From PeteF: More Minifigs! Rehabbing Artillery. Basing Nassau - lots of Nassau.

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.

All Eight Battalions with some extras - ready to be transported to the battle

From PeteF: Quatres Bras with Old School 25s - legere battalion (120 points)

The French order of battle for Quatres Bras was 32 infantry battalions, 6 artillery batteries and 12 or so cavalry regiments.  It's going to come to 800 foot and 200 mounted figures. This is the fourth of the ten light infantry battalions that I need to put together and will take the army to 18/32 battalions.

Most of the troops will be 25mm Minifigs, an old school sculpting style that I really like. The uniforms are not necessarily accurate to the Hundred Days campaign - by which time a lot of the Armee du Nord was pretty ragged in any case. These troops will represent the 2nd battalion of the 1st light infantry.

Elite Company Voltigeurs

As part of this week's hobbying I dug into the boxes of old 25s that I've snagged on EBay to see what gaps I'll need to fill in from Calivers Books - who still sell them and are open for business. I don't think I'm going to need that much - mainly mounted chasseurs. I've got quite a few troops that will need rehabbing - hopefully not too much paint stripping. If I could avoid distractions I might even get the army finished in the next year or so. We have a local convention that's just been cancelled for this May.... with a bit of focus Quatres Bras in May 2021 could be possible.

Elite Company Carabiniers

In the meantime the 2nd/1st (or is it 1st/2nd, or 1ere/2eme?) will take their place alongside their fellow grumblers.

Centre Copanies

  

Attack Column

from RayR - 25mm 3rd Chasseur a Cheval

I thought it was about time I posted some figures in the all new Quarantine Challenge!

Like the majority of you guys I'm off work at the moment on Furlough, there isn't a lot 

of call for beer at the moment, don't know if you've noticed???

I'm on the start of week three and have been working on these luvvly looking chaps, the 3rd Chasseurs a Chaval.

The keen eyed among you will notice that they're not based???

That's because I've painted them up for a fellow blooger Dave Crook. here's a link to Dave's blog,

A Wargaming Odyssey

Dave is in the middle of a Napoleonic adventure, he's collecting the range of figures produced

by Del Prado a few years ago for the Battle of Waterloo. There are a few units missing from the collection one being the 3rd Chasseurs a Cheval. 

Gotta admit these figures nearly killed me, they're old Minifigs and don't have a lot of detail on

them, and what's there you really have to dig out, but I persevered and got them completed.

Hopefully they'll be off in the post to Dave soon, so he can do the biz with them. He's going all old school on them, basing them on plain green bases and slopping 10 ton of gloss varnish all over them.

Just for my own personal tally, I'm giving myself points as we do in the AHPC. So these bad boys are worth 200 points, but they're not based so I'll knock off 10% giving me a grand total of 

180!

From PeteF - Old School Napoleonics Finally Get Bases (0 points)

There's a big glass cabinet in my mum's house. It used to hold a good portion of my dad's 100 days campaign Anglo-Allied army. My brother was going to inherit this wonderful collection - there are a few thousand... I haven't yet counted them - but after his untimely passing the "bloody little soldiers" as my mum calls them came to me. Each time I visit I pack some regiments and bring them home. There are still 2 big shelves of the original five full of hussars, light dragoons and red coated infanty. They were painted by my dad in the 1980s and 1990s - humbrol paints with Ospreys for uniform guidance.

Before

These five battalions are from my last visit - the soldiers in the cabinet are lined up in rows with no bases. For wargaming I am putting them four to a 30x40 base, which will do for all the systems they are likely to play (for grand tactical games like Blucher I put 2 bases together - but I'm not sure 25mm is best for these games). I thought about going old school and basing them plainly but decided I like the look of flocking and static grass - so each base gets cat litter for texture and to hide the integral bases, medium brown ballast, blended green flock and some grass.

The troops were collected to represent the whole of Wellington's 100 days army on a ratio of 25:1. I have my dad's index cards - with a card for each unit detailing the models (mainly Minifigs and Hinchcliffe), where the unit was in the order of battle and so on. This has been useful figuring out what's what. Here are three battalions of Kings German Legion line infantry, a battalion of Hanoverian Landwehr and the 14th British Line (the Bucks). I kept the original faded and shiny flags for the 14th.

My Dad's meticulous Index Cards (note the letraset decals)

Some on display - most go to Really Useful Boxes - one day there'll be a wargaming room!

One of my main projects is to paint enough Frenchies to face off against this lot in a really big battle. I doubt I'll have it in me to do Waterloo (over 100 infantry battalions and many many dragoons, chasseurs a cheval and cuirassiers) but I'm slowly assembling enough foot sloggers to recreate Quatres Bras. Whatever happens with the larger project when quaratine is over these troops will be part of a bloody big battle with my wargaming friends. 

For the Quarantine Challenge I'm aiming to complete a hobby project each week - this is one that's been on the shelf since my last trip back to the Old Country in far off 2019.  There are still hundreds of red coats back in England - along with their commander. I agreed with my mum that when the time comes and the last troops leave their original home that Wellington will be the one last out.