big battalions. Some of these troops were loose and some were on card bases that my brother did. I decided to keep these by varnishing them before white glue and flocking. I experimented on some of them with gesso. They seem very solid now - we'll see how they hold up with wargaming.
The Nassauers were all painted by my dad. I love the look of Minifigs and his style of painting them - all humbrols from tiny pots in the pre-acrylic days when the study, if not the whole house, smelled of turpentine. My research has revealed one problem - all these Nassauers are in green uniforms - 2 battalions (the Orange Nassau regiment) wore the standard blue Dutch uniforms. I do have some dutch that I could use. Or Maybe I could do a speculative flag with "Suck it button counters" in dutch. I don't think anyone will notice either way.
Sorting out the Nassauers prompted me to inventory the Anglo Allied army to see what I have here and what is still in the UK - and whether all the dutch militia battalions are represented - a closer inspection of the filing system reveals that perhaps a few of them are under-manned - am I going to have to paint up some Dutch as well French to recreate Quatres Bras? The plan for the troops still in the UK was to bring most of them over on my next trip - but now that's looking like a long way into the future.
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| All Eight Battalions with some extras - ready to be transported to the battle |
Nice!
ReplyDeleteLooks great Pete!
ReplyDeleteChristopher
The units look great - you get a real effect on masse which is perfect for Napoleonic's - still life in those figures.
ReplyDeleteVery nice! “Rot op, miereneukers” might look nice on a flag, except that you may want it in German instead, and the Dutch-Belgian infantry seem to have carried no colours in 1815. But your minifigs look great!
ReplyDeleteYeah. The flags are a problem as Minifigs made a bunch of standard bearers and a stick without a flag is like roast beef without yorkshire pudding. I've gone for speculative, possibly anachronistic, flags but they do look nice when everything's crowded onto the table. I don't know much dutch but that sounds like the sort of thing Nassauers would want to communicate to the French, however anatomically challenging it might prove.
DeleteNot sure whether you'll be reading this but: documents in the Royal National Archives state that colours were only presented to all Dutch-Belgian regiments in Paris during the occupation. What the troops bore into the field were fanions, mostly orange but some also checkered orange- blue. I believe Osprey has some examples in their relevant MAA
DeleteGreat stuff Pete, love these old figures
ReplyDeleteSo cool, great job Pete!
ReplyDeleteGlorious looking minifigs! They look great, especially the green coated Nassau contingent!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
These pics take me back to some proper old school gaming 👍
ReplyDeleteThe first Napoleonic game I ever played involved an assortment of Minifigs, Hinchliffe and Airfix figures. In 1978.....
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of little beauties, Pete. Let's all hope you can make it over to get the next instalment sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteVery nice, Pete!
ReplyDelete